A Quote by Takuan Soho

One does not divine this by impressions or knowledge. What this means is that no matter how much you try to figure or calculate by means of impressions or knowledge, it will not prove the least bit useful. Therefore, separate yourself from the discrimination of figuring things out.
What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe, and of Calypso, and Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and balms and spices... It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that everyone has something nice to eat.
... mathematical knowledge ... is, in fact, merely verbal knowledge. "3" means "2+1", and "4" means "3+1". Hence it follows (though the proof is long) that "4" means the same as "2+2". Thus mathematical knowledge ceases to be mysterious.
Our first impressions are generated by our experiences and our environment, which means that we can change our first impressions... by changing the experiences that comprise those impressions.
Meditation means this opening out of the soul to the Divine and letting the Divine shine in without obstruction from the personal self. Therefore it means renunciation. It means throwing away everything that one has, and waiting empty for the light to come in.
The technical stuff does matter. It gives you a bit more ownership, a bit more power to choose what you do so that if you miss one, you can try to figure out a way, and that makes the next kick really exciting because it means you've got to commit everything to it.
The fact that cultures are failing all over the world means that they don't know how to operate a society to make it work. Politicians have no real knowledge of technology; therefore, they are not capable of increasing food production, designing transportations systems that are safe… They have no knowledge in that area. Therefore it's senseless to talk to them about anything of significance.
The senses are a kind of reason. Taste, touch and smell, hearing and seeing, are not merely a means to sensation, enjoyable or otherwise, but they are also a means to knowledge - and are, indeed, your only actual means to knowledge.
We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.
Overcoming naive impressions to figure out how things really work is one of humanity's highest callings.
Will power is nothing but another name of ego power. A man of wisdom has no will, just as he has no mind - because to will means to keep yourself separate from existence. It is a little subtle, but try to feel it. The moment you will it means you are always willing against things as they are. You want them to be some other way.
There are moments, particularly in times of stress, when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world.
Work hard and figure out how to be useful and don't try to imitate anybody else's success. Figure out how to do it for yourself with yourself.
We are all the subjects of impressions, and some of use seek to convey the impressions to others. In the art of communicating impressions lies the power of generalizing without losing that logical connection of parts to the whole which satisfies the mind.
The child is naturally meditative. He is a sort of samadhi; he's coming out of the womb of existence. His life river is yset absolutely fresh, just from the source. He knows the truth, but he does not know that he knows.... His knowledge is not yet aware. It is innocent. It is simply there, as a matter of fact. And he is not separate from his knowledge; he is his knowledge. He has not mind, he has simple being.
I mean, it's the life lessons that I suppose you learn that nobody gets a free ride and that you do the best you can with the means that you can and try to open yourself to as much knowledge and all that that you can.
No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.
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