“This is the secret of the golden flower: if the heart can die the flower will bloom, die as you are so you can be reborn.”

“A mystic is one who has dropped all dreams, who has thrown away this mirror of the mind and who looks directly into life, without any medium interfering. Then he sees the eternal progression, then ...”

“Untalented people, unintelligent people go into politics. Those who are talented become artists, painters, poets, philosophers, mystics, dancers. They have a thousand and one other beautiful things...”

“Risk all. Let life be a play, a risk, a gamble. And when you can risk all you will attain to a sharpness in your being: your soul will be born. The Golden Flower can bloom in you only if you are co...”

“Millions of beauties and splendors are waiting for you. You go on moving around and around, never entering into the temple of life. The door is the heart.”

“Man is a question mark . . . and it is a blessingcelebrate it. It is a blessing because only man is a question mark; no dog is, no tree is. The rose bush is beautiful but not as beautiful as man, a...”

“At this moment, you are seamlessly flowing with the cosmos. There is no difference between your breathing and the breathing of the rain forest, between your bloodstream and the worlds rivers, betwe...”

“Oh no. Don't smile. You'll kill me. I stop breathing when you smile.”

“I breathe in the soft, saturated exhalations of cedar trees and salmonberry bushes, fireweed and wood fern, marsh hawks and meadow voles, marten and harbor seal and blacktail deer. I breathe in the...”

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

“Every man who has reached even his intellectual teens begins to suspect that life is no farce that it is not genteel comedy even that it flowers and fructifies on the contrary out of the profoundes...”

“Let us love. Let our lives be a perpetual song of love for God, first of all, and for all human beings who suffer, love, and mourn. Let deep joy live in us. Let us be like the lark, enemy of the ni...”