“The One Phrase to Cover All My Teaching”
In The Analects, Confucius speaks thus of The Book of Songs (compiled sometime after 600BC): “If out of the three hundred Songs, I had to take one phrase to cover all my teaching, I would say, ‘Let there be no evil in your thoughts.’”[1] Or, to put it in the positive: “Let there be only Love in your heart.”
Our Basic Love is for the mother, in response – in grateful response – to hers. We sing of our Belovedness. And let us not forget that the original Song of Love is the Lullaby.
From her lullaby, the one phrase to, hopefully, cover all my teaching would be: “Find your mother’s Soul of Love as your own.”
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[1] Trans. Arthur Waley (New York: Macmillan, 1938).
