Non-striving Quotes

Truth comes when your mind and heart are purged of all sense of striving and you are no longer trying to become somebody; it is there when the mind is very quiet, listening timelessly to everything.

He is beginning to master wisdom when he tries to learn how not to try.

Our way is to practice one step at a time, one breath at a time, with no gaining idea.

Acting without design, occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings; this is the method of Tao.

Do nothing. Do nothing. Let it happen. Don't try.

Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.

The power of now can only be realized now. It requires no time and effort. Effort means you're trying hard to get somewhere, and so you are not present, welcoming this moment as it is.

Meditation is the only intentional, systematic human activity which at bottom is about not trying to improve yourself or get anywhere else, but simply to realize where you already are.

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.

The whole zen attitude is to bring to your notice the fact that there is no effort to be made. The zen attitude is that of effortlessness.

The best soldiers are not warlike; the best fighters do not lose their temper. The greatest conquerors are those who overcome their enemies without strife. The greatest directors of men are those who yield place to others. This is called the Virtue of not striving, the capacity for directing mankind; this is being the compeer of Heaven. It was the highest goal of the ancients.

Do nondoing, strive for non-stiving, savor the flavourless, make much of little, repay enmity with virture; plan for difficulty when it is still easy, do the great while it is still small.

That is the basic pattern of this kind of meditation, which is based on three fundamental factors: first, not centralizing inward; second, not having any longing to become higher; and third, becoming completely identified with here and now.

One should be in harmony with, not in opposition to, the strength and force of the opposition. This means that one should do nothing that is not natural or spontaneous; the important thing is not to strain in any way.

So, in meditation practice, the best way to get somewhere is to let go of trying to get anywhere at all.

Drop all ideas of achieving in meditation, just do it naturally; what happens happens on its own. One day, effortlessly, everything starts happening by itself.

Zen is not “attained” by mirror-wiping mediation, but by “self-forgetfulness in the existential 'present' of life here and now.” We do not “come”, we “are.” Don't strive to become, but be.

One thing I like about Zen. It doesn't believe in achievement.

In Buddhism, there is no place for using effort. Just be ordinary and nothing special. Eat your food, move your bowels, pass water and when you're tired go and lie down. The ignorant will laugh at me, but the wise will understand.