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> 80 quotes tagged "stillness"
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Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 16
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He who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm; He who stretches himself does not attain.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 26
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Gather strength through patient accumulation. Like a reservoir filling, power builds through stillness. Hold firm until the time for action arrives.I Ching, Hexagram 26: Great Restraint / Accumulation
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When darkness prevails, hide your light but do not extinguish it. Outer yielding protects inner truth. Persevere quietly through hard times.I Ching, Hexagram 36: Darkening of the Light / Adversity
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The mountain stands immovable. Know when to be still and when to move. In stillness, find clarity; in meditation, find center.I Ching, Hexagram 52: Keeping Still / Mountain
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The pure men of old passed their waking existence in self-oblivion, and slept without dreams.Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams
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When the mind is at peace, the world too is at peace.Zen Poem – P'ang Yün (Layman P'ang) (740-808 CE)
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The ten directions converging, each learning to do nothing.Zen Poem – P'ang Yün (740-808 CE)
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I stroll along the stream up to where it ends, then sit and watch the time when clouds rise up.Zen Poem – Wang Wei (699-761)
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Burning incense, I pass my days in serenity. When the incense is exhausted, I forget all things.Zen Poem – Shou-an
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When thoughts are quieted down, fire itself is cool.Zen Poem – Tu Kou-hao
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When the wind is still, the water is calm. The moon reflects perfectly in the lake.Zen Poem – Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975)
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Although the wind blows, the mountain does not move. Although the wave rises, the moon is not disturbed.Zen Poem – Ikkyū Sōjun (1394-1481)
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Tao never does; Yet through it all things are done. If the barons and kings would but possess themselves of it, the ten thousand creatures would at once be transformed. The blankness of the Unnamed brings dispassion; To be dispassionate is to be still. And so, of itself, the whole empire will be at rest.Tao Te Ching, Chapter 37
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The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.Alan Watts
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Great perfection seems incomplete; yet its use is not impaired. Great fullness seems empty; yet its use is inexhaustible. Great straightness seems crooked. Great skill seems clumsy. Great eloquence seems silent.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 45
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The Tao is empty but inexhaustible — the ancestor of all things. Blunt the sharpness, untie the knots, soften the glare, settle the dust. Deep and still, it seems to have existed forever. I do not know whose child it is; it is older than the concept of God.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 4
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Attain complete emptiness. Hold firm to stillness. The ten thousand things arise together; in their arising I see their return. They flourish and each returns to its root. Returning to one's roots is known as stillness. Stillness is the return to one's destiny.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 16
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If you listen not with the ear but with the heart; not with the heart but with the breath — then the breath itself is empty and waits on all things. The Way gathers in emptiness alone. Emptiness is the fasting of the heart.Chuang Tzu, Chapter 4 – The Human World
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The old pond — a frog jumps in — sound of water.Matsuo Basho (1686)
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Such silence — the voice of cicadas seeps into the rocks.Matsuo Basho
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Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world revolves — slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.Thich Nhat Hanh
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Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. Every breath we take, every step we take, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity.Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step
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Smile, breathe, and go slowly.Thich Nhat Hanh
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Men ask the way to Cold Mountain. Cold Mountain: there's no through trail. In summer, ice doesn't melt. The rising sun blurs in swirling fog. How did I make it? My heart's not the same as yours. If your heart was like mine You'd get it and be right here.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems, tr. Gary Snyder
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My mind is like the autumn moon Shining clean and clear in the green pool. No, that's not a good comparison. Tell me, how shall I explain?Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In my first thirty years of life I roamed hundreds and thousands of miles. Walked by rivers through deep green grass, Entered cities of boiling red dust. Tried drugs, but couldn't make Immortal. Read books and wrote poems on history. Today I'm back at Cold Mountain. I'll sleep by the creek and purify my ears.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems, tr. Gary Snyder
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Sitting alone beside a cliff, The full moon a lantern before me. Not a thought about the universe: This quiet illuminates everything.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Spring water in the green creek is clear, Moonlight on Cold Mountain is white. Silent knowledge — the spirit is enlightened of itself. Contemplate the void: this world exceeds stillness.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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Not knowing is most intimate.Book of Serenity, Case 20 — Dizang's Intimacy
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Our original nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any atom of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy — and that is all.Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
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The void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma. This spiritually illuminating silence is without beginning or end.Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
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When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the origin and remain where we have always been.Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
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Deep and distant, the road to Cold Mountain — long gorges choked with boulders, wide streams blurred with mist. The grasses are thick and the path is lost. Even when the wind is still, the pines keep sighing. Who can reach this place? Only someone whose heart is already here.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Among layered cliffs I chose my home. Birds are my only companions through the years. What is happening in the world beyond the peaks? I watch the clouds and do not need to ask. Moss has grown over the stone steps. The white mist drifts through my open door. A monk came once and showed me the road out of delusion. I have not moved since.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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When people see Cold Mountain they say there is nothing remarkable. No jade tower, no golden gate. Just a cold mist among cold rocks. But the man who lives here finds it impossible to leave.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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In the white clouds, I live at ease. A lone wild crane crosses the evening sky. On the cliffs pines stand rooted in nothing. Below, the valley fills with dark water. I have a gourd of wine and a bundle of firewood. Why would I go back?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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All day I read the ancient books. All night the lamp burns down. At dawn I close the last page and still I have not arrived. A sparrow lands on the sill and sings one note. I put the books away.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The world runs after shadows — fame, rank, a bigger house. They exhaust themselves chasing what dissolves the moment they touch it. I sit by the spring and watch it flow. There is nowhere I need to arrive.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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Stone steps leading upward, no end in sight. I climb, and the mist closes behind me. Below, the village sounds fade. Above, only wind and the smell of pine. I am not going anywhere. I am going.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The pine wind sounds in the valley at night. A single owl asks its one question. I cannot answer the owl. The owl cannot answer the wind. The wind cannot answer the valley. All night they continue their conversation.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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A stone for a pillow. A stream for a mirror. A cliff face covered in poems no one reads. This is enough. This is more than enough.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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No visitors for a hundred days. Moss reclaims the path. The vines have crossed the doorway. I do not clear them. This is what the mountain does to a house when the house stops insisting on itself.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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I know one thing for certain: the stream does not ask where it is going. It finds the low place by itself. It does not consult a map. The water that fell as snow last winter arrives at the sea without having planned a single step.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Rising before dawn, I carry water from the lower spring. The mountain does not know my name. The spring does not know my name. The bucket does not know my name. Only my feet know the path — and they have forgotten the rest.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The cold spring water tastes of high rock, of pine root, of a thousand years of silence. Drinking it, I forget what city I came from. Drinking it again, I forget I ever forgot.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Books and swords — both too heavy. I left them at the bottom of the mountain. The climb is easier now but I am not sure where I am going. That too is easier now.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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Nothing in the mind — and the whole world is present. Fill the mind with plans and schemes and the whole world contracts to the size of a fist.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The crane returns to its nest at dusk without having decided to return. I watch it from the cliff edge and feel ashamed of all my decisions.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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I met a man on the path who asked: where does this road lead? I told him: it leads back to where you came from. He laughed and went on. I went on too. We arrived at the same place from opposite directions.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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Three roads lead down from this mountain: one toward wine, one toward rank, one toward silence. Two of them are crowded. One is overgrown and hard to follow. I have worn it smooth going back and forth.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The rich man builds walls around his garden. The poor man's garden has no walls — it extends in every direction. Who has the larger garden?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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A monk asked me: what is your practice? I showed him the stream. He looked at the stream for a long time. Then he asked: and what is the stream's practice? I went inside and made tea.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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The woodcutter passes my door every morning. Every morning he nods. In ten years, we have not exchanged a single word. This is the best conversation I have ever had.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Mind is the root. The ten thousand things are its branches. If you see only branches you will spend your life climbing and never reach the tree.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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The world's clever people find Cold Mountain foolish. The world's foolish people find Cold Mountain unreachable. I find it right here under my feet.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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At night the stars fill the gorge below me — they look like a city seen from above. The city looks like stars seen from below. I am above both and belong to neither and the cold is clean.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Someone came looking for Han Shan. I watched him from the cliff above. He called out several times. His voice echoed back to him. Perhaps that was answer enough.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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Beyond this cliff: another cliff. Beyond that cliff: sky. Beyond the sky? I have run out of cliffs but the question keeps climbing.Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
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Who can wait quietly while the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action? Observers of the Tao do not seek fulfilment. Not seeking fulfilment, they are not swayed by desire for change.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 15
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Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind rest at peace. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 16
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The heavy is the root of the light; the still is the master of unrest.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 26
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To be light is to lose one's root. To be restless is to lose one's control.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 26
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All men will come to him who keeps to the one, for there lie rest and happiness and peace.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 35
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The farther you go, the less you know.Tao Te Ching – Chapter 47