Every important cultural gesture comes down to a morality, a model for human behavior concentrated into a gesture.

The river taught us how to listen with a silent heart, with a waiting open soul.

The deity is within you, not in ideas and books. Truth is lived, not taught.

Were not the gods forms created like me and you, mortal, transient?

With a secret smile, not unlike that of a healthy child,he walked along, peacefully, quietly. He wore his gown and walked along exactly like the other monks, but his face and his step, his peaceful downward glance, his peaceful downward-hanging hand, and every finger of his hand spoke of peace, spoke of completeness, sought nothing, imitated nothing, reflected a continuous quiet, an unfading light, an invulnerable peace.

Like one who has eaten and drunk too much and vomits painfully and then feels better, so did the restless man wish he could rid himself with one terrific heave of these pleasures, of these habits of this entirely senseless life.

Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud.