Whatever we are doing, believing, thinking, desiring, understanding, feeling – if we are not aware of them while aware of ourselves in the present – we are asleep, and all are but embers of a dream.
There is a sacred horror about everything grand. It is easy to admire mediocrity and hills; but whatever is too lofty, a genius as well as a mountain, an assembly as well as a masterpiece, seen too near, is appalling.
Lao Tan said, “I was letting my mind wander in the beginning of things.”
“What does this mean?” asked Confucius. Lao Tan said, “It means to attain Perfect Beauty and wander in Perfect Happiness. He who attains Perfect Beauty and wanders in Perfect Happiness may be called the Perfect Man.”
Can the world exist without one to cognise it? Which comes first the being-consciousness or the rising-consciousness? The former is always there and eternal; the latter rises and disappears. It is transient.
