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Vipassana 7
Impermanence is life itself and “good news”: nothing—houses, mountains, regimes—can stay the same, and from this opening all change and healing arise. Suffering does not inhere in things but in our ignorance and grasping. Our perception of “self,” “Buddha,” or any object is merely a sign or mark (lakṣaṇa, nimitta); where there’s a sign there is deception. To touch reality and “see the Tathāgata,” we must learn the art of handling and finally killing our notions—however useful they may seem—to free ourselves from their trap.
Thich Nhat Hanh then presents the Three Doors of Liberation, a teaching woven through the Diamond Sūtra and Mahāyāna texts:
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Door of Signlessness
• Do not grasp reality via external marks or concepts.
• Transcend the four mental categories—self, man, living being, lifespan—so you see the one in the many. -
Door of Emptiness (śūnyatā)
• Everything is “empty of what?”—empty of separate existence yet full of non-A elements (time, space, consciousness).
• Emptiness is not non-existence but interbeing; the sheet of paper contains the whole cosmos. -
Door of Wishlessness (apraṇihita)
• Nothing to attain, nothing to run after. “My practice is the practice of non-practice.”
• You are already what you seek—nirvana and Buddhahood are here and now when seen without grasping.
Practice the Six Pāramitās without form—generosity, precepts, patience, energy, dhyāna, and understanding (prajñāpāramitā)—so happiness is boundless. Walk the Middle Way, free from extremes (permanence/impermanence, self/non-self, existence/non-existence), and look deeply at every “thing” to uncover its true nature of interbeing and liberation.