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A Small Enough World
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A place where time slows down
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54 card teachings from the Taoism tradition
The ultimate, unnameable principle underlying all reality in Taoist philosophy. Not a god or deity but the natural order of existence itself. The Tao is not a personal deity but the nameless, formless source from which all things arise and to which they return. Laozi describes it as elusive yet inexhaustible.
How to read this collection: The entries below are Oriens card titles and short renderings, not verbatim quotations. Open a linked card to see its underlying text, translation, source, and modern interpretation where available.
Oriens card title
A Small Enough World
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A place where time slows down
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A Thousand Miles Begins Here
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Grasping leads to losing
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Acts Without Force
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Non-coercive action leaves nothing undone
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Alive and Soft, Dead and Rigid
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The soft are companions of life
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Alone in the Crowd
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The quiet one at the feast
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Be Like Water
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The highest good flows without struggle
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Begin with the Easy
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Great things are built from small ones
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Easy Words, Hard Practice
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My words are easy to understand — yet no one practices them
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Elusive and Intangible
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Within the vague, something is there
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Embrace the One
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Can you hold body and soul together?
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Empty and Never Exhausted
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Deep, it seems the ancestor of all things
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Force Rebounds
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What is done with violence returns
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Heavy Roots the Light
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Stillness is the master of restlessness
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Hold the Great Image
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The world comes, unharmed and at peace
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Invisible, Inaudible, Intangible
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The form of the formless
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Know the Male, Keep to the Female
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Become the valley of the world
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Know Without Showing
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Self-awareness without self-display
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Know Yourself
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Mastering others vs. mastering self
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Knowing Enough
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Know when to stop
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Lead Without Leading
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Act without action, teach without words
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Less Every Day
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In pursuit of the Tao, drop something daily
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Lie Low to Lead
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Rivers and seas rule the valleys by staying beneath them
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Muddy Water, Clear Mind
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Stillness clarifies what motion stirs up
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Mystic Virtue
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Create, act, nurture — then let go
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No Fixed Mind
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The sage takes the people's heart as their own
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Nothing Softer Than Water
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Yet nothing can overcome it against hardness
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One, Two, Three, All Things
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How the cosmos unfolds
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Practice Diligently
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Three responses to the Tao
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Quiet Settles the World
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Clarity and stillness are the correct path
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Return to Stillness
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Each thing returns to its root
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Return to the Uncarved Block
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See simplicity, hold to the plain
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Returning
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The movement of Tao is a circle
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See the Small
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Return to the light within
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Still the Hungry Eye
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Do not display what arouses desire
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Stop Before Spilling
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A full cup overflows; a sharp blade dulls
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The Best Leader Is Barely Known
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When the work is done, they say: we did it ourselves
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The Disaster of Discontent
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No greater curse than wanting more
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The Great Flow
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Nourishing all, claiming none
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The Lowland Draws the River
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A great nation flows downward
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The One Who Knows Does Not Speak
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Close the openings, soften the edges
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The Sacred Vessel
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The world cannot be forced
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The Soft Overcomes the Hard
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What is to be contracted must first expand
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The Softest Overcomes
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What has no substance enters where there is no space
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The Tao That Cannot Be Spoken
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Naming is the origin of all things
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The Usefulness of Emptiness
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The hub, the vessel, the room — all made useful by what is not there
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The Valley Spirit Never Dies
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The mysterious female, the root of heaven and earth
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The World Without Leaving Home
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Know all under heaven from within
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Three Treasures
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Compassion, restraint, and daring not to be first
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Too Much Dulls the Senses
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Five colors, five notes, five flavors — all too much
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Unnamed and Unmastered
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A small, uncarved thing no one can control
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Weapons Are Omens
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Fine tools of misfortune
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What Is of Itself
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The Tao has no outside
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Win Through Non-Interference
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Govern by doing less
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Yield to Stand Whole
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The soft overcomes the hard
Read the source card →Explore more about Tao → Knowledge Page · What is Tao?
慧
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