If Zen has any preference it is for glass that is plain, has no color, and is "just glass."
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes simplicity and authenticity over embellishment and complexity.
Thomas Merton's quote about Zen promotes the idea of appreciating things as they are, without unnecessary adornments or alterations. In this view, true beauty lies in simplicity and transparency, where one can see things plainly, much like 'just glass' reflects clarity and honesty in life and thought.
In practice
In a discussion about minimalism, this quote can highlight the value of living with less distraction.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
The cost of a thing is what I call life which has to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Anything whose presence or absence makes no discernible difference is no essential part of the whole.
Fate's arrow, when expected, travels slow.
For perpetrators, when they apologize and experience remorse, it gives them a chance to reclaim their own humanity. Some rise to the moral challenge. Others of course don't care, and they continue acting with contempt.
Capitalism was the only system in history where wealth was not acquired by looting, but by production, not by force, but by trade, the only system that stood for man's right to his own mind, to his work, to his life, to his happiness, to himself.
It is certain that the inanimate objects by which you are surrounded have a direct action on the brain.
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