Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu.
If you wish to care for your body, first of all take care of material things, though even when you have all the things you want, the body can still be uncared for.
Water becomes clear and transparent when in a quiescent stage. How much the more wonderful will be the mind of a sage when poised in quiescence! It is the mirror of heaven and earth, reflecting the ten thousand things.
Great knowledge sees all in one. Small knowledge breaks down into the many.
By ethical argument and moral principle the greatest crimes are eventually shown to have been necessary, and, in fact, a signal benefit to mankind.
Man may rest in the eternal fitness; he may abide in the everlasting; and roam from the beginning to the end of all creation. He may bring his nature to a condition of ONE, he may nourish his strength; he may harmonise his virtue, and so put himself into partnership with God.
Although things seem to be sometimes going up and sometimes descending, sometimes slipping away, nevertheless there is a reality, the same today as in the past. It does not change, for nothing can affect it. Could we not say it is one great harmony? So why shouldn’t we ask about it...
There is danger for the eye in seeing too clearly, danger for the ear in hearing too sharply and danger to the heart from caring too greatly.
Can a man cling to the positive without any negative in contrast to which it is seen to be positive? If he claims to do so he is a rouge or a madman.
Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.
The space under the sky is occupied by all things in their unity.
Being is thoughtless-beyond and beneath all categories of thought. Expression is the realization of creative thought. Being is still; expression, moving. But then if I do not strive, who will?
A battering ram can knock down a city wall, but it cannot stop a hole. Different things have different uses.
Birth is not the beginning, Death is not the end.
Heaven is like an egg, and the earth is like the yolk of the egg.
Men do not mirror themselves in running water – they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their TAO. But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectical skill that his may be made clear. The true sage will have none of these.
The creature born is the creature dying.
Only fools imagine they are already awake. How clearly they understand everything! How easily they distinguish this deception from that reality!
When you’re dreaming, you don’t know it’s a dream. You might even interpret a dream in your dream – and then wake up and realize it was all a dream. Perhaps a great awakening will reveal this to be a dream as well.
My most interesting memory is of my first real dream. I was a caterpillar, wriggling around in the earth, just the way a caterpillar would. Following my caterpillar whims, completely unaware of anyone.