work for all, contend with none

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True words aren’t

elaborate. Elaborate words aren’t true.

Good people don’t argue. People who argue

aren’t good. People who know aren’t

full of facts. People who are full

of facts don’t know.

 

The sage doesn’t hoard.

She increases her treasure by

working for her fellow human beings.

She increases her abundance

by giving herself to them.

 

The way of heaven:

benefit all, harm none.

The way of the sage: work

for all, contend

with none.

 

from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 81

 

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time for what is important

 

Time is very precious:

every minute, every hour counts.

We don’t want to throw time away. We want

to make good use of the minutes and hours we have left.

When we focus our attention in the here and now and live

simply, we have more time to do the things we think

are important. We don’t waste our energy in

thinking, in worrying, in running

after fame, power,

and wealth.

 

Thich Nhat Hanh

the essential requirement is concentrated focus


 

The essential requirement

in studying zen is concentrated focus.

You don’t engage in any forced actions: you just keep

to the fundamental. Right where you stand, you must pass

through to freedom. You must see the original face and walk through

the scenery of the fundamental ground. You do not change your

ordinary actions, yet outside and inside are One Suchness.

You act according to the natural flow and do not set

up anything as particularly special —

you are no different from

an ordinary person.

 

This is called

being a wayfarer who is free

and at peace, beyond learning, free

from contrived actions. Being in this stage,

you do not reveal any traces of mind — there

is no road for the gods to offer you flowers,

and no way for demons and outsiders

to spy on you. This at last is

simple unadorned

reality.

 

Yuanwu

 

this is what you shall do


 

This

is what you

shall do: Love the earth

and sun and the animals, despise riches,

give alms to every one that asks, stand up for

the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor

to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have

patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat

to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men,

go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young

and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open

air every season of every year of your life, reexamine all you

have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss

whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall

be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only

in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and

face and between the lashes of your eyes

and in every motion and

joint of your

body.

 


Walt Whitman