1. One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
2. There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
3. On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
4. When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.
5. Glance into the world just as though time were gone and everything crooked will become straight to you.
6. What is the mark of liberation? No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.
7. And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.
8. In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
9. The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
10. People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
11. All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
12. There are no facts, only interpretations.
13. It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
14. Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
15. Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

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

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

( See more ThriveQuotes here! )

ONE — “Things are not what they seem. Nor are they otherwise. Deeds exist, but no doer can be found.”

What does he mean by ‘no doer’? This connects directly with the concept of no self; just as all other things, phenomena are transient, illusory, etc., so is the self. Actions are real in that they have an effect on people and produce certain outcomes (everything is interdependent), but the self that can look back on the action is already not the same self anymore, because of impermanence… Funny, isn’t it?

TWO — “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

To the extent that we have any self at all, it is that which stems from our thoughts — these are the bases of the words we speak and the actions we perform. And our thinking patterns largely determine the ways in which we view all the things that “happen to us”, from the biased, individual perspective that is. Perception is reality, basically.

THREE — “Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

We all have those days when one person’s unexpected kindness turns us around, snaps us out of the gloom, leads us to do a double-take on the stinky-rotten-nature of this ugly Monday morning, or whatever morning it happens to be. Lift each other up, people! One cookie may be enough…

FOUR — “I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.”

Wait too long and the universe will find some way of getting you out of your house, out of your pajamas, and you very well may not like it. Attack the day, non-violently that is, be proactive and claim your fate — or else you’ll be letting it claim you. Perhaps with one of those new sloth-seeking anvils. Watch out!

FIVE — “When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”

(Looks at sky and laughs — “Ha HA!”)  … This quote is symbolic of the irony of realizing that enlightenment is nothing more than a direct experiencing of reality. And of course once you have done all the work needed to clear your mind of obstructions, it becomes exceedingly easy to maintain clarity. A perfect ‘enlightened’ experience is also a perfectly accurate experience of reality. How easy it is to ‘keep arriving’ once you get there…

“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The Ways in Which We Change, by Nick Lepard

FUTURE-WISE

As we saw in Minus One, the future can be a very shocking proposition when it is extrapolated far out enough. But we all have to deal with the day-to-day just like anyone else. This, I believe, is why stuff like the iPad and it’s raved successors won’t be progressively more exciting, but less — these things won’t noticeably change our lives while the pace of innovation is so high (not that the iPad is the best representation of innovation, of course).

NOW-WISE

I just hope we can hang on if things really do get fast, like the futurists believe will happen. Say, if we have a computer that can improve itself, jump to the next generation in a year, and keep pace. If one existed, and many attempts (and approximations) are underway, then the second generation computer could spawn a third in six months. Continue this trend and by the tenth generation (around two years from initial boot-up), the thing is up to one-new-generation a day and greater. Can we even prepare for this? (Is there a possible answer here, at the Singularity University?)

THE PROGRESSION OF THE GENERATIONS

1. One year until generation two.
2. Six months until generation three.
3. Three months until generation four.
4. 45 days
5. 22 days until a great great grandchild is born.
6. 11.3 days until generation seven.
7. 5.6 days
8. 2.8 days until generation nine.
9. 1.4 days
10. Now it’s only 17 hours until generation 11, and it’s been roughly two years.

BUT WHAT WILL IT MEAN?

Say the first generation from above is a human-level intelligence. Just humor me. If we could, let’s also assume a doubling time of one year initially. We get to 1000 times human capacity after around 623 days, or 1.7 years. We just can’t imagine what an intelligence of 1000 times the human capacity would do, nor can we easily grasp how swiftly it would continue to evolve.

This is the essence of the singularity — not even being able to guess at what’s next when we’ve got relentlessly evolving intelligences around. Pretty vaguely, this seems to be telling us this: In the future, we are nearly equally as likely to be shocked because of our ignorance as we are to be apathetic from seeing too much change in too short a span. Indeed, these are some strange times, and the future isn’t even here yet…

SO UNTIL THEN, I SAY, EVERY DAY IS EXACTLY THE SAME

Something I felt to be perfect for these curiously-lagging-times:

The Way that can be experienced is not true;
The world that can be constructed is not real.
The Way manifests all that happens and may happen;
The world represents all that exists and may exist.

To experience without abstraction is to sense the world;
To experience with abstraction is to know the world.
These two experiences are indistinguishable;
Their construction differs but their effect is the same.

Beyond the gate of experience flows the Way,
Which is ever greater and more subtle than the world.

http://www.taoteching.org/chapters/1.htm

Without going out of your door, you can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, sees without looking, and achieves without struggle. — Lao Tse

( Individually )

If you would not be forgotten,
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.

( Equitably )

The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness.
You have to catch it yourself.

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

( Absolutely )

He is able who thinks he is able.

( Increasingly )

A jug fills drop by drop.

~ Siddhārtha Gautama ~