What are your favourite short Taoist phrases?

The journey is the reward.

And one of my personal favorites from the Tao Teh Ching in a wonderful translation done by C. H. Wu,

Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub; It is the hole in the centre that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay; It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room; But it is these empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages, It is the intangible that makes it useful.

 

Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice, and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit, and there won't be any thieves.

 

And what do you have? Poor stupid amoral people.

 

:cheers2:

the tao is not the tao

all that other jargon is useless in the face of this

 

Maybe so but it's still fun to think about.

 

i guess it helps one approach an understanding of 'taoism' but it is the only one that should be repeated in my opinion. and even then, once it is spoken once should be forgotten.

 

Oh, I'm not so much interested in understanding "Taoism", I'm not sure that is even possible but the "sayings of Taoism" are fun to think about.

 

yea dats coo

i think the very basis of what taoism is prevents one from understanding it.

if you think you 'get' it, you really don't. (not you, i mean in general)

 

Before I read the Tao Te Ching, I had my views on life but never preached them to people, and I wasn't even able to fully articulate my views to people because I felt it would cheapen it. When I read the Tao Te Ching, I was constantly saying "this is so right, this is exactly how I've been thinking" but just couldn't put into words, just like the book acknowledges that it can't as well. Good stuff.

 

I thought about making a sexist remark, but I think I'll hold off for now.

 

Quoted from Robert Anton Wilson: Old Chinese proverb says: the wise person is Confucian when times are good, Buddhist when times are bad, and Taoist in old age.

 

Haha, that is good...


My favorite Taoist short is;

The most profound music is also the most subtle...


ZW eace:

 

Be bent and you will remain straight.
Be vacant, and you will remain full.
Be worn, and you will remain new.

Lao Tzu.

 

When you merge with the universe,
the whole world is attracted to you,
discovering through you,
its own security, peace and good health
Lao Tzu

Great talents mature slowly.
Great sounds are silent.
Great forms are shapeless.
Transcendent squareness has no corners
Lao Tzu

Only those who know
when enough is enough
can ever have enough
Lao Tzu

The space between yin and yang
is like a bellows-
empty, yet infinintly full.
The more it yields,
the more it fills
Lao Tzu

The highest good is like water,
nourishing effortlessly
flowing without prejudice
to the lowliest places.

It springs from all
who nourish their community
with a benevolent heart
as deep as an abyss,
who are incapable of lies and injustices,
who are rooted in the earth,
and whose natural rhythms of action
play midwife to the highest good
of each joyful moment.
Lao Tzu

These are just a few I've got many many more.

 

Chop wood
Carry water

 

Marvelous activity and miraculous power,
drawing water and hewing wood

 

another nice one along those lines..

Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water
After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water, do the laundry

 

life on its way returns into a mist
its quickness is its quietness again
all this world of things and men
renews their never needing to exist

- witter bynner trans, dao de jing chapter 40
Tao Te Ching by Witter Bynner, Terebess Asia Online (TAO)

 

Mzzls