“In the Gestalt theory of perception this is known as the figure/groundrelationship. This theory asserts, in brief, that no figure is ever perceivedexcept in relation to a background.”

“Fictions are useful so long as they are taken as fictions. They are thensimply ways of "figuring" the world which we agree to follow so thatwe can act in cooperation, as we agree about inches and hours, numbersand words, mathematical systems and languages. If we have noagreement about measures of time and space, I would have no way ofmaking a date with you at the corner of Forty-second Street and FifthAvenue at 3 P.M. on Sunday, April 4.”

“The clash between science and religion has not shown that religion is false and science is true. It has shown that all systems of definition are relative to various purposes, and that none of them actually “grasp” reality.”

“But the transformation of consciousness undertaken in Taoism and Zen is more like the correction of faulty perception or the curing of a disease. It is not an acquisitive process of learning more and more facts or greater and greater skills, but rather an unlearning of wrong habits and opinions. As Lao-tzu said, "The scholar gains every day, but the Taoist loses every day.”

“This state of affairs is known technically as the "double-bind." Aperson is put in a double-bind by a command or request which containsa concealed contradiction...This is a damned-if-you-do and damned-if-you-don'tsituation which arises constantly in human (and especially family)relations...The social doublebind game can be phrased in several ways:The first rule of this game is that it is not a game.Everyone must play.You must love us.You must go on living.Be yourself, but play a consistent and acceptable role.Control yourself and be natural.Try to be sincere.Essentially, this game is a demand for spontaneous behavior of certainkinds. Living, loving, being natural or sincere—all these arespontaneous forms of behavior: they happen "of themselves" likedigesting food or growing hair. As soon as they are forced they acquirethat unnatural, contrived, and phony atmosphere which everyonedeplores—weak and scentless like forced flowers and tasteless likeforced fruit. Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generatethem. Faith—in life, in other people, and in oneself—is the attitude ofallowing the spontaneous to be spontaneous, in its own way and in itsown time.”

“But nirvana is a radical transformation of how it feels to be alive: it feels as if everything were myself, or as if everything---including "my" thoughts and actions---were happening of itself. There are still efforts, choices, and decisions, but not the sense that "I make them"; they arise of themselves in relation to circumstances. This is therefore to feel life, not as an encounter between subject and object, but as a polarized field where the contest of opposites has become the play of opposites.”

“Forthe world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only fromthe standpoint of someone standing aside from it—as if it were quiteother than himself—and then trying to grasp it.But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship onthe hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with theworld as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on therealization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process.”