Touching nirvana, touching the ultimate dimension, is a total and unconditional surrender to God. If the wave knows that its ground of being is water, it overcomes all fear and sorrow. The moment the monk surrenders his entire being to God as the  ground of being, all of his fears vanish. Listen to Thomas Merton: “In the language of the monastic fathers, all prayers, reading, meditation, and all the activities of the monastic life are aimed at purity of heart, an unconditioned and totally humble surrender to God, a total acceptance of ourselves and of our situation as willed by Him. It means the renunciation of all deluded images of ourselves, all exaggerated estimates of our own capacities, in order to obey God’s will as it comes to us.”

Excerpt From
Living Buddha, Living Christ 20th Anniversary Edition
Thích Nhất Hạnh & Elaine Pagels

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