Question and answer 3

Disciple: Is not liberation the ending of sorrow and the reaching, that is the gaining, of the highest bliss? If I am bliss already, how can I gain a bliss I have always had, and how can a sorrow that never was come to an end?

Guru: It is as when you forget the bracelet on your own arm, search, and then seem to find it: that is how the bliss seems to be gained. And it is as with the snake that never was, which appears through the delusion of not knowing the rope and then seems to vanish when the rope is known: that is how the sorrow seems to end.

Disciple: The ending of sorrow and the attaining (reaching) of supreme bliss, is that not liberation? If I am bliss, the attaining of bliss already attained always, and likewise the ending of sorrow that never is, how can they be?

Guru: Like the gaining of the bracelet, which appears as if found after searching, having forgotten the bracelet on the arm; and like the removal of the snake, which, never being, appeared by the delusion of not knowing the rope and appears as if removed by knowledge of the rope: so it can be.