One legend of the Buddidt monk who painted (while in a state of raptured mediation) the gate of Sukhavati, the door to the Western Heaven of Amitaba. His masterpiece completed, hung the silken painting upon the wall of his cell. One day while deep in meditation he rose, stepped over to the painting, walked through the gate he himself had painted, and disappeared forever. He had attained Nirvana.
How to interpret this legend? If we depend upon the faculties of the mind alone, the story seems strange and absurd. If however, we possess the power to contemplate the true mystery of the legend, it becomes a sublime allegory. The meditating monk is the Self imprisoned within the human form which represents the limitations of the mortal mind. The painting is the visualization of the "middle road", the tao. The picture represents a gate or door because it truly is the "way". Having though concentration visualized and participated in the mystery of the right "way", the disciple is able to attain the end, which, like the way, is tao. The Truth is reached through his own realization; he becomes one with that which he has realized. Concentration is the gateway to the Real; the bridge builtof the subtle stuff of the inwardly perceived. He who builds the bridge may pass across it to identify that which he has built.