Without stepping out the door, you can know the world.
Filling all the way to the brim is not as good as halting in time.
If people live in constant fear of death, and if breaking the law is punished by death, then who would dare?
Praise leads to weakness. Getting it causes fear, losing it causes fear.
Taking things lightly must lead to big difficulties.
The sage attends to the belly, and not to what he sees.
The sage governs by emptying senses and filling bellies.
People take death lightly. They expect too much of life. That is why people take death lightly.
When the uncarved wood is split, its parts are put to use. When the sage is put to use, he becomes the head.
We go from birth to death. Three out of ten follow life. Three out of ten follow death. People who rush from birth to death are also three out of ten. Why is that so? Because they want to make too much of life.
The sage wears coarse clothes, concealing jade.
All things carry yin and embrace yang. They reach harmony by blending with the vital breath.
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.
The great image lacks shape.
So the unwanting soul sees what's hidden, and the ever-wanting soul sees only what it wants.
A good wanderer leaves no trace.
Water uses itself to go beyond whatever it needs to go beyond.
Taoism is the way of water. The most frequent element or symbol refered to in Lao Tzu's wrtings is the symbol of water.
We create ying and yang, yes and no, plus and minus.
Just as when water is frozen in to a form as ice and then melts - so at the time of death, there is no death. The spirit simply changes form.
True zazen is surrendering every moment. But surrendering to what? It really does not matter what we call it: God or the Tao or the Dharma or the Buddha or our true nature. . . . It is the act of letting go, of surrendering, that matters. The very act of letting go opens us up completely.
Our body is a small universe; to regulate emotions and feelings is a way of harmonization.
When the liver is diseased, the eyesight fails; when the kidneys are diseased, the hearing is adversely affected. The disease is not visible, but its effects are. Therefore, enlightened people, wishing to be free from obvious faults, first get rid of hidden faults.
When the rich and well-established, who should be generous, are instead spiteful and cruel, they make their behavior wretched and base in spite of their wealth and position. When the intellectually brilliant, who should be reserved, instead show off, they are ignorant and foolish in their weakness in spite of their brilliance.
Soil with a lot of manure in it produces abundant crops; water that is too clear has no fish. Therefore, enlightened people should maintain the capacity to accept impurities and should not be solitary perfectionists.
