For a decision-the freest of my actions just happens like hiccups inside me or like a bird singing outside me.

But when no risk is taken there is no freedom. It is thus that, in an industrial society, the plethora of laws made for our personal safety convert the land into a nursery, and policemen hired to protect us become selfserving busybodies.

The further and further we look out with our telescopes and the further and further we look in with our microscopes, the larger and larger and smaller and smaller the universe becomes in order to escape the investigation because we are the universe looking at itself.

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time

You are the universe experiencing itself.

What is the next step, the practical application? —I will answer that the absolutely vital thing is to consolidate your understanding, to become capable of enjoyment, of living in the present, and of the discipline which this involves. Without this you have nothing to give.

Zen is a way of liberation, concerned not with discovering what is good or bad or advantageous, but what is.