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.

Compromise to please others is not as good as integrity that annoys others. Rather than be praised without being good, it is better to be slandered without being bad.

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.

You should not be too much of a purist in your way of life, for you need to be able to accept all that is foul. You should not be too clear in making distinctions in social interactions, for you need to accept everyone whether they are good or bad, wise or foolish.

If the mind is illumined, there is clear blue sky in a dark room. If the thoughts are muddled, there are malevolent ghosts in broad daylight.

If you do not join the polluted, then you are pure; if you reject society in search of purity, that is not purity but fanaticism.

For those who reflect on themselves, everything they encounter is medicine. For those who attack others, every thought is a weapon. One is the way to initiate all good, one is the way to deepen all evil. They are as far apart as sky and earth.