Note 38 — Chapter XVI · Myths and Doctrines of Taoism
Reading edition
Man must begin by taking control of himself: he must make use of the light that is within him. The wise man “does not dare to act” of his accord. When he has acted so that he reaches a state of inaction, the Tao will then drift him into a state of perfection. He must guard the mother (Tao) in himself by attending to the breath. “The management of the breath,” says Dr. Legge, “is the mystery of the esoteric Buddhism and Taoism.”38 “When one knows,” Tao Tze has written, “that he is his mother’s child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belongs to him, to the end of his life he will be free from peril. Let him keep his mouth closed, and shut up the portals (of his nostrils), and all his life he will be exempt from laborious exertion.”39