People who look

for the secret of long life

wind up dead.

Their bodies are the focus of their lives

and the source of their death,

because they think a healthy body

is all there is to life.

Lao Tzu used to say

a man who truly understood life

could walk through the jungle

without fear

or across a battlefield

without armor, totally unarmed.

Wild animals and weapons couldn’t kill him.

I know, I know:

what the hell does that mean?

“Well, he couldn’t be killed,”

Lao Tzu said,

“because his body

wasn’t where he kept his death.”