When enlightened people are so poor that they cannot help others, if they speak a word to awaken the confused or to resolve a problem, there is also boundless merit in that.

A drop of water has the tastes of the water of the seven seas: there is no need to experience all the ways of worldly life. The reflections of the moon on one thousand rivers are from the same moon: the mind must be full of light.

When you meet dishonest people, move them with sincerity. When you meet violent people, affect them with gentility. When you meet warped people, inspire them with justice. Then the whole world enters your forge.

Your own feelings may be reasonable or unreasonable; how can you expect others to always be reasonable? It is useful to see things in this light and thereby correct the contradictions in your expectations for yourself and others.

A grub in filth is dirty, but it changes into a cicada and sips dew in the autumn breeze. Rotting plants have no luster, but they turn into foxfire and glow in the summer moonlight. So we know that purity emerges from impurity, and light is born from darkness.

Those who trust others will find that not everyone is necessarily sincere, but they will be sincere themselves. Those who suspect others will find that not everyone is necessarily deceiving them, but they have already become deceivers themselves.

You should be forgiving when others make mistakes, but not when the mistakes are in you. You should be patient under duress yourself, but not when it affects others.