The Tao...

One who has attained the Tao is master of himself,

and
the universe is dissolved in him.

Throw him in the
company of the noisy and the dirty,

and he will be
like a lotus flower growing from muddy water,

touched
by it, yet unstained."



T'u Lung
in Whitall N. Perry
_A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom_
Varanasi: Indica, 1998 (1971), p. 905