Fame is water
carried in a basket.
Hold the wind in your fist, or
tie up an elephant with one hair.
These are accomplishments
that will make you
famous.
Posts Tagged → fame
don’t covet name and fame
giving to each thing the same respect
Those who wear the
patched robe of a zen wayfarer
should be completely serious about
taking death and birth as
their business.
Don’t
covet name and fame.
Step back and turn to reality, until
your practical understanding
and virtue are fully
actualized.
freedom and quietude
The fun of roaming free
is endless, hard to exhaust. When tired
I sit on a mossy bank, unaware of the cold sun falling
in my love for the cool of the breeze in the pines. Deer descend
to drink of the valley streams; monkeys arrive to pick of
the mountain fruits. What I originally valued were
freedom and quietude; why should
I require that people
know of me?
fame and fortune are shallow and injurious
People yearn
for fame and fortune,
but this is like aching to taste the
point of a weapon. These are shallow,
confusing, empty of virtue — yet
people become fixed on them
and lose their way
forever.
Look closely
at things that shine
without substance. Fame
enflames one’s idea of self and
separates one from humanity. Touched
by it, people grasp desperately to
get and keep it. What is the
wisdom, though,
in resisting
change?
Fortune
is a lover similarly
impossible to satisfy.
Constantly demanding energy
and attention, fencing off people’s
hearts, it returns less and less to
the soul. Yet common people
contort themselves
into cripples
chasing
it.
See
the injury
built into these,
and let them
go by.
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