Quotes from Takuan Soho

When this No-Mind has been well developed, the mind does not stop with one thing nor does it lack any one thing. It appears appropriately when facing a time of need.

Preoccupied with a single leaf, you won't see the tree. Preoccupied with a single tree, you'll miss the entire forest.

When one practices discipline and moves from the beginner's territory to immovable wisdom, one makes a return and falls back to the level of the beginner.

When facing a single tree, if you look at a single one of its red leaves, you will not see all the others. When the eye is not set on one leaf, and you face the tree with nothing at all in mind, any number of leaves are visible to the eye without limit. But if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.

Completely forget about the mind and you will do all things well

When you look at a tree, se it for its leafs, its branches, its trunk and the roots, then and only then will you see the tree

One may explain water, but the mouth will not become wet. One may expound fully on the nature of fire, but the mouth will not become hot.

If you follow the present-day world, you will turn your back on the Way; if you would not turn your back on the Way, do not follow the world.

It is the very mind itself That leads the mind astray; Of the mind, Do not be mindless.

If you would know a man's good and evil points, you should know the underlings and retainers he loves and employs, and the friends with whom he mixes intimately. If the lord is not correct, none of his friends and retainers will be correct.

Although it does not mindfully keep guard, In the small mountain fields the scarecrow does not stand in vain.

If the mind congeals in one place and remains with one thing, it is like frozen water and is unable to be used freely: ice that can wash neither hands nor feet. When the mind is melted and is used like water, extending throughout the body, it can be sent wherever one wants to send it.

Jei kas pastatyt? veidrod?, tai veidrodžio atspindžiai b?t? matomi. Nors veidrodis atspindi ir apie tai negalvodamas, jo atspindžiai vis tiek yra preciziškai tiksl?s. Savo mintis sud?damas lyg veidrod?, kovos men? žmogus taip pat nem?stys apie sprendimus, ta?iau priklausomai nuo jo min?i? veidrodžio ryškumo, sprendimas tarp teisingo ir neteisingo bus priimtas be jokios minties.