Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt. Chase after money and security and your heart will never unclench. Care about people's approval and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

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?

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.

Every human being's essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

Pounding an edge to sharpness will not make it last.

The sage's Way is to act and not to contend.