Cave In The Snow: A Western Woman's Quest for Enlightenment

by Vicki Mackenzie

‘It’s not what you gain but what you lose. It’s like unpeeling the layers of an onion, that’s what you have to do. My quest was to understand what perfection meant. Now, I realize that on one level we have never moved away from it. It is only our deluded perception which prevents our seeing what we already have. The more you realize, the more you realize there is nothing to realize. The idea that there’s somewhere we have got to get to, and something we have to attain, is our basic delusion. Who is there to attain it anyway?’

Meister Eckhart, who had written: ‘I say that the contemplative person should avoid even the thought of deeds to be done during the period of his contemplation but afterwards he should get busy for no one can or should engage in contemplation all the time, for active life is to be a respite from contemplation.’