A holy person is someone who is whole; who has, as it were, reconciled his opposites.

There is only this now. It does not come from anywhere; it is not going anywhere. It is not permanent, but it is not impermanent. Though moving, it is always still. When we try to catch it, it seems to run away, and yet it is always here and there is no escape from it. And when we turn around to find the self which knows this moment, we find that it has vanished like the past.

You don't need to try to be God, you are! But if you try to be God it means you don't know you are.

For unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax. There is no point whatever in making plans for a future which you will never be able to enjoy. When your plans mature, you will still be living for some other future beyond. You will never, never be able to sit back with full contentment and say, "Now, I've arrived!" Your entire education has deprived you of this capacity because it was preparing you for the future, instead of showing you how to be alive now.

Essentially Satori is a sudden experience, and it is often described as a "turning over" of the mind, just as a pair of scales will suddenly turn over when a sufficient amount of material has been poured into one pan to overbalance the weight in the other. Hence it is an experience which generally occurs after a long and concentrated effort to discover the meaning of Zen.

It is hard indeed to notice anything for which the languages available to us have no description.

What would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?

Basically, there is simply nothing to worry about, because you yourself are the eternal energy of the universe.

There are two specific objections to use of psychedelic drugs. First, use of these drugs may be dangerous. However, every worthwhile exploration is dangerous—climbing mountains, testing aircraft, rocketing into outer space, or collecting botanical specimens in jungles. But if you value knowledge & the actual delight of exploration more than mere duration of uneventful life, you are willing to take the risks.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

But my dear man, reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said.

If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. There is no problem about it.

The most strongly enforced of all known taboos is the taboo against knowing who or what you really are behind the mask of your apparently separate, independent, and isolated ego.

Other people teach us who we are. Their attitudes to us are the mirror in which we learn to see ourselves, but the mirror is distorted. We are, perhaps, rather dimly aware of the immense power of our social environment.

Many people think that the Bible is the authentic word of God and they worship the Bible, making it an idol.

For the perfect accomplishment of any art, you must get this feeling of the eternal present into your bones - for it is the secret of proper timing. No rush. No dawdle. Just the sense of flowing with the course of events in the same way that you dance to music, neither trying to outpace it nor lagging behind. Hurrying and delaying are alike ways of trying to resist the present.

Although profoundly "inconsequential," the Zen experience has consequences in the sense that it may be applied in any direction, to any conceivable human activity, and that wherever it is so applied it lends an unmistakable quality to the work.

The self-styled practical man of affairs who pooh-poohs philosophy as a lot of windy notions is himself a pragmatist or a positivist, and a bad one at that, since he has given no thought to his position.

A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.

As a human being it is just my nature to enjoy and share philosophy. I do this in the same way that some birds are eagles and some doves, some flowers lilies and some roses.

The question is not what I should do in the future to get it, but rather, what am I presently doing that prevents me from realizing it right now?

Where do I begin and end in space? I have relations to the sun and air which are just as vital parts of my existence as my heart.