Chapter 6 of the Tao Te Ching - The Root of Heaven and Earth

I was sitting on a bench in the park, looking down into a wooded valley. A young woman walked up to me and smiled. “I see you here a lot,” she said. “Almost every day you are out here staring into that valley. What are you looking at?”

“My Mother,” I answered.

She gazed into the direction that I was looking, trying to find something. “I don’t see anyone. Has she died and is buried down there?” she asked.

“No,” I said, “You are thinking about the wrong Mother. I am talking not about my birth mother, but about my eternal mother.”

“Nature?” she asked.

I nodded. “The spirit of the valley is eternal. She is the primal mother of all things.”

“When I look into that valley, all I see are trees,” she said.

“Then you are looking in the wrong place.”

“Where is the right place?”

“There is a gateway,” I said, “at the root of Heaven and Earth. That gateway is hers. It is like a veil that can barely be seen.”

“So, where do I find the root of Heaven and Earth?”

“Sometimes,” I said, “when we are searching for things, we look in the wrong place. There are times when we are looking outside when we need to be looking inside. When searching for God we look up, but we should be looking in.”

“You are a strange man,” she said.

“Believe it or not,” I said, “You are not the first person to tell me that.”

Her smile was pleasant. When looking into her eyes I felt the same way that I do when looking into the valley.

“Seek Heaven,” I told her. “When you understand what it really is, then you will know where to find the root. When you find it embrace the true spirit of the valley. That spirit will never fail you.”

I stood up and shook her hand.

“It was nice meeting you,” I said. Then I turned and walked home. I have seen her many times since. She too, now sits on a park bench and gazes into the valley.