The animals are at a level prior to thinking. They haven't lost themselves in thought. We rise above thinking and then we meet them again, where we're both in no-thought. There's a deep connection.

For a long time humans probably were in touch on a deeper level with the depths of their being, unconsciously so, the same way an animal or a tree is. Gradually, though, more and more of their identity went into the movement of thought. They identified more and more with the movement of thinking.

Once you realize that a certain kind of food makes you sick, would you carry on eating that food and keep on asserting that it's okay to be sick?

You are the Universe expressing itself as a human for a little while.

Man Made 'God' in his own image. The eternal, the infinate, the unnameable was reduced to a mental idol that you had to believe in and worship as 'my god' or 'our god'.

What will be left of all the fearing and wanting associated with your problematic life situation that every day takes up most of your attention? A dash, one or two inches long, between the date of birth and date of death on your gravestone.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it.