Martin Buber

impossible, says Hasidism, to have truly essential intercourse with God when there is no essential intercourse with men.

horse drinking from a brook? It kicks with its hoofs, does it not? Why? Well, it sees its reflection and takes it for another horse trying to drink away its water. But you ought to know that it is you all the time: you are standing in your own way.”

How can I fulfil the commandment of love, if I do not love myself and cannot even bear to look at myself? What can I do? I practise repentance until I can bear to look at myself again. Even so I must do to my neighbours.

us love each other more, and then there will be plenty of room for both of us.’” The feeling of being cramped in the human world is derived from inadequate love.

There it is told how a monk from another Buddhist sect, following the advice of a Zen monk, absorbs himself in inner contemplation. In the grey morning light he hears a flute playing, falls into an ecstasy, runs to the cell of his friend, and knocks on the door. To the question “Who is it?” he replies, “I.”

This conforms utterly with the saying of Lao-tse, “The Tao, that can be told, is not the eternal Tao.” In

of course it too is to a certain extent made up of potential disciples, of occasional disciples, of men who ask questions, seek explanation, listen, and from time to time learn something they had not intended to learn.

hoever utters the name of Buddha,” it says in a Zen writing, “should cleanse his mouth.” In pic

I do not know: was I a man, dreaming that he is a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly, dreaming that he is a man?

The problem is how to see the eye that sees, not the eye that is reflected. It is, indeed, the age-old quest, the basic quest of all philosophy of all the ages. Heidegger knows he is not the first and he will not be the last to intellectually penetrate the essence.