[From a teaching on A Reply to Two Nephews given by Bardor Tulku Rinpoche in Chicago, Illinois in 2011. Translated by Lama Yeshe Gyamtso. Transcribed and edited by Matt Willis. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint without permission. The complete teaching is available as an MP3 download from the KPL Bookstore.]

We frequently speak of samsara and nirvana, and we think of one of these – nirvana—as good, as excellent, as something that we need at all costs to attain. We think of samsara as bad, as terrible, as something from which we must at all costs escape. But, in fact, they are not separate external realities. In absolute truth, they are both equally empty of true existence. They are both merely the projections of our minds. Within samsara, each state of existence, each of the six realms or states of beings, has its own characteristic style of projection and, therefore, its own way of experiencing the world. But, all of this is just projection.

Samsara is just emptiness experienced by a mind that is in a state of delusion. Nirvana is just emptiness experienced by a mind free of delusion.

So, achieving nirvana is not escaping from one place to another by going to some alien realm where there is no suffering and no pain. Achieving nirvana is just recognizing the nature of your mind.