Road Of Trials

This is a journey of a thousand miles
the route whose map is written on your bones
this is the path we call the road of trials.

What do you seek-- the sources of the Nile,
yourself, perhaps, or philosophic stone?
Then make a journey of a thousand miles:

pass by the stony cliffs of self-denial
and swim the doubting ocean's bitter foam.
These are the first steps on the road of trials.

You're lost; you're irretreivably defiled.
You can't go any further, all alone
you don't think you can walk a thousand miles

so ask for help; be as a little child.
The Guide will come; the Guide will hear your groan.
"Why must we suffer through the road of trials?"

you ask in anguish; but the Guide just smiles.
"It's not a journey, it's just coming home
upon the journey of a thousand miles
upon the path we call the road of trials."