Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered down the flue and is caught indoors and flutters at the window panes. . . . But sometimes a prayer comes that you have not thought to pray, yet suddenly there it is and you pray it. . . . Sometimes the bird finds that what looks like an opening is an opening, and it flies away.
It puzzles people at first, to see how little the able leader actually does,
and yet how much gets done.
But the leader knows that is how things work.After all, Tao does nothing at all,
yet everything gets done.
When the leader gets too busy,
the time has come to return to
selfless silence.
Selflessness gives one center.
Center creates order.
When there is order, there is little to do.