Signposts

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When someone is seeking, it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose.

— Siddhartha to Govinda (Hermann Hesse), Siddhartha

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359° Blind

The way in which we view something defines for us what we’re going to allow ourselves to see of it. A point of view is merely one degree out of the three hundred and sixty degrees of a circle; each point of view can see from that point only, and so is three hundred and fifty nine degrees blind. When we become fixated on our point of view, our interpretations and expectations blind us.

— Anzan Hoshin, Before Thinking [via]