Sublime

Noble spirits are nourished by hard work. Hence there is no reason for you to choose your wish, your aim, from among the things your parents prayed long ago for you to have. And in general it is shameful for a man who has achieved great things to be still bothering the gods.

As Diogenes, the famous Cynic, once said, “It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.” To want nothing makes one invincible—because nothing lies outside your control.

“Blocking” is perhaps the best translation of the Zen term nienn as it occurs in the phrase wu-nien, “no-thought” or, better, “no second thought.” Takuan points out that this is the real meaning of “attachment” in Buddhism, as when it is said that a Buddha is free from worldly attachments. It does not mean that he is a “stone Buddha” with no feelin

Keep neither a blunt knife nor an ill-disciplined looseness of tongue.

Never value anything as profitable to thyself which shall compel thee to break thy promise, to lose thy self-respect, to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to act the hypocrite, to desire anything which needs walls and curtains:

LU NUNG-SHIH says, “The mind knows and chooses, while the stomach doesn’t know but simply contains. The will wants and moves, while bones don’t want but simply stand there. Sages empty what knows and fill what doesn’t know. They weaken what wants and strengthen what doesn’t want.”