"The difference between the two is not of the spirit – the spirit is the same – but the difference is certainly of purity.

"Science is mixed with much mud. Religion is pure essence, pure fragrance. The mud has disappeared; the lotus has appeared. And at the ultimate stage even the lotus has disappeared, only the fragrance abides. These are the three stages of knowing: the mud, the lotus, and the fragrance.

"Religion cannot be grasped – because there is no object in it, but still it can be understood. It cannot be explained, but it can be experienced. There is no way of informing you about religion, because it cannot be reduced to information. But you can be shown the way, the path to it – fingers pointing to the moon. The fingers are not the moon, obviously, but the fingers can point to the moon.

"These 'Seven Points of Mind Training' of the great master Atisha, are fingers, seven fingers pointing to the moon. Don't be caught by the fingers, don't become too much obsessed with the fingers. That is not the point, that will be missing the point. Use the fingers and forget them, and look where the fingers are pointing. And when you see the moon, who bothers about the fingers? Who remembers them? They automatically become nonessential; they disappear.

"That's why for those who have experienced religion, all the scriptures become utterly useless, all methods become nonessential. When the goal is achieved the path is forgotten.

"Atisha is one of the rare masters, rare in the sense that he was taught by three enlightened masters. It has never happened before, and never since. To be a disciple of three enlightened masters is simply unbelievable – because one enlightened master is enough, but this story that he was taught by three enlightened masters, has a very metaphorical significance also. And it is true, it is historical too.

"The three masters that Atisha remained with for many years were, first Dharmakirti, a great Buddhist mystic. He taught him no-mind, he taught him emptiness, he taught him how to be thoughtless, he taught him how to drop all content from the mind and be contentless."