Our thinking about religion can be programmed and channeled in such a way that we find it an oddity of the past that, for us, is of little or no value. Regrettably, this is the truth of modern life.
How we got to this mindset seems altogether irrelevant. The important part we tell ourselves is there is no ultimate reality other than what is discoverable in this world through our senses which boils down to Darwinian fitness. Yes, we are here to fuck and reproduce ourselves. That’s the prime directive.
Still, there are some of us who don’t share this frame of mind in such a degree. We are aware that from a deep, unknown substratum in us arises our thoughts and emotional reactions, internal dialogue, and many other things called our ‘inner life’. This inner life, we recognize can be hornet’s nest at times or pleasurable. We can spend much of our inner life in worry and fear of the future. This same inner life can also be doubtful or credulous. It can be hesitant to take a chance or follow blindly. Gathering this all up, we would like to bring some peace to this inner life of ours; to control it in some way, at the least to bring a sense of calm to it. It is right here where Buddhism, the religion, enters.
The Buddha is one who sees true reality including the many dangers that lie before us in this present life of ours which lead us away from true reality. The greatest danger for us is to thirst and attach to what we truly are not this being our transitory psychophysical body and the world perceived through it which is ever changing.
The religion of Buddhism is trying to teach us that our inner life is on the wrong path when it thirsts and clings to what is not who we really are which transcends this mortal coil; moreover that it is incumbent upon us to know true reality which lies hidden in the inner life but, nevertheless, can be discovered by us with a great deal of effort.
The main problem that always awaits us is convincing ourselves to look deeper into our inner life, so deep that we break through the wall of conditioned existence and meet with our true self which we will at once recognize and be further amazed by how we missed it although it was always there.
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