rangdrol's Blog

This teaching was originally published in Shambhala Sun Magazine in 2003.

Just suppose that we have been born in a cinema hall. We don’t know that what is going on in front of us is just a projection. We don’t know that it is just a film, just a movie, and that the events in the movie aren’t real, that they have no true existence. Everything we see on that screen—love, hate, violence, suspense, thrills—is in fact just the effect of light projected through celluloid. But no one has ever told us this, so we just sit there watching, fixated on the film. If somebody tries to attract our attention, we say, „Shut up!“ Even if we have something important to do, we don’t want to do it. We are completely engrossed and blind to the fact that this projection is completely futile.

Now suppose that there is someone…