Ilchi Lee Blog Online

(Everyone can be enlightened. But not everyone can actualize their enlightenment…   ) 

The world is like a picture drawn on a blank sheet of paper.
Looking at that picture, people sometimes are moved
and sometimes argue endlessly:
“The color is beautiful. The shapes are crooked.”
Those with insight are not caught up in this,
For they know that life is a process of continuously adding something
to this blank sheet, of building, of creating shapes.

From the moment we are born,
We color everything and live with the illusion that this is us.
Even as we compare ourselves to innumerable colors and forms,
Creating feelings of guilt and shame,
We struggle to be free of these shackles binding us.
So our souls lack freedom and peace, and our lives are wearisome.
We are beings placed in this contradiction.

But those who pursue truth go the other way.
Peeling off layer after layer of paint and color,
They continue until only a blank sheet of paper remains.
The moment they finally see the blank sheet,
They discover Nothingness; they find the Void.

Two paths are placed before us at the moment of enlightenment.
Finding emptiness, we may fail to perceive the “True Void”
And fall into the “Indeterminate Void.”
Extreme meaninglessness and fear may rush upon us:
“So this is the substance of the world?”
We may color the blank sheet white and deceive ourselves:
White seems so clear, pure, and good.
One and None both exist because “I” remain.

Enlightenment is not the end, but the beginning.
We can transcend the world of the Void the moment we perceive it,
Thinking it of little account: “Now, I can create!”
Marvelous Existence springs from the True Void
When we leap beyond deep emptiness and cynicism to become a creating mind.
From then on, everything in life changes into the joy of creating newness.

From Ilch Lee’s lecture

(Ilchilee.com)

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