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Not red

The flower is not red,
nor is the willow green.

– Zen saying

There is nothing

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Things are entirely what they appear to be and behind them…
there is nothing.

– Sartre

Everything is sufficient

Without desire everything is sufficient.
With seeking myriad things are impoverished.
Plain vegetables can soothe hunger.
A patched robe is enough to cover this bent old body.
Alone I hike with a deer.
Cheerfully I sing with village children.
The stream under the cliff cleanses my ears.
The pine on the mountain top fits my heart.

– Ryokan

Hope of a better past

Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past.

– Jack Kornfield

Life is a daring adventure

Security is mostly superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do children as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

– Helen Keller

To know or not to know

The seeker says, “I do not know.”
That takes honesty.

The master says, “I do not know.”
That takes a mystic’s mind that knows things through non-knowing.

The disciple says, “I know.”
That takes ignorance, in the form of borrowed knowledge.

– Anthony de Mello

The folly is under control

A man or woman of knowledge sweats and puffs like any ordinary person.
Yet the folly of their life is under control.

– Don Juan

The principal element of creation

Most people believe the mind to be a mirror, more or less accurately reflecting the world outside of them, not realizing on the contrary that the mind is itself the principal element of creation.

– Rabindranath Tagore

Unshaken by the wind

As a mountain is unshaken by the wind,
so the heart of a wise person is unmoved by all the changes on this earth.

– Buddha