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> 28 quotes tagged "impermanence"
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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
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The four sages, though objects of admiration, were troubled up to their very end, and were equally and alike doomed to die.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 13
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I am not the owner of my own body, for I, when I am born, must complete it. We inherit rather than possess our physical form.Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 16
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The wind dies down, the flowers still fall. Birds call, and the mountains grow darker yet.Zen Poem – Fa-yen (885-958)
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Thirty years ago when I was a novice I took the sword and cut the spring breeze. Today the spring breeze is still blowing as before.Zen Poem – Wu-hsüeh Tsu-yüan (1226-1286)
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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
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The Wave does not need to die to become water. She is already water.Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear
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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
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I have lived at Cold Mountain These thirty long years. Yesterday I called on friends and family: More than half had gone to Yellow Springs. Slow burn, like fire in a house. Quick change, like the passing of rapids. Now this morning facing my lone shadow Unconsciously the tears flow down.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Today I sat before the cliff, Sat a long time till mist and clouds arose. Mist and clouds — a moment of affairs. This old man — what have they to do with me?Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The body is a borrowed house — who knows how long the loan will last? The mind is an untethered boat, drifting on whatever water comes. Do not hold tightly to either. The house will be reclaimed. The boat will find its own shore.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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A cold stream, the moon reflected. My face and the moon in the same water — neither of us speaking, neither of us separate. By morning the reflection is gone. The moon does not mourn it.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Autumn comes to the mountain without asking. The leaves do not argue. The stream does not slow its pace in grief. One day the hillside is green. The next, it has forgotten green entirely. I sit and watch the mountain receive autumn the way the mountain receives everything — completely, without comment.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The valley fills with evening mist and I cannot see the far cliff. Yesterday it was there, solid and absolute. Tonight it is gone. Tomorrow it will be there again. The cliff has learned something I have not yet learned.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Looking back on my youth: every ambition, a knot tied for no reason. Every desire, a door opened onto another door. Now I sit in the one room that has no door and find I have been here the whole time.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Born into this cage of flesh and bone, carrying it up the mountain every day. The cage does not complain. I do not complain about the cage. We have reached an understanding.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The peach trees by the eastern cliff bloom every spring without consulting anyone. No one planted them. No one prunes them. They have outlasted every hermit who has watched them and they will outlast me.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Someone carved their name into the cliff face. Ten years later, moss covered it. Twenty years later, no one can read it. The cliff has written its own name over theirs: silence.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In spring the mountain is easy to love. In summer, endurable. In autumn, magnificent. In winter, honest. I prefer winter.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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All who read my poems, know this: they were not written for you. They were written on bark and stone for the wind and the rain to erase. That you have found them means the wind and rain were merciful. Or perhaps they intended this.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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When I leave this mountain I will leave it completely — no thread of habit connecting me to it, no ghost of regret walking the old paths. This is how the mountain leaves winter: without looking back.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Life and death are one road. I do not know the exact border crossing. But I know the customs officers ask for nothing you can carry.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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A thousand years of moss on these rocks. I have been here thirty years and feel I arrived this morning. The moss has no such illusions.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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I have no mirror here. My face is reflected in the stream but the stream moves and my face moves with it. A moving face — this is a good face. A fixed face is what they put on a tomb.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Therefore the sage goes about doing nothing, teaching no talking. The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease, Creating, yet not possessing, Working, yet not taking credit, Work is done, then forgotten. Therefore it lasts for ever.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 2
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So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 29
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Achieve results, but never glory in them. Achieve results, but never boast. Achieve results, but never be proud. Force is followed by loss of strength. This is not the way of Tao. That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 30
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Controlling the breath causes strain. If too much energy is used, exhaustion follows. This is not the way of Tao. That which goes against the Tao comes to an early end.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 55