Inner Stillness and Trackless Goodness
The lecture opens by discussing “emptiness,” but clarifies that this is *not* a dead void or sheer nothingness.
Lü Chunyang’s explanation is that “the emptiness that is not empty” points to a middle way: not attachment to form, but not attachment to emptiness either. Laozi, the lecturer says, feared that people would hear the teaching and cling to one side. Some retreat to the mountains, avoid society, and think this alone is cultivation; but if one cannot benefit living beings or form wholesome connections, true realization is difficult.
The lecturer then explains the word “far” or “remote” as something profound and hard to grasp. It may not be visible, yet it is not therefore nonexistent. It is neither fixed form nor empty nothingness. He uses the image of an old temple deep in the mountains: because you cannot see it, you may assume it is not there, but that would be a mistake.
Likewise, seeing traces of a monk on a mountain path suggests real presence, even from far away. The point is to avoid falling into either extreme: “it exists as a graspable thing” or “it is pure nothingness.”
He says the text repeats itself because it is trying to prevent misunderstanding from both sides: first people cling to “greatness” as form, then they cling to “emptiness” as void. So the teaching introduces “distance” or “remoteness” to loosen both attachments.
The lecturer closes this section by saying that the discussion will continue later with the idea that the Dao originally has no fixed name, and that “Dao” is only a provisional name.
This section continues the previous chapter’s discussion of Dao as nameless, prior to heaven and earth, self-subsisting, and all-pervading.
The lecturer explains that Dao originally has no name. “Dao” is only a forced or provisional name; “great,” “passing,” and “far” are likewise provisional descriptions. If one grasps at these descriptions as literal objects, one misses the point entirely.
He also pauses to explain the graph *fan / return* in the dictionaries, noting that different written forms share the same sound and meaning: to return, to go back.
The central point is that Dao is not something external. It is not something to chase outside oneself. “That which can be apart from us even for an instant is not Dao.” Therefore Dao is within one’s own body and heart.
To support this, the lecturer compares the idea with religious texts from other traditions. He cites the Christian epistle to the Romans: “The word is not far from you; it is in your heart.” He says this expresses the same principle.
He then turns to Bodhidharma and Chan teaching: deluded people do not know that the mind itself is Buddha, so they seek Buddha outside themselves, becoming busy with forms of devotion. But if you know your own mind, then outside the mind there is no separate Buddha.
He quotes the *Platform Sutra* of the Sixth Patriarch: enlightenment is to be sought only in the mind; why labor to seek mystery outside? Practiced this way, the Pure Land is right before one.
The lecturer says that *bodhi* may be rendered here as “the Way,” and that the Way must be sought within one’s own mind, not by chasing outer mystery.
He then refers to a saying attributed to Master Hsing Yun: if someone holds prayer beads and says they are reciting the Buddha’s name, one should ask what that really means. If bodhisattvas themselves are already enlightened, why would they need to recite Buddha’s name in a merely external way? The real point, he says, is that “reciting Buddha” means returning to awaken the Buddha within oneself. If there is no Buddha in one’s own heart, external recitation is of little use.
This agrees with the teaching that Dao or enlightenment must be sought inwardly. If one follows this principle, then heaven or the Pure Land is right before one’s eyes.
He next quotes the *Secrets on Cultivating the Mind*: if one does not know one’s own mind as the true Buddha and instead seeks Buddha outside, then even a lifetime of copying sutras with one’s blood, sitting without lying down, reading the whole canon, and practicing many austerities is like trying to steam sand into rice—only self-exhaustion. But if one sincerely realizes one’s own mind, then without outward searching one attains Buddha.
The lecturer expands on this with examples of extreme ascetic practices: burning fingers or the body, copying scriptures in blood, sitting day and night, eating only one meal a day, and reciting scripture for decades. Even reading the entire Buddhist canon could consume fifty years.
He explains that the canon includes sutras, monastic discipline, and commentarial treatises, so it is enormous. The point is not to belittle scripture, but to say that if one misses the mind itself, outward effort alone becomes futile.
This long middle portion of the file is largely a continuation of the lecturer’s explanation of **Chapter 25**, not yet Chapter 27.
In smoother form, the main points are:
- Dao is the mother of the ten thousand things. - Heaven is vast, earth is deep, and human beings are one of the “four greats” within the cosmos. - “Human follows earth” means learning the earth’s forbearance and capacity to bear all things equally. - “Earth follows heaven” means learning heaven’s impartiality and public-mindedness. - “Heaven follows Dao” means learning the quality of nonattachment, often explained through the “one word: no / wu.” - This “wu” is described as no-form, no-thought, no-abiding, no-self, no-desire, and non-forcing. - True practice means being inwardly unattached and without arrogant self-assertion. - The section closes by postponing the explanation of “Dao follows what is natural.”
Because the OCR here is highly repetitive and damaged, this section is best treated as a smoothed summary rather than a strict literal line-by-line rendering.
This portion completes the explanation of **Chapter 25** and moves into **Chapter 26**.
The lecturer explains “Dao follows what is natural” as meaning that Dao accords with what is self-so and spontaneous. This is described through the phrase: **“non-action, yet nothing is left undone.”**
He stresses that this does not mean passivity or lifelessness. Inwardly, the heart should be without grasping, without selfish striving, and without fixation. Outwardly, however, action still occurs. Thus the heart is non-forcing, while the body acts appropriately in the world. One must leave both attachment to form and attachment to emptiness.
The lecture then turns to Chapter 26, discussing heaviness and lightness, stillness and agitation, inner virtue and outward pursuit. Since this material belongs to the previous chapter sequence rather than Chapter 27, it is included here only as contextual summary.
This section is the close of **Chapter 26**.
The lecturer explains:
- “Heavy” refers to inward moral substance—benevolence, righteousness, and inner virtue. - “Light” refers to outward pursuits such as fame, wealth, and social position. - The heavy is like a tree’s root; the light is like its leaves. - Stillness is the ruler of agitation; one’s quiet nature governs emotional restlessness.
His conclusion is that when people contend for name and profit, they lose their root and lose their inward ruler. The entire chapter, he says, is really about self-cultivation and protecting the inner heart.
At the end of this section, the lecturer finally announces the transition into **Chapter 27**.
Now the lecture enters **Chapter 27**.
The first line is explained as **“Good traveling leaves no tracks.”** The lecturer glosses *ruts* as the marks left by cart wheels, and *tracks* as the traces left by human feet.
He says that the conduct of a truly good person is like this: one acts with a mind that does not cling. In giving or doing good, one does not dwell on oneself, on others, or on the deed itself. This is what he calls the “three wheels empty” and also what is meant by “highest virtue is not conscious of its virtue.”
Because nothing is retained in the heart as self-display, good action leaves no trace.
The lecturer now expands the phrase through the Buddhist doctrine of **“the three wheels being empty.”**
The three “wheels” of giving are:
1. the giver, 2. the receiver, 3. the thing given.
If these remain fixed in one’s mind—“I gave,” “that person received from me,” “this was the gift”—then giving still has form and self-consciousness. That is not the highest perfection of generosity.
True giving is to give without abiding anywhere in the act. One does good and then lets it go. One does not keep repeating it to others, does not use it to build status, and does not make the recipient feel burdened or ashamed.
That is what the lecturer means by “good action leaves no tracks.”
Finally, the lecturer links this back to **Dao De Jing 38**:
- **Highest virtue is not self-conscious of being virtuous; therefore it truly has virtue.** - Lower virtue cannot let go of its own virtue; therefore it is not real virtue.
So the teaching of Chapter 27’s first line is this: the conduct of the truly good leaves no rut, no footprint, no lingering self-image. The heart does good without storing up the memory of goodness as an ego-claim.
The file ends just as the lecturer is about to move on to the second line of Chapter 27.
This literal version consolidates the lecture’s English material into continuous notes, keeping close to the spoken sequence while preserving explanatory detail.