Without an empty hub,
Wheels are useless.
Without an inside emptiness,
Pots and bowls are useless.
Without an empty space for doors and windows,
Houses are useless.
Without an empty mind,
People are useless.

The pleasures of conversation increase dramatically when the topics expand wisdom and knowledge, when we can learn from what we hear and can be understood and appreciated for what we say. Our friends can become circles of academic respect, oracles of good judgment, theaters of worldly wisdom, examples of both practical insight and noble behavior. A culture of greater goodness arises from sincere and open communication.

Perceptions create the illusion
Of a solid world
And can blind, deafen, & dull
Non-duality and Egolessness.
Chasing fame, fortune, pleasure & power
Only drives us crazy
While the race for riches
Just creates more crime.

So the wise understand
The sense, not just the words
Choosing reality over illusion;
This over that.

A continual artistic approach to our innermost selves, to our physical surroundings, and to our relationships saves us from meaningless barbarism. Only accepting—without listening to the inner, creative impulse to improve—confines us to herd-instinct conformity. All beauty can be enhanced, all excellence improved, all personal qualities refined. Art improves the negative, amplifies the good.

Honor and disgrace only trap and confuse us.
Painful because we hope to gain, fear to lose;
Misfortune and high status hurt like our bodies do.
Because favor turns into disfavor, misfortune into fortune;
Welcome them both.

Believing in a separate self
Creates great suffering.
Without a self,
How can there be suffering?
Only those who realize egolessness
Can safely be entrusted with political positions.
Only those not seduced and controlled by something external
Will remain unmanipulated by crises
And not become corrupted by power.

Scams, con-artists, and unscrupulous promoters of everything from religion to politics to cosmetics constantly entice us to believe in lies. This struggle pits wisdom against goal-oriented strategy. The strategic approach relies on deception, hides its intentions, and waits for an opportunistic moment to ambush and strike. The way of integrity and wisdom sees through this corrupt intent by not falling victim to these deceptions, by maintaining an open-minded skepticism, a hesitancy to believe without proof, an inscrutability that waits for the second or even the third level of confirmation. When lies are exposed, the liar dissembles by using truth, cheating by not cheating, using candor to promote fraud. But the watchful insight of wisdom sees the shadows concealed by light, reads the real intent under the deceptions. Like an arrow from the Greek national divinity, Apollo, penetrating insight cuts through self-deception and lies, discovers the hidden truths.

We look but don’t see – it’s beyond form.
We listen but don’t hear – it’s beyond sound.
We grasp but can’t hold on – it’s intangible.

All three undifferentiated, it merges into oneness
With no light above and no shadow below -
Continuity

It returns beyond the realm of things
To emptiness: the formless form,
The empty image,
Unthinkable thought beyond imagination.

Face it but you will see no beginning,
Follow it but you will see no end.
Yet upholding this ancient way,
You will merge with and rule the present
Holding fast to the perpetual, momentary flickering of mind.

Substance doesn't go far without a good appearance. Even the most just and reasonable cause falters with an unsavory presentation. A little charm and grace, however, opens almost every door, gilds and sweetens the truth, wins over people's hearts, adds beauty to old age itself, and can—with only a simple expression or tone—help us out of many difficult situations. The "how" of the way things are done can be as important or more important than if they are done not.

The ancient sages of old
Focused on uncontrived awareness
And realized the union of wisdom and compassion.
Inscrutable, you can only describe their appearance:
Mindful and slow like someone crossing a river in winter,
Meek like one aware of danger on all sides,
Polite and quiet like visiting houseguests,
Ephemeral and yielding like melting ice,
Simple and blank like uncarved blocks of wood,
Empty, receptive and expansive
Like a hollow in a valley,
Mysterious and obscure like turbulent water.

Who can wait and use stillness
To let what is troubled settle and grow clear?
Who can use action
To let what is still become full of life and movement?

Followers of the Way
Don’t look for praise or fulfillment.
Complete without effort,
Not seduced by hope and fear, grasping and fixation,
They are not swayed by a desire for change.

Smart people learn from their mistakes. Smarter people learn from other people’s mistakes. The smartest people learn from smart people’s mistakes. And the smartest people are the smartest people because they have learned from the most mistakes. Instead of letting jealousy and competitiveness exclude; invite and recruit those more intelligent, skillful, and wise. If not in service, at least as friends they can protect from the dangers of ignorance, untangle complicated difficulties, distill the wisdom of the best books, and—with little effort on your part—confer the fame of an oracle. As many sages speak through your mouth as were consulted beforehand.

Emptiness is the Way of Heaven,
Stillness is the Way of Earth.
Taking emptiness to the limit,
Resting the mind in stillness,
The perception of all things arise and fall together
And in their arising is their return.

Like flowers and leaves,
They grow, flourish, and then return to their root.
Returning to the root brings peace,
A peace that recognizes
No difference between self and other
And appreciates awareness
As completely perfect just as it is.

Without this recognition,
Perceptions are deluded and confusion rules.
With this complete realization of awareness,
Open-hearted compassion dawns
And brings life without limits.
The body comes to its ending
But nothing dies.

Skill without wisdom and good intentions poisons results, creates unnatural monsters, corrupts with more subtlety, and only ruins with more ability. Knowledge without good sense only makes failure more harmful.

During golden ages, people barely know their leaders exist;
In lesser times, people love and praise them.
In darker days, people fear their rulers
And in the darkest times, they despise them.

When leaders work for personal reward,
Honesty fails and deception rules.
Corrupted by desire for fame and power,
Leaders create criminals.

At any price, words from a true leader are hard to gain.
Their advice – given in secret without fuss or boasting,
Like the truest voice in a group of singers –
Seems to come from the people themselves.
When good works succeed,
The people think they’ve done it themselves.

With a rival or competitor, avoid predictability. It's easy to shoot a bird flying in a straight line, not so easy if they weave back and forth. Don't conform to predictable patterns always doing the same procedures in the same ways at the same times. And likewise, don't always act on either the first or the second impulse, the first or the second thought. Poker players don't play with their cards face up. Even more so, with an enemy watching, frequently change the way you do things.

When realization of the Tao and authentic presence dims,
We try to be kind and just.
When we over-value reason and learning,
Immense hypocrisy arises.

The sicker the society,
The more loyal true believers.
The more dysfunctional the family,
The more autocratic and subservient.
The more harmful the religion,
The more dogmatic extremists.
The more detrimental the government,
The more fanatic partisans.

Most value highly in collaborators their intelligence, skill, and experience. Attitude, however, often becomes more important. Often mediocre but dedicated people go further than skillfully superior people without the inspiration. In most—even the highest—positions, ability is rarely lacking, most-often the limiting factor becomes attitude. And to achieve any kind of greatness, we need both. It's understandable to prefer a small success in a great endeavor instead of a great success in a small one; but, to prefer a lazy mediocrity to an animated achievement is inexcusable. What requires little effort earns little reward.

Stop trying to be kind and just –
You will discover Basic Goodness.
Stop believing in wise words and reason –
You will become your own sage.
Stop always striving for profit and gain –
Competition, robbers and rivals will disappear.
Forget even these three rules –
You will discover ordinary mind.

When you start something new, be extremely careful about people's anticipation and their imagination. They need to know enough to become curious and inspired but not enough to arouse unrealistic expectations. We can never accurately imagine the future's reality. No matter how beneficial the project or how much integrity the person, they will always fall short of the public's desire-inspired imagination. Hope distorts the truth and transfigures reality, creates a pitfall for the famous, and conjures detractors and enemies out of colleagues and customers. The highest success arrives when the results climb higher than the anticipation, the taste proves better than the appearance, when the reward goes further than the goal. With evil people and activities, however, the opposite applies. Expectations of great calamity manifest as easily tolerable and the negative event brings relief instead of frustration.

Stop always cramming more and more information into your head
And realization may dawn dissolving all difficulties.
Yes and no,
Agreement and rejection,
Beautiful and ugly,
Good and bad…
Won’t seem so different and far apart.
How foolish to fear something just because others do.

When people get what they want,
They are wreathed in smiles, joyous and beaming,
Drowning in what they love.
The wise stay unmoved
Knowing that nothing is ever lost or gained.
Alone, aimlessly wandering like a child,
Like a baby too young to smile,
Not belonging, not fitting it,
They remain with nowhere to turn, no one to turn to.

Fools accumulate more and more but never have enough.
The wise with nothing remain completely content.
Fools thinking they know become more and more convinced
While falling further and further from truth.
The wise remain uncertain, unconvinced, open without answers,
Drifting without anchor like waves on the sea;
Without direction like the restless wind.

The foolish stay busy, settle into habits and endlessly chase goals.
The wise are not seduced, don’t interfere, and remain content with what is.

Although being in the right place at the right time gives the greatest advantage, it is also extremely rare. Sometimes the right time might be a different century, the right place a different country. While many basic qualities, skills, and kinds of intelligence have a consistent stability; attitudes, conditions, and cultural complexities constantly shift and impulsively change. Ageless wisdom, however, breaks all constraints of time and place.