The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key.

Buddhism is total emptiness; within the emptiness, wonderful existences emerge. This world is exactly that: everything is empty, only emptiness is visible; things exist, but they have no identity. Things are formed provisionally by the union of elements, but they are constantly changing. This was a tree, now it’s wood, tomorrow table; then it burns, or rots.