How To Look

The ignorant reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see.  Huang-po

Observe things as they are and don't pay attention to other people.  Huang-po

He who shall teach the child to doubt
The rotting grave shall ne'er get out…
He who doubts from what he sees
Will ne'er believe, do what you please.  Blake

The Sage all the time sees and hears no more than an infant sees and hears.  Lao-tzu

Unless you turn round and become like little children you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus

The old man in his days will not hesitate to ask an infant of seven days about the place of life, and he will live.  Gospel of Thomas

Everyone under heaven says that our Way is greatly like folly. But it is just because it is great that it seems like folly. As for the things that do not seem like folly - well, there can be no question about their smallness!  Lao-tzu

God is not seen except by blindness, not known except by ignorance, nor understood except by fools.  Eckhart

To one who knows naught It is clearly revealed.  Eckhart

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity… We fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.  Wittgenstein

The average person, while he thinks he is awake, actually is half asleep. By 'half asleep' I mean that his contact with reality is a very partial one; most of what he believes to be reality (outside or inside of himself) is a set of fictions which his mind constructs. He is aware of reality only to the degree to which his social functioning makes it necessary.

I believe I see - but I only see words; I believe I feel, but I only think feelings. The cerebrating person is the alienated person.  Erich Fromm

We should be as very strangers to the thoughts, customs, and opinions of men in the world, as if we were but little children. So those things would appear to us only which do to children when they are first born.  Traherne


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