The dilemma is this: The thinking that was embraced by the family, friends, and society of the student’s day thought of the world in terms of limits and boundaries. This included the belief that a cave wall is a barrier to the flesh of a human body. As Milarepa pushed his hand into the rock, however, his students were shown that there are exceptions to such “laws.” The irony is that both ways of seeing the world are absolutely correct. Each depends upon the way we choose to think of ourselves in a given moment.
