“We behold what we are, and we are what we behold.”

— Vyasa व्यास 1
Hindu immortals, Vishnu avatar, 5th incarnation of Brahma
from Mahābhārata महाभारतम्

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“If you can stay in the lead of men without their knowing, you are at the core of life.”

— Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Witter Bynner
(Lǎozǐ)
from Way of Life According to Lao Tzu

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“You only lose what you cling to.”

— Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth

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“We have two lives, and the second begins when we realize we only have one.”

— Confucius 孔丘 551 – 479 BCE
(Kongzi, Kǒng Zǐ)
History's most influential "failure"

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“The sage’s mind is so still, it can mirror Heaven and Earth and reflect the 10,000 things.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE
(Zhuangzi)

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“If we don’t obstruct their source, things come into existence on their own.”

— Wang Bi 王弼 226 – 534 CE

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“Going from one to two is the origin of all delusion.”

— 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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“If you start seeking, you are unable to see… As soon as you seek, it is like grasping at shadows.”

— Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤 1063 – 1135 CE via Thomas Cleary
(Yuánwù Kèqín)
from Zen Letters

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“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”

— Montaigne 1533 – 1592 CE
Grandfather of the Enlightenment

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“Rather than trying to become a buddha, nothing could be simpler than taking the shortcut of remaining a buddha!”

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

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“A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”

— Teilhard de Chardin 1881 – 1955 CE via Bernard Wall
from Divine Milieu

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“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”

— T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965 CE via "Little Gidding"
from The Four Quartets

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“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”

— Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE

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“the false serpent persuaded Adam that he must still do something to become like God… to make himself what God had already made him. That was the Fall of man.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906 – 1945 CE

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“If you have no personal history, no explanations are needed; nobody is angry or disillusioned with your acts. And above all no one pins you down with their thoughts.”

— Carlos Castaneda 1925 – 1998 CE
from Journey to Ixtlan

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“I consistently render the character te as ‘power.’ ‘Virtue’ (virtus, vertu) in its old sense of the inherent quality and strength of a thing or person is far closer to the mark, but that sense is pretty well lost. Applied obsessively to the virginity or monogamy of women, the word lost its own virtue.”

— Ursula Le Guin 1929 – 2018 CE

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“when we say that human beings are basically good, we mean that they have every faculty they need, so that they don’t have to fight with their world.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

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