' Know Emptiness '...

Nirvana is the actual antidote or "active ingredient" in the medicine of the Dharma.

A single, direct, nondualistic realization of emptiness eradicates permanently some portion of the desire, hatred, and ignorance that have bound one in misery for infinite cycles of time up until that moment.

Repeated realizations over many lifetimes are still needed before all of the ancient roots of ignorance can be eradicated.

During this training, the bodhisattva alternates between periods of meditation on emptiness and periods of compassionate action in the world.

Even after the bodhisattva escapes samsara altogether, she must still practice for a long time to overcome the "hangover" of dualistic appearances, the aftereffects of having been ignorant for so long.

Finally, these last limitations are cleared away and the bodhisattva becomes a buddha.

A buddha continuously knows emptiness directly while also simultaneously acting compassionately in the world of persons and forms.


- Guy Newland, from Introduction to Emptiness:
As Taught in Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path