The moment the act requires a definition of the roles involved, we risk entrapment.

To study the Way is to study the Self. To study the Self is to forget the Self To forget the Self is to he enlightened by all things. To be enlightened by all things is to remove the barrier between Self and Other. DOGEN ZENJI

Ultimately, this kind of listening to the intuitive mind is a kind of surrender based on trust. It’s playing it by ear, listening for the voice within.

Caring for one another, we sometimes glimpse an essential quality of our being.

“The greatest sin of the age,” wrote the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdyaev, “is to make the concrete abstract.”

When we see that service is not a one-way street, we find that those we are helping give us a continuous stream of clues to help us escape the prison of our self-image. More than simply letting us know what might be working or not, they help us when they question our very models of ourselves. They snap us to; they may even see right through us. And

In service, we taste unity.

There’s one thing I’ve learned in twenty-five years or so of political organizing: People don’t like to be “should” upon. They’d rather discover than be told.

For one receiving help, it can be immensely useful to become more conscious of the habitual ways in which we react to our suffering and the help offered to alleviate it. Just seeing these patterns clearly may allow us to discard reactions that cut us off from others at a time when we need them the most.