According to the eighth Karmapa, the Buddha nature shouldn’t be seen as a spark or a nucleus that is hidden somewhere deep in our mind. On the contrary, we should see it as the open expanse of limitless, space endowed with the qualities of awareness. All that we consider to be ourselves, the world, other beings, are only mistaken perception of a confused mind. They could be assimilate to the floaters found in the eyes that project the perception of hair wherever we direct our gaze.
“Go to the Limits of Your Longing”
by Rainer Maria Rilke
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
“Go to the Limits of our Longing” by Rainer Maria Rilke, from Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God. © Riverhead Books, 2005.