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> 61 quotes tagged "acceptance"

Heaven and Earth are not humane; They regard the ten thousand things as straw dogs.

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 5

nature acceptance impartiality
Favor and disgrace seem like fear to the world. Honor and big position seem like danger to the world.

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 13

humility acceptance detachment
Give up learning, and put aside the business of deliberation and concern.

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 20

simplicity acceptance peace
Those who would take over the world and shape it to their will never succeed.

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 29

acceptance non-action trust
People, leaving life, enter death. Leaving death, enter life. Who knows their limit?

Tao Te Ching – Chapter 50

acceptance mortality letting-go
When you're content with your time and dwell in the natural order, neither sorrow nor joy can disturb you.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 6: The Great Teacher

transformation change acceptance nature
Flow with whatever happens and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you're doing.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 6: The Great Teacher

transformation change acceptance mind
If you hide your boat in a ravine and your net in the lake, thinking them safe, someone strong might come at midnight and carry them off.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 6: The Great Teacher

transformation change acceptance chuang-tzu
When deformity of body doesn't cause deformity of mind, then you have virtue.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 5: The Sign of Virtue Complete

wholeness virtue acceptance mind
A duck's legs are short, but if we try to lengthen them, the duck will feel pain. A crane's legs are long, but if we try to shorten them, the crane will feel sorrow.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 8: Webbed Toes

nature acceptance chuang-tzu
Do you think the Creator is concerned whether you're a shoulder or a liver? He's going to transform you into whatever fits the pattern.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 6: The Great Teacher

transformation change acceptance nature
Great knowing is expansive and leisurely. Small knowing is picky and fault-finding.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 2: The Equality of Things

perspective relativity non-duality acceptance
Can you hold fast to oneness and not let go? Can you know the future by understanding the past? Can you stop seeking and simply receive?

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 11: Let It Be, Leave It Alone

acceptance chuang-tzu
Those who understand the natural order don't struggle against circumstances. Those who understand fate don't struggle against what comes.

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 5: The Sign of Virtue Complete

wholeness virtue acceptance nature
The earth receives all things and nourishes them without judgment. In yielding there is strength; in receptivity there is wisdom. Allow life to unfold naturally.

I Ching, Hexagram 2: The Receptive / Earth

receptivity acceptance yielding wisdom
Every beginning holds chaos like seeds beneath winter earth. Difficulties are not obstacles but opportunities for growth. Perseverance through uncertainty builds lasting foundations.

I Ching, Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning

receptivity acceptance yielding perseverance
Heaven and earth unite in harmony. All elements support each other naturally. Enjoy this time of abundance while preparing for change.

I Ching, Hexagram 11: Peace / Prosperity

creativity power initiative receptivity
The mountain lowers itself beneath the earth. True greatness requires humility. In making yourself small, you become immeasurable.

I Ching, Hexagram 15: Modesty / Humility

receptivity acceptance yielding humility
Like the sun rising over the earth, progress comes naturally. Accept recognition with grace. Advance steadily while remaining humble.

I Ching, Hexagram 35: Progress / Advancement

receptivity acceptance yielding progress
Like a plant pushing through earth, rise steadily toward light. Effort meets no resistance when timing is right. Ascent is natural, not forced.

I Ching, Hexagram 46: Pushing Upward / Ascent

receptivity acceptance yielding patience
To embrace all things means first that one holds no anger or resistance toward any idea or thing, living or dead, formed or formless. Acceptance is the very essence of the Tao.

Hua Hu Jing, Verse 3

acceptance unity tao hua-hu-jing
The highest virtue one can exercise is to accept the responsibility of discovering and transmitting the whole truth. Those who improve themselves for the sake of the world will be revealed the whole truth of the universe.

Hua Hu Jing, Verse 16

virtue hua-hu-jing acceptance unity
Nothing in the realm of thoughts or ideologies is absolute. Simply see that you are at the center of the universe, and accept all things and beings as parts of your infinite body.

Hua Hu Jing, Verse 42

acceptance embodiment hua-hu-jing
There are two paths available to you: acceptance or denial. Though these paths are entirely different, they will deliver you to the same place: spontaneous awareness of the Great Oneness.

Hua Hu Jing, Verse 48

acceptance unity hua-hu-jing
The true master understands that enlightenment is not the end, but the means. Realizing that virtue is her goal, she accepts the long and often arduous cultivation that is necessary to attain it.

Hua Hu Jing, Verse 80

virtue hua-hu-jing enlightenment acceptance
Form is something that must come to an end. Heaven and Earth have an end, even as we all have an end.

Lieh Tzu, Book 1: Cosmogony

impermanence nature acceptance
Whether destruction awaits the world or no, why should I trouble my head about it?

Lieh Tzu, Book 1: Cosmogony

acceptance peace detachment
What you want is that your dreams should be as pleasant as your waking moments. But that is beyond your power to compass.

Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams

paradox acceptance limits
The length of man's life, his measure of success, his rank, and his wealth cannot be controlled by human effort alone.

Lieh Tzu, Book 6: Effort and Destiny

destiny limits acceptance
When the way is straight, I push on; when it is crooked, I put up with it—all outcomes arise naturally rather than through deliberate allocation.

Lieh Tzu, Book 6: Effort and Destiny

acceptance destiny flexibility
Being what it is, without knowing why—that is the meaning of Destiny.

Lieh Tzu, Book 6: Effort and Destiny

mystery acceptance destiny
No herbs or treatments can overcome what was determined at birth.

Lieh Tzu, Book 6: Effort and Destiny

fate acceptance limits
A person can never be more than human, yet humans relentlessly pursue distinctions beyond their nature. This fundamental tension between acceptance and striving defines the human struggle.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 1

human-nature acceptance limits
They did not seek for posthumous fame and took no heed of rank or lifespan length. This detachment from external validation enabled genuine freedom and peace.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 3

detachment acceptance peace
Allow each sense its natural expression—the ear to hear music, the eye to see beauty, the nose to smell perfume. Denying these natural desires creates unnecessary suffering.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 8

senses acceptance nature
How one's body is treated after death matters little—whether burned, buried, or left unburied depends entirely on chance circumstances beyond our control.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 8

acceptance mortality detachment
According to the laws of nature there is no such thing as immortality. Seeking eternal life contradicts natural law.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 11

mortality nature acceptance
Neither can life be preserved by cherishing nor the body benefited by fostering. Effort to extend life through excessive care proves ineffective against natural forces.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 11

futility nature acceptance
Having once come into life regard it and let it pass; mark its desires and wishes, and so wait death. True peace emerges from witnessing existence without clinging to it.

Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 11

detachment acceptance equanimity
Death is as the flux of matter. Those who understand this truth need not fear either state, viewing both as natural cycles.

Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 3

mortality acceptance tao
Endure shame without resentment.

T'ai-Shang Kan-Ying P'ien – Moral Injunctions

humility acceptance equanimity patience
Tao in the Universe is like the south-west corner in the house. It is the treasure of the good man, the support of the bad. There is a traffic in speakers of fine words; Persons of grave demeanour are accepted as gifts; Even the bad let slip no opportunity to acquire them.

Tao Te Ching, Chapter 62

tao-treasure universality good-and-bad support
If you cannot trust yourself, you cannot even trust your mistrust of yourself – so that without this underlying trust in the whole system of nature you are simply paralyzed.

Alan Watts

trust self acceptance nature
The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

Alan Watts

present-moment acceptance wisdom receptivity
Tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live. There is no other reality than present reality, so that, even if one were to live for endless ages, to live for the future would be to miss the point everlastingly.

Alan Watts

present-moment time wisdom consciousness
Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Alan Watts

acceptance non-duality nature seeing
To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

Alan Watts

trust yielding acceptance faith
What I am really saying is that you don't need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.

Alan Watts

no-self nature acceptance wu-wei
Everything that happens, everything that I have ever done, everything that anybody else have ever done is part of a harmonious design, that there is no error at all.

Alan Watts

acceptance harmony unity non-duality
What happens if you know that there is nothing you can do to be better? It's kind of a relief, isn't it? You say 'Well, now what do I do?' When you are freed from being out to improve yourself, your own nature will begin to take over.

Alan Watts

acceptance wu-wei naturalness practice
Every manifestation of life is impermanent. Our quest to make things permanent, to straighten everything out, to get it fixed is an impossible and insoluble problem.

Alan Watts

impermanence acceptance letting-go wisdom
Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them. Faith in life, in other people, and in oneself, is the attitude of allowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in its own time.

Alan Watts

love acceptance naturalness wisdom
Everyone has love, but it can only come out when he is convinced of the impossibility and the frustration of trying to love himself. This conviction will not come through condemnations, through hating oneself, through calling self love bad names in the universe. It comes only in the awareness that one has no self to love.

Alan Watts

love no-self wisdom acceptance
Confucius saw an old man swimming at the Lüliang waterfall — the current violent enough to drown fish and turtles. He sent a disciple to help. But the man came out singing. 'How do you do it?' Confucius asked. 'I go under with the whirls and come up with the eddies,' said the man. 'I follow along with the way of the water and do not impose my own selfish wishes upon it. This is how I stay afloat.'

Chuang Tzu, Chapter 19 – Mastering Life

flow naturalness water wu-wei
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step

practice mindfulness thich-nhat-hanh transformation
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching

letting-go freedom thich-nhat-hanh acceptance
The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don't wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step

acceptance suffering thich-nhat-hanh present-moment
To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

Thich Nhat Hanh

self acceptance thich-nhat-hanh practice
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But if we cannot accept it, we will always be suffering.

Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

impermanence acceptance shunryu-suzuki suffering
Each of you is perfect the way you are ... and you can use a little improvement.

Shunryu Suzuki

acceptance practice shunryu-suzuki paradox
Every day is a good day.

Blue Cliff Record, Case 6 — Yunmen's Every Day Is a Good Day

zen-koan present-moment acceptance blue-cliff-record