What we take notice of through the five skandhas consisting of our corporeal body, feeling, perception, volitional formations and consciousness, seems either to please us in some degree or is something that is actually or potentially painful. As a result of this, we attach more and more to either what pleases us or might be a threat and, therefore, painful. All this we hold to be true when, in fact, this is illusory or the same, māyā.
As we grow older, because of these wrong attachments which more and more master us, what we truly are becomes more and more hidden from us. In effect, by our wrong intentions and actions we have transformed what are essentially illusions into what we like to believe is true reality.
Then to add insult to injury, we insist not only is the conditioned world not illusory or māyā, but there is nothing beyond this world—no ultimate or foundational reality such as the deathless Buddha-nature. When our corporeal body dies—that’s it or so we believe.
Also as attachment grows so too does the evil poison of delusion, hatred, and greed also grow. Eventually, spiritual knowledge becomes terrifying for us—we only want darkness and to bring others into this darkness which is profound and repugnant. We can no longer bear to hear the truth, that what gives life to our corporeal body is more real than this temporal body we inhabit, including the death of this body.
Comments