The Magic of Awareness by Anam Thubten

Author:Anam Thubten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

CHAPTER EIGHT

Transcendent Bliss

BUDDHA SAID that he understood the way to escape from the very source of suffering. That was his essential teaching. He said that if we want to escape, there is a perfect island, which he called nirvana. He called nirvana the island within. So there is actually a place where we can all go to escape from the mental world of problems. After all, it doesn’t sound bad to be free, to arrive at the nirvana within. Of course, this is very different from practicing escapism. This is the opposite of escapism.

Periodically we have a desire to escape from this world, which is seemingly filled with unending struggle. One of the reasons people go to ashrams and temples to pray and chant is to experience the state of mind in which they can feel that they have escaped these notions of reality. Some people escape, not metaphorically, but literally, and they run away from society. There is a place that we can escape to, but it is not outside. It’s in each of us. Buddha taught the most direct, exact path to it. No inner limitations exist in this realm of consciousness and it resides in all of us. It’s the land of bliss. It’s the best island to go to for a vacation if we are ready.

There is a true escape from the world, not the physical world but false reality, this very painful virtual world that our mind has constructed. We are residing in this false reality most of the time to the extent that we forget to see and admire what is actually happening in each and every moment. We forget to listen to the birds chirping outside of our window because we are lost in this virtual reality, which is the creation of our mind.

It is this deluded, mind-constructed reality we want to escape from, and the perfect escape is this consciousness, which is dormant in all of us. It is truly amazing, and it is a source of love. It is where we can have a feast of true freedom. We can feel this limitless truth and there is no longer a boundary. We can recognize the oneness of all things and embrace every being in our heart.

In Buddhism we call this consciousness “the Buddha mind.” Please do not think that there is a huge difference in the philosophical teachings of the Buddha and teachings of other great adepts in various other wisdom traditions. They are the same. The purpose of all of the spiritual endeavors is, in the end, to discover the truth and to be free from this unending cycle of problems. We can be awakened to the Buddha mind in this very moment, but the experience of being awakened to the Buddha mind is completely inexpressible. It is bliss, transcendent bliss. We keep hearing people talk about happiness and joy in spiritual teachings but sometimes there is no mention of bliss. It is possible that many people don’t have much awareness of this transcendent bliss.

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