Fairy Tales and the Search for Nirvana

When I first started trying to understand what “awakening” meant in Buddhism, I felt like I’d wandered into the middle of a story I couldn’t follow. Everyone kept pointing to this idea of Nirvana, like it was a place or a prize, some distant glowing thing I could maybe reach if I was disciplined enough, detached enough, wise enough.

But nothing about it felt clear. I remember thinking: Is this supposed to feel like a breakthrough? A light switch? A firework in the mind? Because if so, then I was definitely doing something wrong.

Fairy tales were my first scripture. Long before I read sutras or sat on a cushion, I was reading about enchanted forests, disappearing trails, girls who turned into starlight, and animals who whispered secrets. Although my favorite fairy tale was always Little Red Riding Hood. Sure, people love to say it’s a cautionary tale, watch out for wolves, don’t stray from the path, listen to your mother. But to me, it felt different. Here was this little girl, walking into the woods alone. No magic cape, no sword, no spell to protect her. Just herself, her basket, and the nerve to go on. She’s deceived, yes! However, she sees through it. She faces the predator. She survives. For someone like me, raised queer and never sure where I fit, that felt heroic. Not because she defeated the wolf, but because she dared.

You begin walking in one direction, thinking you’re heading straight, but somewhere along the way the path twists. Suddenly you’re not even sure you’re moving forward. The journey circles back on itself, or stops cold. And yet, there is always a twist, stays still till you reach within yourself for wit and strength.

It felt like awakening might just be this quiet center I kept circling. Holding still while the rest of me flailed through the noise until I met Buddhism and realized even that idea had to loosen.

As a queer Buddhist, it’s hard not to feel like an outsider twice over. I’ve sat in Dharma halls where I kept my queerness zipped up tight, unsure if I could bring my whole self into that space. I’ve also sat in queer spaces where being Buddhist felt strange, almost overly sincere. Like I’d shown up wearing a robe to a leather bar.

But what I’ve learned, slowly and clumsily, is that neither part of me is at odds with the other. They’re both just trying to see clearly. And seeing clearly is all awakening really asks of us.

Nirvana can sound magical. It shimmers with that fairy-tale glow. But in Buddhism, it’s not about disappearing into bliss or hovering above pain. It’s about seeing. Noticing from another angle. You were staring so hard at the surface that you missed the shape underneath. Then, one day, something shifts. It’s the same world, but it lands differently. That shift is the insight.

Of course, there’s a kind of ache that follows. The ache of not-knowing, of questioning everything. 

Since the thing you start out looking for cannot and must not have a face, how can you recognize the means to reach it until you’ve reached it? How can the destination ever be anything but an apparent destination?

That line gutted me the first time I read it. Because it’s true. You don’t know what you’re chasing. And even if you did, the very act of naming it would change it. That’s why “trying not to try” hits so hard. Campo calls it a paradox, but it’s also the closest thing to truth I’ve ever felt. We try, we fail, we surrender, and in the surrendering, if we’re lucky, something opens. The heart cracks just wide enough to let something unfamiliar in.

Maybe the balance is not trying so hard. Unless you’ve chosen to ordain as a monk and dedicate yourself full-time to reaching Nirvana, most of us are just figuring it out in the middle of ordinary life—work, heartbreak, dishes in the sink. And maybe that’s where it’s meant to unfold anyway. Not in some rarefied silence, but in the chaos of everyday trying, forgetting, and beginning again.

But only if the heart’s still open.

That’s been the hardest part. Not shutting down. Not letting the weight of grief, the sting of rejection, or the noise of the world shrink my world. Suffering, when you’re queer and trying to be awake in a world that often would rather you weren’t either, can feel like a wall. But it’s not. It’s a veil. And if you’re patient, if you look with soft eyes, you can see through it. Suffering doesn’t have to define the whole picture. It doesn’t get the last word.

I’ve stopped trying to arrive somewhere. I just keep walking. Paying attention. Letting silence speak when it needs to. The destination, if there is one, is already here. I just keep trying to notice it.

Nirvana awakening might seem magical but magic is still an illusion, until you’ve figured out how the magician cheated with his hand. And believing? Believing is the first step to creating magic. The same way fairy tales teach you to believe before you even know what the story’s about.

That’s what awakening feels like, at least from where I sit. Not an escape, not an answer, but a shift in how you see and a quiet, persistent trust that what’s real is already here.