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"The Buddhist idea system is there to help us turn our experience into a positive, expanding wakefulness, and of course, when the system itself becomes an obstacle to further expansion, we are as free to give it up as we were to take it on.
**"There is one key escape clause in Buddhist dharma that negates the mythic/ideological status of its doctrine: the teaching of emptiness. The entire intellectual system of Hinayana is denied by the Heart Sutra, the basic document of the Mahayana path: 'there is no form, no feeling, no perception, no formation,' says Avalokitesvara, running through the whole gamut of the skandhas, the four noble truths, the dhatus, and the eight kinds of consciousness. All the idea systems and mythic embodiments of the Vajrayana are conjured from emptiness, and returned to it at the end of the practice session. It is recognized that none of them have any objective status of 'truth' as opposed to fiction, but are evoked purely as a means to the end of experiencing Big Mind. The duality of truth and falsehood are transcended. "

Stephen T. Butterfield
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