"We were born for joy. And everything is an intoxicant. Everything. Whether it be a pebble or a grain of sand or a friend or a lover or a bottle of wine. However, there are two kinds of intoxicants: those that diminish us, and those that expand us.
"And — this world is so complicated in some ways — the truth is each thing may be either. And sometimes both. So use caution. Be careful. We need to live our lives in a dangerous world. But, if we are careful, and if we are just a little lucky, as we give our attention to what is in front of us, strange and beautiful things can happen.
"May I suggest, for us, for you and me at this time and this place, the best way to throw ourselves wide, to find that divine intoxication, that joy which the universe has promised us from before our parents were born, is simple enough.
"Master Dogen once observed in his commentary on the koan of everyday life that when we advance toward the ten thousand things, that is simply delusion — when we look at the world through our prejudices, or our intoxications, that is missing the mark. Rather, the deal is to allow the ten thousand things to advance to us, inform us, expand us, open us wide. I suggest this is a rather different project than one normally finds within the drug experience.
"This way to which we are invited is about opening up, not shutting down. It is not about abnormal experiences, but the most ordinary of them all, just this, just this.
"The world revealed.
"Our very selves revealed."
