Quotes Laozi - page 11
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Practice non-action. Work without doing.
We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.
One who lives in accordance with nature does not go against the way of things but moves in harmony with the present moment.
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Don't think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness.
Rushing into action, you fail. Trying to grasp things, you lose them. Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
The seed of mystery lies in muddy water. How can I perceive this mystery? Water becomes clear through stillness. How can I become still? By flowing with the stream.
Let muddy water stand and it will become clear.
Who is there who can make muddy waters clear? But if allowed to remain still, it will gradually clear itself.
When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
Act non-action; undertake no undertaking; taste the tasteless.
A follower of the Way (Tao) loses something each day. Loss after loss until arriving at Non Action (Wu Wei).
Who can wait quietly until the mud settles? Who can remain still until the moment of action?
Have patience. Wait until the mud settles and the water is clear. Remain unmoving until right action arises by itself.
Muddy water, let stand, becomes clear.
Obscure, like muddy waters.
Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief and spoke like a thief. But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.
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The Way of the Sage is to act but not to compete.
