Time to Die:
by Zen Koan

Time to Die:
A Zen teacher had a rare and priceless teacup.
One day, his precocious student accidentally broke the cup.
Hearing the footsteps of his teacher,
the student held the pieces of the cup behind his back.
When the master appeared, he asked: "Why do people have to die?"
"This is natural," explained the teacher.
"Everything has to die and has just so long to live."
The student showed the shattered cup, saying,
"It was time for your cup to die."
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Moon Cannot Be Stolen:
A thief entered the little hut of a Zen Master,
but discovered there was nothing to steal.
The Zen Master discovered the thief.
"You have come a long way to visit me," he told the prowler,
"and you should not return empty-handed.
Please take my clothes as a gift."
The thief was bewildered,
but he took the clothes and slunk away.
The Zen Master sat naked, watching the moon.
"Poor fellow," he mused,
"I wish I could have given him this beautiful moon."
- Traditional Zen Koan

The True Path is the path on which
there is no coming and no going.
- Traditional Zen Koan

The Sweetest Strawberry:
A man traveling across a field encountered a tiger.
He fled, the tiger after him.
Coming to a precipice,
he caught hold of the root of a wild vine
and swung himself over the edge.
The tiger sniffed at him from above.
Trembling, the man looked down to where,
far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him.
Only the vine sustained him.
Two mice, one white and one black,
little by little started to gnaw away the vine.
The man then saw a luscious strawberry near him.
Grasping the vine with one hand,
he plucked the strawberry with the other.
How sweet it tasted.
- Zen Koan

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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Overflowing Cup of Tea:
The Zen Master poured his visitor's teacup full, and then kept pouring.
The visitor watched until he could no longer restrain himself.
"It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," the Zen Master said,
"you are full of your own opinions and assumptions.
How can you learn truth until you first empty your cup?"
- Traditional Zen Koan

What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?
- Traditional Zen Koan

Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No good comes from hurrying.
- Yiddish Proverb

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao Tzu

Footprints in the sands of time...
Where have you been?
Where are you going?
Why are you going there?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A time for work, a time for play -
balance in all things.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

You will never find time for anything.
If you want time you must make it.
- Charles Buxton

There is only one time that is important - NOW!
It is the most important time because
it is the only time that we have any power.
- Leo Tolstoy

The bad news is time flies.
The good news is you're the pilot.
- Michael Althsuler

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
- Rabindranath Tagore

One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
- Andre Gide

Who forces time is pushed back by time;
who yields to time finds time on his side.
- The Talmud

Take time to play!
Ask for what you want.
Laugh.
Live loudly.
Be avid.
Learn a new thing.
Be Yourself!
- Mary Anne Radmacher

Find a time and place of solitude.
Look into the distance, and into the future.
Visualize the tomorrow you are going to build -
and begin to build that tomorrow, today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

To say "too busy" is merely
to say "confused priorities."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Do you feel stuck?
Whether in a project, a job, a relationship,
or some other situation,
there is a time for perseverance,
and a time for letting go and moving on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you feel the need to hurry,
remember that everything in life is a CHOICE.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The way lies in softness and patience,
as the softest water cuts through the hardest rock.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

This time, like all times, is a very good one,
if we but know what to do with it.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The dream you are living is your creation.
It is your perception of reality that you can change at any time.
- don Miguel Ruiz

A big part of letting go is recognizing
when it is time to stay in a situation
and when it is time to move on.
- Darren L. Johnson

The hardest part is what to leave behind, ... It's time to let go!
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,
a possession for all time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

An invasion of armies can be resisted,
but not an idea whose time has come.
- Victor Hugo

Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection,
not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther

The season of failure is the best time
for sowing the seeds of success.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

Habits age men before their time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The River of Life can cut through solid rock - in its own time.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles;
but today it means getting along with people.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We must use time creatively.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered
with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.
- Winston Churchill

We must use time wisely and forever realize
that the time is always ripe to do right.
- Nelson Mandela

Know that time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
You give your own meaning to time, as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority,
it is time to pause and reflect.
- Mark Twain

Never give up, for that
is just the place and time
that the tide will turn.
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

Once you have mastered time,
you will understand how true it is that
most people overestimate what
they can accomplish in a year -
and underestimate what
they can achieve in a decade!
- Tony Robbins

To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die.
- Ecclesiastes 3:1

Keep moving. Don't stop. But don't rush.
Don't race around.
Sure and steady gets you there every time.
- Neale Donald Walsch

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time
like dew on the tip of a leaf.
- Rabindranath Tagore

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
- Nelson Mandela

Procrastination is the thief of time.
- Edward Young

Urgent? Why?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch.
- John F. Kennedy

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools,
but the gentle touches of air and water
working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.
- Henry David Thoreau

Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living someone else's life.
- Steve Jobs

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

In order to discover new lands,
one must be willing to lose sight
of the shore for a very long time.
- Anonymous

That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind.
The time is always right to do the right thing.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every time you smile at someone,
it is an action of love,
a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.
- Mother Teresa

Time cures all things.
- Proverb

The time is always right to do what is right.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time,
for that is the stuff that life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time.
Hatred ceases through love.
This is an unalterable law.
- The Buddha

I must uphold my ideals,
for perhaps the time will come
when I shall be able to carry them out.
- Anne Frank

For time and the world do not stand still.
Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or the present
are certain to miss the future.
- John F. Kennedy

Little minds have little worries,
big minds have no time for worries.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think we dream so we don't have to be apart for so long.
If we're in each other's dreams, we can be together all the time.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)

This is our moment, this is our time.
- Bono

A sloth lives a pretty good life, s-l-o-w-l-y.
Maybe we have something to learn from him.
Some days, being sloth-like may be just what you need
to avoid being consumed by urgency.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Put some distance between yourself
and whatever is concerning you.
Distance in space or time
always creates a new perspective.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

When you think you're out of time,
smile, and turn back the clock.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Does thou love life? Then do not squander time;
for that's the stuff life is made of.
- Benjamin Franklin

There may be times when we are powerless
to prevent injustice, but there must never
be a time when we fail to protest.
- Elie Wiesel

Time flies.
- Anonymous

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie