Ching Quotes & Sayings

Initially I was very drawn to the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist philosophy. It was helping me deal with the balance of these external and internal issues with my chess life. Tai chi is the martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy. Initially, I had no intention of competing in the martial arts; it was just the meditation. — Joshua Waitzkin

Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name's the mother
of the ten thousand things. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Instead of trying to be a mountain, teaches the ancient Tao Te Ching, "Be the valley of the universe."4 In this way, you are restored to wholeness and so "all things will come to you. — Eckhart Tolle

Before I had studied Zen for thirty years,
I saw mountains as mountains,
and waters as waters.
When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains,
and waters are not waters.
But now that I have got its very substance
I am at rest.
For it's just that
I see mountains once again as mountains,
and waters once again as waters. — Li Ching-Yuen

Intellectual knowledge exists in and of the brain.
Because the brain is part of the body, which must one day expire, this collection of facts, however large and impressive, will expire as well.
Insight, however, is a function of the spirit.
Because your spirit follows you through cycle after cycle of life, death, and rebirth, you have the opportunity of cultivating insight in an ongoing fashion.
Refined over time, insight becomes pure, constant, and unwavering.
This is the beginning of immortality. — Lao-Tzu

Throughout history, clothes represented who you were; they are a great vehicle for explaining who you are. During the Ching dynasty, for example, what you wore and how it was made reflected your status in society. People could literally read your clothes like a book, just by its color and how it was embroidered. — Iris Apfel

To strengthen what is right in a fool is a holy task — I-Ching

Before a man can become great, he must look foolish to the crowd. — I-Ching

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence. — Wayne Dyer

It is no accident that, of the early Jesuit scholars who were pioneers in making China's culture known in Europe, those who concerned themselves with the Book of Changes were all later declared to be insane or heretic. Indeed, to the Chinese themselves the study of the I Ching is not to be taken lightly. By an unwritten law, only those advanced in years regard themselves as ready to learn from it. Confucius is said to have been seventy years old when he first took up the Book of Changes. — Hellmut Wilhelm

Remember, when you don't know what to do, it never hurts to play Scrabble. It's like reading the I Ching or tea leaves. — Kelly Link

All of life is one action following another, interspersed by periods of rest. If we are in doubt about the outcome of our actions, if our thoughts are concerned with, "What if I should fail?" we will be filled with hesitancy, uncertainty, and our actions will lack the conviction needed to obtain a decisive, favorable outcome. Even the worst outcome we can imagine will ultimately benefit us. It is because of that law of favorability that the Universe is able to continue and we are able to bring about the fruition of our plans. — Wu Wei

I wonder whether, perhaps without realizing it, we seek out the books we need to read. Or whether books themselves, which are intelligent entities, detect their readers and catch their eye. In the end, every book is the I Ching. You pick it up, open it, and there it is, there you are. — Andres Neuman

The more you talk of it, the less you understand. — Laozi

Chaos is another name for opportunity — I-Ching

And when a futurist dies, the tragedy is that we lose access to all the possible futures they imagined for us. Our only connection, afterward, is through the arcane procedure like literary interpretation, like reading the flight of birds or throwing the I Ching, as Ballard must have as a child in Shanghai. Like it or not, we live in one of Ballard's futures; a little apocalyptic, bent by technology. — William Ball

Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? LAO-TZU, Tao-te-Ching — Jon Kabat-Zinn

A guy who cooked, cleaned and looked good while doing it? Cha-ching. — Hailey Edwards

The hardest thing you will ever do in life is to know for sure what is true. — G.P. Ching

The I Ching tells us that for every ending there is a new beginning. In other words, what appears like a transition isn't really a transition; it's a continuum of existence. If you close your eyes for a moment the room will appear to go away. But does it really? Open your eyes again and the room will still be there. That's all death is. — Frederick Lenz

In architecture volume can be seen to be either a portion of space contained and defined by wall, floor and ceiling or roof planes or a quantity of space displaced by the mass of the building. — Francis D.K. Ching

Love melts the hardest hearts
Enters between the cracks — Rick Julian

Tao Te Ching says that it is only through retreat rather than pursuit, through inaction rather than action, that we acquire wisdom. "Those with less become content," says the Tao, "those with more become confused." The poems, still widely read, have been hailed as a hermit manifesto for more than two thousand years. — Michael Finkel

During meditation, if we can concentrate all our attention on one point, and put all problems in front of it, then they can be solved immediately. Our power is great, but we never use it. If we do not use our power by concentrating on it, then it seems we do not have any power at all. — Ching Hai

How did you . . . pass the time?' Sunday asked. 'You couldn't just ching out of it, could you?'

'We had a different form of chinging,' Eunice said. 'An earlier type of virtual-reality technology, much more robust and completely unaffected by time lag. You may have heard of it. We called it "reading". — Alastair Reynolds

Every position in life is balanced by creating a harmony between the inner self and the surrounding world. — Hellmut Wilhelm

When I feel off, I read the 'Tao Te Ching' to get my equilibrium right. I started reading it in the eleventh grade. — Eddie Huang

Our bodies, speeches and minds need to be trained so that they will do anything we want. We can cry or laugh at once when we want to. Then it will be a natural response; we will cry when it is time to cry, and laugh when we should laugh. Do you understand? We can get angry when necessary; we can be gentle if we have to. We will completely become our own master. Then, no matter what we want to do, it will benefit the world. It is not difficult to attain this stage; all we need to do is to mediate. — Ching Hai

He who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm. — Laozi

If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. — Laozi

Every day, mindful practice. When the mind is disciplined then the Way can work for us. Otherwise, all we do is talk of Tao; everything is just words; and the world will know us as its one great fool. — Li Ching-Yuen

How can one know the eternal origin?
By letting go of ideas
and allowing it to reveal itself — Lao-Tzu

To attract people naturally, effortlessly, we need only follow the true prompting of our hearts. — Wu Wei

If you want to become full, let yourself be empty. — Laozi

There is
a time to live
and a time to die
but never to reject the moment. — Lao-Tzu

It is the energy projected by an individual's own mind which creates his experience. — Hua Ching Ni

I like powerful women, and I gravitate to any point in history when a female has significant power. I can spend hours researching any such amazing lady, from Ching Shih to Hatshepsut to Boudica to Zenobia. — Gail Carriger

The most direct and practical method of self-development is to achieve yourself by your own effort. — Hua Ching Ni

An oracle must cross the moat of logic and reach the inner poet that resides, perhaps repressed but nonetheless alive, within all of us. The I Ching helps us tune into our feeling consciousness through imagery and metaphor, and this, we find, is the path of clarity, of both strength and tolerance, of gentle humor, and of love. — Carol K. Anthony

The Tao Te Ching is partly in prose, partly in verse; but as we define poetry now, not by rhyme and meter but as a patterned intensity of language, the whole thing is poetry. I wanted to catch that poetry, its terse, strange beauty. Most translations have caught meanings in their net, but prosily, letting the beauty slip through. And in poetry, beauty is no ornament; it is the meaning. It is the truth. We have that on good authority. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Revere the unity of all-that-is
carry out your daily activities with compassion;
if you do not limit your compassion,
you yourself will not be limited. — Lao-Tzu

One who practices virtue and selflessness should not hold any particular idea in his mind about how to fulfill his virtue, for virtue is the very nature of one's being. — Lao-Tzu

When you didn't have the ocean or mountain to keep you busy, he supposed you hurled pumpkins. — G.P. Ching

My generation of Americans was the first to really care about racism and sexism, not to mention the I Ching, plus, of course, the Earth. — P. J. O'Rourke

...in the presence of God, it is less important who is right than what is right. — G.P. Ching

What if believing was not about the good in the world? What if people had faith not because of what some superior being could do for them but what they could do when the light of something bigger than any one individual awakened within them--for the sake of others? If evil had been here since the dawn of time, maybe goodness was also here. Maybe, his mistake was thinking it was about him, his own future, his own soul, and not about this: the world needed the good that was in him. — G.P. Ching

No one notices me, Bonnie. That's part of my power. Trust in it." "Like they didn't notice when you were trying to kill Cord?" During their Harrington mission, Ghost had captured the Watcher Cord and had a knife to his neck when a crowd of do-gooders saved the fallen angel. "That was different. They noticed Cord screaming and came to his rescue. They didn't actually notice me until the very end. — G.P. Ching

Practice non-action. Work without doing. — Laozi

Those who know don't talk. Those who talk don't know. Close your mouth, block off your senses, blunt your sharpness, untie your knots, soften your glare, settle your dust. This is the primal identity. Be like the Tao. It can't be approached or withdrawn from, benefited or harmed, honored or brought into disgrace. It gives itself up continually. That is why it endures. — Lao-Tzu

Although some popular religious texts such as the New Testament, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tao Te Ching, or Tibetan Book of the Dead contain interesting insights and stories, it is the Jewish religious texts such as the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) that contain valuable information on acquiring wealth. — H.W. Charles

There are many indications that the hexagrams were the original images from which the trigrams were then later abstracted and that the configurations of double lines are derrived from a still later anaysis. — Hellmut Wilhelm

Perfect tranquillity is the way of heaven and earth. — Lao-Tzu

A cook's job in my opinion is to be creative and push the boundaries of their cuisine and never stop experimenting. — Ching He Huang

To slow time down, practice enjoying the moment. It is where we spend our entire lives. — Wu Wei

When you study the Tao Te Ching, you have to use your heart to try to imagine what Tao really is. — Henry Chang

In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped. — Laozi

The person who takes power will never be happy with those things they gain. They have lost their essential balance and innocence. And without innocence, nothing can further, as they say in the I Ching. — Frederick Lenz

Do the Tao Now At your next meal, practice portion control by asking yourself after several bites if you're still famished. If not, just stop and wait. If no hunger appears, call it complete. At this one meal, you'll have practiced the last sentence of the 9th verse of the Tao Te Ching: "Retire when the [eating] is done; this is the way of heaven. — Wayne W. Dyer

Buddhism teaches us not to want things, not to avoid things, not to be upset by the loss. In the I Ching, there's a hexagram that says, "Be like the sun at midday". View all things as being equal. — Frederick Lenz

When you loved someone, it was impossible to believe they were hopeless. — G.P. Ching

We are born male. We must learn to be men. Remember, strength is a force. It is an attribute of the heart. Its opposite is not weakness and fear, but confusion, lack of clarity, and lack of sound intention. If you are able to discern the path with heart and follow it even when at the moment it seems wrong, then and only then are you strong. Remember the words of Tao te ching. "The only true strength is a strength that people do not fear." Strength based in force is a strength people fear. Strength based in love is a strength people crave. — Kent Nerburn

The title 'Now He Sings, Now He Sobs' comes from 'I Ching,' an ancient Chinese book that I was into in the '60s when I was studying different philosophies and religions. — Chick Corea

Since before time and space were, the Tao is. It is beyond is and is not. — Laozi

The parallels to modern physics [with mysticism] appear not only in the Vedas of Hinduism, in the I Ching, or in the Buddhist sutras, but also in the fragments of Heraclitus, in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, or in the teachings of the Yaqui sorcerer Don Juan. — Fritjof Capra

If we do not control our minds with our Buddha nature, do not practice seriously, are not honest to ourselves and do not examine our behaviors strictly, we will definitely be possessed by Maya. Being possessed does not necessary mean that we become delirious or our faces become horribly distorted. When we do not walk on the right path, we will be walking on Maya's path. — Ching Hai

I was born in Suzhou, a city not very far from Shanghai. It's a very interesting town - there is a long artist's tradition there, especially during the Ming and Ching dynasties, which produced many, many scholars and painters and so forth. That's where my family lived for 600, 700 years. — I.M. Pei

The more you know the less you talk. — A.R. Rahman

There are three layers to the universe. In the lower, Tai Ching, and the middle, Shan Ching, the hindrance of a physical bodily existence is required. Those who fail to live consistently in accord with the Tao reside here. In the upper, Yu Ching, there is only Tao: the bondage of form is broken, and the only thing existing is the exquisite energy dance of the immortal divine beings. — Laozi

Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. — Lao-Tzu

Retain a calm heart, sit like a turtle, walk swiftly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog — Li Ching-Yuen

I tried Zen and Ching, numerology, tarot cards and astrology. I tried to look back into the Bible, and could not find anything. At this time I did not know anything about Islam, and then, what I regarded as a miracle occurred. My brother had visited the mosque in Jerusalem, and was greatly impressed that while on the one hand it throbbed with life. — Cat Stevens

To bear and not to own; to act and not lay claim; to do the work and let it go: for just letting it go is what makes it stay. — Lao-Tzu

Who acts in stillness finds stillness in his life. — Lao-Tzu

The question is not how can I overcome fear? The question is: how can I use it creatively? If you have problems (and we all do), how are you going to deal with them? To be is to be imperfect. Contentment is resiliency, the willingness and the ability to see the opportunities presented by mistakes. Take what you like and pay for it - failure is the price you pay for success. It is the wages of growth. Success is failing forwards, figuring out how to conduct suffering, and in its reconstruction to transform it into illumination. Eschew impatience. Let stillness teach you where your centre is, where your origins are. Be impeccable in all your dealings with the world. Integrity isn't a luxury - it's an essential. Remember the best advice of the I Ching: perseverance furthers. — Billy Marshall Stoneking

The important correction needed by worldly religions is the transformation from external religious teaching to truthful internal spiritual reality. — Hua Ching Ni

He had a particular facination with the I Ching, that art of tossing three coins three times and divining a pattern out of heads and tails. Pete would begin with questions:
What determined the pattern? Was it random? Was it a higher power? Was is mathematical? Wasn't poker based on mathematical probability and not just luck? Did that mean randomness was actually mathematical? And if the I Ching was governed by mathematics, hey, wouldn't that mean the I Ching was actually predictable, a prescribed answer? And if it was prescribed, did that mean that your life followed the I Ching, like some sort of equation? Or did the I Ching simply capture correctly what had already been determined as the next series of events in your life? — Amy Tan

To become aware of what is constant in the flux of nature and life is the first step in abstract thinking. The recognition of regularity in the courses of the heavenly bodies and in the succession of seasons first provides a basis for a systematic ordering of events, and this knowledge makes possible a calendar ... Simultaneously with this concept, a system of relationships comes into the idea of the world. Change is not something absolute, chaotic, and kaleidoscopic; its manifestation is a relative one, something connected with fixed points and a given order. — Hellmut Wilhelm

Only by spiritual practice can we break through our karma and the effects of the causes we have made. Only then can we escape from them. It matters not whether you have acquired any merit. Merit is merit. Karma is karma. Nonetheless, if one practices the Quan Yin Method, one can be liberated regardless of having any merit or not. It is so logical, so scientific. — Ching Hai

Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!'
'Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.
'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.'
'Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.'
'Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.'
'Like you?'
'Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.'
'Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides. — Kerry Greenwood

I was her daughter, but more. I was Karen, Cheryl, Leif. Karen Cheryl Leif. KarenCherylLeif. Our names blurred into one in my mother's mouth all my life. She whispered it and hollered it, hissed it and crooned it. We were her kids, her comrades, the end of her and the beginning. We took turns riding shotgun with her in the car. "Do I love you this much?" she'd ask us, holding her hands six inches apart. "No," we'd say, with sly smiles. "Do I love you this much?" she'd ask again, and on and on and on, each time moving her hands farther apart. But she would never get there, no matter how wide she stretched her arms. The amount that she loved us was beyond her reach. It could not be quantified or contained. It was the ten thousand named things in the Tao Te Ching's universe and then ten thousand more. Her love was full-throated and all-encompassing and unadorned. Every day she blew through her entire reserve. — Cheryl Strayed

When we are clear enough about our own point of view, we can find help in the methods of Eastern Christianity or in the ways of the Far East, perhaps by consulting the I Ching or through mandala contemplation; we may even find help in the ways of shamanism or Islam. If we are clear about where we stand and the direction we must take, such methods may be useful in order to follow our own way to the end. — Morton T. Kelsey

The situations depicted in the Book of Changes are the primary data of life
what happens to everybody, every day, and what is simple and easy to understand. — Hellmut Wilhelm

The Master's power is like this. He lets all things come and go effortlessly, without desire. He never expects results; thus he is never disappointed. He is never disappointed; thus his spirit never grows old. — Laozi

Observe how endings become beginnings. — Laozi

You can imagine in China it's like: 'Ching chong hugong, ching chong kong, Danny Devito. Ching chong chong chong chong. The View. Ching chong! — Rosie O'Donnell

A warrior of light respects the main teaching of the I Ching: 'To persevere is favourable.'
He knows that perseverance is not the same thing as insistence. There are
times when battles go on longer than necessary, draining him of strength and
enthusiasm.
At such moments, the warrior thinks: 'A prolonged war finally destroys the
victors too.'
Then he withdraws his forces from the battlefield and allows himself a
respite. He perseveres in his desire, but knows he must wait for the best moment to attack.
A warrior always returns to the fray. He never does so out of stubbornness,
but because he has noticed a change in the weather. — Paulo Coelho

Peace is our original state — Lao-Tzu

Emptiness appears barren
yet is infinite fullness — Lao-Tzu

Even weird breed of cat like Nazi Germany comprehensible to I Ching. — Philip K. Dick

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. — Laozi

We can hold back neither the coming of the flowers nor the downward rush of the stream; sooner or later, everything comes to its fruition. — Li Ching-Yuen

With a combination of proper lighting and climate control he managed to achieve a different ecological niche in each gallery. In the African section, where the imbrications of Augustine, Mafouz and Okri lay decomposing, he grew sorghum and Dioscorea yams. In the Chinese gallery where the Tao Te Ching and countless Confucian annotations moldered, he grew rice, crab apples and barley. Over the poems of Neruda and Borges himself, he grew potatoes. Each plant in this new Eden he lovingly tainted with the virus of civilization

- from the short story "Resurrection — Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

(T)he essential thing is to keep in mind all the strata that go to make up the book. Archaic wisdom from the dawn of time, detached and systematic reflections of the Confucian school in the Chou era, pithy sayings from the heart of the people, subtle thoughts of the leading minds: all these disparate elements have harmonized to create the structure of the book as we know it. — Hellmut Wilhelm

Astrology is one of the intuitive methods like the I Ching, geomantics, and other divinatory procedures. It is based upon the synchronicity principle, meaningful coincidence ... Astrology is a naively projected psychology in which the different attitudes and temperaments of man are represented as gods and identified with planets and zodiacal constellations. — Carl Jung

In 1963 ... The Vatican condemned Dr. No as a 'dangerous mixture of violence, vulgarity, sadism and sex.' Ka-ching! — Manohla Dargis

According to tradition, the originator of Taoism, Lao-tzu, was an older contemporary of Kung Fu-tzu, or Confucius, who died in 479 B.C.1 Lao-tzu is said to have been the author of the Tao Te Ching, a short book of aphorisms, setting forth the principles of the Tao and its power or virtue (Te e). But traditional Chinese philosophy ascribes both Taoism and Confucianism to a still earlier source, to a work which lies at the very foundation of Chinese thought and culture, dating anywhere from 3000 to 1200 B.C. This is the I Ching, or Book of Changes. — Alan W. Watts

(T)his is precisely the importance of the world-view described in the Book of Changes: there is no situation without a way out. All situations are stages of change. Therefore, even when things are most difficult we can plant the seed for a new situation that will preserve within itself the present situation, though we must be capable of adapting and finding the proper attitude. — Hellmut Wilhelm

The master sees beyond what is obvious. He sees the unseen, feels the unfelt, and hears the unheard. He looks below the surface for what is hidden and so finds the great heartbeat of the Universe. He smiles, knowing it is his heartbeat, your heartbeat, our heartbeat. — Wu Wei

Great music stops the inner turmoil of thought and allows the mind to seek its natural state of joy. Music frees our minds and allows us to soar to heights where we can experience the celestial. Music opens our minds to allow the perception of new thoughts of a higher nature, which gives us a spiritual lift, which produces yet more joy. — Wu Wei

The essential Taoist approach to life is captured in the phrase ching-jing wu-wei, literally, "sitting still doing nothing." Doing nothing doesn't mean sitting around all day like a bump on a log, but rather doing only those things that really need to be done and doing them in a way that does not run counter to the natural order of Tao and the patterned flow of cosmic forces. It means engaging only in spontaneous, unpremeditated activity, doing things purely for their own sake rather than for ulterior motives, and living in harmony with rather than trying to conquer nature. — Daniel P. Reid