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Overflowing Cup of Tea:
by 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

What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan

The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- 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

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

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

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

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

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

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

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea;
but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

To the mind that is still,
the whole universe surrenders.
- Lao Tzu

Fully experience THIS moment -
breathe in, breathe out - nothing more.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

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

No more walls.
- Anais Nin

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

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.
- Lao Tzu

The Tao abides in non-action,
Yet nothing is left undone.
- Lao Tzu

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

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu

Maybe So, Maybe Not.
- Ancient Taoist Proverb

He who knows, does not speak.
He who speaks, does not know.
- Lao Tzu

He who knows himself is enlightened.
- Lao Tzu

Dare to be naive.
- Buckminster Fuller

He who knows that enough is enough
will always have enough.
- Lao Tzu

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.
Practice non-action. Work without doing.
- Lao Tzu

Great acts are made up of small deeds.
- Lao Tzu

NECESSITY and URGENCY are twin poisons of our rattlesnake minds.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

To manage your mind,
know that there is nothing,
and then relinquish all attachment to nothingness.
- Lao Tzu

"It's not that important,
don't worry about it" is the answer,
now what was the question?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Those who have knowledge, don't predict.
Those who predict, don't have knowledge.
- Lao Tzu

As we cultivate peace and happiness in ourselves,
we also nourish peace and happiness in those we love.
- Thich Nhat Hanh

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

Children are natural Zen masters;
their world is brand new in each and every moment.
- John Bradshaw

Zen says that if you drop knowledge -
and within knowledge everything is included;
your name, your identity, everything,
because this has been given to you by others -
if you drop all that has been given by others,
you will have a totally different quality to your being: innocence.
This will be a crucifixion of the persona, the personality,
and there will be a resurrection of your innocence.
You will become a child again, reborn.
- Osho

I confess that there is nothing to teach:
no religion, no science, no writings
which will lead your mind back to Spirit.
Today I speak this way, tomorrow that,
but always the Path is beyond words and beyond mind.
- Lao Tzu
(paraphrase)

Freedom from desire leads to inner peace.
- Lao-Tzu

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.
- Lao Tzu

Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger,
regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue.
Let go of the need for approval.
- Lama Surya Das

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake
is to be continually thrown out of the nest.
- Pema Chodron

If you understand, things are just as they are;
if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
- Zen Proverb

The man who is awakened, lives in such a way
that he leaves no footprints.
- Osho quoting The Buddha

Today, I am Sending My Monkey Mind to the Zoo.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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

To be a beneficial presence in the world,
cultivate a conscious awareness of your unity with Spirit.
Expect good in your own life.
Desire good for all others as well.
See and affirm abundant blessings of peace,
health, and plenty for everyone.
Align your thoughts with peace and happiness,
and realize that these qualities are your true nature.
- Kathy Juline

Yielding is the way of the Tao.
- Lao Tzu

Don't choose. Accept life as it is in its totality.
- Osho

I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now
a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
- Zhuangzi

Simply put, mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient...
only the universe rearranging itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Practice moment to moment non-judgemental awareness.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

In the midst of movement and chaos,
keep stillness inside of you.
- Deepak Chopra

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

Just watch this moment, without trying to change it at all.
What is happening? What do you feel?
What do you see? What do you hear?
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen.
Then what will be the quality?
Watchfully alert, joyously unmotivated,
centered, loving, flowing, one walks.
And the walking is sauntering.
Loving, alert, watchful, one sits, unmotivated -
not sitting for anything in particular,
just enjoying how beautiful
just sitting doing nothing is,
how relaxing, how restful.
- Osho

When you become centered, suddenly there is great freedom
because you know you are not the mind and you are not the body.
- Osho

Dwell in stillness.
Observe without reacting and without judging.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

If you are absolutely without mind,
just pure consciousness,
time stops completely,
disappears,
leaving no trace behind.
- Osho

If you really aren't trying to get anywhere else in this moment,
patience takes care of itself.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

As your silence grows; your friendliness, your love grows;
your life becomes a moment-to-moment dance, a joy, a celebration.
- Osho

When I find that I can't accept what is happening,
I turn my attention to accepting my non-acceptance.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie