Both the poetic and the literal translations have something to provoke reflection
Can you step back from your own mind, and understand all things?
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 10 (Mitchell translation)
[literally Can you comprehend everything without depending on knowing]
Time flows in many streams.
Like a river, an inner stream of time will flow rapidly at some places and sluggishly at others, or perhaps even stand hopelessly stagnant.
Cosmic time is the same for everyone, but human time differs with each person. Time flows in the same way for all human beings; every human being flows through time in a different way.
Yasunari Kawabata, Japanese novelist and short story writer, 1968 Nobel Prize winner, Beauty and Sadness
“Truth waits for the eye unclouded by longing”
What does it mean to have an eye unclouded by longing. Its the place in your being, in your awareness, which is not totally identified with your desire system.
As long as you want something, you see only the outward container and our desire to keep the game going makes it very hard for us to see what in fact is happening.
And I really feel much more that my life is at play as a mystery. Rather than something where I know how it comes out, I mean, I find “I dont know” is the best response I have to most of the profound questions people ask me. It keeps me open, right at the edge of something I don’t really understand, and yet I dont actually have to.
Ram Das
Wandering,
where we go matters less than what we notice.
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
Somebody says something to you that is designed to hurt. Instead of going into unconscious reaction and negativity, such as attack, defense, or personal withdrawal, you let it pass right through you.
Offer no resistance. It is as if there is nobody there to get hurt anymore. In this way, you become invulnerable. You can still tell that person that his or her behavior is unacceptable, if that is what you choose to do. But that person no longer has the power to control your inner state.
You are then in your power – not in someone else’s, nor are you run by your mind. Whether it is a car alarm, a rude person, a flood, an earthquake, or the loss of all your possessions, the resistance mechanism is the same.
Eckhart Tolle
If you only walk on sunny days
you’ll never reach your destination.
Paulo Coelho
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