“Last night, I dreamt that there was a demon that had been in my life for decades, ruining my chances at success. But he was invisible, untouchable, unknowable. I intuited that the only way to get at him was to fuse him with matter, to make him solid, and then to crush the resulting combination. I maneuvered him into taking form, and then finally found a way to get the pile into a press and pulverize it with him in it.

So it is with so much of what plagues us. We cannot deal with it until we can name it, touch it, and control it. We must bring it out of the realm of unseen curses and into the realm of the solid. Only then can we destroy it and remove it from our lives.

And then that gives birth to the creativity, beauty, and freedom that is also waiting to become real.”

“Be the lantern. Light the way for all and don't try to shine only for some. The best lanterns shine in all directions for everyone.

The candle in a good hand-lantern stays centered, upright, and always burning. It would be a disaster if it were to tip, fall over, or get blown out. A hand-lantern held carelessly flickers, goes out, or sets a paper lantern aflame. How many times have we caused our own problems by tipping over what should be our advantages and power?

All we need to do is stay centered. Meditate.  We bring light to the world as long as we stay centered and upright.”

“Forging a sword takes all of Wuxing—metal, water, wood, fire, and earth.

The iron ore must be of the purest metal, and provides the tongs, anvil, hammers, chisels, and files—you can't make steel without the previous generation of steel. Water quenches and tempers. Wood traditionally provided the fuel and provides the hammer handles and the sword handle itself. Fire is crucial, from smelting to forging. Earth provides the materials for furnaces, whetstones, the original iron ore, and the very place for the forge.

Forging a sword by hand takes thousand of blows and hundreds of folded layers. It's as if the many blows are forerunners of the strokes the sword will someday deliver.

The process of becoming a swordsperson is the same. We have to forge ourselves in the crucible of training. We have to reshape ourselves over many days, as the sword bears hammer and anvil. Our rough steel must be filed to reveal our many layers—character is grain. Then comes more refinement through grinding on successive grades of whetstone and polishing with compounds and rouge.

Once we are sharp, a handle must be fashioned. A refined self is dangerous if not safely directed. And then the blade must be sheathed so that we don't swing it foolishly around.

A good sword can be forged in a year. The sword of the self is forged all one’s life.”

“How is it that many a noble and great person is brought low by an affair, drugs, alcohol, food, or some other secret obsession? We think this is some character flaw or gross hypocrisy, but I believe that every person is capable of it. Why? Because all of us have some secret longing, some special and odd need, or some fascination. We hide it, because it isn’t acceptable. All along, we hope to satisfy it in a private way so that no one will know—and yet we still need the release and the affirmation that feeding that hunger brings.

In addition, we may not truly want to be rid of our obsession. We may have come to think of it as defining us. We have come to regard it as our pride and our very source of power. All the while, we keep smiling as we show up at civic gatherings so handsomely dressed to accept awards for our tremendous altruism.

This is my sympathy for all of us. We all have that. Maybe most of us discharge it in some harmless way. Others of us struggle every day with it. We are both demon and sage. We cannot cut off any part of ourselves, but we can find outlets for our dilemmas. We must. To do otherwise is to implode. Or to become monsters.

To find freedom, safely, is to leave our flaws and become sages.”

“The mountain is miles away yet it still rises large against the sky. Snow crusting its summit is a stark white against the black rock of its lower flanks. The treeline is far below.

The ancient people called this a bald peak and imagined it to be the house of gods. For centuries, they wouldn't climb it: they knew their place and did not wish to be cursed for their temerity. They were content to watch from afar, to listen to their elders' stories, and to be buried within sight of that rock pointing to the sky.

Today, people summit the peak "because it's there." No gods were found at the top because gods don't exist for us anymore the way they did then. Instead, we need to find the mountain inside us, and find the gods there.

I don’t know if we’re better off for our modernity. But I know the need for the mountain continues unabated through each generation.”

“As a practitioner of internal arts, you have to think of profit. I don't mean that in its monetary sense. I mean that in the sense of what's left after a day's work. If you're going to progress, it will be by measured effort followed by adequate rest, nutrition, and recreation.

The Chinese word for "profit, yi-益  expresses this idea by showing water left in a dish. Your benefit is what's still in the dish after a lot of scooping. It's a matter of saving.

So when you finish practice, relax completely. Whatever effect you'll gain will be slight but significant. You can progress only a little each day. Then you have to rest and try again tomorrow. You can't become a master overnight any more than you can become rich overnight.

According to legend, the elixir of immortality took years to accumulate and weeks of cooking once all the rare ingredients were saved. Today, we still have to follow that same course.”

“If I clamped your fingers in a vice and asked you to listen to a lecture on suffering, you could hardly be blamed for screaming at me. In the same way, can we truly expect people to consider the painful nature of existence while they are already in pain?

Just as a person in severe pain after an accident, trauma, or illness cannot be called well, but they must certainly try to get well, people have to be healed from pain before they can consider spirituality.

Just ask if a person is in pain before you talk about anything esoteric. Ask yourself if you're in pain before you turn to spirituality. Until the pain is managed, we can hardly see the sun through the clouds.”

“After a seed is buried in the dark earth, we cannot see what happens. In fact, to disturb the seed is to interrupt its growth. Anything we might want to do must be slight. We might water periodically or keep insects away, but otherwise we must wait for the process to take care of itself.

When we use the word "natural," it secretly admits that we know that there is an order that is greater than our art and science and that the world functions perfectly well without us. We may seek standards and tinker with our laws but one overriding order exists already.

Many parents raise their kids as if the world is mute and that people can be independent of nature. The outdoors, at best, is treated as a place of recreation—fishing, hunting, speedboats, skiing, hiking. It's a place where highways cross, a place to build a house, an inconvenient distance that impedes our online orders. But few say that nature is the context of our lives and our very pattern for living. All the while, the roots continue to grow unseen, feeding us, clothing us, and giving us material in such abundance that we assume it as a mere given.

When will we complete our growth into maturity and truly understand that the roots of our truth are in the natural? When will we stop to think about the full grain that fills our mouths with bread?”

“The illusions of this world and the pain of existence are tied together.

There is the illusion of glittering beauty. We reach for it, only for it to dissolve and leave us in disappointment.

There is the illusion of endless youth. As we grow past middle age, creeping infirmity frightens us.

There is the illusion of trust. We believe in others and their betrayal throws us into hurt and rage.

There is the illusion of a perfect self. When we think we've failed, our self-esteem shatters into jagged shards.

There are thousands of illusions. This world is like a labyrinth of mirrors, projections, golden statues, and dark chambers exuding heady perfumes but hiding savage demons. If we follow the beckoning steps instead of walking our own measured way we become lost in what other images want us to do. And that is rarely for our benefit, making pain assured.

So if nothing else, keep this one ideal in mind: don't knowingly add to another's suffering. And then for ourselves, let us see clearly and not tether our dreams to stampeding illusion.”

“When you start out in art, there’s little you can do beyond scrawling and making basic shapes, and so you understandably need to learn about the subject. That leads to years of exercises, exploration, practice, and further discovery.

In the middle period, it’s tempting to think that great art lies in complexity, deep theory, elaborate craftsmanship, or aggressive marketing. Even if you’re a success at this stage, you might vaguely sense something’s wrong. You see the great artists who achieved a high level of art with seemingly simplicity. A potter throws the same round shape every day. A furniture maker pares wood down to forms without ornament. A poet achieves the content of a novel in a single quatrain. A composer uses nothing more than the notes of successive chords. The higher level of art is not to be more elaborate, but to be more simple.

The difference between what’s artistically simple and what’s without content is this: pure presence.“

“We talk about the length of the journey, the necessity to continue on, and the constantly changing conditions through which we will walk. But we never talk about the width of the path.

It is as wide as your stance. The funny thing is that the wider you put your legs, the less mobile you are—to the point that if you could, say, do the splits, you couldn’t move anywhere at all. If you stand with your feet touching, you couldn’t move well either, and your balance would be challenged.

We must all walk with our feet about shoulder-width apart. We cannot deviate to one side of the path without either going to the extreme edge, or without going off on another road altogether.

Thus it is that the road ahead may be endless, but that our other options are constrained. The I Ching counsels us to “return to the middle of the path,” when we are unsure. We have to walk, we have to be securely in our own stance, and we have to walk strong.”

“The Way of Learning is like polishing jade or grinding a millstone. That is self-cultivation. One must be dignified and valiant.—Book of Rites.

道學也；「如琢如磨」者，自修也；「瑟兮僩兮」者 …

“Self-cultivation is the essential way of life. This passage reminds us that it is a long and arduous process. But jade becomes more beautiful by polishing. Refining one’s personality requires the patience and constancy of turning a millstone. We must be dignified. We must be valiant.

I want to focus on that last word. Xian-僩 means courageous, valiant, martial, and dignified. That’s a great guide to character, but I became curious about a word that could mean so many strong qualities. How was it expressed?

The left side shows a person-人, categorizing the word as a human quality. The other side is 閒, which means peaceful, tranquil, and calm, and it shows the moon-月, shining through a gate-門. I had to think about that. A word that includes martial in its definition is taken from a concept of peace and tranquility. I imagined being on a terrace in ancient China, watching the moon rise through a portal like a city gate or a memorial gate. Yes, that would be a feeling of tranquility. What if I was a sentry at that gate, charged with guarding it, knowing I would fulfill my duty, but grateful that there was no trouble for the moment? What an exquisite combination of feelings there are in this word!

What did it take to be such a warrior? Training that was as painful as polishing jade or being beneath a millstone. Yet the warrior was to emerge dignified† and valorous—as the bright moon rises through the great gate.”

“Many people find the idea of emptiness—that metaphysical view of the Hindus, Buddhists, and Taoists—difficult to accept. They see it like stepping from a space capsule into the airless, hostile void of space and they understandably recoil.

But all of us actually like emptiness. We like being in the green valleys with the wide blue sky above us. We love staring at miles of ocean during sunset. We imagine a thousand stories as our imaginations roam among the constellations.

When we move into a new house, we relish the space and make plans to arrange and decorate it. When we drive, we like nothing more than open road without congestion. And who among us does not prefer that enviable financial state—no debt?

What could we paint without a blank canvas? What pot in the kitchen could we use unless it was clean and ready? What glass could we pour a drink into unless it hadn’t been filled? How could we have the pleasure of eating without being hungry?

We make use of emptiness every day. Let us not speculate whether it was left outside this planet or whether it was left behind after the Big Bang. Emptiness is good—it is here and we live by it.”

“It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking only of the external season. What is it to be summer?

What is it to be the glory of long days, ample growth, easy living? What is it to have ripening, nurturing, and comfort? Can we be summer, can we give it to others for their benefit, and can we let our sun be bright and our nights warm? Can we be a warm breeze, sweeping away the dampness, and be the breath of the world?

Summer is always in you. Let this be the day when your presence helps others to begin.”

“From Liezi:

A man who lived near the ocean loved seagulls. When he swam each morning, hundreds of gulls splashed around him in the water.

One day his father said, “I’ve heard that you swim with seagulls every day. I want you to catch a couple of them for me to have as pets.” The next day, the man went down to the sea as usual—but the gulls only wheeled away from him.

Thus it is said: “The best speech is rid of speech. The best act is no act. Such knowledge is complete wisdom. Anything else is shallow.”

*** As soon as your heart changes, all of nature knows. The Taoists advocate having “nonintention.” That means something beyond having nothing in mind. It means not having any selfish intentions, not scheming to get some advantage for yourself. That’s in opposition to so much of our contemporary mores, but, as Liezi concludes: “anything else is shallow.” Far better to have a whole heart without guile or greed.”