46

When people take it easy,

Veterans enjoy their coffee in family restaurants.

When people don’t take it easy,

Reactionaries throw their coffee at innocent foreheads.

There is nothing more dangerous,

Than doing the “right thing” no matter what the cost,

And there is no greater weakness,

Than the weakness of vanity.

For only when people find it easy to take it easy,

Can we be cured from our dis-ease,

The hazard of a whole world gone crazy.

Tao Te Ching: 46

When Tao prevails,

Stallions are freed to fertilize the fields.

When Tao is ignored,

Warhorses are bred along the borderlands.

There is no curse more deep-rooted than discontentment,

And no affliction more self-stoking than greed,

For only when one learns how to cultivate contentment,

Can they ever hope to experience satisfaction.