Japanese Art - The Lice-Picking Monkey of Kensho

The Essence of Tao

Look, it cannot be seen -- it is beyond form.
Listen, it cannot be heard -- it is beyond sound.
Grasp, it cannot be held -- it is intangible.
These three are indefinable, they are one.
From above it is not bright;
From below it is not dark:
Unbroken thread beyond description.
It returns to nothingness.
Form of the formless,
Image of the imageless,
It is called indefinable and beyond imagination.

Stand before it -- there is no beginning.
Follow it and there is no end.
Stay with the Tao, Move with the present.

Knowing the ancient beginning is the essence of Tao.

- Master Lao-Tzu

Reason exhausted, concerns forgotten—
How could this be adequately expressed?
Wherever I go, the icy moonlight’s there,
Falling just as it does on the valley ahead.
The fruit is ripe, trees heavy with monkeys,
Mountains so endless I seem to have lost the way.
When I lift my head, some light still remains—
I see that I’m west of the place I call home.

-Master Fa-yen