"The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing one's own image reflected in a mirror, or one's shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in a valley." ~The Buddha
Today I was doom scrolling, cause I wanted to see how friends are doing with LA fires. I had recently joined (only to read - I don't participate much nowadays), an ACIM group, and folks were talking about the fires in LA, nothing but illusion, it is not real. And yet, I saw comments, how folks were evacuating their homes - in the same post!
So I hotly wanted to chime in and say "If the fires are illusion, why evacuate?" But I didn't, cause I didn't want to incite a riot on a spiritual group. That's so last two decades ago. Does anyone still do this shit?
Fire is real. The body is real. I have a real soul. I think the issue is perception, and attachment, which can be illusory. Most spiritualities, Buddha of course, and even the Course, do talk of the tyranny of the ego. It's fierce, it clings, it attaches, it fears, it separates. It's an issue. If we didn't know this by now, we would be way lost. Everyone agrees ego is bad news and must be dealt with, the crux of the madness.
But all I saw on the post, was a bunch of egos who had missed the mark - dismissing human nature and reality as some kind of what...simulation? Suffering, Buddha pointed and said - that's real. Jesus gets crucified - that is real. We got a neat little debate section in Christ on that one. Suffering is no illusion, cmon, get real. But perception through the lens of ego - can create illusion.
But maybe it is impossible for west to understand east concepts. Maybe explaining illusion is so damn difficult, folks can just dismiss the whole world and say its a simulation or binary. I think it's irritating to me. Yes we should go beyond five senses, but dismiss them? How stupid are we, really?
But yes fire is real, suffering is real, destruction can be. That's not me attaching to things. That's just common sense, and I don't think Buddha or Christ wanted us to forego it.
