Rev. Danny Fisher

Lama Sarah Harding (left) with the author (right) at Lady Kunchok Palden’s birthday party in Boulder, CO, May 2006. Photo by Jenna Herbst.

Today’s quote is from our friend and former Naropa University prof Lama Sarah Harding. Sarah is a lama in the Shangpa Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, who in 1980, under the supervision of H.E. Kalu Rinpoche, completed the very first three-year retreat ever for westerners. Her published translations include Creation & Completion: Essential Points of Tantric Meditation, Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd, and the brand new Niguma, Lady of Illusion. She’s also a complete delight, the bee’s knees — one of my favorite people. This is it – Snow Lion Publications’ Dharma Quote of the Week this week:

We are duped by maya. The whole display of our senses has tricked us into believing it and thus seduces us into the world of suffering. And the illusionist is that old trickster, one’s own mind. But when this illusory nature is recognized to be just that, one is released from the bondage of the magic show, at which time it becomes a wonderful spectacle, even a display of the unimpeded creativity and freedom of mind. Then maya itself is both the medium for this realization and the expression of it.

This conscious and intentional method of relating to all phenomena as illusion is thus cast in a totally positive light on the spiritual path, a complete turn-around from the original negative valuation of it as deceit. Now illusion is seen as illumination and opportunity. The nature of our relationship with it is the salient point, rather than its own nature, which certainly does not exist anyway, in any way.