...including selfhood, thingness, time and space, causality, meaning, and so forth. Typically, these illusions collapse one-by-one discontinuously and intermittenly. "Passing through the gateless gate" is seeing through the illusion of conventional reality (what is sometimes called "the consensus trance") and discovering that reality is alive and whole. It is possible to see through one particular illusion while remaining unable to see through others.
Typically, a person on this path gradually sees through more and more illusions as attention is shifted away from thoughts to "what is." Selfhood is usually one of the last illusions to go. Seeing through illusions takes one out of samsara and the wheel of life and death because even those things are seen to be illusions. It is realized that there was never a separate person in any sense who could have been bound to a cycle of life and death. "Life," "death," "cycles," and all other thoughts collapse into a little greasy spot, and then...........well, this is where all words laughingly fail.
Typically, a person on this path gradually sees through more and more illusions as attention is shifted away from thoughts to "what is." Selfhood is usually one of the last illusions to go. Seeing through illusions takes one out of samsara and the wheel of life and death because even those things are seen to be illusions. It is realized that there was never a separate person in any sense who could have been bound to a cycle of life and death. "Life," "death," "cycles," and all other thoughts collapse into a little greasy spot, and then...........well, this is where all words laughingly fail.
