“All things have no inherent existence.”

— Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE via Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth

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“Prisoners to the world of objects, they are pressed down and crushed by fashion, the market, events, public opinion… never do they recover their right mind.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE via Thomas Merton
(Zhuangzi)

from Zhuangzi

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“Forget the years, forget distinctions. Leap into the boundless and make it your home.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE
(Zhuangzi)

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“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

— Plutarch 46 – 120 CE
(Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus)

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“Only when we take emptiness as our virtue can our actions accord with the Tao.”

— Wang Bi 王弼 226 – 534 CE

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“You must be emptied of that with which you are full, so you may be filled with that whereof you are empty.”

— Augustine ɔːɡəstiːn 354 – 430 CE via David Loy
(Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Augustine of Hippo)

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“The image of thirty spokes converging on a hub shows how less is the ancestor of more.”

— Xuanzong 武隆基 685 – 756 CE
(Hsuan-Tsung or Wu Longji)

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“Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies
A fountain of light, into the very mind –
Not a thing, and yet it appears before me.”

— Han Shan 1
(Cold Mountain)

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“Regard everything as empty, don’t give substance to that which has none.”

— Layman Pang 龐居士 740 – 808 CE

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“Every phenomenon that exists is a creation of thought; therefore I need but empty my mind to disover that all of them are void… all the Buddhas of the whole universe do not in fact possess the smallest perceptible attribute.”

— Huangbo Xiyun 黄檗希运 1
(Huangbo Xiyun, Huángbò Xīyùn, Obaku)

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“Emptiness has no form. It takes on the form of the ten thousand things. If emptiness had its own form, it could not form anything else. Thus sages have no mind of their own. They take on the minds of the people and treat everyone the same.”

— Su Che 呂洞 1039 – 1112 CE via Red Pine
(Su Zhe)
Great writer of the Tang and Sung dynasties
from Tao-te-chen-ching-chu

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“Become nothing, And He'll turn you into everything.”

— Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد بلخی 1207 – 1283 CE
(Rumi Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)
from Masnavi مثنوي معنوي‎‎) "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning”

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“Our usefulness depends on our empty, shapeless mind.”

— Deqing 1546 – 1623 CE
(Te-Ch’ing)

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“Chasing after words, pursuing phrases, when will you ever be done?”

— Bankei 盤珪永琢 1622 – 1693 CE
(Bankei Yōtaku)

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“All ethics, politics and philosophies are pure assumptions, built upon assumptions. They rest on no sure basis. They are but shadowy castles-in-the-air erected by day-dreamers, or by rogues, upon nursery fables”

— Arthur Desmond 1859 – 1929 CE
from Might Is Right

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“Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time, so man is always a slave to the past.”

— Krishnamurti 1895 – 1986 CE
(Jiddu Krishnamurti)
from Core of the Teaching

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“because of the Taoist insistence on the positive value of non-being that empty space has been utilized as a constructive factor in Chinese landscape painting.”

— Wing-tsit Chan 陳榮捷 1901 – 1994 CE
from Way of Lao Tzu

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“We have to believe in something that has no form and no color – something that exists before all forms and colors appear… By enlightenment I mean believing in nothing.”

— Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 1904 – 1971 CE

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“All thoughts are completely without substance… Once you recognize this, they can no longer fool you.”

— Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche དིལ་མགོ་མཁྱེན་བརྩེ། 1910 – 1991 CE
"Mind" incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo

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“Lao Tzu is… explaining a profound and difficult truth here, one of those counter-intuitive truths that, when the mind can accept them, suddenly double the size of the universe.”

— Ursula Le Guin 1929 – 2018 CE

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“the result of anything aimed at enriching the ego is destruction, complete confusion, perpetual confusion.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Illusion's Game

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“Lao-tzu’s ‘existence’ and ‘nonexistence’ are tantamount to yang and yin.”

— Red Pine 1943 CE –
( Bill Porter)
Exceptional translator, cultural diplomat

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“Her hands were filled because they grasped the meaning of empty.”

— Louise Erdrich 1954 CE – via The Antelope Wife

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“By understanding emptiness, you lose interest in all the trappings and beliefs that society builds up and tears down—political systems, science and technology, global economy... you become like an adult who is not so interested in children's games anymore.”

— Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche རྫོང་གསར་ འཇམ་དབྱངས་ མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་ རིན་པོ་ཆེ། 1961 CE –
(Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche)
"Activity" incarnation of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo
from What Makes You Not a Buddhist

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“There is no emptiness without appearance, and there is no appearance without emptiness. That is what we call the interdependent nature.”

— Dzogchen Pönlop 1965 CE –

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