The Surest Way To Become Tense, Awkward,

Cleverness, After All, Has Its Limitations. Its Mechanical Judgments And Clever Remarks Tend To Prove Inaccurate With Passing Time, Because It Doesn't Look Very Deeply Into Things To Begin With.

Many People Are Afraid Of Emptiness, However, Because It Reminds Them Of Loneliness. Everything Has To Be Filled In, It Seems-appointment Books, Hillsides, Vacant Lots-but When All The Spaces Are Filled, The Loneliness Really Begins. Then The Groups Are Joined, The Classes Are Signed Up For, And The Gift-to-yourself Items Are Bought. When The Loneliness Starts Creeping In The Door, The Television Set Is Turned On To Make It Go Away. But It Doesn't Go Away. So Some Of Us Do Instead, And After Discarding The Emptiness Of The Big Congested Mess, We Discover The Fullness Of Nothing.

The Honey Doesn't Taste So Good Once It Is Being Eaten; The Goal Doesn't Mean So Much Once It Is Reached; The Reward Is No So Rewarding Once It Has Been Given. If We Add Up All The Rewards In Our Lives, We Won't Have Very Much. But If We Add Up The Spaces *between* The Rewards, We'll Come Up With Quite A Bit. And If We Add Up The Rewards *and* The Spaces, Then We'll Have Everything - Every Minute Of The Time That We Spent.

To Buddha, The Second Figure In The Painting, Life On Earth Was Bitter, Filled With Attachments And Desires That Led To Suffering.

No Matter How Useful We May Be, Sometimes It Takes Us A While To Recognize Our Own Value.