Taoism Quotes - Page 24

• Your own feelings may be reasonable or unreasonable; how can you expect others to always be reasonable? It is useful to see things in this light and thereby correct the contradictions in your expectations for yourself and others.

  Zicheng Hong

  Light, Expectations, Feelings

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• If good happens, good; if bad happens, good.

  Laozi

  Tao Te Ching, Tao Ching, Happens

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• When you are one with loss, the loss is experienced willingly.

  Laozi

  Loss, Tao Ching

  Laozi (1997). “道德经”, Vintage

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• The truest sayings are paradoxical.

  Laozi

  Paradoxical, Truest

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• So the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.

  Laozi

  Soul, Want

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• All of Chinese thinking - Confucianism, Taoism, as well as Buddhism - contains the idea that in the course of life, man will shape harmoniously those psychic and physical predispositions that he received as capital assets by unifying them and giving them form from within a center.

  Richard Wilhelm

  Buddhism, Men, Thinking

  Richard Wilhelm (2014). “Lectures on the "I Ching": Constancy and Change”, p.162, Princeton University Press

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• Wisdom is knowing that if you bend, you don't have to break. Sometimes it is necessary to go with the flow of life.

  Frederick Lenz

  Knowing, Flow, Sometimes

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• There is another kind of wisdom, the wisdom of following - the wisdom of not taking the lead with your ego.

  Frederick Lenz

  Ego, Kind, Following

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• Lao Tsu uses the anology of the tree. The old hard tree breaks and falls when the wind blows. The young tree bends and does not break. He advises us to bend and not to break.

  Frederick Lenz

  Fall, Blow, Wind

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• Taoism is not a religion, although perhaps it has been made into one by some people. Lao Tsu's way of life occurs in any spiritual philosophy.

  Frederick Lenz

  Spiritual, Philosophy, People

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• If you are not lax when at leisure, you will be effective when busy. If you are not absentminded in tranquility, that will be useful in action. If you are not hypocritical in private, that will show up in public.

  Zicheng Hong

  Leisure, Lax, Action

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• My own words are not the medicine, but a prescription; not the destination, but a map to help you reach 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.

  Laozi

  Medicine, Mind, Maps

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

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• There is a true Buddha in family life; there is a real Tao in everyday activities. If people can be sincere and harmonious, promoting communication with a cheerful demeanor and friendly words, that is much better than formal meditation practice.

  Zicheng Hong

  Real, Communication, Meditation Practice

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• Don't be too severe in criticizing people's faults; consider how much they can bear. Don't be too lofty in enjoining virtue, so people may be able to follow.

  Zicheng Hong

  People, May, Able

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• A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from darkness.

  Zicheng Hong

  Summer, Dirty, Autumn

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• Conceit and arrogance are acquired states of mind. Conquer acquired states of mind, and basic sanity can unfold. Passion and willfulness are part of false consciousness; erase false consciousness, and true consciousness will appear.

  Zicheng Hong

  Passion, Mind, Arrogance

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• Think about food on a full stomach and you find you don't care about taste. Think of lust after making love, and you find you don't care about sex. Therefore, if people always reflect on the regret they will feel afterward to forestall folly at the moment, they will be stable and will not err in action.

  Zicheng Hong

  Sex, Regret, Thinking

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• Lao Tsu says the way of life is water, to be fluid.

  Frederick Lenz

  Water, Laos, Way

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• Those who have come to an impasse should examine their original intentions; those who have succeeded should note where they are heading.

  Zicheng Hong

  Intention, Notes, Should

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• The Grand Canyon is living evidence of the power of water over a period of time. The power may not manifest immediately. Water can be very powerful, like a tidal wave.

  Frederick Lenz

  Powerful, Water, May

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• Autumn clouds, vague and obscure; The evening, lonely and chill. I felt the dampness on my garments, But saw no spot, and heard no sound of rain.

  Bai Juyi

  Summer, Lonely, Rain

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• If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.

  Zhuangzi

  Mirrors, Water, Mind

  Zhuangzi, Herbert Allen Giles (1909). “Teachings and Sayings of Chuang Tzu”, p.53, Courier Corporation

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• Beneath the light, the river and hills are beautiful, The spring breeze bears the fragrance of flowers and grass. The mud has thawed, and swallows fly around. On the warm sand, mandarin ducks are sleeping.

  Du Fu

  Beautiful, Spring, Flower

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• Cut brambles long enough, Sprout after sprout, And the lotus will bloom Of its own accord: Already waiting in the clearing, The single image of light. The day you see this, That day you will become it.

  Sun Bu'er

  Cutting, Reflection, Light

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• The relic from before birth Enters one's heart one day. Be as careful as if you were holding a full vessel, Be as gentle as if you were caressing an infant. The gate of earth should be shut tight, The portals of heaven should be first opened. Wash the yellow sprouts clean, And atop the mountain is thunder shaking the earth.

  Sun Bu'er

  Heart, Yellow, Meditation

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