Ch'ing-ching Ching (Crowley)

Alister Crowley: Many things have been said and written about him but his translation of the Ch'ing-ching Ching to an English poem is a serious piece of art, and paints the Tao beautifully.


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I

Lao-chun the Master said:
Tao is, devoid of form;
Yet Heaven and Earth are brought to birth,
And nurtured by Its norm.

Tao hath no Will to Work;
Yet by its Way of Heaven
The Moon and Sun rejoice to run
Among the Starry Seven.

Tao hath no Name; Its Word
Is Growth, and Sustenance
To all; I aim to give It Name:
Tao (Heaven prosper Chance!)

Tao hath twin phase, with Te:
The Silent and the Stressed.
Of Motion, those; of these, Repose
Sublimely manifest.

Heaven moves, pure Silence He;
Earth rests, beneath the Strain;
Shuttle and Loom, as Word and Womb,
Their Mystery sustain.

Pure Motion maketh Rest
As Silence maketh Stress.
If man were still, then Heaven should thrill
With Earth to Nothingness.

Self loveth Silence. Yea,
But Mind distracteth it.
Mind loveth Rest; but Passions' Pest
Allures the trembling Wit.

If man restrain desire
His mind will cease to roll,
And mind's release allow pure peace
Of Silence to the Soul.

The senses will not soil;
The thought will not upstress;
Nor poisons (Greed, Wrath, Dulness) breed
Their triform deadliness.

Men earn not ease of Tao
For their desires' disease;
Because their mind is not refined
Of thought by killing these.

If one should slay desires,
His mind and body seem
No longer his; but phantasies
Danced in a wanton's dream.

Slay mind, slay body, slay
The external: matter goes.
Then space remains; renew the pains!
Up! Front the final foes!

Slay space; then Naught abides.
Hold on thine holy hand!
When Naught gives back before the attack,
Serene thy Silence stand!

All's rest, devoid of mark;
How should desires fix tooth?
When they are past, thou surely hast
The Silence of the Truth.

Flawless that Truth and Fixed,
Yet apt to each appeal
Nature and Sense to influence-
The magnet to the steel!

Oh! This true Touch with all
Elastic and exact
That yet abides above their tides-
The Silence free from Act!

He that hath this shall come
Little by little, a breath,
So floweth he now, to Truth of Tao,
Wherein he vanisheth.

Men style him Lord of Tao
Yet He hath none to lord.
His motive He of all that be:
Enough for His reward!

He that can comprehend
This Doctrine may transmit
This Sacred Tao to men that vow
Themselves to fathom It.


II

Lao-chun the Master said:
The adept in skill of soul
Hath never an aim; the bungler's shame
Is that he gropes a goal.

Who most possess the Te
Conceal their magick power;
Who least possess exert their Stress
Seven times in every hour.

These, who cling fast to Powers,
Who guard them, and display
Their magick Art-they are not part
Of Tao nor yet of Te.

Men win not Truth of Tao
Beacause their minds are wried.
The mind uncurbed, the self's perturbed,
And loses tune of tide.

Lost, the external lures;
They turn to seek it: then
All things perplex, confuse, and vex
Those miserable men.

Disordered thoughts arise;
Body and mind grow sick.
Disgrace and fear grow year by year
To their climacteric.

Wild, they are tossed about
Through Life and Death; they quiver,
Sunk in sea-stress of Bitterness,
And lose the Tao for ever.

The true, the abiding Tao!
Who understandeth hath;
Who hath the Tao is Here and Now
In Silence of the Path

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And that is quite something if you take the time to grasp every meaning, on surface and in depth.