|
What did the Rinpoche say to me last year? He said, "It
is not a question of becoming, it is a question of uncovering
what you really are, of letting yourself be yourself, of
letting everything that is not yourself fall away."
"But what remains when everything falls away?"
"Nothing. Emptiness. Sunyata. There is no real Self.
There is no final Identity, no God, no soul, no Absolute. Only
Sunyata. There are two ways of saying Sunyata, the Rinpoche
said. You can say it harshly, and you can say it gently. You
can say it so that it sounds like the iron hand of death
beating on the door, or like waves fanning out and whispering
on the sea-shore. When you say it the first way you tremble
slightly because you understand that to know Emptiness is the
end of the Ego you have cherished and you are afraid; when you
say it gently you are happy because in the experience of
Emptiness is spaciousness and freedom, is Nirvana. To be freed
from a false perception of the Self is the end of Buddhism; to
realise that there is Nothing and No One is also to understand
that one is in everything and in everyone, that there is no
death, no fear, no pain, no separation."
"Have you felt what you are talking about?"
"In moments. Enough to know that it is not nonsense. Not
enough to live in constant awareness of its truth."
-- Andrew Harvey, A Journey in Ladakh
|
