But to me nothing - the negative, the empty - is exceedingly powerful.
In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.
No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.
Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.
I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
The difficulty for most of us in the modern world is that the old-fashioned idea of God has become incredible or implausible.
The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.
The religious idea of God cannot do full duty for the metaphysical infinity.
But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.
The style of God venerated in the church, mosque, or synagogue seems completely different from the style of the natural universe.
A myth is an image in terms of which we try to make sense of the world.
Omnipotence is not knowing how everything is done; it's just doing it.
Faith is a state of openness or trust.
If you study the writings of the mystics, you will always find things in them that appear to be paradoxes, as in Zen, particularly.
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.
Saints need sinners.
We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.
No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.