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Two Buddhist perspectives on Reality, seemingly contradictory at first glance, are absolutely vital to understanding our True Nature:<\/p>\n
First, you — and every other object in the universe that the mind identifies as having separate self-identity — are not so, do not truly exist in such way, are mental illusions created by our assigning labels and definitions, imagined as separate objects, merely sets of conditions and circumstances which come together temporarily in expressions of the various ‘wholes’ which hold them …<\/p>\n
A tree and mountain, for example, do not bother to call themselves ‘tree’ and ‘mountain’, or to define where the tree ends and the mountain that the tree sits upon begins. Only the mind does that. They, by themselves, are just their ‘tree\/mountain’ whole, as it exists before a thought of tree or mountain.<\/p>\n
Second, you — and every other object in the universe that your mind identifies as having separate self-identity — absolutely exists as itself, and is perfectly just what it is. There is nothing to add or take away from it to make it more itself …<\/p>\n
Much as each door and window, tile and brick that makes a house is not truly a separate thing but (when stepping back and seeing the whole) is just the house.<\/p>\n
Yet each door and window, tile and brick, simultaneously, is perfectly itself, just that door, window, tile or brick as it is. <\/p>\n