“When it is a man’s fate to undertake new beginnings, everything is still unformed, dark. Therefore he must hold back because any premature move might bring disaster.”

— Fu Xi 伏羲 1 via Richard Wilhelm, Hexagram 3, "Difficuty at the Beginning"
Emperor/shaman progenitor of civilization symbol
from I Ching

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“I have shown you the path of liberation. Now liberation depends on you.”

— Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE via Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche ཛི་གར་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth

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“With anything young and tender, the most important time is the beginning because that is the time when character is formed.”

— Plato Πλάτων 428 – 348 BCE

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“Chuang-tzu’s wife died. When Hui-tzu came to offer his condolences, he found him pounding on a tub and singing… Chuang-tzu said, ‘The same process that brought her to birth, in time brought her to death, as naturally as fall turns into winter and spring into summer... if I went around wailing and pounding my chest, it would only show that I didn’t understand the first thing about reality.’”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE
(Zhuangzi)

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“The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.”

— Epicurus ɛpɪˈkjɔːrəs 341 – 270 BCE
Western Buddha
from On Nature

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“The beginnings of fortune and calamity are subtle, so people are heedless of them. Only sages see the beginning and know the end.”

— Liú Ān 劉安 1 via Thomas Cleary
(Huainanzi)
from Huainanzi

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“Seeing what is great is not vision. Seeing what is small is vision. Protecting the strong is not strength. Protecting the weak is strength.”

— Wang Bi 王弼 226 – 534 CE

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“Those who can see an event while it is still small and change their behavior accordingly we say have vision.”

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

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“Wisdom probes the ignorance and dispels the longtime darkness. Eye cataracts worn away, illusory flowers naturally fade. Spirit radiance simply shines; recurring falseness dissolves.”

— Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE
(Shōgaku)

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“She is with everyone and in everyone, and so beautiful is her secret that no person can know the sweetness with which she sustains people, and spares them in inscrutable mercy.”

— Hildegard of Bingen 1098 – 1179 CE

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“As soon as the six senses merge, the gate is entered This unity is like salt in water, like color in dyestuff. The slightest thing is not apart from self.”

— Kakuan Shien 廓庵師遠 1100 – 1200 CE
(Kuo-an Shih-yuan, Kuòān Shīyuǎn )
Most popular Ten Bulls artist/poet

from 10 Bulls

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“If people knew that all creatures are the Way, and children are the mother, they would find the source in everything they meet.”

— Li Xizhai 1 via Red Pine
(Li Hsi-Chai)
from Tao-te-chen-ching yi-chieh

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“There is no one who cannot teach someone something… Wise men appreciate everyone, for they see the good in each and know how hard it is to make anything good.”

— Balthasar Gracian 1601 – 1658 CE

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“Life is a constant process of dying.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

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“He who is too busy doing good finds no time to be good.”

— Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941 CE

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“Remember, all of man's happiness is in the little valleys. Tiny little ones. Small enough to call from one side to the other.”

— Jean Giono 1895 – 1970 CE

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“The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops, but the cultivation and perfection of human beings.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka 福岡 正信 1913 – 2008 CE via Korn
from One Straw Revolution

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“We're all water from different rivers,
That's why it's so easy to meet,
We're all water in this vast, vast ocean,
Someday we'll evaporate together.”

— Yoko Ono 小野 洋子 1933 CE –
(“Ocean Child”)

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“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.”

— Pema Chödrön 1936 CE –
(Deirdre Blomfield-Brown)
First American Vajrayana nun

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“The process of birth and death is continual, taking place all the time… in the West people make birth more important. You congratulate someone for having a child, and you have parties for birthdays. But there are no parties for dying.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Six States of Bardo

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“Death could be said to be birth at the same time… The moment something ends, the next birth takes place naturally. So death is the re-creating of birth.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Six States of Bardo

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