Our various human systems of thought which we see, for example, in the sciences and in mathematics are complete fictions but nevertheless useful, practical human fictions which first begin in the mind as imaginary fabrications and then later develop into useful thoughts and concepts—and even machines and other such devices. In fact, all that we receive as external stimulus is moulded by the mind and does not really exist outside of it in the way we think it does.
Mind in this regard we can think of as a creative, formative force which alters what it receives but does not know the very essence or nature of what is being changed and altered. We can perhaps infer to a limited degree what this essential nature is which science and Buddhism attempt to do. But for the most part this becomes only knowledge (hopefully useful) which still does not allow us to directly apprehend the thing in itself before it is modified.
Buddhism, like other ancient Indian religions, wants to make direct contact with fundamental reality before it becomes changed and altered by our mind into a secondary reality which meets the needs of biological fitness. For it is believed we will discover, in so doing, that things we take for granted, even the world outside of us, exists only through us, the primary agents (mind or conscious agents). In other words, according to the Lankavatara Sutra, “The triple world is no more than one's own mind” (svacitta-matrāṁ-trai-dhātukam).
This modern age as we might guess is not close to understanding, as an indisputable truth, that the world before us and our temporal bodies are mind creations. Maybe in a million or so years we will have evolved into metaphysical beings in which death and rebirth have lost their power over us such that we do not in anyway suffer.
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