Can you coax your mind from its wandering and keep to the original oneness?

Can you let your body become supple as a newborn child’s?

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

Can love people and lead them without imposing your will?

Can you deal with the most vital matters by letting events take their course?

Can you step back from your own mind and thus understand everything?

Giving birth and nourishing, having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue.

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot, 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.

Colors blind the eye.

Sounds deafen the ear.

Flavors numb the taste.

Thoughts weaken the mind.

Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world but trusts his inner vision.

He allows things to come and go.

His heart is open as the sky.

Success is as dangerous as failure.

Hope is as hollow as fear.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?

Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky.

When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?

Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self.

When we don’t see the self as self, what do we have to fear?

See the world as your self.

Have faith in the way things are.

Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.