“Each coil has the earthquake which created it, as every death has the life that gave birth to it.”

“Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.”

“It's interesting how people use that expression, life and death. As if to imply that life is the opposite of death, but birth is the opposite of death. Life...has no opposite.”

“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.”

“Each of us has his own alphabet with which to create poetry.”

“Anything which is just born, which has just come into existence, has no past behind it. Birth, in other words, is the condition of having no past. And likewise, anything which now dies, which has just ceased to be, has no future left in front of it. Death is the condition of having no future. But we have already seen that this present moment has both no past and no future simultaneously. That is, birth and death are one in this present moment. This moment is just now being born—you can never find a past to this present moment, you can never find something before it. Yet also, this moment is just now dying — you can never find a future to this moment, never find something after it. This present, then, is a coincidence of opposites, a unity of birth and death, being and non-being, living and dying. As Ippen put it, "Every moment is the last moment and every moment is a rebirth.”