The Wheels of Time
From the book, The Way to Shambhala by Edwin Bernbaum
"Since emptiness, like a slippery pig, cannot be grasped and pinned down, we turn to substitutes that we can hang onto. This gives rise to illusory notions of self and things that bind us to suffering. Having created the illusion of possessing independent natures separate from everthing else, we experience a painful feeling of deprivation and loneliness, a need to reach out and possess what we think we do not have. From this need springs innumerable frustrating desires that we can never adequately satisfy-for even when we get what we want, the fear of its loss eventually runins our enjoyment of it. In the experience of emptiness, on the otherhand, we realize the ungraspable natuer of reality and let go of our illusions; our sense of separation from what we want vanishes,- and with it our desires and the suffering they entail. At the same time, things themselves do not simply vanish; instead, like wax-paper lanterns that have been lit, they turn transluscent and begin to glow with the clear light of emptiness."
"Since emptiness, like a slippery pig, cannot be grasped and pinned down, we turn to substitutes that we can hang onto. This gives rise to illusory notions of self and things that bind us to suffering. Having created the illusion of possessing independent natures separate from everthing else, we experience a painful feeling of deprivation and loneliness, a need to reach out and possess what we think we do not have. From this need springs innumerable frustrating desires that we can never adequately satisfy-for even when we get what we want, the fear of its loss eventually runins our enjoyment of it. In the experience of emptiness, on the otherhand, we realize the ungraspable natuer of reality and let go of our illusions; our sense of separation from what we want vanishes,- and with it our desires and the suffering they entail. At the same time, things themselves do not simply vanish; instead, like wax-paper lanterns that have been lit, they turn transluscent and begin to glow with the clear light of emptiness."