It is important to note that clear awareness is not a rejection of the relative world in which we live. The insight into emptiness and not-self does not negate the reality of our everyday experiences. Rather, it transforms the way we relate to them. From the perspective of clear awareness, we engage with life fully, but without attachment or aversion. We can experience pain, joy, love, and loss, but these experiences are no longer seen as happening to a self. They are simply the play of phenomena arising and dissolving in awareness.

This is not indifference, but a profound shift in perspective. The duality between self and no-self, self and other dissolves, not in the sense that the world vanishes, but in the sense that our identification with a fixed self vanishes. In its place, there is the direct experience of inter­connected­ness, where everything is seen as part of a dynamic, interdependent whole. The boundaries between self and the world blur, and we come to realise that the world is not something outside of us, but is, in fact, an inseparable aspect of our experience.

Click here to read more Dharma Reads.

Categories: Buddhist Library, Buddhist meditation, Dharma Read, Everyday Buddhist

Tags: Featured