Emptiness

Last night, we had another writers' briefing cum dharma talk from H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche. We started around 8 and ended at 2a.m. - a bit like a half day at work, but what amazing revelations! Sprinkled amidst explanations about Buddhist items such as singing bowls and scripture holders were gems of wisdom and Buddhist dharma.

TR talked about emptiness - what is the realization of emptiness? It is the awareness that everything is a projection of our self centred mind. All karma is due to projections of a dualistic mind. When you stop these projections, you stop acting on projections, and you can break out of samsara. No more rebirth. Talk about mind blowing. Wow. The difficult thing is to distinguish between understanding, which is a passive intellectual exercise and realization, which is an active one.

However, while realization will bring you out of samsara, it will not necessarily bring you to enlightenment. Wow. I wanted to talk to Webby more about what we learned last night but Webby had an early morning meeting so we just chatted for a short while and went to sleep. So much for realization.