To come close to oneself is to be reborn –
the principle of being twice born is just this.
And remember, not even the pebbles lying on the road are just pebbles;
they too await a new birth, for that second birth turns them
into diamonds.
P.S. To run after desires is to run after a mirage.
It is a journey from one death to another.
In the illusion that is life
man dies this way time and time again.
But those willing to die to their desires discover that death itself
dies for them.
62. Love.
Where is truth?
Do not search for it, for when has truth
ever been found through seeking?
For in seeking, the seeker is present.
So don’t seek but lose yourself.
He who loses himself finds truth.
I don’t say: Seek and you will find.
I say: He who loses himself, finds.
63. Love.
I was happy to receive your letter.
The drop doesn’t have to become the ocean.
It already is the ocean,
it just has to know it.
What is,
however it is –
to know it as it is,
is truth.
And truth liberates.
64. Love.
Life is an infinite mystery, therefore those who are filled
with knowledgeare deprived of life.
Life becomes known only to the innocent,
to those whose intuition is not covered with the dust of knowledge.
65. Love.
Do not seek nirvana as something opposed to life,
rather, turn life itself into nirvana.
Those who know, do this.
Dogen has these beautiful words to say:
Do not strive after moksha (liberation);
rather, allow all your actions to become liberating.
This happens.
I can tell you this from my own experience;
and the day it happens
life becomes as beautiful as a flower in full bloom
and brims with fragrance.
66. Love.
I received your letter on my return.
Just as the seed within the soil waits for the rains so you wait for God.
Prayerful, wholehearted surrender is the door
leading to him.
Let yourself go completely,
just like a boat floating on the river.
You do not have to row the boat, just let it go loose.
You are not to swim, just to float, then the river itself takes you
to the ocean.
The ocean is very near – but only for those who float
but do not swim.
Do not be afraid of drowning because that fear makes you swim –
and the truth is that he who drowns himself in God is saved forever.
And do not have a goal,
for he who has a goal begins to swim.
Remember always –
wherever one reaches, that is the destination,
therefore he who makes God his goal goes astray.
Wherever the mind is free from all goals –
there alone is God.
67. Love.
I say: Die, so that you can live!
When the seed destroys itself, it becomes the tree;
when the drop loses itself, it becomes the ocean.
But man – man refuses to lose himself.
How then can God manifest in him?
Man is the seed, God is the tree.
Man is the drop, God is the ocean.
68. Love.
Leave the old track –
only the dead walk on trodden paths.
Life is the continuous quest for the new.
Only he who has the knack of being new
every moment truly lives.
Die to the old every moment
so that you are forever new –
this is the crux of the transformation of life.
69. Love.
Truth is like the sky: eternal, everlasting, boundless.
Is there a door to enter the sky?
Then how can there be one to enter into truth?
If our eyes are closed, the sky exists not.
The same holds good for truth.
Opening the eyes is the door to truth; to close the eyes
is to close that door to truth.
70. Love.
Where to find truth?
Well, it has to be sought within one’s own self,
