We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right… - Pema Chödrön

Just as you accumulate merit by going beyond hope and fear and saying, “Let it be,” the same with the dön; there’s some sense of “let it be.” There is even an incantation that says, “Not only do I not want you to go away, you can come back any time you like. And here, have some cake.” Personally, when I read that, I got sort of scared. The commentary said that you invite them back because they show you when you have lost your mindfulness. You invite them back because they remind you that you’ve spaced out. The döns wake you up. As long as you are mindful, no dön can arise. But they’re like cold germs, viruses; wherever there’s a gap — Boom! — in they come. The dön will refuse your invitation to come back as long as you’re awake and open, but the moment you start closing off, it will accept your invitation with pleasure and eat your cake anytime. That’s called feeding the ghosts.

Ego or fixed identity doesn’t just mean we have a fixed idea about ourselves. It also means that we have a fixed idea about everything we perceive. I have a fixed idea about you; you have a fixed idea about me. And once there is that feeling of separation, it gives rise to strong emotions. In Buddhism, strong emotions like anger, craving, pride, and jealousy are known as kleshas — conflicting emotions that cloud the mind. The kleshas are our vehicle for escaping groundlessness, and therefore every time we give in to them, our preexisting habits are reinforced. In Buddhism, going around and around, recycling the same patterns, is called samsara. And samsara equals pain. We keep trying to get away from the fundamental ambiguity of being human, and we can’t. We can’t escape it any more than we can escape change, any more than we can escape death. The cause of our suffering is our reaction to the reality of no escape: ego clinging and all the trouble that stems from it, all the things that make it difficult for us to be comfortable in our own skin and get along with one another. If the way to deal with those feelings is to stay present with them without fueling the story line, then it begs the question: How do we get in touch with the fundamental ambiguity of being human in the first place? In fact, it’s not difficult, because underlying uneasiness is usually present in our lives. It’s pretty easy to recognize but not so easy to interrupt. We may experience this uneasiness as anything from slight edginess to sheer terror. Anxiety makes us feel vulnerable, which we generally don’t like. Vulnerability comes in many guises. We may feel off balance, as if we don’t know what’s going on, don’t have a handle on things. We may feel lonely or depressed or angry. Most of us want to avoid emotions that make us feel vulnerable, so we’ll do almost anything to get away from them. But if, instead of thinking of these feelings as bad, we could think of them as road signs or barometers

The difference between theism and nontheism is not whether one does or does not believe in God. . . Theism is a deep-seated conviction that there's some hand to hold: if we just do the right things, someone will appreciate us and take care of us. . . Nontheism is relaxing with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the present moment without reaching for anything to protect ourselves.