Thomas Cleary > Quotes

“When flowing water...meets with obstacles on its path, a blockage in its journey, it pauses. It increases in volume and strength, filling up in front of the obstacle and eventually spilling past it...

Do not turn and run, for there is nowhere worthwhile for you to go. Do not attempt to push ahead into the danger... emulate the example of the water: Pause and build up your strength until the obstacle no longer represents a blockage.”
― Thomas F. Cleary, I Ching: The Book of Change

“The excitable observer will pass judgement first and then make knowledge conform to judgement; the prudent observer will first learn to know and then judge according to knowledge.”
― Thomas Cleary (Ways of Warriors Codes of Kings)

“So if you are going to look for a pearl, it is best to still the waves; it will be hard to find if you stir the water. When the water of concentration is still and clear, the pearl of mind reveals itself.”
― Thomas Cleary, Minding Mind: A Course in Basic Meditation

“What worlds are there herein? I’ll tell you. In these seas of fragrant waters, numerous as atoms in unspeakably many buddha-fields, rest an equal number of world systems. Each world system also contains an equal number of worlds. Those world systems in the ocean of worlds have various resting places, various shapes and forms, various substances and essences, various locations, various entryways, various adornments, various boundaries, various alignments, various similarities, and various powers of maintenance.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra

“Having one's will on the Tao is finding joy in the Tao;
when one delights in the Tao, then one can practice the Tao.”
― Thomas Cleary, Taoist I Ching

“In general, the practice of the Way involves blocking off errors, stopping them before they happen. It does not value self-approval, it values inability to do wrong.”
― Thomas Cleary, Wen-Tzu

“If three people are travelling and one of them is confused, they can still get where they are going. That´s because the confused one is in the minority.
If two of them are confused, they´ll have a hard time and won´t get there, because confusion prevails.”
― Thomas Cleary, Chuang-tzu: The Outer Chapters

“Because of barriers of knowledge, barriers of state, and barriers of action, seeing your own buddha nature is like seeing color at night.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Five Houses of Zen

“Not diminishing the Way by the mind,
not trying to help the divine by means of the human.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Taoist Classics, Volume One: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary

“Artist and scholar, warrior and statesman, husband and father, Ḥaḍrat ‘Alī is a traditional model for chivalry, learning, and devotion.”
― Thomas Cleary, Living and Dying with Grace: Counsels of Hadrat Ali

“The gateway to the Tao is open - anyone can come in. If you know how to change directions, the goal is near at hand.”
― Thomas Cleary, Awakening to the Tao

“those who’ve gone wrong
follow their desires without knowledge.
So who guides those
whom God has allowed to get lost?
There are no saviors for them.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“The Way returns the carved and the polished to simplicity.”
― Thomas Cleary

“​III. 23. ​Your Lord has decreed
that you should worship only God,
and be good to your parents.
Whether one or both of them
reaches old age with you,
never speak to them harshly,”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“The Book of Five Rings and The Book of Family Traditions on the Art of War are both written in Japanese, rather than the literary Chinese customary in elite bureaucratic, religious, and intellectual circles in Japan at the time.”
― Thomas Cleary, A Book of Five Rings: The Classic Guide to Strategy

“Be aware of yourself and know yourself. No matter how much you have learned and how much you know, if you don’t know yourself you don’t know anything. Indeed, if you don’t know yourself you cannot know anything else. People who don’t know themselves criticize others from the point of view of their own ignorant selves. They consider whatever agrees with them to be good, and hate whatever doesn’t go their way. They become irritated about everything, causing themselves to suffer by themselves, bothering themselves solely because of their own prejudices. If you know that not everyone will be agreeable to you, know that you won’t be agreeable to everyone either. Those who have no prejudices in themselves do not reject people, and therefore people do not reject them.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Japanese Art of War: Understanding the Culture of Strategy

“Look for loyal ministers in homes with filial sons”
― Thomas Cleary, Code of the Samurai: A Modern Translation of the Bushido Shoshinshu of Taira Shigesuke

“​So incline your aim to religion
as God-given nature,
according to which
God created humanity:
there is no altering
the creation of God—
that is the true religion,”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“68. ​And your Lord inspired the bee,
“Make your houses in the mountains,
in the trees,
and in the buildings they construct: 69. ​“then eat from all the fruits,
gently walking the pathways of your Lord.”
From within them exudes a drink
of various colors, in it healing for humankind.
Surely in that is a sign for people who reflect.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“The nobility of the ancients was no more than purity and serenity--what need for bushels of emblems?”
― Thomas Cleary, The Pocket Zen Reader

“Openness and affability in people are gotten from nature—if you try to force them, they will not last long.”
― Thomas Cleary, Zen Lessons: The Art of Leadership

“Since the refinement of the three treasures requires the removal of emotions, it is necessary to govern the mind. What is governing the mind? The mind is originally pure, the mind is originally calm; openness and freedom are both basic qualities of mind, this means we should keep it as it is in its original fundamental state, clear as a mountain stream, pure, fresh, unpolluted, silent as an immense canyon, free from clamor, vast as the universe, immeasurable in extent, open as a great desert, its bounds unknown.”
― Thomas Cleary, Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Sourcebook

“and then you would never be happy.” 21. ​Yet We made them known to others thus,
that they would know the promise of God
is true, and that there can be no doubt
about the end of time.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“​Did the people of the cities feel safe
from the visitation of Our vengeance
while they passed the night sleeping? 98. ​Or did the people of the cities feel safe
from the visitation of Our vengeance
as they amused themselves by day? 99. ​Did they feel safe from the strategy of God?
But none feel safe from the strategy of God
but people who are lost.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“The Buddha is like space, with no inherent nature; appearing in the world to benefit the living, his features and refinements are like reflections.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Flower Ornament Scripture: A Translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra, Vol. 1

“Wisdom should control courtesy. Courtesy should control righteousness. Righteousness should control benevolence. Benevolence should control trustworthiness. Trustworthiness should control wisdom. When these five natures produce and control each other thus in a continuous circle, then no element of personality dominates; they all interact, balancing each other, resulting in completeness of the five natures.”
― Thomas Cleary, Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Sourcebook

“Those with enlightened virtue please the people, those without enlightened virtue please themselves. Those who please the people grow, those who please themselves perish. Nowadays many of those who are called leaders deal with the people on the basis of likes and dislikes. When we look for those who know what is bad about what they like and know what is good about what they dislike, we find that they are rare. Therefore it is said, “Those who share the same grief and happiness as the people, the same good and bad, are the just.” Who would not take refuge where there is justice? Laike”
― Thomas Cleary, Zen Lessons: The Art of Leadership

“God is not unjust to people at all;
it is people, rather, who wrong themselves.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary

“Everyone holds a luminous jewel, all embrace a precious gem; if you do not turn your attention around and look within, you will wander from home with a hidden treasure. Have you not heard it said, “In the ear it is like the great and small sounds in an empty valley, none not complete; in the eye it is like myriad images under a thousand suns, none able to avoid casting shadows”? If you seek it outside of sense experience, you will hinder the living meaning of Zen.”
― Thomas Cleary, Rational Zen: The Mind of Dogen Zenji

“Though We alarm them,
yet it only increases
their tremendous excess.”
― Thomas Cleary, The Qur'an: A New Translation by Thomas Cleary