Yuan Hsie lived in squalor in Lu, while Tse Kung amassed great wealth in Wei. Within a short time span, both killed themselves. A disciple asked his master, “Master, why did both these men choose to end their lives?” The master replied, “Poverty galled the one, and riches caused uneasiness in the other. So you see disciple Chan, poverty will not do nor wealth either.” Disciple Chan said, “But what then will do master?” “What will do is to enjoy life and take one’s ease, for those who know how to enjoy life are not poor, and he that lives at ease requires no riches” answered the master.

A Master lived the simplest kind of life in a small non-descript hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in worth taking. The Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the thief, and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat down naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused, ” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

let me always rid myself of desires in order to observe your secrets;
but always allow me to have desires in order to observe your manifestations.
these two are the same
but diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery -
The gateway to the secrets of the universe

The disciple asked the master, “Are all people the same?” The master responded “That in which all beings differ is life, that in which they are all alike is death. During life there is the difference of intelligence and foolishness, honor and meanness, but in death there is the equality of rottenness and putrefaction. Neither can be prevented. Although intelligence and foolishness, honor and meanness exist, no human power can affect them, just as rottenness and putrefaction cannot be prevented. Human beings cannot make life and death, intelligence and stupidity, honorableness and meanness, what they are, for all beings live and die equally, are equally wise and stupid, honorable and mean. Some die at the age of ten, some at one hundred. The wise and benevolent die as the cruel and imbecile. In death, there are so many bones which cannot be distinguished. But if we hasten to enjoy our life, we have no time to trouble about what comes after death.”

Perhaps you have heard of General George Custer, he of the famous Little Big Horn battle. Earlier in his career as a staff officer for Major General George B. McClellan, Custer was promoted to the rank of Captain during the Army of the Potomac’s 1862 Peninsula Campaign. During the pursuit of Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston up the Peninsula, on May 24, 1862 when Gen. Barnard and his staff were reconnoitering a potential crossing point on the Chickahominy River, they stopped and Custer overheard his commanders discussing how deep they thought the river was. This went on for some time. The general then muttered to himself, “I wish I knew how deep it is.” Custer dashed forward on his horse out to the middle of the river and turned to the astonished officers of the staff and shouted triumphantly, “That’s how deep it is, General!” In the complicated, there is the simple, and in the simple there is the complicated. The Tao is so simple, most cannot understand it.