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 The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself – Carl Sagan

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only difference lies in one’s experience of the world: those infected with the ego-principle feverishly thirst and so experience the world as suffering (samsara). Those who have recovered from the infection of the ego-principle know no suffering and are thus “in nirvana”, even though they are essentially in the same world as everyone else

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A core principle in Mahayana philosophy is that samsara is the result of an error, that of ignorance. When this is corrected, the result is nirvana. This is like how what appears as a snake in the dark causes fright is revealed to be a rope when the lights are turned on, resulting in the dissipation of fear. Samsara and nirvana are not two different things with different natures, as both are empty of inherent existence, and one is simply a misapprehension of reality. Rebirth is a consequence of this as well.

In addition, a core principle in all forms of Buddhism is that nirvana is not some ethereal existence separate from the world. When you attain bodhi, you "enter" nirvana. The Buddha didn't attain nirvana upon death but under the bodhi tree. When such a being passes away, they also don't go to some special nirvana realm.

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“Reincarnation means there is a soul that goes out of your body and enters another body. That is a very popular, very wrong notion of continuation in Buddhism. If you think that there is a soul, a self, that inhabits a body, and that goes out when the body disintegrates and takes another form, that is not Buddhism. It’s like a cloud. Even when the cloud is not there, it continues always as snow or rain. The cloud does not need to have a soul in order to continue. There’s no beginning and no end. You don’t need to wait until the total dissolution of this body to continue—you continue in every moment.”

• Thich Nhat Hanh

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Nirvana is “it”. The understanding of samsara is nirvana.

It’s the cessation of the illusion

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