Choose a master, for without him this journey is full of tribulations, fears, and dangers. With no escort, you would be lost on a road you would have already taken. Do not travel alone on the Path.
The day is coming when I fly off, but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice? Who says words with my mouth? Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking.
When you look at everything in life with the eyes of want and greed, whom do you hope to escape? Yourself? God? Is that possible?
Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested.
Though the words of the great saints appear in a hundred different forms, since God is one and the Way is one, how can their words be different? Though their teachings appear to contradict, their meaning is one. Separation exists in their outward form only; in inner purpose they all agree.
No matter how hard you stare into muddy water, you will not see the moon or the sun.
But these are merely words. You have caught that Light but still have not found humanity. Seek humanity: that is your true purpose. The rest is mere long-windedness. When words are elaborately decorated, their purpose is forgotten.
When your heart becomes the grave of your secret, that desire of your will be gained more quickly.
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting. The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness.
You are the source of my life. You bring rivers from the mountain springs. You brighten my eyes. The wine you offer takes me out of myself into the self we share.
With an uneducated person be silent as a book.
Our original state is nonbeing, nonexistence, and we spend much of our lives trying to break free of matter, free of mind and desire, back into the deep region of being and nonbeing we are at the core. The refreshment of dreamless sleep when we are, but are not conscious, is a taste of it. We are here, then, but with no awareness of being here.
There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street, and being the noise.
Foolish friend is already an enemy.
Have you ever seen a seed fallen to earth not rise with a new life why should you doubt the rise of a seed named human.
If everyone could see what love is, each would set up a tent pole in the ocean: the world’s population pitched and living easily within the sea.
You are granite. I am an empty wine glass. You know what happens when we touch.
Soul drunk, body ruined, these two sit helpless in a wrecked wagon. Neither knows how to fix it.
You are the honored guest. Do not weep like a beggar for pieces of the world.
Every thirst gets satisfied except that of these fish, the mystics, who swim a vast ocean of grace still somehow longing for it!