If you find yourself still developing gross desire or getting angry, then you haven’t perceived emptiness. In contrast, if these tendencies are diminishing, then you are more familiar with emptiness.
To our ordinary minds, dualistic objects appear falsely. After developing conviction about emptiness, then due to the power of the realization, things still will appear self-existent, but there’s a very clear recognition and awareness that they are false appearances. There’s a vivid feeling that things are not real and you don’t need to reinforce it, it just arises. Without this perception of emptiness, it’s hard to force yourself to always think that things are unreal. This is difficult.
~ notes from a teaching on Nagarjuna’s Sixty Stanzas given by Gyumed Khensur Rinpoche Losang Jampa, August 2014. (translator: Art Engle)
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