Simplicity, patience, compassion.These three are your greatest treasures.Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being.Patient with both friends and enemies,you accord with the way things are.Compassionate toward yourself,you reconcile all beings in the world.

We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness insidethat holds whatever we want.We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner spacethat makes it livable.We work with being, but non-being is what we use.

As soon as you have made a thought, laugh at it.

The Master, by residing in the Tao,sets an example for all beings.Because he doesn't display himself,people can see his light.Because he has nothing to prove,people can trust his words. Because he doesn't know who he is,people recognize themselves in him. Because he has no goal in mind,everything he does succeeds.

If you understand others you are smart.If you understand yourself you are illuminated.If you overcome others you are powerful.If you overcome yourself you have strength.If you know how to be satisfied you are rich.If you can act with vigor, you have a will.If you don't lose your objectives you can be long-lasting.If you die without loss, you are eternal.

The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.

Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.

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

Existence is beyond the power of wordsTo define:Terms may be usedBut are none of them absolute.In the beginning of heaven and earth there were no words,Words came out of the womb of matter;And whether a man dispassionatelySees to the core of lifeOr passionatelySees the surface,The core and the surfaceAre essentially the same,Words making them seem differentOnly to express appearance.If name be needed, wonder names them both:From wonder into wonderExistence opens.