Tao Te Ching
Letting Go
In the old Uncle Remus Tar-Baby tale, the more Br’er Rabbit fought with the Tar-Baby, the more stuck he became. The less he could let go of the past, the less he could move forward into the future. In a similar way, our old memories, resentments, beliefs, loves and hates all ensnare and trap us in conceptual prisons. Paper tiger powers we fear and so easily and willingly cower and surrender to; their phantom strength easily disappears, their iron prison easily dissolve into dust, their emotional influence easily falls away. All we need do is let go.
Quotes (79)
“To insist on a spiritual practice that served you in the past is to carry the raft on your back after you have crossed the river.”
“Sail with the stream, and follow fortune’s tack, steer not your ship of life against the tide, since chance must guide thy course.”
“If things do not turn out as we wish, we should wish for them as they turn out.”
“The wise of old thought nothing about loving life or hating death... They accepted what was given with delight and when it was gone, gave it no more thought.”
“don't meddle with Babylonian horoscopes. How much better to accept whatever comes”
“Demand not that things happen as you wish, but wish them to happen as they do, and you will go on well.”
“You can be invincible if you enter into no contest in which it is not in your power to conquer.”
“Learn the true nature of your own mind. Then let go and dissolve into unstrsuctusred reality. This tensionless state is the yogin’s life.”
“Not holding on to reality, not getting stuck in the void, you are neither holy nor wise, just an ordinary person”
“If useless things do not hang in your mind, any season is a good season for you.”
“Fools bogged down in a multiplicity of methods endlessly spin in circles. Instead, practice only letting go. This leads to perfection.”
“At the heart of all understanding is realizing what is and what cannot be, accepting what is not in our power to change.”
“Moving straight ahead, totally let go... respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky.”
“Stay with this just as this, stay with that just as that… freely let go not following conditions, not falling into classifications.”
“Like a lightening bolt that strikes one's head, what can be done once it has hit?”
“Unchanging and ever-present, the embodiment of the kayas and timeless awareness is the conferral of the supreme, naturally occurring empowerment... there is no need for concerted effort, for it is spontaneously present by nature.”
“Let’s open all the locked doors upon our eyes…
Let’s turn loose our golden falcons so that they can meet in the sky
Let’s hold hands and get drunk near the sun”
“Whatever thoughts arise, do not do anything contrived, such as deliberately abandoning or adopting them — look at their very essence.”
“Leave things before things leave you... Wise trainers put racehorses out to pasture before they arouse derision by falling”
“Much that would be something has become nothing by being left alone, and what was nothing has become of consequence by being made much of… Often the remedy causes the disease. It is by no means the least of life’s rules to let things alone.”
“Muddy fountain water doesn't get clear from our meddling but from us leaving it alone and likewise, often the best remedy for a disturbance is to let it run its course.”
“The art of being happy though poor consists in one phrase, to think ‘it could be worse.’ The same situation can look like hell to one person and like paradise to another.”
“Since, after all this floating world is unreal, instead of holding onto things in your mind, go and sing!"”
“Only original mind exists... Instead of holding onto things in your mind, let them go!”
“Enlightened awareness is within each one of us, right at this moment… without effort rest naturally as the Unborn Mind, as a living Buddha.”
“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”
“She had that rare sense which discerns what is unalterable and submits to it without murmuring.”
“A marriage based on full confidence, based on complete and unqualified frankness on both sides; they are not keeping anything back; there's no deception underneath it all. If I might so put it, it's an agreement for the mutual forgiveness of sin.”
“It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.”
“On thing I am coming to learn in this world and that is to let people haggle along with their lives as I haggle along with mine.”
“If you don't cling, whatever arises is naturally freed. Simply remain in the great equal taste without rejecting or accepting.”
“We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”
“The only journey is the ‘Let life happen to you.’ Believe me: life is in the right, always. Journey within.”
“One must be able to let things happen which is quite different from doing nothing... a way is only the way when one finds it and follows it oneself.”
“I must be willing to give up what I am in order to become what I will be.”
“The universe... is always emptying, always full; the more it yields, the more it holds.”
“There is not anything one should not be ready to tolerate,and there is nobody whom one should not forgive.”
“break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened”
“We still wanted, as we always had, to create a new and better world, but we saw that we could not do so. I admitted this, but my friend kept it hidden all his life. That was why he secretly writhed and suffered more than I did.”
“We must, at the start, clear our minds of all preconceptions, prejudices, assumptions, and theories.”
“Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”
“It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.”
“There is trouble only when you cling to something. When you hold on to nothing, no trouble arises... Give up all and you gain all.”
“individuality can be transformed in a process of growth, but retains its character. It becomes wider and more all-encompassing and transparent until it reflects the whole universe and becomes one with it.”
“The true purpose of Zen is to see things as they are and to let everything go as it goes.”
“The power of life causes the snake to shed its skin, just as the moon sheds its shadow. The serpent sheds its skin to be born again, as the moon its shadow to be born again. They are equivalent symbols.”
“When you try to do something, you lose it because you are concentrated on one out of 1000 hands - you lose 999.”
“to succeed at natural farming, you have to get rid of your expectations. Such 'products' of the mind are often incorrect or unrealistic . . . and can lead you to think you've made a mistake if they're not met.”
“one is a great deal less anxious if one feels perfectly free to be anxious”
“We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.”
“when we do let go, how wonderful. We discover that the darkness is actually full of light.”
“Rejoicing in ordinary things is not sentimental or trite. It actually takes guts. Each time we drop our complaints and allow everyday good fortune to inspire us, we enter the warrior's world.”
“The Buddha’s principal message that day was that holding on to anything blocks wisdom. Any conclusion that we draw must be let go.”
“You don’t have to try to catch the universe in the same way that you would try to catch a grasshopper or a flea. You don’t have to do something with what you have experienced, particularly… If you actually want to use something, you have to let it be.”
“Death can be regarded as a way of extending ourselves into the next life… as some kind of invitation to allow this thing we cherish so very much called our body, to perish.”
“It’s getting dark, too dark to see
A big black cloud is coming down
I feel like I’m knocking on heaven’s door.”
“Death is linked with love because death, like love, symbolizes our fear of letting go of ourselves as well as our desire to let go of ourselves—which is the only way to overcome lack”
“It is not about how much you give, it is about how much you can let go with your mind.”
“The goal of a leader is to give no orders... Responsibility is not doing what we are told, that's obedience. Responsibility is doing what is right.”
“Letting go is itself is an example of dying. But recognition of this dying is what allows us to inhabit the continuous cycle of dying and being reborn with ease.”
“The mind of letting go has the capacity to cut the root of ego-clinging; the activity of letting go accumulates merit. And by letting go, we gain access to our own immense inner wealth,”
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