Like the moon on the water, in a way. When you confront a Zen master, what you're really seeing are not his limitations but yours.
Pico IyerIn terms of technology and science, tomorrow does know more than yesterday; but when it comes to emotions, living with uncertainty, terror, I'm not sure we know any more than Shakespeare did, or the Buddha. And the power of new things - the iPhone or Facebook - is so strong and intoxicating that we sometimes forget that none of them can fundamentally change our relation to ourselves and to what matters.
Pico IyerAs soon as I'm on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.
Pico IyerWhat more could one ask of a companion? To be forever new and yet forever steady, to be strange and familiar all at once, with enough change to quicken my mind, enough steadiness to give sanctuary to my heart. The books on my shelf never asked to come together and they would not trust or want to listen to one another. But each is a piece of a stained-glass whole, without which I wouldn’t make sense to myself or to the world outside.
Pico Iyer