(piano music)
 I'm not really a musician,
 but it just so happens
 that I have in front of me a fabulous instrument
 which the Japanese call koto.
 I suppose it would be best described as a table harp.
 A long instrument
 stringed with bridges, horizontal harp.
 (piano music)
 It was customary among Chinese poets in the old days
 to read poetry and strum on the lute
 or table harp at the same time.
 And I have got here a curious old text
 called Saikontan,
 which means the vegetable root discourses.
 Written by Kojise,
 somewhere around 1624.
 And I thought I'd like to read some of this to you.
 And to get into the right mood,
 I suggest that you try to become a little stupid.
 That is to say, childlike,
 as if you hardly knew how to talk.
 (piano music)
 And didn't really know very much
 about anything that's going on.
 Just listen
 as you would listen to the wind.
 If the mind is clear,
 a dark room has its blue sky.
 If the mind is somber,
 broad daylight gives birth to demons and evil spirits.
 (piano music)
 The just man has no mind to seek happiness.
 Heaven therefore, because of this mindlessness,
 opens its inmost heart.
 The bad man busies himself with avoiding misfortunes.
 Heaven therefore confounds him for this desire.
 How unsearchable are the ways of heaven.
 How useless the wisdom of man.
 (piano music)
 (bells chiming)
 The Tao is common property.
 It should be pointed out to all we meet.
 Learning is as ordinary as eating rice at home.
 According to the circumstances,
 it should be applied circumspectly.
 The ancients left rice for mice
 and did not light lamps out of pity for moths.
 These thoughts of theirs
 are the operation point of humanity in life.
 Lacking this, a man is a mere earthman.
 A wooden body.
 (bells chiming)
 The Zen sect says,
 when you are hungry, eat.
 When you are weary, sleep.
 Poetry aims at the description in common language
 of beautiful scenery.
 The sublime is contained in the ordinary,
 the hardest in the easiest.
 What is self-conscious and ulterior is far from the truth.
 What is mindless is near.
 (piano music)
 (bells chiming)
 (bells chiming)
 (bells chiming)
 (bells chiming)
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