Emptiness As Everything and Nothing (poem)

Emptiness is when one
sees no difference
between self and other,
man and Buddha, man and woman,
samsara and Nirvana.
For Emptiness concerns
everything and nothing.
However, to see no difference
between life and death
is foolish as there is only
birth, life and death.
For birth is full of life,
and death is empty of
both life and birth.
Yet life consists of
birth, itself and death.
And the mind that chooses
life over death does not
understand samsara.
Likewise, he who seeks
Nirvana should let go of
seeking Nirvana in order
to arrive on the Other Shore.

Neither Self nor Other (poem)

In the face of reality’s illumination
There is neither self nor other,
No duality, no division-void of identity
And yet neither void
Nor not void,
There’s no perceiver at all.
Eh Ma! Until a mountain yogi
Has realized well the meaning of this,
He should not disparage cause and result!

-Drinking the Mountain Stream: Songs of Tibet’s Beloved Saint, Milarepa