With no surroundings there can be no path, and with no path one cannot become free.

Streams and mountains never stay the same.

In Western Civilization, our elders are books.

But if you do know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can feel truly at home. The sum of a field's forces [become] what we call very loosely the 'spirit of the place.' To know the spirit of a place is to realize that you are a part of a part and that the whole is made or parts, each of which in a whole. You start with the part you are whole in.

The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.

O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!

For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel; it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.