The void envelops even that which lines cannot contain.

In fact what can resist the embrace of the great void?

Nothing is left unsaid by silence.

Where words fail, silence is full of meaning.

Where form ends, the formless begins.

Where knowledge (veda) ends,

transcendental knowledge (vedanta) begins.

When knowledge dies, the beyond begins.

Freedom from the word is truth.

61. Love.

How can I describe how happy I am

to have received your letter?

Whenever I saw you,

only one question arose in my mind –

How long are you going to keep away from me?

I knew you had to come closer to me, it was only a matter of time,

so I kept waiting and praying for you.

To me, prayerful waiting is love.

I also knew you were going through the pangs of a new birth

and that rebirth is very near –

for only this can give soul to your songs.

Words are the form and form has its own beauty,

its own melody, its own music.

But this is not enough, and he who considers this enough

remains discontented forever.

The soul of poetry lies in silence.

To me, prayerful waiting is love, and the void

is the door to the divine temple.

You have come to me and I want to take you to the Lord

for how can you come close to me

without first coming closer to him?

In fact without coming close to him you cannot come close

even to yourself.

Then as soon as you come near him you attain that life

for which you have gone through so many lives.

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.