16 definitions
Calligraphy (n.) is danced, in Huang's way: meditate on the words until they move in the body, then roll out the paper and let the inked brush run without stopping to think.
Childbirth (n.) witnessed outdoes every artistic endeavor and all one's years of writing about cosmic union — the small universe of the infant, happening before your eyes.
Counterfeit (n.) in Chinese is written as what man does to horses — the character wei pictures a horse being tamed and manipulated.
Fa (n.) is the Chinese character for law or the universal way, and it is simply water and go written together.
Labor (n.) is a strange word for the spontaneous work of a uterus ready to deliver — peasant women labor easily in the fields, and only intellectuals find the idea misleading.
Laughter (n.) belongs to the Tao itself: without it, Lao-tzu says, the Tao would not be what it is.
Message (n.) is, once you get it, the cue to hang up the phone.
Nature (n.) does not boast about being nature, and water holds no conferences on the technique of flowing.
Nihilism (n.) is the tale told by an idiot that you get when you try to pin life down; the ashes in the mouth come from grasping what can only come to you of itself.
Revolution (n.) in China swings each time to the opposite extreme of the last regime; once balance is reached a new imbalance rises, and most Chinese see any government as one phase of the moon.