To say that all things are God is utterly different from saying All is One. god is not a thing, nor can individual shapes and forms be reduced to a single infinite formlessness. For God is not the One as distinct from the Many, nor unity as distinct from diversity. The oriental idea of Tao includes all and everything which can, at the same time be God and a grain of sand, or a human being in all his individuality. Tao is the reality behind, beneath and beyond all things. The oneness of things is revealed in their multiplicity and diversity.

When love and hate are both absent, you have boredom. Boredom is Tao. When love and hate are both present you have emotion. Emotion is Tao. The paradox is that whether we laugh or suffer, we neither add nor detract from Tao. We do have free-will. Learning how to use it skilfully is karma.

To be spontaneously active in anger is skilful and creative; provided one does not violate another being physically or psychologically. To passively experience or feel your anger is unskilful and destructive. It is clinging to that which, by nature, is not a permeant condition. Attachment to non-permanent conditions is the great cause of suffering.

In meditation we allow negative states like anger, fear, depression and guilt full freedom to arise in the mind and take whatever course they please. allow it its own independence, or as the Chinese say, "Let it follow its Tao".

Allow it to behave as it wills. Don't push it away. penetrate it. You might think this an absurd thing to do, but it results in the discovery that even the blackest mood has a profound meaning for us and is a blessing in disguise.

A Chinese Buddhist teacher was asked the figurative question: "It's terribly hot, how shall we escape the heat?" The teacher replied: "Go right down to the bottom of the furnace".

You might say that the spiritual raison d'etre for suffering is the enlightenment that follows. Remember that suffering is not good for you. Unless it teachers you how to stop suffering.

Penetrating painful emotions may seem masochistic, but it is imperative that we do so. After all, we pay about $100-00 per hour for the privilege of pouring out our emotions to a psychiatrist. It's money well spent, though I feel there must be cheaper ways of releasing emotions. The only emotions that can harm you are those that we suppress. Your most powerfully creative thoughts are emotional. Love is the strongest; fear runs a very close second.

Beware of sustaining your negative emotions.