I can understand myself in believing, although in addition I can in a relative misunderstanding comprehend the human aspect of this life: but comprehend faith or comprehend Christ, I cannot.

Understanding, however--and sometimes a very considerable depth of it--results from seeing the obstinate difficulties in views which often seem, on other grounds, quite obviously true...Let the reader be warned accordingly, that whenever he hears a philosopher proclaim any metaphysical opinion with great confidence, or hears him asset that something in metaphysics is obvious, or that some metaphysical problem turns only on confusions of concepts or upon the meanings of words, then he can be quite sure that this man is still infinitely far from philosophical understanding. His views appear to him devoid of difficulties only because he stoutly refuses to see difficulties.

I learned long ago that when a thing defies rational explanation then it is because I lack a complete understanding of the facts.

"What are you trying to do, Kerouac?" I'd ask myself in my sleepingbag at night, "trying to deny reality with all this Buddha stuff, ya jerk?" ... "Poor detailed immaculate incarnate fool, and you call yourself Self ... Take off your coat and crash wits." And I realized that all this Buddhism was a STRAIN at telling the untellable emptiness yet that nothing was truer, a perfect paradox.