@rookie54 saidRookie, your fountain seems inexhaustible. I come to drink here often and refresh myself.
If the eye never falls asleep,
all dreams cease by themselves.
If the spirit retains its unity,
all things are of one essence.
When this essence is seen,
in an instant we are free.
We return to the origin
and remain that which we are.
- Seng-ts’an (d.606)
Eye cannot see It,
Tongue cannot utter It,
Mind cannot grasp It.
There is no way to learn or to teach It.
It is different from the known,
Beyond the unknown.
In this all the ancient masters agree.
- Upanishads
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1
The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.
Tao Te Ching
When people of the world
Look for this path amid the clouds,
It vanishes,
Without a trace.
The high peaks
Have many precipices;
On the widest gulleys
Hardly a gleam falls.
Green walls close
Behind and before;
White clouds gather
East and west.
Do you want to know
Where the cloud-path lies?
The cloud-path leads from sky to sky.
- Han Shan
Deep green needles glow
Against a cobalt sky;
They radiate something
Only a few can sense.
Snow white peaks,
Summits shrouded in clouds,
Shine and echo,
Shine and echo
Through both sides
Of the skin line.
Oh, in all this lies
Some deep implication,
Yet when I try to say more,
I become silent, mute.
- Ji Aoi Isshi
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“He who would so win it destroys it;
he who would hold it in his grasp loses it.”
― Lao Tzu
If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance, no root,
No basis, no abode, but is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility, but its function
Cannot be located; when you look for it you become
Further from it. When you seek it
You turn away from it all the more.
- Rinzai (~d.867)
"You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence? It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.”
― Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh
@Suzianne
"I confess that I am sitting under a pine tree doing absolutely nothing. I have done nothing for one hour and firmly intend to continue to do nothing for an indefinite period. I have taken my shoes off. I confess that I have been listening to a mockingbird. I hear him singing in those cedars, and I am very sorry. It is probably my fault. He is singing again. This kind of thing goes on all the time. Wherever I am, I find myself the center of reactionary plots like this one."
Thomas Merton, from "A Signed Confession of Crimes Against the State."