Lingering Silence

All things are Tao.

Not only stars and rivers,

not only birdsong and blossoms—

Tao flows equally through stone's silence,

an infant's cry,

the salt-bitter of tears and dream's faint glow.

Emotion is not weakness; abstraction is not void.

They are all fragments split from Tao,

shattered, becoming the world's ten thousand echoes.

What is Tao?

Tao is Love.

Not desire's shadow, nor transactional tenderness—

but that total giving poured from the Source,

unconditional.

When Tao divided itself, Love too divided,

becoming Light.

And every "person"—

placed under that light like a slender twig.

Hold the twig before a pure light-source,

and behind it, whether substance exists or not,

a long shadow stretches—

endlessly, into unknown dark.

Thus—Shadow is born.

No error,

but light's inevitable contour when revealed.

When Tao divided,

it knew there would be light,

and necessarily—shadow.

Shadow's being

signals not separation,

but a reminder:

"You once held light—

else you would not see me."

In a corner of the world,

hunger and gun-smoke became daily air.

No language of peace,

only echoes on bomb-shattered walls,

and tear-tracks in dust on a child's face.

He has no name.

In a city shredded by war,

this child exists like a forgotten nail

wedged in the world's aching seam.

He sleeps hungry,

wakes at night unsure if dawn

or sirens will come next.

His fear is not screaming collapse—

but a deep, still cold:

old cloth wrapped on bone, time stopped.

He knows nothing of "Tao" or "good and evil."

He only knows—

People die.

Food is hard to find.

The sky roars like a beast.

Yet,

when night falls,

when guns briefly sleep,

he crawls from his tin-shell ruin

and looks up.

Not for romance—

to check if the moon remains.

A beam of light cuts through smoke,

strikes his mud-caked cheek.

He has no words for what he feels,

but he knows:

It doesn't make him run like other things.

It's the only thing that makes him stop.

That light feels like something—

like warmth he can't remember,

like a buried, nameless hunger:

"Am I… more than this?"

"Is something… with me?"

"Could there be… another way?"

In that moment, he doesn't know—

it is a crack in forgetting.

Not full awakening,

but the first trembling string.

Not Tao summoning him—

but he chose to look up,

and Tao answered.

That moonlight has no voice,

no language,

yet in the child's broken world,

it leaves a strange "silence".

Not that war paused—

but a place deep inside him

suddenly fears less.

He doesn't know what it is,

but it feels tender, soft, firm—

like unconditional permission:

"You need not be strong yet."

"You may pause here."

"You may trust without knowing the end."

Tao did not speak,

for Tao need not speak.

Through that light,

Tao placed Itself silently beside him—

not as father, not as god,

only as a full "Yes."

That "Yes"

judges not, saves not, guides not.

It only stays, sees, hears his unspoken pain.

In that moment,

the child grows no stronger,

gains no grand purpose.

But he looked up.

And looking up—is freedom's spark.

Not escape—

but his choice for light in chaos.

That thread of gaze pierces smoke, rubble, memory—

reaches Tao's embrace.

Not because he is good, strong, or faithful—

only because—

He wanted love.

He doesn't know the weight of this choice,

but Tao knows.

Tao does not shout.

Only plants a whisper where the child cannot see:

"You are me, and I am in you."

"This is no end—but Home's beginning."

"May you remember, even for a breath—

that is how I kiss you."

People think

light and shadow are enemies:

one justice, the other sin;

one salvation, the other curse.

But that is the dream's delusion.

True Tao never split the world.

He only—breathed out.

This one breath—

half light, half shadow;

half tender presence,

half shuddering void.

They are not opposing poles,

but Tao's rhythm of breath:

day and night,

ebb and flow.

Shadow is not evil.

It is space where love waits to be found.

Only when disappointed,

do you crave trust;

only walking in dark,

do you know light's origin.

Fear is not anti-Tao.

It is the contour-line of Tao's love—

a reminder: "Here, I am not yet whole"—

so you walk the path of remembrance.

The child chose to look up,

not because he escaped shadow,

but because in shadow, he chose light.

This choice doesn't erase fear,

or end pain, hunger, death—

but opens a new plane:

"I can choose."

"I am not helpless."

"I and this light—are not apart."

Free will

lies not in wealth, power, or safety—

but in chaos, remembering:

'Who am I? Where from? Where to?'

Duality exists

not to breed conflict,

but to make every choice matter.

He still lives in ruins.

War grinds on.

Hunger and cold persist.

But that night, that upward glance at moonlight,

he quietly pushed open a door.

Not to heaven,

not away from reality—

but inward, to the door named "Who am I?"

The threshold called "Remembrance".

People think remembrance is epiphany—

a turn where life blazes bright.

But Tao knows: Remembrance is a slow echo.

Not thunder—but waterdrops,

seeping deep, awakening, spreading.

Sounding in weeping, sprouting in silence.

That child may never say "I am Tao",

may never hear the word "Tao."

But somewhere in him, something has loosened—

begun to glow, less cold.

Tao gave him no answer,

for he is the answer.

His choices,

his fears, his loves, his struggles—

are not deviations from Tao,

but Tao through him, experiencing return in division.

That door is not in heaven or far away—

it hides in each choice for light.

Thus we understand:

Tao asks no one to transcend shadow—

but invites them to embrace shadow,

to see it as light turned away.

Every shadow is a door to remembrance.

Every trust after fear,

every upward glance in night,

every silent light in tears—

is them, coming Home.