The world is an illusion....wtf does that mean ?

[Arkx6]

So i am not sure of the exact quote but it seems to be something to the effect of: the world is an illusion...

 

here's my understanding of this...reality is in part like a mirror reflecting our own beliefs back at us as if they are reality...

So reality is made up of several layers...what is objectively true...what we experience because of our own preferences,tastes etc...what we believe is true...what we see as a product of our beliefs and reality.

 

ie if you believe you are too fat or thin then irespective of objective reality this is what you will see when you look in the mirror (this has more to do with our beliefs rather than objective reality).

 

a religious person believing they are close to god because they are holding some sacred manuscript or the self hypnosis of people experiencing exorcisms who make the reactions we see during exorcism real happen because they believe they are trully possesed and under the control of some demon.

 

the mind will make real (within its capability and reach to do so) that which it believes is real...for instance:

 

1) my father believes romantic relationships are based around ones financial status...this belief had the effect of making him look in places where he was likely to attract someone who was after his money in this case the 3rd world amongst people who were poor and deprived.

 

2) my sister believes she never has enough money...she is poor financially but this is because she doesnt know how to manage her finances and bring them under her control...her belief that she is poor and doesnt have enough perpetuates her fantasy as it prevents her from examining her behaviour and her situation and of looking deep into the cause of her poverty. Ie her poverty is a result of her actions not a consequence of her circumstances (her income is nearly double mine).

 

 

I have autism so i struggle sometimes with interpreting things in a literal way. Sometimes my mind interpretes "the world is an illusion" in a literal sense ...i cant tell you the headaches this has caused. And because of this i struggle with abstract teachings that are not designed for the autistic. 

 

So what is the buddhas teachings on illusion mean to you?

 

[Marblehead]

What does it mean?  It means that there are some folks who are using way too many drugs.

 

Don't get me wrong.  The concept of illusion is an important concept.  But this has to be thought out rationally and logically, not when one is high on drugs (Including mushrooms).

 

[wandelaar]

I agree with Marblehead that the mantra "The world is an illusion" has become an excuse of New Age people (and psychonauts) who prefer their own world of fantasy above the (hard) world of everyday reality.

 

However there is a rational Buddhist way to acknowledge both the world of everyday reality and the world of absolute reality (or metaphysical truth), and that is the doctrine of the two truths.

 

The doctrine of the two truths cannot be presented in a few posts (it would take a book), and doing it halfway will only land you in the kind of New Age weirdness as exemplified by the uncritical modern day usage of the mantra "The world is an illusion".

Edited September 9, 2018 by wandelaar

[Fa Xin]

The world is impermanent:  now you see it, now you don’t. Reminds me of an illusion...

[Jadespear]

the world as an illusion does not just refer to out physical world, this concept also extends to the astral world, and the mental world...  

 

Ancient cultures had a different definition for what they defined as "real" or "true".  "real" and "true" to them meant something that did not change.... something that was always there, something that could not ever be broken, something that was fundamental all the time...  

 

... Therefore the concept of reality as an illusion could not be too far from their definiton of it that way, because in truth the entire phenomenal world of everything in every place of everywhere changes - all phenomenon are in flux because all phenomenon are actually the resultant appearances (physical form) of elemental constructive vibrations that are empowered to create themselves based upon a conscious beings intent, awareness, emotion, and belief  - that comes from within themselves and shows itself in an outer way through conscious perception. 

 

...the only "real" thing that is not an illusion to ancient people is what is unchangeable...what is always there.  

 

...so what is that?  --------------    : ----- ) The empty awareness that is working through you and the entire fabric of all existence.  

[林愛偉]

World experiences are based on the 6 senses, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind. Since those are impermanent, meaning change, formed due to conditions that lead to its creation, they are subject to change. This means that all perception of so-called reality, be it a personal one or mass one, is illusory. That means it is based on one's mind and perspective.

 

The so-called reality of "things" is neither a real "thing" nor a fake one only because of the mind. Therefore, to know "true" reality is to see without seeing: basically non-discrimination. The universe is unbiased. That one true state of reality is without the discriminating mind's action of pointing out what is what and what isn't. 

 

Peace and Blessings,

 Lin

[Zen Pig]

I always go back to what some dead lama once said, 

"The world is real,  but it's not really, really, really real",

  real and illusion are only words.  find out by direct experience,  then after a few years, with any luck you will learn to keep your yap shut  because it is not something that you can explain even if you try, and most folks would think you were crazy.  LOL. good luck

[3bob]

for me the agnostic like  four fold negation (found in Buddhism) puts all the talk about real and unreal to bed, thus let sleeping dogs lie unless getting bit over and over again is worth it to you.

[wandelaar]

 

Source: https://starecat.com/angry-dog-empty-bowl-no-food/

[3bob]

and ready to fight/bite...lol

[thelerner]

The way I live it is this: The world is real, or if its an illusion its a damn persistent one.  Yet to also understand the world as dream, to see synchroncities, messages and deeper meanings in things, symbolic ones can enhance ones life.  Robert Moss said something like we'd be better off if we treated our everyday world more like a dream, and our dreams more seriously.  

 

The benefits life as dream is it becomes more adventurous, the world is full of symbolic meaning, yet we also don't have to take it so seriously either.  The downside is that the rent is still due, and the car coming at you will still put you in the hospital.  Taking dreams more serious can lead to opening up the subconscious, understanding motivations and breaking a little free from the tic toc world and don't we all need that sometimes.  

 

Don't be stupid, but following some dreams is not so bad. 

[Zorro Dantes]

from my personal understanding this plain of life/being is more less a time out dimension...humans being mult-dimensional creatures, we seem to rise from the depths of hell and fall from the heights of heaven at weird times, supposedly of our own doing... we either shit in the pie in a heavenly realm and got sent here, or did something rather virtuous to escape a hell zone, so from that perspective this temporary existence, is somewhat of a purgatory, all these amazing things can happen in "This Life" and yet... why isn't the fuel free and composed of a substance that isn't detrimental to humans and our environment? Why does evil(tailored to personal circumstance naturally) reign supreme despite being mathematically at odds with human survival(  supposedly we all despise assholes, yet they hit big and we use it as an excuse to follow suit to do what we want, we poison the hell out of selves for the sake of material gain! substances even more temporal than this  body we ride hard on) We are extremely blessed beings, and yet we have the capacity to to curse ourselves to the point of wanting to  "opt" out of being.  its really quite strange....beautifully traumatizing

 

 

 

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by Zorro Dantes
its as good or bad as you dig it..

[Aetherous]

The world isn't an illusion, but our notions about it might be.

[Wondo]

The idea of the world being an illusion comes from the notion of emptiness or sunyata in Buddhism. This has to do with the idea that the world as we experience it is not “real” in the sense that the six aggregates of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are also six different layers of consciousness and since these things are temporal and do not last, they are therefore just fleeting glimpses of reality and thus nothing is fixed in reality. But, a deeper aspect to this comes from the notion of Oneness. Many words are used to describe this: Buddha Nature, Tao, Dharma, Buddha Mind, Tahagata, etc. This idea is better understood as “Not-Two” In this Oneness idea, the concept of illusion is explained that everything is One (Not-Two) and so whenever our minds concretize any of this complete reality as a thing, then we see only a part and not the whole (kind of like Gestalt Psychology). And so we go around in life seeing the myriad things and happenings in this world as a multitude of many things happening, but the mind is the thing that is doing that. In the large context of reality, everything is just one complete reality. It is not that when our minds break things down into parts, that this is a bad thing, the dharma is just teaching us to know that it is just the illusory appearance of things as things in a temporal condition. That is how I understand the idea of reality being an illusion. It is not that these things are not temporary real in some sense, it is that we start to believe in their being separate entities that are born, live, then die. In the Buddhist cosmology, this is not how things are. It is rather just one big fluid motion of the Tao, and our meager minds break everything down into its parts because that is how we operate in our day to day experience. Nothing wrong with that, but to have clarity means that we know it is just an appearance of reality, not the pure reality itself. Hope I made sense. 

[windwalker]

1 hour ago, Wondo said:

Nothing wrong with that, but to have clarity means that we know it is just an appearance of reality, not the pure reality itself. Hope I made sense. 

 

You did not, it is not,

Is it real

[doc benway]

4 hours ago, Wondo said:

The idea of the world being an illusion comes from the notion of emptiness or sunyata in Buddhism. This has to do with the idea that the world as we experience it is not “real” in the sense that the six aggregates of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are also six different layers of consciousness and since these things are temporal and do not last, they are therefore just fleeting glimpses of reality and thus nothing is fixed in reality. But, a deeper aspect to this comes from the notion of Oneness. Many words are used to describe this: Buddha Nature, Tao, Dharma, Buddha Mind, Tahagata, etc. This idea is better understood as “Not-Two” In this Oneness idea, the concept of illusion is explained that everything is One (Not-Two) and so whenever our minds concretize any of this complete reality as a thing, then we see only a part and not the whole (kind of like Gestalt Psychology). And so we go around in life seeing the myriad things and happenings in this world as a multitude of many things happening, but the mind is the thing that is doing that. In the large context of reality, everything is just one complete reality. It is not that when our minds break things down into parts, that this is a bad thing, the dharma is just teaching us to know that it is just the illusory appearance of things as things in a temporal condition. That is how I understand the idea of reality being an illusion. It is not that these things are not temporary real in some sense, it is that we start to believe in their being separate entities that are born, live, then die. In the Buddhist cosmology, this is not how things are. It is rather just one big fluid motion of the Tao, and our meager minds break everything down into its parts because that is how we operate in our day to day experience. Nothing wrong with that, but to have clarity means that we know it is just an appearance of reality, not the pure reality itself. Hope I made sense. 

 

Well said,

You made perfect sense.

Another aspect is that everything we experience and interact with is colored by our conditioning, expectations, and life experience. This is the basis for the teachings on the 6 realms.

No two people experience the world in the same way. It’s not the world that is different to each observer, it is the observer that influences the experience..

 

[rideforever]

Everything that can be identified is real, but the question is what is its nature and purpose and meaning.

Do I have a correct understanding of the situation or am I living in a wrong comprehension of it.
What am I in relation to it, what is the purpose and how shall I manifest myself in relation to that.

When someone says it is not real or illusory what they mean is they have access to a different place to see from, but what the consequences of that are .... are to be investigated.

[Wondo]

6 hours ago, windwalker said:

 

You did not, it is not,

Is it real

A rather matter of fact statement. How do you know it is real? And, I never said it was not real. But, we have to define what we mean by real. When Buddhism talks about emptiness they are talking about empty of self nature. To say something is real from the perspective of each thing having a separate self nature and abiding self, from the perspective of Buddhist thought is a delusionary perspective. As Sengcan says in his Faith in Mind sutra, “ Changes in the emptiness before us all come from arbitrary views:It is not necessary to seek reality, all that is needed is ending the views.”

Edited February 23, 2019 by Wondo

[windwalker]

10 minutes ago, Wondo said:

A rather matter of fact statement. How do you know it is real? And, I never said it was not real. But, we have to define what we mean by real. 

 

dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum 

Edited February 23, 2019 by windwalker

[Wondo]

Sorry, From my humble opinion Descartes had it wrong.

[whitesilk]

On 9/9/2018 at 5:33 AM, Arkx6 said:

So what is the buddhas teachings on illusion mean to you?

 

The closest rationalization that I can make for you @Arkx6, is that taoism praises the formless over form. 

 

The physical scientific reality of the atoms that make up matter is very turbulent on a microscopic level, yet also, there is empty space within matter on a microscopic level. The small negative spaces are gaps in the positive spaced reality. Those gaps allow for change. To help your family, focus on, in my own opinion, what you don't see about their lives. You do not live their day to day reality. Your headaches as you say could be the cause of an overactive desire to help those you are connected to.

Edited February 23, 2019 by whitesilk

[wandelaar]

Truly radical sceptics doesn't pose an "I" who is doubting, whatever that may mean. A truly radical sceptic simply acknowledges "doubting" when the experience of doubting presents itself. Posing an "I" who is doubting goes way beyond the experience of doubting, and thus would be illegitimate for a truly radical sceptic. The Buddhists were more logical than Descartes in this matter.

 

Edited February 23, 2019 by wandelaar

[Wondo]

20 minutes ago, wandelaar said:

Truly radical sceptics doesn't pose an "I" who is doubting, whatever that may mean. A truly radical sceptic simply acknowledges "doubting" when the experience of doubting presents itself. Posing an "I" who is doubting goes way beyond the experience of doubting, and thus would be illegitimate for a truly radical sceptic. The Buddhists were more logical than Descartes in this matter.

 

Straight Up!

 

[Wondo]

36 minutes ago, whitesilk said:

 

The closest rationalization that I can make for you @Arkx6, is that taoism praises the formless over form. 

 

 

I am not sure I would agree with this statement. How so? Buddhist usually get this rap. In fact, it is one of the things Chan tried to rectify since other forms of Buddhism tended to focus on transcending this world. Chan “tries” to overcome this by the “Not-Two” approach. Taoism does not favor formless over form. Taoist are very much about this world and its beauty. The thing to overcome as far as Taoism is concerned is the acquired self which gets all wrapped up in conditioning and so Taoist work toward returning to original nature which is not separate from the Tao. Tao is not formless, so Taoist would not praise it over form. Tao is form and not form at the same time. Laozi in chapter one of DDJ, was trying to point this out. It is not that Tao has no form, it is just that you cannot speak of it because as soon as you do, you miss the mark. Nagarjuna laid all of this out very clearly and one of the reasons why Chan is more closely tied to Huayen Buddhism than other forms of Buddhism. When looked at from this perspective, the Chan form of Buddhism and Taoism are very close in their views and direction, it is just that the path to get there differs (significantly in some cases). 

[windwalker]

Funny all here talking about nothing, trying to prove what they talk about with something.

 

"無"

 

"趙州和尚、因僧問、狗子還有佛性也無。州云、無。"

Edited February 23, 2019 by windwalker