“This is the old problem: if all things are the One, why does the One become the Many? If there is but one Self, why do men imagine that there are many selves? To these questions Mahayana Buddhism gives no verbal answer save to point out that questions asked under illusion are themselves part of the illusion. To the awakened consciousness of a Buddha the one has not become the many; it is the many.”

— Alan Watts, The Spirit of Zen