In a universe animated by the interaction of yin (female) and yang (male) energies, the moon was literally yin visible. Indeed, it was the very germ or source of yin, and the sun was its yang counterpart.

To wash and rinse our souls of their age-old sorrows,We drained a hundred jugs of wine.A splendid night it was . . . .In the clear moonlight we were loath to go to bed,But at last drunkenness overtook us;And we laid ourselves down on the empty mountain,The earth for pillow, and the great heaven for coverlet

You ask me why I dwell in the green mountain; I smile and make no reply for my heart is free of care. As the peach-blossom flows down stream and is gone into the unknown, I have a world apart that is not among men.

The living is a passing traveler; The dead, a man come home.

Forever and forever and forever

Growing older, I love only quietness: who need be concerned with the things of this world? Looking back, what better plan than this: returning to the grove.

The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away. We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.