You train your eye and your vision lusts after color. You train your ear, and you long for delightful sound. You delight in doing good, and your natural kindness is blown out of shape. You delight in righteousness, and you become righteous beyond all reason. You overdo liturgy, and you turn into a ham actor. Overdo your love of music, and you play corn. Love of wisdom leads to wise contriving. Love of knowledge leads to faultfinding. If men would stay as they really are, taking or leaving these eight delights would make no difference. But if they will not rest in their right state, the eight delights develop like malignant tumors. The world falls into confusion. Since men honour these delights, and lust after them, the world has gone stone-blind. When the delight is over, they still will not let go of it....
More Quotes from Chuang Tzu:
The man in whom Tao acts without impediment harms no other being by his actions yet he does not know himself to be 'kind', to be 'gentle'.... (He) does not bother with his own interests and does not despise others who do. He does not struggle to make money and does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without relying on others and does not pride himself on walking alone. While he does not follow the crowd he won't complain of those who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him disgrace and shame do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong, always deciding 'Yes' or 'No.' The ancients said, therefore The man of Tao remains unknown. Perfect virtue produces nothing. 'No-Self' is 'True-Self'. And the greatest man is Nobody.Chuang Tzu
Those that think that wealth is the proper thing for them cannot give up their revenues those that seek distinction cannot give up the thought of fame those that cleave to power cannot give the handle of it to others. While they hold their grasp of those things, they are afraid of losing them. When they let them go, they are grieved and they will not look at a single example, from which they might perceive the folly of their restless pursuits such men are under the doom of heaven.
Chuang Tzu
Words are used to express meaning when you understand the meaning, you can forget about the words.
Chuang Tzu
Prince Wen Hui's cook was cutting up an ox.... The ox fell apart with a whisper. The bright cleaver murmured like a gentle wind. Rhythm Timing Like a sacred dance.... Prince Wen Hui Good work Your method is faultless The cook Method What I follow is Tao beyond all methods When I first began to cut up oxen I would see before me the whole ox all in one mass. After three years I no longer saw this mass. I saw the distinctions. But now I see nothing with the eye. My whole being apprehends. My senses are idle. The spirit free to work without plan follows its own instinct guided by natural line, by the secret opening, the hidden space, my cleaver finds its own way... Then I withdraw the blade, I stand still and let the joy of the work sink in. I clean the blade and put it away. Prince Wan Hui This is it My cook has shown me how I ought to live my own life.
Chuang Tzu
Uncreated To name Tao is to name no-thing. Tao is not the name of (something created). 'Cause' and 'chance' have no bearing on the Tao. Tao is a name that indicates without defining. Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in word or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence Tao is apprehended.
Chuang Tzu
Nu Yu was teaching P-liang I to be a sage. It was three days before he was able to transcend this world. After he transcended this world I waited for seven days more, and then he was able to transcend all material things. After he transcended all material things, I waited for nine days more and he was able to transcend all life. Having transcended all life, he became as clear and bright as the morning. Having become as clear and bright as the morning, he was able to see the One. Having seen the One, he was then able to abolish the distinction of past and present. Having abolished the past and present, he was then able to enter the realm of neither life nor death. Then, to him, the destruction of life did not mean death and the production of life did not mean life ...
Chuang Tzu
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