When we are alone on a starlit night, when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn; when we see children in a moment when they are really children, when we know love in our own hearts;

or when, like the Japanese poet, Basho, we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash

– at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the ‘newness,’ the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident,

all these provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance.

Thomas Merton