To reside in a remote village on the side of a deep gorge hidden amid dense vegetation in a poor hut with a thatched roof on which grass sprouts up, whose door is overgrown by vines and which has small round windows like the mouth of a jar and a mulberry staff for a hinge, a hut whose roof is leaky and whose floor is damp, whose sleeping quarters are drafty and blanketed by snow and frost so that the grass mats are soaked; to wander in a vast marsh and ramble on the side of mountain slopes: these are the things that would make the average people develop dark moods and make them anxious and sad and unable to concentrate on anything. Sages live in places like this, content (Zi Le) on their own. What are the reasons for this?... ...Because they intrinsically have the means to penetrate to the Mechanism (organisation) of Heaven, and they do not allow honour or debasement, poverty, or wealth to make them weary and lose their awareness of their Potency (Zi De). Thus, the cawing of the crow, the squawking of the magpie: has cold or heat, dryness or dampness ever altered their sounds?Therefore, when the realisation of Dao is secure, it does not depend on the comings and goings of the myriad things. It is not because of a momentary alteration or transformation that I have secured the means to realise myself. What I am calling “realisation” means realsing the innate tendencies of nature and destiny and resting securely in the calmness that it produces.
Huainanzi 1
