Don’t seek fame or fortune,
Glory or prosperity.
Just pass this life as it is,
According to circumstances.
When the breath is gone,
Who is in charge?
After the death of the body,
There is only an empty name.
How long can a phantom like
Body last?

- Tung-shan (807-869)

Attain the center of emptiness,
Preserve the utmost quiet;
As myriad things act in concert,
I thereby observe the return.
Things flourish,
Then each returns to its root.
Returning to the root
Is called stillness:
Stillness is called return to Life,
Return to Life is called the constant;
Knowing the constant is called enlightenment.

- Tao-te Ching

What sages learn
Is to return their nature
To the beginning
And let their minds
Travel freely in
Openness.
What developed people
Learn is to link their nature
To vast emptiness and
Become aware of the
Silent infinite.

- Huai-nan-tzu

Sages send their spirit
To the storehouse of awareness
And return to the beginning
Of the myriad things.
They look at the formless,
Listen to the soundless.
In the midst of profound
Darkness,
They alone see light;
In the midst of silent vastness,
They alone have
Illumination.

- Huai-nan-tzu

@rookie54 said
Don’t seek fame or fortune,
Glory or prosperity.
Just pass this life as it is,
According to circumstances.
When the breath is gone,
Who is in charge?
After the death of the body,
There is only an empty name.
How long can a phantom like
Body last?

- Tung-shan (807-869)

Sages lean on a pillar
That is never shaken,
Travel a road that is
Never blocked, are
Endowed from a
Resource that is never
Exhausted, and learn
From a teacher that
Never dies.
They are successful
In whatever they undertake,
And arrive wherever they go.
Whatever they do, they
Embrace destiny and go along
Without confusion.

- Wen-tzu

Those who are known
As real people
Are united in essence
With the Way,
So they have endowments, yet
Appear to have none;
They are full, yet
Appear to be empty.
They govern the inside,
Not the outside.
Clear and pure, utterly plain,
They do not contrive
Artificialities but return
To simplicity.

- Lao tzu

Comprehending the fundamental,
Embracing the spirit,
Roam the root of heaven and earth,
Wander beyond the dust and dirt,
Travel to work at non-involvement.
Take care not to let mechanical
Intelligence burden your mind;
Watch what is not temporal
And remain unmoved by things.

- Lao tzu

Bone-chilling snow;
On a thousand peaks
Wild raging wind from
Ten thousand hollows.
When I first awaken,
Deep beneath my blanket
I forget my body is
In a silent void.

- Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)

The myriad differences
Resolved by sitting,
All doors opened.
In this still place
I follow my nature,
Be what it may.
From the one hundred
Flowers I wander freely,
The soaring cliff,
A hall of meditation.

- Reizan (~1411)

Each night, I gaze upon a pond,
A Zen body sitting beside a moon.
Nothing is really there, and yet
It is all so clear and bright.
I cannot describe it.
If you would know the empty mind,
Your own mind must be
As clear and bright
As this full moon upon the water.

- Chiao Jan (785-895)

Those who attain the Tao
Are masters of themselves.
The universe is
Dissolved for them.
Throw them in the company
Of the noisy and the dirty,
And they will be like a lotus flower:
Growing from muddy water,
Touched by it, yet unstained.

- Lao Tzu

Don’t seek favor
Don’t clamber after fame.
Giving up and getting are empty
Both the same
This floating life
Is petals falling
Emptied past the eye
Serving the state
Is a dream
Serving yourself
Is the same.

- Ch’en Ts’ao-an

@rookie54

Can I ask you a serious honest question please.
Are you really into this stuff and if so why?
Two questions 😄

Edit: I’ve got nothing against it btw.

@divegeester said
@rookie54

Can I ask you a serious honest question please.
Are you really into this stuff and if so why?
Two questions 😄

Edit: I’ve got nothing against it btw.