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81 " Each lesson with him would be concluded by a half-hour session of meditation zazen, sitting Zen. It was to free my mind, to achieve what he termed the Void. What exasperated him, though, was my inability to master this. It was hard to think of nothing and yet not to think at all. Try as I might, I found it elusive. It frustrated me, as I wanted to show him that I could accomplish what appeared to me to be the easiest thing of all. Surely I had done enough of that in school to make me an expert? "
― Tan Twan Eng , The Gift of Rain
82 " know it’s "
83 " In an instant I saw that I had unconsciously replicated Musashi’s drawing, the drawing that had been copied by Endo-san and for the briefest moment I saw how everything and everyone and every time was connected in some manner. "
84 " The world goes by, the young and the hopeful, all head for their future. Where does that leave us? There is the misconception that we have reached our destinations the moment we grow old, but it is not a well-accepted fact that we are still traveling toward those destinations, still beyond our reach even on the day we close our eyes for the final time. "
85 " Spirit expanded, mind unfurling open, heart in flight. "
86 " We are like every single plant and stone and view in the garden, I thought, the distance between one another carefully measured. "
― Tan Twan Eng
87 " downhill "
88 " I found the wooden viewing tower half-hidden in the trees, like the crow’s nest of a galleon that had foundered among the branches, trapped by a tide of leaves. "
89 " I brought my mind back to the courtroom, hoping that no one had noticed the potholes in my attention; "
90 " Once you step out of your world, it doesn’t wait for you. The world he used to know is gone forever. "
― Tan Twan Eng , The Garden of Evening Mists
91 " Before me lies a voyage of a million miles, and memory is the moonlight I will borrow to illuminate my way. "
92 " My memory is like the moon tonight, full and bright, so bright you can see all its scars. "