From Birth to Death We Believe in the Hallucination Projected by Ignorance

What would it be like to experience the world without the hallucination of true existence being projected onto everything we experience? We need to become a buddha for this to happen, Rinpoche explains. Right now the gross negative imprints left by ignorance from beginningless rebirths decorate whatever appears to us—form, sound, smell, taste, tangible object—making it appear real but it is actually a total hallucination. In reality, it is merely imputed by the mind. From birth to death everything that appears to us is a total hallucination, like watching a movie produced by our karma and then believing everything, including the I, is real. All of the problems of life arise on the basis of this hallucination. Our ignorance creates suffering, this is why we need to eliminate it. A buddha does not have this. Practicing mindfulness of emptiness in daily life is the most important awareness. After one realizes emptiness, all that has been appearing as real, including the I, is understood to not have even an atom of true existence. The teaching for this episode was recorded on June 30, 2019, at Ganden Buddhist Centre, Latvia.