Opportunity

A green bird darting in the night.

Will you be able to see it?

Will you be able to catch it?

Cling to Tao like a shadow.

Move without a shadow.

Times of oppression and adversity cannot last forever. How is the transition made  to new and better situations? In the midst of great difficulty, a tiny opportunity will  open, if only by chance.

You must be sharp enough to discern it, quick enough to  catch it, and determined enough to do something with it. If you let it pass, you will  be filled with regrets.

Stick to Tao like a shadow. Wherever it goes, you go. As soon as it throws  something your way, catch it by sheer reflex. It is like the bird:

If you try to catch it,  you will miss. If you are always with it, moving at its speed, as much a part of it as  its own shadow, then it is easy to seize it.

When you act, however, you in turn must have no shadow. In other words, what  you do must leave no messiness, no leftover consequences, nothing that will haunt  you later.

That it one of the ways in which you avoid creating more bad situations  for yourself:

Your every movement is traceless.