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Taoism Quotes

“He who is in harmony with the Tao is like a newborn child. Its bones are soft, its muscles are weak, but its grip is powerful. It doesn't know about the union of male and female, yet its penis can stand erect, so intense is its vital power. It can scream its head off all day, yet it never becomes hoarse, so complete is its harmony. The Master's power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old.”

PhilosophyBalanceTaoismTaoTao Te Ching
Book:Tao Te Ching
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“The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again.”

LifeDeathPleasureAcceptanceLife And DeathTaoism
Book:The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
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“Certainly we can say that the pace of modern life, increased and supported by our technology in general and our personal electronics in particular, has resulted in a short attention span and an addiction to the influx of information. A mind so conditioned has little opportunity to think critically, and even less chance to experience life deeply by being in the present moment. A complex life with complicated activities, relationships and commitments implies a reflexive busy-ness that supplants true thinking and feeling with knee-jerk reactions. It is a life high in stress and light on substance, at least in the spiritually meaningful dimensions of being.”

LifeSelfPhilosophyScienceSimpleEmotionTechnologyMeditationSocietyStressPressureSimplicityComplicatedThoughtSubstancePhilosophy Of LifeTaoismFeelingBeingModern LifeCritical ThinkingModern SocietyHecticDaoism
Author:Arthur Rosenfeld
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“Now, if you open the treasure chest of desire, what do you find there? What do all the desires have in common? You. Go ahead and stop here and test it for a few days if you are really serious about the question. After you get past the first thousand, you begin to enter into a subtle territory, known as the border between desire and yearning. Or, if you want, between answers and questions. The defining quality, or essence, of desire is that it is engaged as if it were an answer.”

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“True strength. There is no conflict with vulnerability or humility. Indeed, vulnerability and humility are essential here, and ultimately what makes strength true. One does not don the mask of strength in response to fear, which is a con, like those crazy small reptiles that stand up on their hind legs and spread useless wings to intimidate as a last resort. You stand there in self-respect for Christ’s sake and take it with some courage, responding in accordance with your honest values, taking sincere responsibility for them. Stand up for who you truly are, not the image you would like to sell, nor shrink to fit into the false harmony around you.”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeValuesCreativityCourageStrengthHonestyBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills DevelopmentTrue Strength
Book:Re:
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“But spontaneity is not by any means a blind, disorderly urge, a mere power of caprice. A philosophy restricted to the alternatives of conventional language has no way of conceiving an intelligence which does not work according to plan, according to a one-at-a-time order of thought. Yet the concrete evidence of such an intelligence is right to hand in our own thoughtlessly ordered bodies. For the Tao does not 'know' how it produces the universe just as we do not 'know' how we construct our brains.”

PhilosophyIntelligenceTaoismSpontaneity
Book:The Way of Zen
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“The infinite possibilities that exist in any given moment cause infinite possibilities in response. The wording is correct here; the possibilities exist already, and have already caused the existing possibilities of response.”

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“The ability to remain constant, whole and playful, even while working technically, concentrating and upholding urgency, is essential to achieve a state of balance that will allow for this to happen. This has to come to life, and cannot stay just an idea or hope or intention or imitation, or ignored. The guarantee and proof that this balance and power is real is in its actualization. That is, that it manifests in functional reality. As in any intention, whether that be vague or specific, an ambition or desire, a goal or state of being, a question or hope, a curiosity or purpose, there exist natural and unnatural obstacles to its realization.”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeImaginationCreativityBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation.”

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“Life will give you what you need once you will do something with it. It may not give you what you want so as to be as comfortable as you want, as Nature’s concern is need as it relates to evolution. In my humble opinion, Nature is too kind, but, as I say, the game is big, and the challenges and temptations absolute. And this is a fascinating aspect of the totality of beauty; it gives more than is only necessary. The generosity is mind- and heart boggling.”

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“Sometimes I wonder how much of our suffering we allow or impose on ourselves simply in search of our worthiness to accept our own respect and appreciation. I’d written before some years ago that we often cause suffering in another so that we can then love them, as in, “You have suffered for me, so I can love you now.” The eventual shock of realizing the sacrifice made for you destroys the walls of self-righteousness and protection. The suffering sacrifice of another creates the willingness and capacity to do the same. Finally, love and respect (respect is part of the body of love) come from the recognition of something else already given up for them. Within the individual, you or me, a similar process takes place toward oneself. It is as if we know some- where that we are not worthy of our own love or respect until we have earned the right to it, and that is mainly through some kind of suffering. That suffering may be generic, as in a life lived in which tragedy after tragedy accumulate, or it may be specific, as in the constant sacrifice of other easier things for a being or vision. Or, perhaps more correctly, it is either consciously chosen or not.”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeImaginationCreativityBuddhismEvolutionRespectConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“One could make a nice link between imagination and spirit. To make that link, all we need is some inspiration. Essentially, imagination has the innate potential to compel or inspire and to set in motion causation. That’s why it exists.”

HumorInspirationHappinessSpiritPurposeImaginationCreativityBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“Preceding the birth of every religion, there was someone who was an incarnation of this process: imagination causes inspiration causes intuition causes beauty, which causes imagination…the dynamic that takes place in the dimension of spirit. That is, for whatever reasons that will remain mysterious, although they are suggested in various schools of thought, someone got the cause thing down right, and the rest flowed. After the fact, an effort was made, almost always by others, to control both the impact of this and the possible benefits from it. Ambition and desire took over. Where you had an exact presentation, or manifestation, of beauty and truth, somebody began using it for other purposes.”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeImaginationCreativityBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“If your curiosity reaches a breaking point (compelled actually means that you only have the remaining choice to act on it, having tried all the other options before), and becomes fascination with mystery or truth, you find what you need. Maybe it’s a person, maybe it’s a tragedy, maybe it’s an explosive recognition that, “My God, I’m still alive.”

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“It takes a relative amount of courage just to get out of bed each day. There are those who are stronger in their courage, and they help to compel us along a little further in the fulfillment of our faith.”

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“My take on personal evolution is largely about the spirit of connecting and disconnecting things, relating to what I call “the gap” or time and space between things. It is also about becoming practical in all this, developing the power and precision to simply bring the grand ideas home, to compress the paradigm of perception/choice/action/result into a single gesture.”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeImaginationCreativityBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“What you have to do to achieve what you want necessitates the creative actualization of the totality of your being as it is. Nothing more, but also nothing less.”

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“The seed of all this is imagination. But when you think of imagination, it helps to view it more as it exists in the rest of nature, rather than as we tend to see it in humans. That is, that imagination is actual and a need, immediately searches for expression, and con- sequently, is intimately connected to yearning and its instantaneous application. This is also the case in human beings, but we generally associate it with unnecessary, or extra, expression, such as an ability to make something more attractive or stimulating (the current view of art, for example), or the creative use of “free time” (time left over after you have done what you had to do).”

HumorInspirationHappinessPurposeImaginationCreativityCreationBuddhismEvolutionConscienceTransformationCuriosityIntuitionZenWell BeingTaoismMysticismAlchemyComparative ReligionCobaltsaffronDarrell CalkinsAsian PhilosophyCobaltsaffron RetreatDarrell Calkins CobaltsaffronDarrell Calkins RetreatDarrell Calkins SeminarCobalt Saffron RetreatDarrell Calkins Cobalt SaffronPersonal Skills Development
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“In an animal’s or a plant’s expression of imagination (let’s leave out the rest for now, so we don’t have to deal with the question of consciousness in, for example, minerals), there is always purity in the connection between need and evolution. That which is created is a response to reality and very specific, essential concerns. This then is the origin of the union between what is so and mysterious harmony—truth and beauty. The bridge between them is inspired intuition and the actions it causes. Or, imagination causes inspiration causes intuition causes beauty, which then causes imagination again…”

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“The exact proportion and combination of the qualities within you, as they are, even while you search and struggle for them to be different or better, is a unique beauty.”

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“Of course, the self-righteous demand and expectation for love, and exactly how it should be expressed, is not the most streamlined method for producing it in another for you. That is, it does not compel or create the love itself. You’re neither loving nor producing that which would compel the love toward you. You’re compressed between them both and incapable of accepting either. And rightly so. Which then accelerates the accumulating suffering.”

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“The composite of what you know to do—that which compels you, that which you are naturally already drawn to, that which exploits the unique potentials inside you, that which you know you are capable of doing, that which will build a bridge between imagination and reality—causes a relationship that obliges sacrifice.”

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“Because as you become better at everything, as the innate skills actually manifest in reality, the bar rises for the next jump. The core demand for evolution is relentless, and respect, happiness, love and joy are irrevocably tied to it.”

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“One of the great images to come down to us through Zen Buddhism is the encounter between an enlightened master and an advanced apprentice during the course of a shared meal. The apprentice, becoming fed up with the stress and waiting and the master’s apparent disregard for him, demands an explanation without complication of exactly how to become enlightened. The master asks, “Have you finished your rice?” “Yes,” says the apprentice. “Then go wash your bowl.”

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“Let your eyes see what they see, not what others want you to see. Let your ears hear what they naturally hear, not what others want you to hear. Let your mouth speak your mind freely and not be constrained by other people's approval or disapproval. Let your mind think what it wants to think and not let other people's demands dictate your thoughts. If your senses and your mind are not allowed to do what they want to do naturally, you are denying them their rights. When you cannot think, sense, feel, or act freely, then your body and mind are injured. Break these oppressions, and you will cultivate life.”

InspirationalFreedomIndividualityTaoismFreedom Of SpeechConstraintsFreedom Of ThoughtThink For Yourself
Book:Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living
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“When I speak of good hearing, I do not mean listening to others; I mean simply listening to yourself. When I speak of good eyesight, I do not mean looking at others; I mean simply looking at yourself. He who does not look at himself but looks at others, who does not get hold of himself but gets hold of others, is getting what other men have got and failing to get what he himself has got. He finds joy in what brings joy to other men, but finds no joy in what would bring joy to himself.”

JoyIndividualitySelf RealizationTaoismDifference
Book:The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu
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“The ancients said that for persons who cultivated body and mind, and who are virtuous and honorable, death is an experience of liberation, a long-awaited rest from a lifetime of labors. Death helps the unscrupulous person to put an end to the misery of desire. Death, then, for everyone is a kind of homecoming. That is why the ancient sages speak of a dying person as a person who is 'going home.”

HomeDeathPeaceDyingLife And DeathTaoismRestHomecomingRest In Peace
Book:Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living
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“It is not that you are capable of allowing them to do it to you but that you are incapable of preventing them. What use is it to you to have this effect on people, which is so incompatible with your own peace? If you insist of having an effect, it will unbalance your true nature and to no purpose.”

PeaceLeadershipWealthPowerFameTaoismSoothing
Book:Tales from the Tao: The Wisdom of the Taoist Masters
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“The highest goodness is like water. Water is beneficial to all things but not contend. It stays in places which others despise. Therefore it is near Tao. The weakest things in the world can overmatch the strongest things in the world. Nothing in the world can be compared to water for its weak and yielding nature; yet in attacking the hard and strong nothing proves better than water. For there is no alternative to it. The weak can overcome and the yielding can overcame the hard. This all the world knows but does not practice. This again is the practice of ‘wu-wel’ and nonviolence. Water may be weak, pliable, fluid, but its action is not one of running away from an obstacle. On the contrary, it gives at the point of resistance, envelopes the object and passes beyond it. Ultimately it will wear down the hardest rock. Water is a more telling symbol than land… crossing the river to get to the other side is, again, attaining the state of enlightenment.”

PeaceWaterChallengesCompassionStrengthBalanceGoodnessOvercomingCalmZenGenerosityGentleIronyTaoismStrongestStillnessLovingTaoGentlenessCalmnessLegendLoving KindnessGo With The FlowMettaCollected
Author:J.C. Cooper
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“Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see. In fact, there is no distinction between the viewer and the seen. You experience everything with the totality of yourself, so that every blade of grass, every mountain, every lake is alive and is a part of you. When there is no division between you and what is other, this is the ultimate experience of traveling.”

JourneyTravelZenTaoismNondualityTravelingTrip
Book:Lieh-tzu: A Taoist Guide to Practical Living
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“What is the difference between Zen and Tao? Roshi - "Look at this perfect peach. This must be Zen." Sensei - "If so, then see this wondrous tree here who gave us our peach, it is the Tao." Roshi - "Then look to the Earth from where the tree emerges. that is Zen. Sensei - "Then look to the sky whose wind blows through the leaves and whose clouds bring it the water of life." it is the Tao. Roshi - "Then look to the silent witnessing stars spanning through infinity they are so very Zen" Sensei ~ "Yet look at the space between all these stars, that must be the Tao." Then they smiled broadly and laughed hysterically "look at our many words they are like the dead leaves of this tree. What a bonfire we can now make.”

ZenTaoismTaoZen Buddhism
Book:Random Molecular Mirroring
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“One of the blessings of easy communication between the great cultures of the world is that partisanship in religion and philosophy is ceasing to be intellectually respectable. Pure religions are as rare as pure cultures, and it is mentally crippling to suppose that there must be a number of fixed bodies of doctrine among which one must choose, where choice means accepting the system entirely or not at all. [...]. Those who rove freely through the various traditions, accepting what they can use and rejecting what they cannot, are condemned as undisciplined syncretists. But the use of one's reason is not a lack of discipline, not is there any important religion which is not itself a syncretism, a "growing up together" of ideas and practices of diverse origin.”

ZenTaoism
Book:psychotherapy east and west
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