“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.”

You are still guided by your expectations.

Let everything be allowed to do what it naturally does, so that its nature will be satisfied.

The right way to go easy is to forget the right way.

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.

When the shoe fits, the foot is forgotten. When the belt fits, the belly is forgotten. When the heart is right, “for” and “against” are forgotten. No drives, no compulsions, no needs, no attractions: Then your affairs are under control. You are a free man.

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 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?

Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Do this and your understanding will be like not understanding and your wisdom will be like not being wise. By not being wise you will become wise later.

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.

Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things.

Birth is not a beginning; death is not an end. There is existence without limitation; there is continuity without a starting point.

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.

If one is true to one’s inner self, and follows its wisdom, who is without a teacher?

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.

A sage steers by the bright light of confusion and doubt.

To have attained to the human form is a source of joy. What an incomparable bliss it is to undergo these countless transitions.

Mindfulness is a pause – the space between stimulus and response: that’s where choice lies.

In order to reprogram the subconscious mind, you need to relax the body. Release the tension. Let the emotions go. Get to a state of openness and receptivity. You are always in change. You are always safe.

Filling my mind with pleasant thoughts is the quickest road to health.

This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.

I’m not sure what I’ll do, but— well, I want to go places and see people. I want my mind to grow. I want to live where things happen on a big scale.

The fear of infinity is a form of myopia that destroys the possibility of seeing the actual infinite, even though it in its highest form has created and sustains us, and in its secondary transfinite forms occurs all around us and even inhabits our minds.

To change the printout of the body, you must learn to rewrite the software of the mind.

The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.