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> 172 quotes tagged "wisdom"

• The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive. Because they were deep, Use cannot exhaust them.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 15
  wisdom subtlety mystery
• Give up wisdom, discard knowledge, and the people will be a hundred times happier.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 19
  simplicity wisdom authenticity
• He who knows others is wise; He who knows himself is enlightened.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 33
  wisdom self-knowledge power
• When a superior man hears of the Tao, he diligently practices it; when an ordinary man hears of the Tao, he half believes it; when a fool hears of the Tao, he laughs aloud at it.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 41
  wisdom understanding practice
• Without opening your door, you can open your heart to the world.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 47
  wisdom knowledge awareness
• Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 56
  wisdom silence knowing
• Act without striving; work without doing; taste without savoring.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 63
  wisdom knowledge silence
• The people are starving because those in authority take too much.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 75
  wisdom transcendence understanding
• 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
• The beginner's mind is not ignorance but openness. Wisdom begins when we acknowledge what we do not know. Seek teaching with humility and patience.
  I Ching, Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
  humility modesty wisdom patience
• Step back and observe the larger pattern. Through contemplation, wisdom reveals itself. What you see depends on how you look.
  I Ching, Hexagram 20: Contemplation / Observation
  contemplation awareness wisdom action
• When foundations crumble, yield gracefully. Not all things are meant to last. In letting go, you make space for renewal.
  I Ching, Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart / Decay
  retreat wisdom beauty grace
• Strategic retreat is not defeat but wisdom. Withdraw when opposing forces grow strong. Preserve your strength for a better time.
  I Ching, Hexagram 33: Retreat / Withdrawal
  conflict resolution retreat wisdom
• Great power must be used with great restraint. Strength without wisdom becomes recklessness. Channel your vigor toward worthy aims.
  I Ching, Hexagram 34: Great Power / Vigor
  wisdom strength action i-ching
• The well serves all who come with pure, unchanging water. Be a source that others can depend on. Depth and clarity make you valuable.
  I Ching, Hexagram 48: The Well / Source
  influence relationships wisdom clarity
• Not all unions are equal. Know your position and act accordingly. Desire alone doesn't create proper relationship.
  I Ching, Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden / Relationships
  unity cooperation influence relationships
• Because their knowledge was so far superior I can only give a poor description. They were careful as someone crossing a frozen stream in winter.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 15
  wisdom tao-te-ching
• Even though the Tao is intangible and evasive, we are able to know it exists.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 21
  tao-te-ching wisdom tao
• Know the white, yet keep to the black: be a model for the world.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 28
  wisdom tao-te-ching
• Once we have found the Mother, we begin to know what Her children should be.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 52
  wisdom tao-te-ching
• Thinking you know is a disease. Only by recognizing that you have an illness can you move to seek a cure.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 71
  wisdom tao-te-ching
• Integral wisdom involves a direct participation in every moment: the observer and the observed are dissolved in the light of pure awareness, and no mental concepts or attitudes are present to dim that light.
  Hua Hu Jing, Verse 26
  service wisdom mind hua-hu-jing
• The four cardinal virtues: reverence for all life, natural sincerity, gentleness, and supportiveness. When practiced, they give birth to wisdom and evoke health, wealth, happiness, longevity, and peace.
  Hua Hu Jing, Verse 51
  nature virtue hua-hu-jing practice
• Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. Superior people can awaken during times of turmoil to lead others out of the mire by first liberating their own being.
  Hua Hu Jing, Verse 77
  wisdom hua-hu-jing enlightenment
• Those who practice the truth of these teachings will acquire the subtle light of wisdom, the mighty sword of clarity, and the mystical pearl of understanding that envelops the entire universe.
  Hua Hu Jing, Verse 79
  hua-hu-jing practice energy wisdom
• That skull and I both know that there is no such thing as absolute life or death.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 1: Cosmogony
  duality life death wisdom
• To be at will either bright or obscure, soft or hard...this it is to be devoid of knowledge, yet all-knowing.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 1: Cosmogony
  paradox wisdom flexibility
• The Perfect Way is not to be sought through the senses.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 2: The Yellow Emperor
  transcendence wisdom perception
• At the end of nine years my mind gave free rein to its reflections...I had no knowledge of right and wrong.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 2: The Yellow Emperor
  non-attachment freedom wisdom
• What do you mean by rock? What do you mean by fire?
  Lieh Tzu, Book 2: The Yellow Emperor
  transcendence concepts wisdom
• The Sage embraces similarity of understanding and pays no regard to similarity of form.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 2: The Yellow Emperor
  essence wisdom perception
• Without going out of doors, one may know the whole world; without looking out of window, one may see the Way of Heaven.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams
  inner-knowing wisdom perception
• The farther one travels, the less one may know.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams
  seeking wisdom simplicity
• If you want to distinguish between waking and dreaming, only the Yellow Emperor or Confucius could help you.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 3: Dreams
  mystery wisdom unknowable
• The wide learning of Confucius, the warlike prowess of T'ang and Wu...simply represent ordinary activities of the sage. True wisdom transcends specific accomplishments and cannot be adequately expressed through words or deeds alone.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 4: Confucius
  wisdom transcendence limits
• He who has reached the stage of thought is silent...He who uses silence in lieu of speech really does speak...there is nothing that he does not know.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 4: Confucius
  silence wisdom knowing
• The improper use of divine weapons only leads to discomfiture.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 5: Questions of T'ang
  power wisdom consequences
• P'êng Tsu's intelligence never exceeded that of Yao and Shun, yet he lived to the age of eight hundred. Intellectual merit bears no correlation to lifespan.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 6: Effort and Destiny
  wisdom fate virtue
• Success consists in hitting off the right moment, while missing it means failure...not due to any flaw in the action itself, but simply because it was not well timed.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 7: Causality
  timing circumstance wisdom
• He sees what he wants to see, and not what he does not want to see. True wisdom discerns essence over superficial details.
  Lieh Tzu, Book 7: Causality
  perception insight wisdom
• Those who know how to enjoy life are not poor, and he that lives at ease requires no riches. The capacity to appreciate existence itself becomes the greatest wealth.
  Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 6
  gratitude simplicity wisdom
• Extreme poverty and extreme wealth both create suffering. The solution lies neither in accumulation nor deprivation but in cultivating the right relationship with life itself.
  Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 6
  wisdom equanimity moderation
• Understanding both how to live fully and how to accept death represents genuine advancement in wisdom.
  Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 8
  wisdom balance life-death
• Intelligence is appreciated because it preserves us and brute force despised because it encroaches upon things. Humans survive through wisdom rather than physical strength.
  Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 16
  wisdom human-nature intelligence
• Loyalty cannot set the sovereign at ease. Righteousness cannot help the world. Pursuing these virtues may actually endanger one's own wellbeing rather than benefit society.
  Yang Chu's Garden of Pleasure, Ch. 19
  virtue paradox wisdom
• He who does not use; but later the non-use gives use: he knows, because he does not know: and afterwards the non-knowing leads to knowing.
  Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 2
  paradox wu-wei wisdom
• Men, to-day, have turned their backs on the root, and gone in search of the branch. Modern society pursues superficial details while abandoning fundamental principles.
  Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 4
  priorities fundamentals wisdom
• The non-knowledge of Exhaustless is the more profound; knowledge is superficial; non-knowledge knows the intrinsic, but knowledge only the extrinsic.
  Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 5
  knowledge paradox wisdom
• A person of genuine knowledge judges matters on their intrinsic merit, not historical reputation or fashionable opinion. True appreciation requires cultivated understanding.
  Huai Nan Tzu, Essay 8
  judgment wisdom authenticity
• Improve yourself before attempting to guide others.
  T'ai-Shang Kan-Ying P'ien – Moral Injunctions
  humility self-cultivation teaching wisdom
• Banish wisdom, discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited a hundredfold. Banish human kindness, discard morality, and the people will be dutiful and compassionate. Give them Simplicity to look at, the Uncarved Black to hold, give them selflessness and fewness of desires.
  Tao Te Ching, Chapter 19
  simplicity uncarved-block desires wisdom
• Don't make a distinction between work and play. Regard everything that you're doing as play, and don't regard for one minute that you have to be serious about it.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment simplicity wu-wei practice
• We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment time mind consciousness
• Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.
  Alan Watts
  self self-knowledge wisdom inquiry
• No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.
  Alan Watts
  balance paradox flexibility wisdom
• 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
• The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment simplicity wisdom life
• If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment life wisdom simplicity
• 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
• The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it's only money… they don't know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.
  Alan Watts
  wisdom simplicity mind perception
• Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery — the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets — is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.
  Alan Watts
  non-duality paradox consciousness unity
• Like too much alcohol, self-consciousness makes us see ourselves double, and we make the double image for two selves – mental and material, controlling and controlled, reflective and spontaneous. Thus instead of suffering we suffer about suffering, and suffer about suffering about suffering.
  Alan Watts
  no-self self consciousness suffering
• Only those who have cultivated the art of living completely in the present have any use for making plans for the future, for when the plans mature they will be able to enjoy the results.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment practice wisdom paradox
• 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
• The word 'person' comes from the latin word 'persona' which referred to the masks worn by actors in which sound would come through. The 'person' is the mask — the role you're playing. And all of your friends and relations and teachers are busy telling you who you are and what your role in life is.
  Alan Watts
  no-self self identity wisdom
• Education, in the real sense, is not preparation for life, it is actually living. It is the child participating in adult concerns. And doing it now and realizing that the point of the process in which the child is engaged, is not to prepare the child for the future, but to enjoy doing the thing today.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment practice wisdom simplicity
• Paradoxical as it may seem, the purposeful life has no content, no point. It hurries on and on, and misses everything. Not hurrying, the purposeless life misses nothing, for it is only when there is no goal and no rush that the human senses are fully open to receive the world.
  Alan Watts
  present-moment wu-wei paradox wisdom
• People who exude love are apt to give things away. They are in every way like rivers; they stream. And so when they collect possessions and things they like, they are apt to give them to other people. Because, have you ever noticed that when you start giving things away, you keep getting more?
  Alan Watts
  love generosity wisdom naturalness
• 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
• Peace can be made only by those who are peaceful, and love can be shown only by those who love. No work of love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
  Alan Watts
  peace love wisdom present-moment
• 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
• Those who wish to know the whole truth take joy in doing the work and service that comes to them. This simple path leads to peace, virtue, and abundance.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 1
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Take care of those who are deserving; also, and equally, take care of those who are not. When you extend your virtue in all directions without discriminating, your feet are firmly planted on the path that returns to the Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 2
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• 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 Ching, Verse 3
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• To practice virtue is to selflessly offer assistance to others, giving without limitation one's time, abilities, and possessions in service. If your willingness to give blessings is limited, so also is your ability to receive them.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 4
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The superior person settles her mind as the universe settles the stars in the sky. By connecting her mind with the subtle origin, she calms it. Once calmed, it naturally expands.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 5
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The Tao gives rise to all forms, yet it has no form of its own. If you attempt to fix a picture of it in your mind, you will lose it. Why not be content with simply experiencing it?
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 6
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Those who wish to attain oneness must practice undiscriminating virtue. They must dissolve all ideas of duality: good and bad, beautiful and ugly, high and low.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 7
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• There is nothing to teach: no religion, no science, no body of information which will lead your mind back to the Tao. Simply be aware of the oneness of things.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 8
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Stop striving after admiration. Place your esteem on the Tao. Live in accord with it, share with others the teachings that lead to it, and you will be immersed in the blessings that flow from it.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 9
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Let the senses go. Let desires go. Let conflicts go. Let ideas go. Let the fiction of life and death go. Just remain in the center, watching. And then forget that you are there.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 10
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Keep your mind free of divisions and distinctions. When your mind is detached, simple, quiet, then all things can exist in harmony, and you can begin to perceive the subtle truth.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 11
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Regard these teachings with reverence, practice their truths, illuminate them to others. You will receive as many blessings from the universe as there are grains of sand in the River of Timelessness.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 12
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The mind is like a knife, always chipping away at the Tao, trying to render it graspable and manageable. She who lets go of the knife will find the Tao at her fingertips.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 13
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic?
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 14
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• To the highly evolved being, there is no such thing as tolerance, because there is no such thing as other. Attachment prevents the growth of one's true being.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 15
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• 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 Ching, Verse 16
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Do not go about worshipping deities as the source of the subtle truth. If you want to worship the Tao, first discover it in your own heart. Then your worship will be meaningful.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 17
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The mature person perceives the fruitlessness of rigid, external methodologies. He keeps his attitude unstructured at all times and thus is always free to pursue the Integral Way.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 18
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Those who are highly evolved maintain an undiscriminating perception. Seeing everything, labeling nothing, they maintain their awareness of the Great Oneness.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 19
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Within the Great Oneness, though there is no such thing as clairvoyance, telepathy, or telekinesis, all things are seen, all things understood, all things forever in their proper places.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 20
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The mind is desperate to fix the river in place. The one who can dissolve her mind will suddenly discover the Tao at her feet, and clarity at hand.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 21
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The Tao is always present and always available. When speech is exhausted and mind dissolved, it presents itself. If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 22
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The highest truth cannot be put into words. Therefore the greatest teacher has nothing to say. He simply gives himself in service, and never worries.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 23
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Your nature and the integral nature of the universe are one and the same: indescribable, but eternally present. Simply open yourself to this.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 24
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Why not trust the plainness and simplicity of the Integral Way? Living with unconditional sincerity, eradicating all duality, celebrating the equality of things, your every moment will be in truth.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 25
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Integral wisdom involves a direct participation in every moment: the observer and the observed are dissolved in the light of pure awareness, and no mental concepts or attitudes are present to dim that light.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 26
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Do not imagine that an integral being has the ambition of enlightening the unaware. To her, there is no self and other, and hence no one to be raised. Therefore her only concern is her own sincerity.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 27
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you identify the Tao with a particular shape, you won't ever see it.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 28
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. Just as high awareness is gained through virtuous conduct, so also is it maintained through these things.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 29
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The only way to understand the Tao is to directly experience it. When you get there, quiet your mind and close your mouth. Don't analyze the Tao. Strive instead to live it: silently, undividedly, with your whole harmonious being.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 30
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The Tao doesn't come and go. It is always present everywhere, just like the sky. Can you be still and look inside? Then you will see that the truth is always available, always responsive.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 31
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Every thing is equal to every other thing. Names and concepts only block your perception of this Great Oneness. Look behind them, and you will discern the deep, silent, complete truth of the Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 32
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Worlds and particles, bodies and beings, time and space: All are transient expressions of the Tao. If you can let go of it with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 33
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The character of your existence is determined by the energies to which you connect yourself. By holding to that which is refined and subtle, one traverses refined and subtle realms.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 34
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Insight is a function of the spirit. Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death, and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 35
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• It is not that those who cultivate wholeness and virtue do not encounter difficulties in life. It is that they understand that difficulties are the very road to immortality.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 36
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The superior person understands that her own energies play a part in all living things. Caring for them, she knows that she cares for herself. At peace with them, she is always at peace with herself.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 37
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The truth vibrates in every thing and every not-thing, right off the tip of your nose. Discover the harmony in your own being. Embrace it. If you can do this, you will gain everything.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 38
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The source of the universe is ultimately unknowable, a great invisible river flowing forever through a vast and fertile valley. Your creation takes place by itself within the subtle operation of the universe.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 39
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The superior person recognizes that he and the subtle law are one. Therefore he cultivates himself to accord with it, bringing moderation to his actions and clarity to his mind.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 40
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The integral being knows that the manipulations of the mind are dreams, delusions, and shadows. Seek instead to keep your mind undivided. Dissolve all ideas into the Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 41
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• 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 Ching, Verse 42
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Join your body, mind, and spirit in all you do. Choose food, clothing, and shelter that accords with nature. Understand that true growth comes from meeting and solving the problems of life in a way that is harmonizing.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 43
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Relinquish the notion that you are separated from the all-knowing mind of the universe. Then you can recover your original pure insight and see through all illusions.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 44
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place. The Integral Way depends on decreasing, not increasing. Stop thinking and clinging to complications; keep your mind detached and whole.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 45
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The complete whole is the complete whole. So also is any part the complete whole. The universe is already a harmonious oneness; just realize it. If you scramble about in search of inner peace, you will lose your inner peace.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 46
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Live a quiet and simple life, free of ideas and concepts. Find contentment in the practice of undiscriminating virtue, the only true power. Your virtue becomes a sanctuary for yourself and all beings.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 47
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• 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 Ching, Verse 48
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Thinking and talking about the Integral Way are not the same as practicing it. If you wish to embody the Tao, stop chattering and start practicing.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 49
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Live simply and virtuously, true to your nature, drawing no line between what is spiritual and what is not. Ignore time. Relinquish ideas and concepts. Embrace the Oneness.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 50
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The four cardinal virtues: reverence for all life, natural sincerity, gentleness, and supportiveness. When practiced, they give birth to wisdom and evoke health, wealth, happiness, longevity, and peace.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 51
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Integral awareness is fluid and adaptable, present in all places and at all times. That is true meditation. Honor your parents, love your children, help your brothers and sisters. That would be true clarity, true simplicity, true mastery.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 52
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• True understanding in a person has two attributes: awareness and action. Only those who increase their service along with their understanding can be called men and women of Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 53
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The student who seeks out and studies the holistic teachings furthers the evolution of mankind as well as her own spiritual unfolding.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 54
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The holistic practices of the ancient masters integrate science, art, and personal spiritual development. Mind, body, and spirit participate in them equally.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 55
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• You can't know the body by studying the finger, and you can't understand the universe by learning one science. If you study the whole of the Tao wholeheartedly, then everything in your life will reflect it.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 56
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• By integrating the positive, harmonious energy rays with the positive elements of your own being, and eliminating the subtle negative influences, you can enhance all aspects of your life.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 57
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Unless the mind, body, and spirit are equally developed and fully integrated, no spiritual peak or state of enlightenment can be sustained. True self-cultivation involves the holistic integration of mind, body, and spirit.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 58
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you wish to become a divine immortal angel, then restore the angelic qualities of your being through virtue and service. This is the only way to gain the attention of the immortals.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 59
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Devote yourself to living a virtuous, integrated, selfless life. Refine your energy from gross and heavy to subtle and light. Then the mystical door will open.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 60
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• To understand the universe, you must study the Oneness, the forces of yin and yang, Heaven, Earth, and Man, and the processes of change and recycling taught in the I Ching.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 61
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Only when you achieve mastery of the physical energy, universal mindedness, and spiritual insight, and express them in a virtuous integral life, can you attain pure Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 62
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Simplify the personality, refine the sexual energy upward, integrate yin and yang in body, mind, and spirit, practice non-impulsiveness, and you will enter the exquisite upper realm.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 63
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you consult the I Ching with an open mind, you will begin to see the patterns underlying all things. When you accurately perceive the fluidity of things, you also begin to perceive the constancy behind them.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 64
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you wish to unite with the heart and mind of the Mysterious Mother, you must integrate yin and yang within and refine their fire upward. This is what is known as true evolution.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 65
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Through the practices of the Integral Way, one refines gross, heavy energy into something ethereal and light. The new life created is self-aware yet without ego, capable of inhabiting a body yet not attached to it.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 66
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• To achieve the highest levels of life, one must continually combine new levels of yin and yang. Higher unions of yin and yang are necessary for the conception of higher life.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 67
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The Tao is softer than anything, and therefore it overcomes everything hard. What does this tell you about the benefit of non-action and silence?
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 68
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• For those who aspire to the higher realms of living, there is angelic dual cultivation. Angelic intercourse is led by the spirit rather than the sexual organs, culminating not in dissolution but in integration.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 69
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 70
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• All teachers and techniques are only transitional: true realization comes from the direct merger of one's being with the divine energy of the Tao.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 71
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Develop your virtue and extend it to the world. Practice unswerving kindness and unending patience. Avoid following impulses and pursuing ambitions which destroy the wholeness of your mind.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 72
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• When one gives whatever one can without restraint, the barriers of individuality break down. One sees only two immaculate beings, reflecting one another like a pair of brilliant mirrors.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 73
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Worship the fiery sun, repository of yang, and the watery moon, repository of yin. Worship the Great Tai Chi, in which all things are contained, balanced, and reposed.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 74
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• If you want to awaken all of humanity, then awaken all of yourself. If you want to eliminate the suffering in the world, then eliminate all that is dark and negative in yourself.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 75
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• One who merges her virtue with the universal virtue and extends it to the world without expectation of reward will indeed be the savior of the world.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 76
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom. Superior people can awaken during times of turmoil to lead others out of the mire by first liberating their own being.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 77
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• The Integral Way eschews conceptual fanaticism, extravagant living, fancy food, violent music. Renouncing what is fashionable and embracing what is plain, honest, and virtuous, it returns you to the subtle essence of life.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 78
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Those who practice the truth of these teachings will acquire the subtle light of wisdom, the mighty sword of clarity, and the mystical pearl of understanding that envelops the entire universe.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 79
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• 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 Ching, Verse 80
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Take time to listen to what is said without words. Love your life. Trust the Tao. You can be a gentle, contemplative hermit right here in the middle of everything, utterly unaffected, thoroughly sustained by your integral practices.
  Hua Hu Ching, Verse 81
  tao virtue hua-hu-jing wisdom
• Everyone knows the usefulness of what is useful, but no one knows the usefulness of what is useless.
  Chuang Tzu, Chapter 4 – The Human World
  emptiness usefulness paradox chuang-tzu
• If a man crosses a river and an empty boat collides with his, even if he is bad-tempered he will not be angry. But if there is a man in that boat, he will shout at him to steer clear. Anger arises when there is someone to blame. Empty your own boat as you cross the river of the world, and nothing can oppose you.
  Chuang Tzu, Chapter 20 – Mountain Trees
  emptiness ego non-self chuang-tzu
• The world has a beginning — call it the mother of the world. Once you have found the mother, you can know the children. Once you know the children, return and hold fast to the mother. Your whole life you will be protected from harm.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 52
  feminine mother origin return
• Prince Hui's cook was cutting up an ox. Every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet was in perfect rhythm — like the dance of the Mulberry Grove. 'I work with my mind and not with my eye,' he said. 'My mind works along without the control of the senses. Falling back upon eternal principles, I glide through the great joints as they are. A good cook changes his chopper once a year — because he cuts. An ordinary cook, once a month — because he hacks. I have used this chopper for nineteen years, yet its edge is still as keen as if fresh from the grindstone. Because I always work in accordance with the natural constitution of the animal.'
  Chuang Tzu, Chapter 3 – The Secret of Caring for Life
  flow wu-wei skill naturalness
• 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
• Duke Huan was reading when Wheelwright Pian put down his chisel and asked: 'What are you reading?' 'The words of the sages.' 'Are they alive?' 'Dead.' 'Then you are reading nothing but their dregs. When I chisel a wheel — too slow, the chisel slides; too fast, it jams. The right pace comes from the hand and is felt in the mind. It cannot be put into words. There is an art to it I cannot teach my own son, and which he cannot learn from me. So here I am, seventy years old, still chiseling wheels.'
  Chuang Tzu, Chapter 13 – The Way of Heaven
  flow skill beyond-words chuang-tzu
• Yield and overcome. Bend and be straight. Empty and be full. Wear out and be new. Have little and gain. Have much and be confused. Therefore the sage embraces the One and becomes a model for the world. He does not put himself on display, and therefore shines. He does not justify himself, and therefore is distinguished. He does not boast, and therefore has merit. He does not contend, and therefore no one can contend with him.
  Tao Te Ching – Chapter 22
  flow yielding paradox wu-wei
• Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
  Zen proverb
  flow naturalness zen-koan practice
• Our own life has to be our message.
  Thich Nhat Hanh
  practice thich-nhat-hanh action wisdom
• In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
  Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
  zen beginner shunryu-suzuki openness
• The most important thing is to find out what is the most important thing.
  Shunryu Suzuki
  inquiry practice shunryu-suzuki wisdom
• Do you have the poems of Han-shan in your house? They're better for you than sutra-reading! Paste them up on your screen. From time to time take a look.
  Han Shan, Cold Mountain Poems
  wisdom humor han-shan practice
• Not knowing is most intimate.
  Book of Serenity, Case 20 — Dizang's Intimacy
  zen-koan book-of-serenity inquiry non-knowing
• The foolish reject what they see, not what they think. The wise reject what they think, not what they see.
  Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
  wisdom mind huang-po perception
• All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.
  Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
  non-duality mind huang-po unity
• Beginning students of the Way often hear it said that there is fundamentally nothing to be attained. But hearing this, they jump to the conclusion that it means complete inactivity — that sitting blankly will do.
  Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
  practice inquiry huang-po non-action
• 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
  unity non-duality huang-po tao
• The foolish man seeks for truth abroad, while the wise man knows that it is within himself.
  Huang Po, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, tr. John Blofeld
  wisdom inquiry huang-po self