The movement in myself from the mask to the face, from the personality to the person, from the performing actor to the ruler of the inner chamber, is the spiritual journey. To live, work, and suffer on this shore in faithfulness to the whispers from the other shore is the spiritual life.

Eventually, all the one has learnt will have to be forgotten.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Waking up is possible only for those who want it and seek it, for those who are ready to struggle long and persistently in order to attain it.

Listen with the ear of your heart.

The world’s spiritual geniuses seem to discover universally that the mind’s muddy river, this ceaseless flow of trivia and trash, cannot be damned, and that trying to dam it is a waste of effort that might lead to madness. Instead you must allow the muddy river to flow unheeded in the dim channels of consciousness;…

It’s a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than “Try to be a little kinder.”

The dogs bark; the caravan passes.

Q. How are we supposed to treat others? A. There are no others.

To every natural form, / rock, fruit or flower / Even the loose stones that / cover the high—way / I gave a moral life.

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower when I thought a flower would grow.

The stars are like letters which inscribe themselves at every moment in the sky…. Everything in the world is full of signs…. All events are coordinated…. All things depend on each other; as has been said: “Everything breathes together.”

When we become open awareness, our ability to do necessary thinking get sharper, and our whole sensory input gets brighter, clearer. After a certain amount of sitting, the world looks brighter, sounds are sharper, and there’s a richness of sensory input, which is just our natural state if we are not blocking out experience with…

Science is not a body of facts. Science is a state of mind. It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing on its face. It is about attacking a problem with the most manicured of claws and tearing it down into sensible, edible pieces.

Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

One could not do without repetition in life, like the beating of the heart, but it was also true that the beating of the heart was not all there was to life.

Who we are means honoring the integrity of our human selves. That sometimes includes those dark parts of our beings that we often try to hide. We think sometimes we’re only drawn to the good, but we’re actually drawn to the authentic.

Life is going to unfold however it does: pleasant or unpleasant, disappointing or thrilling, expected or unexpected, all of the above! What a relief it would be to know that whatever wave comes along, we can ride it out with grace.

Joy can be joy and sorrow can be sorrow, with neither of them casting either light or shadow on the other.

If you need something to worship, then worship life—all life, every last crawling bit of it! We’re all in this beauty together!

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

A day is like a whole life. You start out doing one thing, but end up doing something else, plan to run an errand, but never get there…. And at the end of your life, your whole existence has the same haphazard quality, too. Your whole life has the same shape as a single day.

Know all things to be like this: / A mirage, a cloud castle, / A dream, an apparition, / Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

For me, the writing life doesn’t just happen when I sit at the writing desk. [It is] a life lived with a centering principle, and mine is this: that I will pay close attention to this world I find myself in…. “My heart keeps open house,” was the way the poet Theodore Roethke put it…

Wisdom comes most easily to those who have the courage to embrace life without judgment and are willing to not know, sometimes for a long time.

Getting grown means learning how to work that current: learning when to hold fast, when to drop anchor, when to let it sweep you up.

We do a lot of looking: we look through lenses, telescopes, television tubes… Our looking is perfected every day, but we see less and less. While drawing grasses I learn nothing “about” grass, but wake up to the wonder that there is grass at all.

We have reached the end of our journey into the depths of matter. We have sought for firm ground and found none. The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe… all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.