"No matter how good an experience is, it is still a mental arising. It doesn't matter whether it is nonthought, peace, emptiness or whatever. The moment you cling to it, it is samsara. Actual wisdom is being able to free yourself from anything."

Confusion Arises as Wisdom - p. 61

"Awakening too is a shunya concept. Nirvana is not something objectively real, for the distinction we make between samsara and nirvana is another example of dualistic thinking that we project onto our experience. Instead, Nagarjuna referes to nirvana as "the end of prapanca (conceptual elaborations)", which includes the end of such dualistic ways of thinking. I experience the world as it really is when I let go of the ways of thinking that I am normally stuck in.

Nagarjuna never actually claims that "samsara is nirvana". Rather, he says that no diferrence can be found between them. The two terms simply refer to different ways of experiencing the world. Nirvana is not another realm or dimension but the deep peace experienced when our mental turmoil ends, because the objects that we have been tryng to identify with - including the sense of self - are realized to be shunya. If things arise and pass away according to conditions, they have no reality of their own that we can cling to. When we do not cling to names and concepts, we can experience things as they are. This includes buddhist names and concepts, even the concept of nirvana and the very notion of  "a Buddha".

Lower truths are needed to point to the "higher truth". Yet, as Wittgenstein put it, after you have climbed up the ladder you must kick it away. Fortunately, buddhism is very good at helping us let go of such ladders."

Money, sex, war, karma

"Buddhism distinguishes two truths, the relative (conventional) truth and the ultimate (absolute) truth. Since samsara, the world of suffering, is not different from nirvana, the relative truth does not refer to a different reality than the ultimate truth does. The relative truth is the way we usually experience the world, as a collection of separate things - including us - that arise and pass away. This occurs in time that is experienced as objective and external. The ultimate truth is realizing the way things really are, that they are not separate from each other and therefore are not really things in the usual sense."

Money, sex, war, karma

"When wisdom is developed and cultivated according to the fourth noble truth, it sees the secret of life, the reality of things as they are. When the secret is discovered, when the truth is seen, all the forces which feverishly produce the continuity of samsara in illusion become calm and incapable of producing any more karma formations, because there is no more illusion, no more thirst for continuity.

He who has realized the truth, Nirvana, is the happiest being in the world. He is free from all complexes and obsessions, the worries and troubles that torment others. His mental health is perfect. He does not repent the past, nor does he brood over the future. He lives fully in the present. Therefore he appreciates and enjoys things in the purest sense without self projections. He is joyfull, exultant, enjoying the pure life, his faculties pleased, free from anxiety, serene and peaceful. As he is free from selfish desire, hatred, ignorance, conceit, pride and all such defilements, he is pure and gentle, full of universal love, compassion, kindness, sympathy, understanding and tolerance. His service to others is of the purest, for he has no thought of self. He gains nothing, accumulates nothing, not even anything spiritual, because he is free from the illusion of self and the thirst for becoming."

What the Buddha taught - p.43

"Há duas idéias psicologicamente enraizadas no indivíduo: a autoproteção e a autopreservação. Como autoproteção, o homem criou a imagem de um deus pessoal do qual ele depende como uma criança de seus pais, para sua própria proteção, salvaguarda e segurança. Quanto à autopreservação, o homem concebeu a idéia de uma alma imortal, permanente, que viverá eternamente. Perdido entre o temor e o desejo, o homem necessita dessas duas coisas para se assegurar e confortar.

A vida é um momento entre o passado e o futuro; é apenas um fenômeno, ou melhor, uma sucessão de fenômenos produzidos pela lei de causa e efeito, ou carma. Cada um de nós é meramente uma combinação de características materiais e mentais; todo ser, ou coisa, é um aglomerado, um composto, em suma, um ajuntamento de coisas que permanecem separadas enquanto persiste no samsara ou roda da existência continuada, causada pelos desejos insaciáveis do homem, na sua sede de satisfação egoísta.

O supremo objetivo do Budismo está no oposto desta vida egocêntrica, está na vida una com o todo. O absoluto é uno, não pode haver um segundo ser para se unir a ele. O Budismo esclarece que, na iluminação, nada une a criatura ao criador; a iluminação surge quando, pela sabedoria, a idéia de um ego, essa ilusão de um eu, cai completamente por terra. O indivíduo vê a realidade e então, nesse momento, o absoluto, o eterno, a iluminação, o nome que se queira dar não importa, vem à existência neste indivíduo."

Budismo: psicologia do autoconhecimento - p. 156-157