With mind distracted, never thinking, “Death is coming,”To slave away on the pointless business of mundane life,And then to come out empty–it is a tragic error. (116)trans by Robert Thurman
Most of the book deals with things we already know yet never learn.
The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
Might we begin then to transform our passing illuminations into abiding light?
We all carry it within us: supreme strength the fullness of wisdom unquenchable joy. It is never thwarted and cannot be destroyed.
The modern period adds social ethics to religions agenda, for we now realize that social structures are not like laws of nature. They are human creations, so we are responsible for them.
Science is like a flashlight in the hands of people living in a huge balloon. They can illuminate anything in the balloon, but cannot shine it outside the balloon to see where it is floating – or if it is floating at all.
Poetry is a special use of language that opens onto the real. The business of the poet is truth telling, which is why in the Celtic tradition no one could be a teacher unless he or she was a poet.
I don’t have any fear of death. I do, however, have an inordinate fear of becoming dependent on other people. To me, that’s the severest test, not death.
God has to speak to each person in their own language, in their own idioms. Take Spanish, Chinese. You can express the same thought, but to different people you have to use a different language. It’s the same in religion.
Every society and religion has rules, for both have moral laws. And the essence of morality consists, as in art, of drawing the line somewhere.