The hallucination of separateness prevents one from seeing that to cherish the ego is to cherish misery. We do not realize that our so-called love and concern for the individual is simply the other face of our own fear of death or rejection. In his exaggerated valuation of separate identity, the personal ego is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more and more anxious about the coming crash!

For me, being literate and articulate is a form of judo, of overcoming the [system] by its own method.

We are at war between consciousness and nature, between the desire for permanence and the fact of flux. It is ourself against ourselves.

The Tao belongs neither to knowing nor not knowing. Knowing is false understanding; not knowing is blind ignorance. If you really understand the Tao beyond doubt, it's like the empty sky. Why drag in right and wrong?

What you are basically, deep, deep down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

A scholar tries to learn something everyday; a student of Buddhism tries to unlearn something daily.