Thank you, the article was interesting. I think this part of the article sums things up nicely:
When there is freedom from obscurations in the heart, when the hindrances have been dropped and there is full wakefulness and attention to the present reality, this is what is experienced
All of this gives no indication that everything is an illusion. There are specific things that are real, in so far as they need to be cultivated or relinquished. Ignorance is real in so far as it needs to be dispelled.
If nothing is real, what is the need to gain freedom from obscurations in the heart or drop the hindrances?
Just because the perceptions of an unawakened being is faulty doesnât mean that everything is an illusion. It just means that we create suffering on account of faulty perceptions; and there are actions that need to be taken and skills that need to be developed to drop these faulty perceptions.
Where is your world without the 5 senses? Can you create your world without the mind? Does blind man see things as you see? Does he get scared for what you see also?
Thats the world in Buddha dispensation.
Besides that karmic force you need to realize its not your fault. Since it started from beginningless time thats it existed. Like trauma of ancestors. Karma works only toward those that lives like robots. The rest just have very few sufferings.
The subjectivity of experience doesnât mean that all is an illusion. In so far as what is experienced through the five senses affects us, it is real - for if it were not real, we would remain unaffected. Because we are affected, it is real. Because the Buddhaâs teaching provides us a path out of suffering, that too is real. Once arahantship is realised, any notion of real and unreal falls away.
See DN2, the Såmaññaphala Sutta, and more generally, the first 13 suttas in the DN, also called the Sīlakkhandhavagga.
In short, from Bhikkhu Bodhiâs introduction to the Discourse and its Commentaries:
[T]he SĂĄmaññaphala Sutta sounds a triumphant and lyrical proclamation of the fruitfulness of the course of spiritual training founded upon right view. It is the Buddhaâs announcement to the world that the life of renunciation he adopted for himself, and opened up to humanity by founding the Sangha, brings immediately visible benefits in each of its stages. It is âgood in the beginningâ through the bliss of blamelessness that comes with the purification of conduct; âgood in the middleâ in yielding an exalted joy and bliss through the seclusion of the mind from the sensual hindrances; and âgood in the endâ because it culminates in the highest wisdom and peace through the transcending of all mundane bonds. [Emphasis added.]
4 Likes
