[Quotes by Zhuangzi 庄子]
You cannot put a big load in a small bag,
nor can you with a short rope,
draw water from a deep well.
Have you not heard how a bird
from the sea was blown inshore
and landed outside the capital of Lu?
The prince ordered a solemn reception,
offered wine to the seabird
in the Sacred precinct,
called for musicians to play
the compositions of Shun,
slaughtered cattle to nourish it.
Dazed with symphonies,
the unhappy seabird died of despair.
How should you treat a bird?
As yourself or as a bird?
Ought not a bird to nest in deep woodland
or fly over meadow and marsh?
Ought it not to swim on river and pond,
feed on eels and fish,
fly in formation with other waterfowl,
and rest in the reeds?
Bad enough for a seabird to be surrounded by men
and frightened by their voices!
That was not enough!
They killed it with music!
Water is for fish, and air for man.
Natures differ, and needs with them.
- Let understanding be the only rule. Learn, grow in understanding, but don’t follow rules.
- Rules will become imprisonment, understanding will give you the infinite sky.
- Life goes on flowing, a wise man tries to understand and forget the rules – rules will get you stuck.
- Understanding has no weight, you need not to carry it – it carries you; you need not to remember it – it is you.
- Understand, learn from others just to find your own rule.
- Never impose that rule on anybody else – that is violence.
- Speaking is so easy, knowing is so difficult – they are not related to each other at all.
- You can speak without knowing, you can know without speaking.
- A speaker is not always a knower.
- The real thing is how to change your being – not your behavior, not your words, not your cloths – how to change your being.
- A man of rules changes himself on the periphery.
- A man of understanding changes himself, then the periphery changes automatically.
- There are no absolute truth, every truth is individual – it is your truth.
- Truth is not objective.
- The guest was received according to the host, not according to the guest – and that killed the poor bird.
- A child is born and the parents start thinking what to make of him. Even before he is born they start thinking.
- A wise man receive you not according to him, he receive you according to you.
- Always give the opportunity to the other to be himself – that is what understanding is, that is what love is.
- Don’t force yourself on others – your wishes my be good, but the result will be bad.
- Give freedom to the other to be himself or herself.
- Do you think time gives understanding? Do you think seniority is wisdom?
- Life is not understood through time, it is understood through meditation – by going inwards.
- Quality is awareness.
- Wisdom is something that happens when you bring awareness to any experience.
- Awareness + experience = wisdom
- Love is not enough; awareness is needed.
- If love is there without awareness it becomes imprisonment.
- If love is there with awareness it becomes a freedom – if helps you to be yourself.
- A soldier is a dead man. He cannot be allowed to be very alive, otherwise how will he bring death. He has to kill and before he kills others he has to be killed completely himself, through rules.
- The whole army training is to kill the consciousness of the person – to make him an automation – to follow order without question.
- Cut consciousness from the actions that the actions become automatic – become more efficient, skilled.
- Morality is nothing but traffic rules.
- You live in a society; you are not alone here, there are many others. Certain rules have to be followed to avoid unnecessary difficulties, but they are not ultimate.
- A sannyasa knows that rules are just a game. He is not against them, he transcends them, he goes beyond them, he keeps himself free of them. He follows them for others but he doesn’t become an automation. He remain conscious and fully alert.
