I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river.

The birth of a man is the birth of his sorrow. The longer he lives, the more stupid he becomes, because his anxiety to avoid unavoidable death becomes more and more acute. What bitterness! He lives for what is always out of reach! His thirst for survival in the future makes him incapable of living in the present.

The living all find death unpleasant; men mourn over it. And yet, what is death, but the unbending of the bow and its return to its case?

The eye is a menace to clear sight, the ear is a menace to subtle hearing, the mind is a menace to wisdom, every organ of the senses is a menace to its own capacity.

All existing things are really one. We regard those that are beautiful and rare as valuable, and those that are ugly as foul and rotten. The foul and rotten may come to be transformed into what is rare and valuable, and the rare and valuable into what is foul and rotten.

The enlightened attention rejects nothing nor welcomes anything-like a mirror it responds equally to all.

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.