🌊 Serene

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

The earth has music for those who listen.

Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

Confine yourself to the present.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

Hope is a waking dream.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.

Demand not that events should happen as you wish; but wish them to happen as they do happen, and you will go on well.

Does it pass you by? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you.

Be content, then, with being a philosopher in all things; and if you wish also to appear so to any one, appear so to yourself, and it will be enough.

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you.

Never say about anything, 'I have lost it,' but only 'I have given it back.'

Practice not to be hurried away by the appearance; make delay, and you will more easily become master of yourself.

Silence is a source of great strength.

No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time.

Curb your desires, don't set your heart on so many things and you will get what you need.

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

When you have closed your doors and made all dark within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; God is within, and your genius is within.

Whose choices are unhampered, whose desires attain their end, whose aversions do not fall into what they would avoid.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

The marks of a proficient man are that he censures no one, praises no one, blames no one, accuses no one, says nothing concerning himself as being any body, or knowing any thing.

If any one compliments him, he laughs to himself at the person who compliments him; and if any one censures him, he makes no defense.

He has suppressed all desire in himself, and transferred his aversion only to the things contrary to nature which are within his own power.

He uses moderate exertion in all things. If he appears foolish or ignorant, he does not care.

Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens happens the way it happens: then you will be happy.

And if we preserve this in every action, we shall enter upon the action with greater safety.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

The Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything.

Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect.

The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all of creation without trying to compete with it.

In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

Can you let your body become as supple and yielding as a newborn child's?

Can you cleanse your inner vision until you see nothing but the light?

See the world as yourself. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as yourself; then you can care for all things.

They were watchful, like men crossing a winter stream; alert, like men aware of danger; courteous, like visiting guests.

Yielding, like melting ice; simple, like uncarved wood; empty, like a valley; obscure, like muddy water.

Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace.

Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity.

When you are at one with the Tao, you will live long and your life will be exempt from decay.

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.

I am different from other people: I drink from the Great Mother's breast.

He doesn't boast, therefore he has merit. He doesn't glorify himself, therefore he endures.

The ancient saying, 'Yield and overcome,' is not an empty phrase. Truly, if you yield, you will be whole.

It is the Mother of all things under heaven. I do not know its name, but I call it Tao.

The Master travels all day without leaving home. However splendid the views, she rests quietly in her being.

The Master sees things as they are, without trying to control them. She lets them go their own way, and resides at the center of the circle.

The Master avoids excess, extravagance, and complacency.

The Tao is like a great river that flows everywhere. It is the Mother of the world.

Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. Close your mouth, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare.

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.

The great Tao flows everywhere, both to the left and to the right. All things depend on it for life, yet it doesn't hold on to them.

When they are transformed, and desire raises its head, I quell it with the nameless simplicity.

Nameless simplicity brings absence of desire. The absence of desire leads to stillness. And the world reaches peace of its own accord.

Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity.

I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.

Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse.

What is the seal of liberation? No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

It is the quietest words that bring on the storm. Thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world.

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.

The greatest events—they are not our loudest but our stillest hours.

Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.

The voice of beauty speaks softly: it steals only into the most awakened souls.

You must learn to love yourself with a healthy, wholehearted love, so that you can bear being with yourself and not need to roam.

You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.

We do not 'come into' this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

You are the universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.

The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.

If you cannot enjoy the present moment, you can never enjoy anything at all. For there is never any time at which you can live except the present.

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with great telescopes.

You are not something that is a visitor on the earth and doesn't belong here. You are the earth.

To breathe in, you must breathe out. To live, you must give up the clutch on life.

The more you try to hold on to your life, the more elusive it becomes. It is like trying to clasp water in your hand.

When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float.

Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

The art of living does not consist in careless drifting on the one hand or in fearful clinging on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment.

Treat each moment as utterly new and unique, having no past and no future.

When we open our eyes and look at the world without words, what is seen is just this: a magnificent, shimmering dance of energy.

Real wealth consists in having clean water, fresh air, healthy food, and good friends with whom to share them.

Light cannot exist without darkness, nor solid without space. They go together like crest and trough of a wave.

A genuine saint never considers himself holy. He considers himself a normal human being who knows how to be himself.

Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant.

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

It is not something you do in order to get somewhere else. It is the realization that you are already there.

The water does not intend to reflect the moon, and the moon has no desire to be reflected in the water.

Wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; the water has no mind to receive their image.

You are already that which you are seeking.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

To love someone is to grant them the space to be completely themselves.

The world is not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects.

We do not need to invent meaning; we are meaning. Every leaf, every bug, every cloud is an answer to a question no one needed to ask.

When you get into a cloud, you find that there is nothing to grasp. Life is cloud-like: soft, billowy, and ungraspable.

The clouds in the sky do not worry about where they are going. They go where the wind takes them, and in doing so, they water the earth.

If you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water.

When you listen to the birds singing, do you ask what they mean? The song of the bird is its own meaning.

The purpose of the eye is to see; the purpose of the flower is to bloom; the purpose of your life is simply to be.

If you want to understand the universe, listen to the silence beneath the noise.

Silence is the great canvas on which the music of existence is painted.

Relax into the current. The river knows the way to the sea.

Let go, and you find that the universe catches you every single time.

You are the eyes through which the cosmos gazes upon its own glory.

You are the ears through which the universe listens to its own harmony.

Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.

There is no rush, nowhere else you need to be. Just breathe, and be here.

Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.

This is the real secret of life - to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now.

Synchronicity is an ever-present reality for those who have eyes to see.

The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.

Things are as they are. Looking out into the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

Outgrowing requires a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest appeared on the patient's horizon, and through this broadening of his outlook, the insoluble problem lost its urgency.

What is necessary is to give space to the quiet, subtle processes of the soul that happen when we cease to force our will.

The mandala is an archetypal image whose occurrence is attested throughout the ages. It signifies the wholeness of the Self.

Through the creation of mandalas, the soul heals itself and restores its inner balance.

Every life is a story, whether it is written down or not.

Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.

Faith, Hope, Love, and Insight: these are the four great healing powers.

Your heart will never find rest until you find your home within yourself.

He who has not found the silence within will be battered by the noise without.

But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is.

Do not hold on to someone who is leaving, for you will not meet the one who is arriving.

Your soul has its own timing. Be patient with its ripening.

As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.

Those who follow the Tao are of one with the Tao. Those who follow virtue are of one with virtue.

My barrenness of wisdom is no defect, but an invitation for truth to take birth in those who listen.

Flow with whatever may happen, and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing.

We approach nearest to the gods when we have the fewest wants.

He is richest who is content with the least, for contentment is the true abundance of nature.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death, nor are his affairs neglected by the gods.

Pray simply for what is good, leaving the gods to decide what is truly good for us.

The secret of human freedom lies not in expanding our desires, but in learning to need less.

Do not grieve for that which you have not, but rejoice for that which you have.

The beauty of the soul shines outward when a man bears with equanimity one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.

I think it would be better for my lyre to be out of tune, and that the multitude should disagree with me, rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.