The Book of Songs - verse 63 says…

Thus the Master examines her innermost self:
She notices even the smallest sign of discord, 
and corrects it before it can do any harm. 

When your mind is transparent to the depths and your words and actions are one, 
the whole world becomes transparent. 

The Master does more than just notice discord in herself. 
Since she knows that a feeling of discord can only 
be caused by a prior thought, she questions the thought. 
For her, discord is always a momentary imbalance. 

When it is investigated, it unravels. 
Thus it can never do any harm. 
This is not ethics; it’s mental hygiene. 
When the mind is transparent, the heart is transparent. 
There are no beliefs to keep awareness 
from shining through. 

The primal light shines through even the densest matter. 
As the world becomes transparent, your goodness, 
and everyone’s, is gradually, heart-stirringly revealed. 

To the transparent eye, 
there is no place where goodness is not. 
When a pickpocket sees a saint, he sees only his pockets; 
when a saint sees a pickpocket, he sees only his innocence.    

Lao Tzu*

 

 

*Lao Tzu was a Chinese philosopher, usually 604 B.C. - 507 BC will be placed. He is, according
to Taoism itself, the most important founder of Taoism. It is also possible that Lao Tzu refers to
two or more masters or a school of thought. Lao Tzu, Confucius and Gautama Buddha are the
three holy persons of Taoism. They also lived at more or less the same time, in the 6th to 4th
centuries BC.