Chapter 13

Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.

Both hope and fear involve resistance, and it's difficult to have one without the other. If you hope for something, then you also fear that it won't happen. If you fear something, then you hope that particular something won't happen. Both require moving away from your center, leaving an empty space which then demands filling. Hope and fear, though, will only make it emptier.

What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.

The higher you climb, the further you have to fall.

What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.
When we don't see the self as self,
what do we have to fear?

When I become dissatisfied in some fashion, a voice in my mind starts asking me, "What do you want?" It seemed for a long time that no matter what I answered, the voice would come back, sooner each time. Finally, I found the answer: nothing. An immediate sense of satisfaction came over me, and even when the voice tried to come back, the same answer satisfied it.

See the world as your self.
Have faith in the way things are.
Love the world as your self;
then you can care for all things.

Getting too wrapped up in our 'cage of flesh and bones' can make us forget that there is a world "outside" ourselves. If we can find the "world outside" inside our own hearts, what can't we accomplish?