Muddy Water: A Taoist Meditation on Stillness

Sit by a clouded stream,
where water has forgotten its name.
Muddy water becomes clear without help
Stillness does the work.
Clarity comes with the passage of time
just as breath returns in stillness.
Particle by particle
the depths return to their ancient clarity.

Following the Way, the mind adopts the same art—
Right action arises of itself,
gentle as a leaf turning toward morning.
Unresisting, unhurried,
at one with whatever emerges—
the Tao moves according to its own rhythms
Undefinable, unknowable, in harmony with itself.

Stillness is not absence.
It is where nothing is pushed
and everything arrives on time.

Be like deep water.
Not the rush, not the fall,
but the still pool
that reflects the sky
without trying.

Let the silt of thought—
the churn of want,
the storm of what if—
settle.
Clarity is not something gained,
but something revealed.

Be quiet in order to hear.