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Larchfire: Photography from India, Nepal and Tibet, plus quotations primarily from traditions in Yoga and Buddhism

Being a renunciate, being a monastic, being a religious person is actually easy! Living from center is easy. Enlightenment is the easiest way in the world to live. What’s hard, grim, grisly, depressing, miserable, and oppressive is ego. And when we’re identified with that little illusion of a separate self, we don’t realize that the whole universe is behind us. That little ego is, in fact, an illusion, and everything that is true and authentic—all of the love, the awareness, the gratitude, the expansiveness, the generosity, the kindness—that’s who we are. That spirit is who we are and it’s calling us home. But the ego’s onslaught, which tries to keep us in its grip, is awe-inspiring. —Cheri Huber, <i> What is Enlightenment </i>
<i>L1657 Tibetan Monastery, Bodhgaya </i>

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Being a renunciate, being a monastic, being a religious person is actually easy! Living from center is easy. Enlightenment is the easiest way in the world to live. What’s hard, grim, grisly, depressing, miserable, and oppressive is ego. And when we’re identified with that little illusion of a separate self, we don’t realize that the whole universe is behind us. That little ego is, in fact, an illusion, and everything that is true and authentic—all of the love, the awareness, the gratitude, the expansiveness, the generosity, the kindness—that’s who we are. That spirit is who we are and it’s calling us home. But the ego’s onslaught, which tries to keep us in its grip, is awe-inspiring. —Cheri Huber, What is Enlightenment L1657 Tibetan Monastery, Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya painting Cheri Huber What is Enlightenment