what I definitely believe is that the great religions, all of them and the great mystical traditions of Buddhism and Taoism, and so on, have central truths that they hold in common, and that these are a kind of wisdom that are not appreciated, unless one is brought up in a tradition that helped one see

them. And our tradition is dead against seeing

these three degradations suggest two directions in which the search fails, by tempting the seeker to eradicate the visible (illusion) or to exclude the invisible (in contrasting ways, idol and object).

Absolute truth is the true nature of the relative—there is unity underlying all distinctions. Relative truth is the manifestation of the absolute—we experience the world through our disparate circumstances. Denying either side of this paradox leads to not belonging. Our collective freedom depends on us remembering that we belong to everything and a

In other words, whatever direction we might take, we always need visual dharma. If we don’t have true perception of visual dharma, a lot of things can go wrong.