Attachment is the shadow of the ego. Attachments are immediately created wherever you see 'I am'.

Death is more important than life. Life is just the trivial, just the superficial; death is deeper. Through death you grow to the real life, and through life you only reach death and nothing else.

This is something basic to be understood - the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity - only then can you dissolve it. A weak ego cannot be dissolved. And this becomes a problem.

Because all the societies, all the nations, all the cultures, have taken it for granted that the individuals exist for them, not vice-versa. To me, just the opposite is the case: the society exists for the individual, the culture exists for the individual, the nation exists for the individual. Everything can be sacrificed, but the individual cannot be sacrificed for anything. Individuality is the very flowering of existence - nothing is higher than it. But no culture, no society, no civilization is ready to accept a simple truth.

Find godliness and good will come on its own accord. And when good comes on its own accord, it has a beauty, a grace, a simplicity, a humbleness.

Just being alive is such a gift, but nobody ever told you to be thankful to existence. On the contrary, everyone was grumpy, complaining. Naturally, if everything surrounding your life from the very beginning goes on pointing out to you that you are not what you should be, goes on giving you great ideals that you have to follow and you have to become, your isness is never praised. What is praised is your future - if you can become someone respectable, powerful, rich, intellectual, in some way famous, not just a nobody.

A Zen master used to say, It is clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, he could have cooked his rice much sooner.