The Parable of Luminous Reality

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Friday, 31 March 2023

Written by Leo Babauta

The boy awoke one morning to a startling discovery — that everything he believed was not the truth. He realized that the way he’d been seeing things was only one way of seeing things. His view of things was not absolute but tentative.

What he saw this morning is that everything was made up of a luminous cloudlike substance, an energy. Including himself. Including the air and wind and light. Luminous and full of wonder.

His body was made up of this energy — there was no difference between inside himself and out. Even his emotions were forms of it — anger, sadness, love, fear, grief, frustration, loneliness, all were made up of this luminous, wondrous, cloudlike energy.

The energy was all the same everywhere, but it was swirlying and cloudlike and changing in form. His body, for example, might have seemed like a separate thing from everything else, but it was constantly shifting like a cloud, breathing out and emanating parts of itself to the rest, taking in new parts from the rest.

This discovery of the luminous energy making up all of reality … it changed his life that day. He felt connected to everything around him, because it was not separate from him.

He was no longer held back by anything. He could do things he was afraid of before, because he saw that fear was just the same energy as everything else, beautiful and delicious. His old habit of avoidance melted away, as he had no difficult feelings to avoid — all was luminous energy.

He was no longer a slave to his addictions, because the craving that caused the addictions was simply a form of this wondrous energy. He could simply feel the craving, and love it as he loved everything else.

He no longer felt worried about being adequate, because there is no fear of inadequacy when you are a part of the luminous energy of everything. He no longer had to worry about getting love, because he was a part of the love of everything.

He was liberated. And so he decided to liberate all other beings by sharing his story of awakening to luminous reality.

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Zen Habits is about finding simplicity and mindfulness in the daily chaos of our lives. It’s about clearing the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness. My name is Leo Babauta. I live in Davis, California with my wife and six kids, where I eat vegan food, write, run, and read. Source