It is good and very grand to conquer external nature, but grander still to conquer our internal nature.... This conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets of the subtle workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its wonderful secrets, belong entirely to religion.
Lawyers are shy of meddling with the Law on their own account: knowing it to be an edged tool of uncertain application, very expensive in the working, and rather remarkable for its properties of close shaving than for its always shaving the right person.
Those that expose themselves as knowing the truth, lose the battle of innocence and humility and eventually pull a trigger at the universe. Wisdom chooses the unknown to be its reason.
Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together - and they call the result intuition.
Sometimes we take somebody who's been in the trenches and fought the good fight and been steady for granted. Sometimes we act as if never having done something and not knowing what you're doing is a virtue.
Meditation is not a technique to master;
it is the highest form of prayer,
a naked act of love and effortless surrender
into the silent abyss beyond all knowing
I felt naked. I felt as perhaps a bird may feel in the clear air knowing the hawk wings above and will swoop. I began to feel the need of fellowship. I wanted to question, wanted to speak, wanted to relate my experience. What is this spirit in man that urges him forever to depart from happiness, to toil and to place himself in danger?
. . . These are notions of the mind, which is like a knife, always chipping away at the Tao, trying to render it graspable and manageable. But that which is beyond form is ungraspable, and that which is beyond knowing is unmanageable. There is, however, this consolation: She who lets go of the knife will find the Tao at her fingertips.