Chapter 63அதிகாரம் 63 தடை Obstacle

Who would guess that the spring water went by way of the stones? The shape of the river is the shape of the stones.

In Tamil, kal, ‘stone’, is also the word for ‘learn!’

The fence was raised to say ‘Not wanted’; the green that has learned to cross climbs straight up it.

The root that breaks the stone began in the stone: the stone gave up its own hollow, and that became the root’s way through.

The plough learns where a stone stands in its way; a stoneless paddy field teaches nothing like it.

They strain to break the stone that bars their way, forgetting that on one side the stone has left room to pass.

A fisherman stirs up the water; if the fish slips away, he is left searching the mud where his own feet stand.

She tripped on a stone and fell; on that same stone, saying ‘Stand!’, she rose upright.

‘Stand!’ names no one: she may be speaking to herself, or to the stone that tripped her. She rises standing on it.

An aerial root, reaching down for the water in the earth, comes to stone; of itself the root coils back, curling in on itself.

Trees such as the banyan drop roots from their branches toward the soil; this one comes down on bare rock instead of earth.

Whoever asks of a bud, ‘Will what is closed ever bloom?’ does not know what being closed is: being closed is the bud’s way.

For one who has fallen into a deep well, its wall is what shuts them in; if they stoop and look closely, that same wall is a stepping-stone.