Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan
The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan
The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan
The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan
Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan
What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan
When you are alone you are not alone,
you are simply lonely -
and there is a tremendous difference
between loneliness and aloneness.
When you are lonely you are thinking of the other,
you are missing the other.
Loneliness is a negative state.
You are feeling that it would have been
better if the other were there -
your friend, your wife, your mother,
your beloved, your husband.
It would have been good if the other
were there, but the other is not.
Loneliness is absence of the other.
Aloneness is the presence of oneself.
Aloneness is very positive.
It is a presence, overflowing presence.
You are so full of presence
that you can fill the whole universe
with your presence and there is no need for anybody.
- Osho
To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the wedding cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up.
- Ogden Nash
My Cup Runneth Over - My Life Is Abundant.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Spirit is always waiting to rush into us,
but we are too full of worldly things.
It is like trying to pour fine wine into a cup filled with mud -
the wine is waiting, but the mud must be removed first.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea;
but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln
Twinkle, twinkle little bat
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
- Lewis Carroll
I wish you a tea and jammies kind of day.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To a philosopher all news,
as it is called, is gossip,
and they who edit and read it
are old women over their tea.
- Henry David Thoreau
"It's not that important,
don't worry about it" is the answer,
now what was the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Today, I am Sending My Monkey Mind to the Zoo.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Fully experience THIS moment -
breathe in, breathe out - nothing more.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To the mind that is still,
the whole universe surrenders.
- Lao Tzu
By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try.
The world is beyond the winning.
- Lao Tzu
The words of truth are always paradoxical.
- Lao Tzu
A good traveler has no fixed plans,
and is not intent on arriving.
- Lao Tzu
No more walls.
- Anais Nin
Misery nourishes your ego -
that's why you see so many miserable people in the world.
The basic, central point is the ego.
- Osho
Children are natural Zen masters;
their world is brand new in each and every moment.
- John Bradshaw
The man who is awakened, lives in such a way
that he leaves no footprints.
- Osho quoting The Buddha
Maybe So, Maybe Not.
- Ancient Taoist Proverb
This moment! - this here-now - is forgotten
when you start thinking in terms of achieving something.
When the achieving mind arises,
you lose contact with the paradise you are in.
- Osho
Great acts are made up of small deeds.
- Lao Tzu
Breathe and let be.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
- Lao Tzu
He who knows, does not speak.
He who speaks, does not know.
- Lao Tzu
Don't choose. Accept life as it is in its totality.
- Osho
It is not that mindfulness is the 'answer' to all life�s problems.
Rather, it is that all life�s problems can be seen more clearly
through the lens of a clear mind.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Be an Observer of Life.
See the events, feel the emotions,
and recognize the difference.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is just this moment.
We are not trying to improve or to get anywhere else.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
He who knows that enough is enough
will always have enough.
- Lao Tzu
You can�t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das
Be - don't try to become.
Being is enlightenment, becoming is ignorance.
- Osho
Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
- Lao Tzu
Any change that comes about in your life
will be primarily because of your own efforts.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Do not say, "It is morning,"
and dismiss it with a name of yesterday.
See it for the first time
as a newborn child that has no name.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The moment you start seeing life
as non-serious, a playfulness,
all the burden on your heart disappears.
All the fear of death, of life,
of love - everything disappears.
- Osho
Patience is a form of wisdom.
It demonstrates that we understand and accept
the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
NECESSITY and URGENCY are twin poisons of our rattlesnake minds.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When I find that I can't accept what is happening,
I turn my attention to accepting my non-acceptance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment,
patience takes care of itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Dare to be naive.
- Buckminster Fuller
The things of this world exist;
they are; you can't refuse them.
- Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching - Book One #2 - version by Ursula K. Le Guin
Be content with what you have,
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.
- Lao Tzu
The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu
Mindfulness means being awake.
It means being aware of what you are doing.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau
Being wakeful in each and every moment of your life is meditation.
The simplest definition of meditation is:
when seeing, just see; when hearing, just hear.
- Josh Baran
The mind constantly chatters.
That chatter winds up being the force
that drives us much of the day in terms of what we do,
what we react to, and how we feel.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Those who have knowledge, don't predict.
Those who predict, don't have knowledge.
- Lao Tzu
Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.
It is seeing things clearly,
and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
We take care of the future best by taking care of the present now.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
To manage your mind,
know that there is nothing,
and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
- Lao Tzu
Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu
Be still and know who you are.
- Kirtana
The water in a vessel is sparkling;
the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear;
the great truth has great silence.
- Rabindranath Tagore
The Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
- Lao Tzu
Look at other people and ask yourself
if you are really seeing them or just your thoughts about them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn
Can you let go of words and ideas,
attitudes and expectations?
If so, then the Tao will loom into view.
- Lao Tzu
Besides the noble art of getting things done,
there is the noble art of leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
- Lin Yutang
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu
To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron
If you are absolutely without mind,
just pure consciousness,
time stops completely,
disappears,
leaving no trace behind.
- Osho
Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.
You can also search my large collection of Funny Quotes.
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.