Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness Quotes

“Mind is, at one and the same time, both real and empty. It is real in the sense that all experience is basically a manifestation of mind. It is empty in the sense that it is not a permanent, single, independent entity. It is instead a stream of fleeting, dependently arising moments of consciousness.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“Although this path is called the path of the two accumulations, in the last analysis there is no accumulation, no path and no fruit. The mind is naturally free from mental constructions. There is nothing to add or remove. This is emptiness without any sense of negating anything and without any concept of emptiness. The mind just rests naturally in its natural state without contrivance.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“In the Prajnaparamita sutras the Buddha lists 108 emptinesses starting with the eighteen elements and including all phenomena up to the ten powers and the Omniscient Wisdom of the Buddha.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“This is the Svatantrika view. The relative is merely concepts (rnam rtog gis btags pa tsam) and the absolute is emptiness free from concepts.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“In fact there are fundamental problems involved in positing the existence of some substance other than mind. How can such a substance be found or known? If something cannot be known without a knower, how can it ever be shown to exist independently? How does the interface between mind and matter actually work? How can matter enter into a relationship with mind, or mind with matter? Since the alternative explanation put forward by the Chittamatrins dispenses with such problems, it demands serious consideration.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“Quite a lot of modern scientists and philosophers think that the mind/matter dichotomy can be resolved by saying that mind is none other than matter. The interesting thing about that theory is that not only does one interpret one’s experience to mean that there is a material world beyond the senses, but that that material world can produce and experience thoughts, emotions and mental images in just the same way that one’s own mind does. Furthermore, these thoughts, feelings and images pertain to the material world. One is left wondering what ‘material’ might mean in this context.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“Rather than regarding the mind as merely the seeing or observing aspect of a moment of experience, it is also the content of that experience.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“In fact, there is no proof that there is any substance other than mind anywhere.”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness

“The main thrust of Buddhism, however, is not about theories at all. It is about experience. In particular it is concerned with the experience of suffering. What Buddhism has discovered is that the experience of suffering is always associated with strong emotional attachment to a vague sense of ‘self‘. So Buddhism turns its attention onto that strong emotional response associated with that sense of ‘self’ and asks about how that self is actually experienced. Where is that ‘I’ experienced?”
― Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, Progressive Stages Of Meditation On Emptiness