Great Throughts Treasury

"The preservation or loss of a nation depends upon the depth or shallowness of its virtue, not upon its strength or weakness."

"If you’re hungry, you eat; when you are near full, you stop. Then take a constitutional walk, don’t let your stomach ever be too full: in fact, it’s empty. Also, in your spare time, when you sit or lie down and relax, it is important that you do not move. Be like a puppet at rest. Or imagine you’re sitting at the edge of hell; if you move a little, you will fall into Hell and meet an unpleasant and fiery end. Focus your eyes on the tip of your nose, watching the breath, counting each exhalation and inhalation as one; then two, three, etc., to continue endlessly. If you can count into several hundreds, with your body still, you no longer will need to imagine sitting on the edge of Hell. You will be still and have an open and peaceful mind. If you can count into several thousands, the numbers become to long. But there is another method to use at this stage, called “following”. In this method, you follow the breathing with total concentration; exhale and inhale without a count. As you continue this practice, you will begin to feel the breathing through the pores of the skin. At this stage, you will become very healthy and reach enlightenment. Just as a blind man suddenly regains his sight, he can see everything by himself; you will no longer need to be guided. My words end here."

"My writing is like a ten gallon spring. It can issue from the ground anywhere at all. On smooth ground it rushes swiftly on and covers a thouasand li in a single day without difficulty. When it twists and turns among mountains and rocks, it fits its form to things it meets: unknowable. What can be known is, it always goes where it must go, always stops where it cannot help stopping -- nothing else. More than that, even I cannot know."

"Define the limits of your vision: Having this, you will not be poorer than a man who rules a dukedom."

"The moon should have no regrets. Why is she always at the full when men are separated? Men have their woe and joy, parting and meeting; The moon has her dimness and brightness, waxing and waning. Never from of old has been lasting perfection. I only wish that you and I may be ever well and hale, That both of us may watch the fair moon, even a thousand miles apart."

"Last night in a dream I returned home And at the chamber window Saw you at your toilet; We looked at each other in silence and melted into tears. I cherish in my memory year by year the place of heartbreaking, In the moonlit night The knoll of short pines."

"A fragment moon hangs from the bare tung tree. The water clock runs out, all is still. Who sees the dim figure come and go alone? Misty, indistinct, the shadow of a lone wild goose? Startled, she gets up, looks back with longing no one sees and will not settle on any of the cold branches along the chill and lonely beach."

"The Yangtze flows east washing away a thousand ages of great men. West of the ramparts -- People say -- are the fabled Red Cliffs of young Chou of the Three Kingdoms. Rebellious rocks pierce the sky. Frightening waves rip the bank. The backwash churns vast snowy swells -- river and mountains like a painting how many heroes passed them, once... Think back to those years, Chou Yu -- Just married to the younger Chiao -- brave, brilliant with plumed fan, silk kerchief. Laughed and talked while masts and oars vanished to flying ash and smoke! I roam through ancient realms absurdly moved turn gray too soon -- a man's life passes like a dream -- pour out a cup then, to the river, and the moon."

"Like a flower, but not a flower. No one cares when it falls and lies discarded at the roadside. But though unmoved, I think about the tangle of wounded tendrils. Lovely eyes full of sleep about to open, yet still in dreams, following the wind ten thousand miles in search of love. Startled, time and again, by the oriole's cry do not pity the flower that flies off. Grieve for the western garden its fallen red already beyond mending -- now, after morning rain. What's left? A pond full of broken duckweed if the three parts of spring two turn to dust one to flowing water. Look -- these are not catkins but drop after drop of parted lover's tears."

"To what can our life on earth be likened? To a flock of geese, alighting on the snow. Sometimes leaving a trace of their passage."

"Families, when a child is born want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, having wrecked my whole life, only hope the baby will prove ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life by becoming a Cabinet Minister."

"Will a moon so bright ever arise again? Drink a cupful of wine and ask of the sky. I don't know where the palace gate of heaven is, or even the year in which tonight slips by. I want to return riding the whirl-wind! But I feel afraid that this heaven of jasper and jade lets in the cold, its palaces rear so high. I shall get up and dance with my own shadow. From life endured among men how far a cry! Round the red pavilion slanting through the lattices onto every wakeful eye, moon, why should you bear a grudge, O why insist in time of separation so fill the sky? Men know joy and sorow, parting and reunion; the moon lacks lustre, brightly shines; is al, is less. Perfection was never easily come by. Though miles apart, could men but live forever dreaming they shared this moonlight endlessly!"