“‘We have nothing on which to dine, Splendid, we shall have more time to sit outside and enjoy the moonlight, with music provided by the wind in the pines.”

Chapters: 56. One with the Dust

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“Guidance, if given at all, should be so subtle that the person concerned doesn’t know he is being guided. Confrontation, to Taoists, is unthinkable… for the Tao is most easily found when laughter comes spontaneously.”

Chapters: 49. No Set Mind

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“My wife loves me; ‘O what joys behind hibiscus curtains!’ My wife has left me; how peaceful it is now. Old Wang has a delicious concubine I have a charming blue-eyed cat.”

Chapters: 44. Fame and Fortune

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“While you sit watching pictures on your color TV set, I stand gazing at ripples in a moonlit pond, thanking the gods for not interrupting with commercials.”

Chapters: 80. A Golden Age

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“Youth passes – so does spring. Old age comes – so do winter’s lovely snowscapes… I’m bursting with energy, so I’ll jog or climb Mount Hua. I’m too ill to move, so I’ll enjoy my warm bed and meditate”

Chapters: 55. Forever Young

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“the I Ching teaches us how nature's currents flow and makes it easier for us to fit into them—their main function helping us see into nature's ways with a view to bending ourselves to suit those ways instead of trying to conquer nature and win power over it.. almost every kua [trigram or hexagram] tells us one of 4 things: When a situation is favorable, we go forward swiftly and joyfully. When it is not favorable, we know how to go slowly cautiously, or else to halt, or go back.”

from Talk (1978)

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“The principles of the I Ching apply at the highest levels to the great planets and stars wheeling in their courses and, at another level, to each individual person like you and me... We use the I Ching to trace arising situations back to their origin and/or forward to their completion; in this way, we learn the ways of life and death... This book is too sacred to be used for trivial purposes.”

from Talk (1978)

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“All situations result from and merge into other situations... We accept what cannot be altered with tranquil joy, never repining, no matter what unpleasant things happen to us. We make the best of each temporary setback.”

from Talk (1978)

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“Because they drive us to swim against the current, ignorance and self-love are the cause of most of our troubles.”

from Talk (1978)

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“good and bad are words which have meaning only with reference to the individual, never to the whole. If we take the universe, the Tao, as a whole, we discover that there are no such qualities as 'good' and 'bad'... it may seem bad for me, but it will not be bad for the universe!”

from Talk (1978)

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“by taking 'magical practices' literally at the beginning, one gradually becomes aware of an esoteric significance not meant to yield its secrets at first glance”

from Magical Buddhism (1976)

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“Western civilization is the poorer for having abandoned magic in favor of treating the universe like a piece of clockwork as Newton did”

from Magical Buddhism (1976)

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