[Amid the fog of turmoil, I wander freely at an easy pace]
Awakening from a dream, he finally understood how arduous the Great Way was. Returning from a small world's consciousness, the big bald man woke up, raised a hand to rub his head, and murmured, "Boundless Heavenly Venerable."
Looking at the message talisman beside him, he recalled this incarnation's life: from an infant to a spirited young man, then through the bumpy, struggling years of youth. After that, it was as if he had no memory of his prime or middle age at all. When he looked back, he had already reached old age amid confusion and doubt.
The incarnation had lived a lonely, muddled life, leaving behind only a poem full of regret, so incoherent it could hardly be called a poem: "Year by year, an infant grows to this; moment by moment, gain and loss persist. Straw weighs a thousand pounds upon the body; in silence, how can one bear to look back? The mind's myriad thoughts, good and evil, the seven emotions, oneself; people and people, so many turn to ash in vain. Knowing much, oneself errs in dividing the years; in an instant, seventy years slip by, an infant still."
There was also a reflection that seemed to describe living from old age back to youth: "What do I think, what foolishness, what neglect? Seventy years an infant, fifty young, thirty clear. The sky stretches wide as people grow old; the Way remains, things remain, but time does not. Above and below, all things contend until the universe is destroyed; among ten thousand thoughts of people and affairs, not one can be found. Whose child takes firecrackers for fireworks and sings a tune? After wandering freely, wanting nothing, seeking together, how can seeking cease? When suffering serves no purpose, how can one call this being lost in life?"
