When the wind blows through a clump of scattered bamboos it makes a swishing sound. But as soon as it has passed, it leaves no sound behind, and silence reigns once more among the bamboos.
When a goose flies over a pond in winter its reflection is seen on the water. But as soon as the goose has passed its reflection vanishes.
So the mind of a real gentleman starts to work only when an event takes place or a problem arises. Once the matter becomes a thing of the past, his mind returns to stillness and repose.
风来疏竹，风过而竹不留声；雁度寒潭，雁去而潭不留影。故君子事来而心始现，事去而心随空。
Notes
This natural imagery reveals the balance of “dynamic response” and “return to stillness.” One neither rejects interaction with the world nor remains bound by its traces. This state of “responding without clinging” is the ideal model for the mind—like the bamboo and pond, demonstrating both the capacity to engage and the clarity to release.
The noble person embodies “conscious presence amid affairs” (rejecting numbness) and “serene release after affairs end” (rejecting obsession).
The ultimate wisdom of this Cai Gen Tan (Tending the roots of wisdom) passage reminds us: True freedom of the mind lies in the ability to hold and to let go.
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