A hair's breadth of deviation from it, and a deep gulf is set between heaven and earth.

"A miss is as good as a mile. The slightest thought of self, that is, by self, and the Great Way is irretrievably lost. A drop of ink, and a glass of clear water is all clouded. Once we think, 'This flower is blooming for me; this insect is a hateful nuisance and nothing else; that man is a useless rascal; that woman is a good mother, and she must therefore be a good wife,' --when such thoughts arise in our minds, all the cohesion between things disappears; they rattle about in a meaningless and irritating way. Instead of being united into a whole by virtue of their own interpenetrated suchness, they are pulled hither and thither by our arbitrary and ever-changing preferences, our whims and prejudices. We suppose this particular man to be a Buddha, ourselves to be ordinary people, this action to be charming, that to be odious, and fail to see how 'All things work together for good.'

"In actual fact, Heaven and Earth cannot be separated; one cannot exist without the other; Together they are the Great Way. The two points to bear in mind are first the nearness of the Way and second; its corollary, the fact that we and the Way are not two things."