One of my professors is really into meditation and mindfulness training. She told us she used to bring cookies for the last class but since she isn’t into baking they were never very good. Now she brings poetry and hands out one of her favorite poems at the end of the quarter. The following Lao Tzu poem is what she gave our class with her best wishes that we always look within. It was a thoughtful gesture and the message of the poem should stay with us longer than cookies anyway.
Always we hope some else has the answer.
some other place will be better,
some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
no one else has the answer.
no other place will be better.
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.
There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing.
Not to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Stretch your heart
and see
the way to do
is to be.
-Lao Tzu
