' I scarcely speak '...

"On meeting worldly men, I scarcely speak,
and so they say that I am dull of wit.

Without, I have what seems a dullard 's stare;
within, my crystal clarity of mind
soundlessly tallies with that mystic hidden way
which you worldly folk have yet to learn."



-Master Hui Hai
in John Blofeld
The Secret and the Sublime: Taoist Mysteries and Magic
NY: E. P. Dutton, 1973, p. 163