T'ao Ch'ien

T'ao Ch'ien (365-427) was a Chinese poet of Chin dynasty. He is known for simple and direct style. He served as an official during tumultuous era known as Six Dynasties. He, at the end, retired to life of seclusion.

Wisdom & Quotes

• Excessive thinking harms life;

We should go where fate leads,
And ride on the waves of the Great Flux
Without joy and without fear.
If life must end, then let it end;
There is no need to be full of anxieties.
- Shape, Shadow, and Spirit

• Heaven and Earth exist forever;

Mountains and rivers never change.
But herbs and trees in perpetual rotations
Are renovated and withered by the dews and frosts;
And Man the wise, Man the divine --
Shall he alone escape this law ?
.......................
He suddenly departs , never to return.
Who will notice there is one person less ?
- Substance, Shadow, and Spirit

• God can only set in motion;

He cannot control the things he has made.
- Substance, Shadow, and Spirit

• A man dies, but not the hills, the grasses, the trees.

- Substance, Shadow, and Spirit

Tsung Ping