Chapter 68அதிகாரம் 68 சலிப்பு Boredom

In the full rain the cup closes its mouth: this is no lack, but feeling grown weary.

As an empty hall hears an echo, the mind hears a slight weariness.

Through every changing task their weariness stays unchanged: theirs is the brackishness of the spring itself.

A brackish spring is salty at its source, so every pot drawn from it tastes of salt.

Only the new they seek, and weary in the seeking, who do not see the old as new.

He folds, he spreads out, he folds again, on a day when his hand has not one thing to finish.

The gem sparkles every day; to those who wear it every day, the gem is a stone every day.

The hollow craving we call a pastime does its work: it does away with time.

‘Pastime’ (Tamil pozhuthupokku) literally means ‘sending the time away’.

Some have lain down and do not sleep; some have risen and do not go. This is the state in which nothing comes next.

Weariness is not that there is nothing to do; it is that in all we do there is nothing to see us through.

Unbroken boredom is not barren land; it is land where newness grows.