Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

May thy knife chip and shatter.

But your body is like a pencil: if you sharpen it too much, it will break.

When Other blood spurts from the knife, Then everything is fine.

Perhaps memory is like a bucket; if you want to cram into it more fruit than it will hold, the fruit is crushed.

The only way to keep a broken vessel full is to keep it always under the tap.

Who consciously throws himself into the water or onto the knife?

And fear not lest Existence closing your Account, and mine, should know the like no more; The Eternal Saki from that Bowl has pour'd Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.

Too many cooks spoil the broth.

“They threw at me not just the kitchen sink but also the toilet bowl."

Cast down your bucket where you are.

So, if you just keep stirring the pot and stirring the pot, that alone you will run out of unluck.

An over sharpened sword cannot last long.