When an archer shoots for enjoyment he has all his skill; when he shoots for a brass buckle he gets nervous; when he shoots for a prize of gold he begins to see two targets.
You will always find an answer in the sound of water.
People value that part of knowledge which is known. They do not know how to avail themselves of the Unknown in order to reach knowledge. Is this not misguided?
We cling to our own point of view as though everything depended on it. Yet our opinions have no permanence; like autumn and winter they gradually pass away.
Take care of your body then the rest will automatically become stronger.
To exercise no-thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao.
To have attained to the human form is a source of joy... What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.
When deeds and words are in accord the whole world is transformed.
He who knows the activities of Nature lives according to Nature.
Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!
Are you and I perchance caught up in a dream from which we have not yet awakened?
We are born from a quiet sleep and we die to a calm awakening
All men know the utility of useful things; but they do not know the utility of futility.
Things joined by profit when pressed by misfortune and danger will cast each other aside.
Do not let the artificial obliterate the natural; do not let will obliterate destiny; do not let virtue be sacrificed to fame.
He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.
The greatest tragedy that can befall a person is the atrophy of his mind.
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature.
When affirmation and negation came into being Tao faded. After Tao faded then came one-sided attachments.
Silence and non action are the root of all things.
Running around accusing others is not as good as laughing. And enjoying a good laugh is not as good as going along with things.
Those who follow the Tao are of clear mind. They do not load their mind with anxieties and are flexible in their adjustment to external conditions.
The knowledge of the ancients reached the highest point-the time before anything existed. This is the highest point. It is exhaustive. There is no adding to it.
Never admire a man by his strength; judge him in how he uses it- A way is made by walking it
Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
Luck implies an absolute absence of any principle.
Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
Each one's destiny cannot be altered.
The sage embraces things. Ordinary men discriminate amongst them and parade their discriminations before others. So I say; those who discriminate fail to see.
Let everything be allowed to do what it naturally does so that its nature will be satisfied.
He who regards all things as one is a companion of Nature.
Let your mind wander in simplicity blend your spirit with the vastness follow along with things the way they are and make no room for personal views - then the world will be governed.
Cease striving. Then there will be transformation.
The wise man knows that it is better to sit on the banks of a remote mountain stream than to be emperor of the whole world.
Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy
I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
Am I a human dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I am a human?
I dreamed I was a butterfly flitting around in the sky; then I awoke. Now I wonder: Am I a man who dreamt of being a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming that I am a man?
Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly...
The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet what is death but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?
Forget the years forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home!
The creature born is the creature dying.
Breathing control gives man strength vitality inspiration and magic powers.
The men of old breathed clear down to their heels.
A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.
There is no bandit so powerful as Nature. The interaction of the positive and the negative principles which produces the visible universe. In the whole universe there is no escape from it.
Great knowledge sees all in one. Small knowledge breaks down into the many.
The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror.
Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?
The true man breathes with his heels.
Sound intelligence promises victory in every battle.
He who knows he is a fool is not the biggest fool; He who knows he is confused is not in the worst confusion.
Men of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves and object to others not being like themselves.
...the ten thousand things belong to one storehouse and life and death share the same body.
The World is Large - Its beauty indescrible.
The perfect man of old looked after himself first before looking to help others.
Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.
Birth is not the beginning Death is not the end.
Being is thoughtless-beyond and beneath all categories of thought. Expression is the realization of creative thought. Being is still; expression moving. But then if I do not strive who will?
The effect of life in society is to complicate and confuse our existence making us forget who we really are by causing us to become obsessed with what we are not.
The torch of doubt and chaos this is what the sage steers by.
Heaven does without doing through its purity Earth does without doing through its calmness.
To go outside what your charge was and to try to solve everything yourself is dangerous.
Great knowledge is universal. Small knowledge is limited. Great words are inspiring; small words are chatter.
Cherish that which is in you and shut out that which is without for much knowledge is a curse.
Can a man cling to the positive without any negative in contrast to which it is seen to be positive? If he claims to do so he is a rouge or a madman.
If the Way is made clear it is not the Way.
When you are identified with the One all things will be complete to you.
A frog in a well cannot conceive of the ocean.
The Way is to man as rivers and lakes are to fish the natural condition of life.
To be truly ignorant be content with your own knowledge.
Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned small speech cantankerous.
The man who has some respect for his person keeps his carcass out of sight hides himself as perfectly as he can.
By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary and in fact a signal benefit to mankind.
If you wish to care for your body first of all take care of material things though even when you have all the things you want the body can still be uncared for
The ultimate happiness is doing nothing.
In the midst of darkness he alone sees the dawn; in the midst of the soundless he alone hears harmony.
Fish live in water. Men die in it.Nature is diverse and not all tastes are the same.
Horses have hoofs to carry them over frost and snow; hair to protect them from wind and cold. They eat grass and drink water and fling up their heels.... Such is the real nature of horses.
Human life is limited but knowledge is limitless. To drive the limited in pursuit of the limitless is fatal; and to presume that one really knows is fatal indeed!
The true man of the past waited upon Heaven when dealing with people and did not wait upon people when dealing with Heaven.
True depth of understanding is wide and steady Shallow understanding is lazy and wandering Words of wisdom are precise and clear
If water derives lucidity from stillness how much more the faculties of the mind.
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.
Men honor what lies within the sphere of their knowledge but do not realize how dependent they are on what lies beyond it.
A battering ram can knock down a city wall but it cannot stop a hole. Different things have different uses.
For we can only know that we know nothing and a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
To examine oneself makes good use of sight.
To forget the whole world is easy; to make the whole world forget you is hard.
Your preciousness lies in your essence; it cannot be lost by anything that happens.
Transmit the established facts; do not transmit words of exaggeration. If you do that you will probably come out all right.
When I talk about having good hearing I don't mean just listening but listening to yourself. When I talk about good eyesight I don't mean just looking but looking at yourself.
If you have insight you use your inner eye your inner ear to pierce to the heart of things and have no need of intellectual knowledge.
There is danger for the eye in seeing too clearly danger for the ear in hearing too sharply and danger to the heart from caring too greatly.
You are still guided by your expectations.
The right way to go easy is to forget the right way...
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.
The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror - going after nothing welcoming nothing responding but not storing.
Tao is the source of both fullness and emptiness. But it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.
The man who has forgotten self may be said to have entered Heaven.
The eyes envy the mind.
Life comes from the earth and life returns to the earth.
Listening stops with the ears the mind stops with recognition but spirit is empty and waits on all things.
The enlightened attention rejects nothing nor welcomes anything-like a mirror it responds equally to all.
Heaven is like an egg and the earth is like the yolk of the egg.
When the heart is right "for" and "against" are forgotten.
It is only when the formed learns from the unformed that there is understanding.
To have a human form is a joyful thing.
Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning you can forget the words.
Those who realise their folly are not true fools.
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free.
A man who knows he is a fool is not a great fool.
If one is true to one's inner self and follows its wisdom who is without a teacher?
You cannot speak of ocean to a well-frog the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect the creature of a season.
Good fortune is as light as a feather but nobody knows how to pick it up. Misfortune is as heavy as earth but nobody knows how to stay out of it's way.
I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy as I go walking along the same river.
All the fish needs is to get lost in the water. All man needs is to get lost in Tao.
Life is finite While knowledge is infinite.
Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things and you will find yourself at one with the mysterious unity of the Universe.
Understanding that rests in what it does not understand is the finest.
My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it.
If you have grasped the purpose of life there is no point in trying to make life into something it is not or cannot be.
A petty thief is put in jail. A great brigand becomes a ruler of a Nation.
Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone
The fish trap exists because of the fish: once you have gotten the meanings you can forget the words.
The little child learns to speak though it has no learned teachers - because it lives with those who know how to speak.
Either in conflict with others or in harmony with them we go through life like a runaway horse unable to stop.
That knowledge which stops at what it does not know is the highest knowledge.
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.
Everything has what is innate everything has what is necessary.
When people do not ignore what they should ignore but ignore what they should not ignore this is known as ignorance.
The sound of water says what I think.
Only the intelligent knows how to identify all things as one. . . . When one is at ease with himself one is near Tao. This is to let Nature take its own course.
The whole world is incapable of judging either right or wrong. but it is certain that actionless action can judge both right and wrong.
Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.
Rewards and punishment is the lowest form of education.
He who has mastered the true nature of life does not labor over what life cannot do. He who has mastered the true nature of fate does not labor over what knowledge cannot change.
Verily God does not reward man for what he does but for what he is.
A path is made by walking on it.
The perfect man uses his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing. It regrets nothing. It receives but does not keep.
All men know the use of the useful but nobody knows the use of the useless. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so that I can have a word with him?
There is a beginning. There is no beginning of that beginning ... There is something. There is nothing.
The space under the sky is occupied by all things in their unity.
Let your mind wander in the pure and simple. Be one with the infinite. Let all things take their course.
Why don't you try wandering with me to the Palace of Not-Even-Anything
The Tao has no place for pettiness and nor has Virtue. Pettiness is dangerous to Virtue; pettiness is dangerous to the Tao. It is said rectify yourself and be done.
Men do not mirror themselves in running water - they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
To be constant is to be useful. To be useful is to realize one's true nature. Realization of one's true nature is happiness. When one reaches happiness one is close to perfection.
I am going to try speaking some reckless words and I want you to try to listen recklessly.
When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that ' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things.
The tao is made because we walk it things become what they are called.
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.