i hold myself to be incapable of hating any being on earth • by a long course of prayerful discipline, i have ceased for over forty years to hate anybody • i know this is a big claim • nevertheless, I make it in all humility.

it is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.

i pray for the strength to accept that lives most often end in tragedy, that quests don't always work, that understanding is a long hunt, that i can't reason my way to love, eat gold, or live forever • and that none of this matters • i pray to understand that i am here to find my way back to God, whatever that takes, and that all the rest, save love and duty, is an illusion.

in the autumn i gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden • and when april returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers • and my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, "when autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?

art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

the older i grow, the more i listen to people who don't talk much.

life after death

these things I know:
how the living go on living
and how the dead go on living with them
so that in a forest
even a dead tree casts a shadow
and the leaves fall one by one
and the branches break in the wind
and the bark peels off slowly
and the trunk cracks
and the rain seeps in through the cracks
and the trunk fall to the ground
and the moss covers it
and in the spring the rabbits find it
and build their nest
inside the dead tree
so that nothing is wasted in nature
or in love.

at the next meal--i was head server--tears were pouring down my face as i served... and afterwards, when i went out of the zendo, ... there was a tree there, and looking at the tree, i didn't feel I was the tree; it went deeper than that • i felt the birds on me, all separation was completely gone.

i tell you, the more i think, the more i feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.

when I have a terrible need of - shall I say the word - religion •  then I go out and paint the stars.

joel goldsmith

imagine that you are experiencing an unpleasant night dream: you are in the ocean, swimming; you have gone out too far; you look back toward the shore and see that there is very little hope of rescue • even though you shout your lungs out, no one can hear you…. you struggle and strive to reach the shore, and, of course, the harder you fight, the harder the ocean fights you • there is only one thing left for you to do—drown • yes, drown—but wait! in your fight, you shouted and someone heard you, came over and shook you, woke you up, and behold the miracle! The drowning itself disappeared; the ocean disappeared; the struggle disappeared. You awakened and found that you had never left your comfortable home • all that was necessary in order to be released from the struggle was to awaken!

joseph goldstein

i was sitting on my bed meditating, and a cat wandered in and plopped down on my lap • i took the cat and tossed it out the door • ten seconds later it was back on my lap • we got into a sort of dance, this cat and I… i tossed it out because I was trying to meditate, to get enlightened • but the cat kept returning • finally, after a while of this coming in and tossing out, I had to surrender • there was nothing else to do • there was no way to block off the door • i sat there, the cat came back in, and it got on my lap • but I did not do anything • i just let go • thirty seconds later the cat got up and walked out • so you see, our teachers come in many forms.

terence gray

why are you unhappy?

because 99.9 per cent
of everything you think,
and of everything you do,
is for yourself
and there isn't one.

if there is anyone at home to suffer, they will.

love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

i doubt that the imagination can be suppressed • if you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.