If you keep focusing, gradually thoughts will become quieter and quieter, gradually the images will disappear from the mind. What is happening is the kundalini energy begins to radiate and rise, it causes the mind to be quiet.

Reincarnation is not necessarily linear. Sometimes people actually become more immersed in darkness or illusion than they were in previous lifetimes.

You cannot be born and you cannot die. You will exist in a universe that goes on forever. That is the ultimate horror from the Zen point of view. You could be unhappy forever.

A realistic recognition of the human condition is that it is corrupt beyond belief. What do you suppose would happen if the police all took a week off?

Advance yourself by advancing others. Do not judge others. Be of service to them, but realize that you are not necessarily the instrument of perfecting and immortalizing others.

Nirvana is a word that means enlightenment, being beyond the illusion of birth and death, the illusion of pain, the illusion of love, the illusion of time and life.

Occupy yourself with what's in your life now. Address those situations and subjects as fully as possible with your best efforts. That is what produces happiness and clarity and knowledge and power.