taoism

The sage is still not because he takes stillness to be good and therefore is still. The ten thousand things are insufficient to distract his mind - that is the reason he is still.

The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror - going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but not storing.

The Spirit Tower has its guardian, but unless it understands who its guardian is, it cannot be guarded.

A person with a mind is bound to be filled with conceptions. These conceptions prevent him from knowing things directly, so a person with a mind shall never really know.

You must let what happens happen. Everything must be equal in your eyes, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, foolish and wise.

(So), he who displays himself does not shine; he who asserts his own views is not distinguished; he who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged; he who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him.

The only path wide for us all is love.

As long as some sufferThe River Flows ForeverAs long as there is painThe River Flows ForeverAs strong as a smile can beThe River will Flow Forever

The highest goodness is like water.Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao. The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and strong nothing proves better than water. For there is no alternative to it. The weak can overcome and the yielding can overcame the hard. This all the world knows but does not practice. This again is the practice of __u-wel_ and nonviolence. Water may be weak, pliable, fluid, but its action is not one of running away from an obstacle. On the contrary, it gives at the point of resistance, envelopes the object and passes beyond it. Ultimately it will wear down the hardest rock. Water is a more telling symbol than land_ crossing the river to get to the other side is, again, attaining the state of enlightenment.

For a few moments, attune your mind to the idea of harmony and peaceful coexistence flowing among all peoples and nations.The source of this idea is deep within your heart.As you calmly breathe in and out, picture it radiating from you like a fine, colored vapor gradually covering the face of the earth.See it enter the hearts of everyone, especially those stuck in the mad zones.Feel it circulate everywhere until it comes all the way round and back to you.This is love in action.The source of this love is the Tao.Savor this.

Your purpose, and its specific expressions, expands and accelerates as it becomes more similar to Nature__ purpose. The tools you need to apply it you collect along the path in discovering what that is. Time is there to provide you with the __pportunities_ to find more creative responses to things like frustration, confusion and self-righteousness. As you gently, oh so gently and delicately, adjust to the requirements that exist in your actual circumstance, you are given the tools needed to surpass them.

But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence which does not work according to plan, according to a one-at-a-time order of thought. Yet the concrete evidence of such an intelligence is right to hand in our own thoughtlessly ordered bodies. For the Tao does not 'know' how it produces the universe just as we do not 'know' how we construct our brains.

He who is in harmony with the Taois like a newborn child.Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak,but its grip is powerful.It doesn't know about the unionof male and female,yet its penis can stand erect,so intense is its vital power.It can scream its head off all day,yet it never becomes hoarse,so complete is its harmony.The Master's power is like this.He lets all things come and goeffortlessly, without desire.He never expects results;thus he is never disappointed.He is never disappointed;thus his spirit never grows old.

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

I__e never run this far before," he said at one point. "Or this fast for so long. It__ better than sticking your head out a car window, that__ for sure."My theory is that Oberon might be a master of Tao. He always sees what we filter out. The wind and the grass and something in the sky, sun or moon, shining on our backs as we run: They are gifts that humans toss away like socks on Christmas morning, because we see them every day and don__ think of them as gifts anymore. But new socks are always better than old socks. And the wind and grass and sky, I think, are better seen with new eyes than jaded ones. I hope my eyes will never grow old.

Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.

Nothing is lost. . .Everything is transformed.