Accolades can usher in
great trouble for your body.
Censure can herald misery.
Why can favor and disfavor
both be harmful?
Because both accolades and censure,
when filtered through self as ego,
always place us in jeopardy.
But when the universe becomes your self,
when you love the world as yourself,
all reality becomes your haven,
reinventing you as your own heaven.
Only then, will you transcend tense
to fully be here now.
Only then, no harm
will the universe proffer
nor you to her,
for you will be
not you but she
and both-the universal Great Integrity.
"The Tao Te Ching, A New Translation"
By: Ralph Alan Dale
ISBN: 0-7607-4998-1