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What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan
Related topics: Zen
The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan
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 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
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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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
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
The sound of 'gentle stillness' after all the thunder
and wind have passed will be the ultimate Word from God.
- Jim Elliot
A system of morality which is based
on relative emotional values
is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception
which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
- Socrates
The primal rhythmic power
and resonant sound of waves on the shore
are like the earth's heartbeat,
and become our connection with the body of nature.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A day spent without the sight or sound of beauty,
the contemplation of mystery,
or the search of truth or perfection
is a poverty-stricken day; and a succession
of such days is fatal to human life.
- Lewis Mumford
Visualize your end result as having already been accomplished.
Let the image of your success play on the giant screen
in full color with surround sound -
so real you can smell and taste it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
True friendship is like sound health;
the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
- Charles Caleb Colton
A new command I give you: Love one another.
As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
- Jesus of Nazareth (John 13:34)
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly,
"one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower."
- Hans Christian Andersen
Individually, we are one drop.
Together, we are an ocean.
- Ryunosuke Satoro
Try a new perspective on diversity.
Across the country and around the world,
we are all one.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Drop the sword - for there is but one flesh to wound,
and it is the one flesh of all humankind.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal
with the intent of throwing it at someone else;
you are the one who gets burned.
- The Buddha
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.
- Joseph Campbell
There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- Albert Einstein
One can not reflect in streaming water.
Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.
- Lao Tzu
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
- Mother Teresa
Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences.
No one can eliminate prejudices -
just recognize them.
- Edward R. Murrow
The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.
- Elbert Hubbard
In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
- Khalil Gibran
Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller
Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky.
- Anais Nin
To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows
will lead to difficulty.
- Lao Tzu
I am one with the Earth,
with the Water, with the Fire,
with the Air that I breathe,
with all Living Things,
and we are all one with Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is nothing that wastes the body like worry,
and one who has any faith in God
should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
God has given us two hands, one to receive with
and the other to give with.
- Billy Graham
I Am One With Spirit and All Creation -
I give thanks for the unity of all creation
and for everything that has brought me to this moment.
I release my entire being to the gentle nurture of Spirit.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To leave the world a bit better ...
to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear defeats more people than
any other one thing in the world.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain shall be made low,
the rough places will be made straight
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide
No one was ever named "Hero" for following the crowd.
Heroes set their own course.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The human race has one really effective weapon,
and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain
One who has any faith in God
should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
This day I will marry my friend,
the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love.
- Anonymous
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy
is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet,
alone with the heavens, nature and God.
Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.
- Anne Frank
Imagine all the people living life in peace.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us,
and the world will be as one.
- John Lennon
Take your life in your own hands, and what happens?
A terrible thing: no one to blame.
- Erica Jong
Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.
- Mother Teresa
Not paying a just wage, not giving work,
only because one is looking at the bottom line,
at the budget of the company, seeking only profit -
that is against God.
- Pope Francis
If you wait for opportunities to occur,
you will be one of the crowd.
- Edward de Bono
We must let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
- Joseph Campbell
Majority rule only works if you're also
considering individual rights,
because you can't have five wolves and one sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.
- Larry Flynt
It is not fitting, when one is in God's service,
to have a gloomy face or a chilling look.
- St. Francis of Assisi
When written in Chinese, the word "crisis"
is composed of two characters.
One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
- John F. Kennedy
The manifest universe is the body of God ...
all people are incarnations of the One Spirit.
- Ernest Holmes
The most telling act of true Faith
is celebrating the death of a loved one
with the certain knowledge that
they are now in a better place.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is no passion to be found playing small -
in settling for a life that is less
than the one you are capable of living.
- Nelson Mandela
Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.
- The Buddha
One must know not just how to accept a gift,
but with what grace to share it.
- Maya Angelou
No one can find inner peace except by working,
not in a self-centered way, but for the whole human family.
- Peace Pilgrim
Dance like no one is watching,
love like you'll never be hurt.
Sing like no one is listening.
Live life like it's heaven on earth.
- Anonymous (various attributions and alternate phrasings)
Without stirring abroad,
One can know the whole world;
Without looking out of the window,
One can see the way of heaven.
The further one goes, The less one knows.
- Lao Tzu
Whether one believes in a religion or not,
and whether one believes in rebirth or not,
there isn't anyone who doesn't
appreciate kindness and compassion.
- Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
A sense of humor... is needed armor.
Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips
is a sign that the person down deep
has a pretty good grasp of life.
- Hugh Sidey
The highest God and the innermost God is one God.
- Ernest Holmes
Humankind has not woven the web of life.
We are but one thread within it.
Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
- Chief Seattle
When one door closes, another opens.
But often we look so long, so regretfully,
upon the closed door,
that we fail to see the one that is opened for us.
- Helen Keller
Be careful not to do your good deeds
when there's no one watching you.
- Tom Lehrer
Because of a great love, one is courageous.
- Lao Tzu
I love you when you bow in your mosque,
kneel in your temple, pray in your church.
For you and I are sons of one religion,
and it is the Spirit.
- Khalil Gibran
UNITY - we are all one - the web of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth;
not going all the way, and not starting.
- The Buddha
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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