Lao Tzu Quotes

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

Everything tends to make us believe that there exists a certain point of the mind at which life and death, the real and the imagined, past and future, the communicable and the incommunicable, high and low, cease to be perceived as contradictions.

I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

Words spoken about the Way have no taste. When looked at, there's not enough to see. When listened to, there's not enough to hear. When used, it is never exhausted.

Form and formless are intertwined in this world. The formless can only be expressed in form and form can only be thought with the formless.

There is no separation between being and the manifested world, between the manifested and the unmanifested. But the unmanifested is so much vaster, deeper, and greater than what happens in the manifested.

My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless ; 'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved. I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one; One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.

That the world is, is the mystical.

I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe.

God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him.

I asked the whole frame of the world about my God; and he answered, I am not He, but He made me.

Any profound view of the world is mysticism. It has, of course, to deal with life and the world, both of which are nonrational entities.

The Way that can be walked is not the eternal Way.

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion or cultural system. I am not from the East or the West, not out of the ocean or up from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not composed of elements at all. I do not exist, am not an entity in this world or the next, did not descend from Adam or Eve or any origin story. My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless. Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved, have seen the two worlds as one and that one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner, only that breath breathing human being.

Before one goes through the gate one may not be aware there is a gate One may think there is a gate to go through and look a long time for it without finding it One may find it and it may not open If it opens one may be through it As one goes through it one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it no one went through a gate there was no gate to go through no one ever found a gate no one ever realized there was never a gate

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper? ?To be? is to inter-be. We cannot just be by ourselves alone. We have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

From form to formless and from finite to infinite

The biggest questions that always have perplexed me are "Where do I come from?" and "Where am I going?" The "Where do I come from?" question, which I think I largely am answering now, is about what quantum physics teaches us. If you try to find your source, you are not going to find it in a tiny little particle that began with your parents commingling.

When we're identified with Awareness, we're no longer living in a world of polarities. Everything is present at the same time.

The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you've gotten the fish you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?