Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

Our tendency to try to escape from the universe to find a nirvana that’s sort of quiet and peaceful and apart from all this hullabaloo is undermined completely by the realization of the nature of reality. You realize that the wisdom of the nature of reality leads you into compassion for the beings who are here, and the little bit of bliss that you ... See more

"But it is true as a matter of conscious experience. The reality of your life is always now. And to realize this, we will see, is liberating. In fact, I think there is nothing more important to understand if you want to be happy in this world."

An enlightened being sees their agony without diminishing its reality. In other words, it doesn’t just turn away from it—but, on the other hand, simultaneously sees everything, including that agony [and] including hell, actually, as bubbles of bliss in an ocean of bliss. That’s the kind of cognitive dissonance that the ordinary mind cannot get arou... See more