Tao Quotes - Page 8

• Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing. . . . If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don't get caught up in spiritual superficialities.

  Laozi

  Spiritual, Prayer, Breathing

  Laozi, Brian Browne Walker (1992). “Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu”

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• The Great Tao flows everywhere, to the left and to the right, all things depend on it to exist, and it does not abandon them. To its accomplishments it lays no claims. It loves and nourished all things, but does not lord it over them.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Accomplishment, Taoism

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• Deal with it before it happens. Set things in order before there is confusion.

  Laozi

  Order, Confusion, Confusing

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

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• Superstars perform so naturally and so instinctively that they seem to be able to enter a pressure-packed situation that would terrify or freeze most people as if nothing matters. They let it happen, let it go. They couldn't care less about the results.

  John Eliot

  Inspirational, People, Achievement

  John Eliot (2006). “Overachievement: The New Science of Working Less to Accomplish More”, Portfolio (Hardcover)

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• It can be a way of knowledge, a path, an inspiration, a Tao, an ordering, a memory, a fantasy, a seduction, a prayer, a summoning, an incantation murmured under the breath as the torchlights sink lower and the forest looms taller and the wolves howl louder and the fire prepares for its submission to the encroaching dark.

  John Lanchester

  Prayer, Memories, Inspiration

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• All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color is called object. Among them all, man alone is more than an object. Though, like objects, he has form and semblance, He is not limited to form. He is more. He can attain to formlessness. When he is beyond form and semblance, beyond "this" and "that," where is the comparison with another object? Where is the conflict? What can stand in his way? He will rest in his eternal place which is no-place. He will be hidden in his own unfathomable secret. His nature sinks to its root in the One. His vitality, his power hide in secret Tao.

  Zhuangzi

  Men, Color, Roots

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• So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar.

  Zhuangzi

  Happiness, Letting Go, Loss

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• Those who of old were good practicers of Tao did not use it to make people bright, but rather used it to make them simple.

  Laozi

  Spiritual, Simple, People

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• When the highest type of people hear Tao (Truth), they diligently practice it. When the average type of people hear Tao, they half believe in it. When the lowest type of people hear Tao, they laugh at it. If they did not laugh, it would not be Tao.

  Laozi

  Believe, Average, Practice

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• Mind is knowledge, meditation is non-knowledge. Mind knows, meditation experiences. Mind can only give you a certain acquaintance but not the taste. If you want the taste of the Tao you have to move to no-mind, to Meditation.

  Rajneesh

  Moving, Giving, Meditation

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• Be as the still mountain; Move like the great river.

  Laozi

  Moving, Rivers, Mountain

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• Everything has its own place and function. That applies to people, although many don't seem to realize it, stuck as they are in the wrong job, the wrong marriage, or the wrong house. When you know and respect your Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don't belong.

  Benjamin Hoff

  Life, Jobs, People

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• Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death. Whoever is soft and yielding is a disciple of life. The hard and stiff will be broken. The soft and supple will prevail.

  Laozi

  Inspirational, Life, Death

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• The Greeks had two words for time. Chronos is the time we usually keep an eye on. Kairos was our participation of time. Time that moves us so that we lose our sense of time; timeless time; moments at which the clocks seems to stop; feeding, renewing, more motherly time. It's the time with which we feel one instead of outside of it, the self, the tao, the love that connects us to others.

  Jean Shinoda Bolen

  Time, Moving, Eye

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• Once the ego is not there, there is no expectation, frustration, no desire, no despair. Suddenly one finds oneself falling into a deep harmony with the cosmos. And that harmony is God; that harmony is nirvana; that harmony is tao.

  Rajneesh

  Fall, Frustration, Expectations

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• Every day, mindful practice. When the mind is disciplined then the Way can work for us. Otherwise, all we do is talk of Tao; everything is just words; and the world will know us as its one great fool.

  Li Ching-Yuen

  Practice, Mind, World

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• Tao is beyond words and beyond understanding. Words may be used to speak of it, but they cannot contain it. Tao existed before words and names, before heaven and earth, before the ten thousand things. It is the unlimited father and mother of all limited things. Therefore, to see beyond boundaries to the subtle heart of things, dispense with names, with concepts, with expectations and ambitions and differences. Tao and its many manifestations arise from the same source: subtle wonder within mysterious darkness. This is the beginning of all understanding.

  Laozi

  Mother, Father, Heart

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• Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in word or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence Tao is apprehended.

  Zhuangzi

  Silence, Taoism

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• When a country is in harmony with the Tao, the factories make trucks and tractors. When a country goes counter to the Tao, warheads are stockpiled outside the cities. There is no greater illusion than fear, no greater wrong than preparing to defend yourself, no greater misfortune than having an enemy. Whoever can see through all fear will always be safe.

  Laozi

  Country, Fear, Cities

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• If you can let go of (the Tao) with your mind and surround it with your heart, it will live inside you forever.

  Laozi

  Letting Go, Heart, Forever

  Laozi, Brian Browne Walker (1992). “Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu”

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• Can you dissolve your ego? Can you abandon the idea of self and other? Can you relinquish the notions of male and female, short and long, life and death? Can you let go of all these dualities and embrace the Tao without skepticism or panic? If so, you can reach the heart of the Integral Oneness.

  Laozi

  Letting Go, Heart, Self

  Laozi, Brian Browne Walker (1992). “Hua Hu Ching: Teachings of Lao Tzu”

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• Your mind must become one, do not try to understand with your ears but with your heart. Indeed, not with your heart but with your soul.

  Zhuangzi

  Heart, Soul, Mind

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• Knowing constancy, the mind is open.
  With an open mind, you will be openhearted.
  Being openhearted you will act royally.
  Being royal, you will attain the divine.
  Being divine, you will be at one with the Tao.
  Being at one with the Tao is eternal.
  Though the body dies, the Tao will never pass away.

  Laozi

  Heart, Knowing, Mind

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

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• There are no greater adversaries than yin and yang, because nothing in Heaven or on Earth escapes them. But it is not yin and yang that do this, it is your heart that makes it so.

  Zhuangzi

  Heart, Heaven, Yang

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• Our western mind lacking all culture in this respect, has never yet devised a concept, not even a name for "the union of opposites through the middle path", that most fundamental item of inward experience which could respectably be set against the Chinese concept of Tao.

  Carl Jung

  Opposites, Names, Chinese

  Carl Gustav Jung, Richard Francis Carrington Hull (1992). “Two Essays on Analytical Psychology”, p.205, Psychology Press

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