Going beyond the ordinary view of reality

Mankind has a deep seated fear of having their common, ordinary view of reality overturned.  This fear is not directly experienced but, instead, is turned into psychological resistance, from stubborn denial, to violence.  

Here is one example that seems non-inflammatory; that couldn’t rile anyone, or so it seems.  If I say, contrary to the assumptions of the general public, the sun doesn’t work by fusion, I will get some resistance, despite the fact that there is no actual evidence that the sun works like an atomic bomb.  To make matters worse, if I say that the sun is hollow and more like a transformer or converter that connects with some other dimension, resistance intensifies.  Then if I say that no one can see the sun in free, immaterial space, I am no longer listened to.

Buddhism is not far from this problem.  When Buddhism starts to move beyond the common, ordinary view of reality held by Buddhist practitioners, they become troubled.  The fear factor starts kicking in almost unconsciously; psychological resistance starts to grow.  In this respect, Buddhism is not anything that is supposed to challenge a practitioner or serve to reorient their mental attitude and beliefs.  It is just another interesting tool in the ordinary Buddhist practitioner’s tool chest to help them cope with their worldly problems of which they won't let go.  

The ordinary Buddhist’s way of studying Buddhism and handling its ideas, since they have had no direct experience of the Buddha’s awakening, is pretty much based on their level of education and open mindedness; perhaps more importantly, their set of hardcore values.  Some parts of Buddhism either chime with their values or they don’t.  And if they don’t, they could not care less.  

For the most part, those who practice Buddhism practice it on their own terms.  What they derive from Buddhism doesn’t fundamentally change them, it just makes them more knowledgeable about a subject they didn’t know previously.  On this thought, we shouldn’t assume that such people know very much about real Buddhism even though they know more about it than before they began to practice.  It certainly doesn’t prevent them from finding this passage from the Itivuttaka offensive.

“Light-bringers, dhamma-speakers, open the door 
Of the deathless, set free many folk from bondage” (Itivuttaka III, iv, v).

One Buddhist practitioner said of me back in 2006 when I used this passage, “Light-bringer suggests an influence from Satanism.”  I used to enjoy getting Buddhist practitioners making pious pronouncements of what supposedly the Buddha taught then put a quote right in their face they couldn’t refute.  From these occurrences, I eventually came to the realization that today’s Buddhist practitioners are not at all interested in the real Buddhism, for example, that the Buddha taught the âtman in the Mahayana Mahaparinrivana Sutra and in other Sutras.  Even before they became Buddhists they believed there is no soul; when you are dead you’re dead; there is no karma or karma transmigrant and rebirth is bunk.  But the bottom-line to this:  they greatly fear having their view of reality overturned and will defend it to the hilt.

 

Comments

[don salmon]

It does make you wonder, how is it possible? There's really nothing you can say. "Buddha talks about atman" and you show them 1, 10, 100 verses.

But it doesn't matter. It's just like the guy who told Jeremy Hayward, regarding the voluminous scientific evidence for precognition, "In some instances, for example, with precognition, we know it's impossible, so the evidence is irrelevant."

[Omar]

Indeed.