Snowy road through forest

 

Emptiness

 

Buddhism looks for the basic cause of sin and suffering, and discovers this to be the belief in a self or ego as the center of existence.

 

This belief is not caused by innate evil, but by unconsciousness, or ignorance of the true nature of existence.

 

Since we experience the whole of life from this falsely centralized viewpoint, we cannot know the world as it really is. The remedy is to see through the illusion.

 

The fundamental teaching of this book is recognition of one's projections and the dissolution of the sense of self in the light of reality.

 

Rinpoche, G., & Lingpa, K. (2003). The Tibetan book of the dead: The great liberation through hearing in the bardo (Trans., F. Fremantle & Chogyam Trungpa, pp. xviii, xx). Boston : Shambhala.

 

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Mountains

 

Enlightenment

 

All the days I have been alive, I have yearned to see this day. Now my desire is crowned with success. This day itself is crowned. Now I want to reveal words in the presence of the blessed Holy One; all those words adorn my head like a crown.

 

I have seen that all those sparks flash from the High Spark, hidden of all hidden. All are levels of enlightenment. In the light of each and every level there is revealed what is revealed. All those lights are connected: this light to that light, that light to this light, one shining into the other, iInseparable, one from the other.

 

- Rabbi Shim'on son of Yohai, who lived in the second century in the land of Israel .

 

Matt , D.C. (Trans.). (2005). Zohar: Annotated & explained. Woodstock , VT: Skylight Paths.