Lao Tzu Quotes

Nothing is more creative than death, since it has the whole secret of life. It means that the past must be abandoned, that the unknown cannot be avoided, that 'I' cannot continue, and that nothing can be ultimately fixed. When a man knows this, he lives for the first time in his life. By holding his breath, he loses it. By letting go he finds it.

So the bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

As the body fades - which it will inevitably do as we stay here on the planet - it really behooves us to wake up to who we really are. You can either go along willingly or be dragged, because it will happen.

You can never begin to live until you dare to die.

Meditation means keeping one mind. You must understand - what is life? What is death? If you keep one mind, there is no life, no death. Then if you die tomorrow, no problem; if you die in five minutes, no problem.

Zen teaches that once we can open up to the inevitability of our demise, we can begin to transform that situation and lighten up about it.

They were afraid, never having learned what I taught myself: Defeat the fear of death and welcome the death of fear.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

So we're in this process of letting go of our own attachments to our physical forms and to the people we love, and... basically everything. Life is like this one big process of letting go.

Our being is continually undergoing and entering upon changes. ... We must, strictly speaking, at every moment give each other up and let each other go and not hold each other back.

Each day, we wake slightly altered, and the person we were yesterday is dead. So why, one could say, be afraid of death, when death comes all the time?

To live fully is to let go and die with each passing moment, and to be reborn in each new one.

If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve. Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are that you'll cut your hand.

Meditation is a tool for helping us accept the profound fact that everything changes all the time.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Each moment that passes changes you...You can't even own yourself. How can you ever hope to own anyone or anything else.

It took courage to let things fall apart so beautifully.

As a Buddhist, I view death as a normal process, a reality that I accept will occur as long as I remain in this earthly existence. Knowing that I cannot escape it, I see no point in worrying about it. I tend to think of death as being like changing your clothes when they are old and worn out, rather than as some final end. Yet death is unpredictable: We do not know when or how it will take place. So it is only sensible to take certain precautions before it actually happens.

All composite things pass away. Strive for your own liberation with diligence.

Most of the time one night blends into the next and weeks blend into weeks and months into other months. And sooner or later we all die. But at the beginning of the night anything’s possible.

You may be reborn a thousand times, but you can never know the real, for only that which dies, that which comes to an end, can renew itself.

I have no fear of death. More important, I don't fear life.

There is no fundamental difference between the preparation for death and the practice of dying, and spiritual practice leading to enlightenment.

All things are only transitory.

Defeat the fear of death and you welcome the death of fear.