When two things occur successively we call them cause and effect if we believe one event made the other one happen. If we think one event is the response to the other, we call it a reaction. If we feel that the two incidents are not related, we call it a mere coincidence. If we think someone deserved what happened, we call it retribution or reward, depending on whether the event was negative or positive for the recipient. If we cannot find a reason for the two events' occurring simultaneously or in close proximity, we call it an accident. Therefore, how we explain coincidences depends on how we see the world. Is everything connected, so that events create resonances like ripples across a net? Or do things merely co-occur and we give meaning to these co-occurrences based on our belief system? Lieh-tzu's answer: It's all in how you think.

~ Liezi

Liezi Beliefs Cause And Effect Coincidence Interpretation Perspectivism Projection Reality Relativity Subjectivity Taoism Truth View

Some people think they can find satisfaction in good food, fine clothes, lively music, and sexual pleasure. However, when they have all these things, they are not satisfied. They realize happiness is not simply having their material needs met. Thus, society has set up a system of rewards that go beyond material goods. These include titles, social recognition, status, and political power, all wrapped up in a package called self-fulfillment. Attracted by these prizes and goaded on by social pressure, people spend their short lives tiring body and mind to chase after these goals. Perhaps this gives them the feeling that they have achieved something in their lives, but in reality they have sacrificed a lot in life. They can no longer see, hear, act, feel, or think from their hearts. Everything they do is dictated by whether it can get them social gains. In the end, they've spent their lives following other people's demands and never lived a life of their own. How different is this from the life of a slave or a prisoner?

~ Liezi

Liezi Artificiality Authentic Be Yourself Community Dishonesty Emptiness Genuine Happiness Honesty Phony Prestige Sacrifice Self Slavery Social Pressure Social Role Status Taoism

A person with a mind is bound to be filled with conceptions. These conceptions prevent him from knowing things directly, so a person with a mind shall never really know.

~ Liezi

Liezi Conceptions Direct Experience Knowledge Mind Projection Taoism

If you can dispense with reputation, then you are free from care. Reputation is only a visitor, but reality is here to stay.

~ Liezi

Liezi Fame Prestige Reality Renown Reputation Status Taoism

In infancy, our blood is strong and our energy is plentiful. Mind and body, thought and action are one. Everything we do is in harmony with the natural order. The infant is not affected by things that happen around him. Virtue and ethics cannot restrain his will. Naked and free of social conventions, he follows the natural path of the heart.

~ Liezi

Liezi Babies Baby Children Infancy Innocence Oceanic Experience

Develop flexibility and you will be firm, cultivate yielding and you will be strong.

~ Liezi

Liezi Firmness Flexibility Strength Yielding

Strength should always be complimented by softness. If you resist too much, you will break. Thus, the strong person knows when to use strength and when to yield, and good fortune and disaster depend on whether you know how and when to yield.

~ Liezi

Liezi Competition Rigidness Softness Strength Taoism Yielding

Chuang-tzu once told a story about two persons who both lost a sheep. One person got very depressed and lost himself in drinking, sex, and gambling to try to forget this misfortune. The other person decided that this would be an excellent chance for him to study the classics and quietly observe the subtleties of nature. Both men experience the same misfortune, but one man lost himself because he was too attached to the experience of loss, while the other found himself because he was able to let go of gain and loss.

~ Liezi

Liezi Acceptance Experience Letting Go Loss Misfortune Nature Taoism

There was a man whose only son died of a sudden illness. He did not mourn for his son, nor was he sad about it. His friends were curious about his behavior, so they asked him, Your only son is dead. You should be heartbroken. Why do you act as if nothing had happened?The man replied, Before my son came, I had no son. I was certainly not heartbroken back then. Now I have no son. Why should I be heartbroken now?

~ Liezi

Liezi Death Loss Pain Taoism

When you know that illusion and transformation are no different from birth and death, then you may learn magic.

~ Liezi

Liezi Birth Death Illusion Magic Transformation

Those who travel outward seek completeness in things, those who gaze inward find sufficiency in themselves.

~ Liezi

Liezi Completeness Inward Outward Sufficiencyt Travel

Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see. In fact, there is no distinction between the viewer and the seen. You experience everything with the totality of yourself, so that every blade of grass, every mountain, every lake is alive and is a part of you. When there is no division between you and what is other, this is the ultimate experience of traveling.

~ Liezi

Liezi Journey Nonduality Taoism Travel Traveling Trip Zen

The contented person finds rest in death, and for the greedy person, death puts an end to his long list of desires.

~ Liezi

Liezi Death Desire Greed Life And Death Peace Rest

The ancients said that for persons who cultivated body and mind, and who are virtuous and honorable, death is an experience of liberation, a long-awaited rest from a lifetime of labors. Death helps the unscrupulous person to put an end to the misery of desire. Death, then, for everyone is a kind of homecoming. That is why the ancient sages speak of a dying person as a person who is 'going home.

~ Liezi

Liezi Death Dying Home Homecoming Life And Death Peace Rest Rest In Peace Taoism

In youth, our blood rises and becomes volatile. Desire, worry, and anxiety increase. External circumstances now direct the rise and fall of emotions. Will and intention become constrained by social conventions. Competition, conflict, and scheming are the norm in interactions with people. The approval and disapproval of others become important, and the honest and sincere expression of thoughts and feelings is lost.

~ Liezi

Liezi Adolescence Loss Of Innocence Taoism Teenagers Youth

Complete people gaze into the blue sky above, plunge into the center of the earth below, and run freely in the eight directions without even a change of mood.

~ Liezi

Liezi Blue Sky Complete Earth Mood

I became aware that there was no barrier between what was inside and what was outside. My body was illuminated by a bright light. I heard with my eyes and saw with my ears. I used my nose as mouth and my mouth as nose. I experienced the world with the totality of my senses as my spirit gathered and my form dissolved. There was no distinction between muscles and bones. My body stopped being heavy and I felt like a floating leaf. Without knowing it, I was being carried by the wind. Drifting here and there, I did not know whether I rode on the wind or the wind rode on me.

~ Liezi

Liezi Enlightenment Liberation Release Spirituality Religion Taoism

Division and differentiation are the processes by which things are created. Since things are emerging and dissolving all the time, you cannot specify the point when this division will stop.

~ Liezi

Liezi Birth Birth And Death Creation Death Differentiation Dissolution Division Monism Nonduality Projection Taoism

To solve a problem, you need to remove the cause, not the symptom.

~ Liezi

Liezi Adversity Inspirational Problem Solution Taoism

People use the words beginning and end to describe the start and end of things. However, beginning is really the event of coming together when energy gathers, and end is simply the dissolution of that energy. That which came together can easily dissolve if conditions become unfavorable. That which has dissolved may come together again if circumstances are appropriate. Therefore, who is to say that there is a beginning and an end?

~ Liezi

Liezi Beginning Death Dissolution End Energy Life

Let your eyes see what they see, not what others want you to see. Let your ears hear what they naturally hear, not what others want you to hear. Let your mouth speak your mind freely and not be constrained by other people's approval or disapproval. Let your mind think what it wants to think and not let other people's demands dictate your thoughts. If your senses and your mind are not allowed to do what they want to do naturally, you are denying them their rights. When you cannot think, sense, feel, or act freely, then your body and mind are injured. Break these oppressions, and you will cultivate life.

~ Liezi

Liezi Constraints Freedom Freedom Of Speech Freedom Of Thought Individuality Inspirational Taoism Think For Yourself

When we are rich and famous and powerful, we do not want to die. On the other hand, if we are miserable and suffering, we want to die and leave it all. But can joy or misery last forever? There is a saying, All celebrations must end sometime. Any wish to live forever or die immediately is often a whim of the moment. How do we know that, although we are happy now, we may not be sad the next day, or sad now but may be happy soon? Given that good and ill, fortune and misfortune come in their own way, we should not cling to life or embrace death. Life and death will come of their own. Why be greedy about life and afraid of death?

~ Liezi

Liezi Change Death Fortune Greed Life Life And Death Misfortune Taoism

Once you transcend the external differences, anything can be merged with anything.

~ Liezi

Liezi Illusion Inner And Outer Nonduality Transcendence