In the Age of Perfect Virtue, men lived among the animals and birds as members of one large family. There were no distinctions between superior and inferior to separate one man or species from another. All retained their natural Virtue and lived in a state of pure simplicity.
BENJAMIN HOFFWithout difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves – about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress of humanity. But what mattes about problems is what one does with them.
More Benjamin Hoff Quotes
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When we give up our images of self-importance and our ideas of what should be, we can help things become what they need to be.
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Reality is what one makes it. And the more negative reality one nurtures and creates, the more of it one has.
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Things just happen in the right way, at the right time. At least when you let them, when you work with circumstances instead of saying, ‘This isn’t supposed to be happening this way,’ and trying harder to make it happen some other way.
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You’d be surprised how many people violate this simple principle every day of their lives and try to fit square pegs into round holes, ignoring the clear reality that Things Are As They Are.
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Whether many people realize it yet or not, man, the Inferior Animal, has by now proved himself incapable of keeping his own species – and others – alive for very much longer. So the earth has begun its own plan to set things right.
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Modern man’s difficulties, dangerous beliefs and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness,and personal weakness are caused by his illusions about, and separation from, the natural world.
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The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.
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It means that Tao doesn’t force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done.
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Now, scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It’s just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.
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Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere over the rainbow ‘burn their toast a lot,’ said Pooh
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It is very hard to be brave,” said Piglet, sniffing slightly, “when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said: “It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.
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Knowledge and Experience do not necessarily speak the same language.
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Without difficulties, life would be like a stream without rocks and curves – about as interesting as concrete. Without problems, there can be no personal growth, no group achievement, no progress of humanity. But what mattes about problems is what one does with them.
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To Buddha, the second figure in the painting, life on earth was bitter, filled with attachments and desires that led to suffering.
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Through working in harmony with life’s circumstances, Taoist understanding changes what others may percieve as negative into something positive.
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