The Zennist

We made a lowly secular God

The modern religious attitude has made God a secular God, a God of materialism; not a God of absolute divinity and transcendent.

As collective karma, the modern approach to religion, especially, in how materialism has influenced the concept of divinity has made a lowly secular God. In contemporary society, the focus often shifts towards tangible, material success and fulfillment, which contrasts sharply with the transcendental aims of traditional spiritual practices, particularly in Buddhism.

The canon of Buddhism paints a much different picture of religion than the modern version. It would be like a Matrix film on steroids with no blue or red pills involved. If anything the blue pill is best represented by a bifurcated mind into subject-object consciousness (vijñāna) which has made the carnal body the subject and the world outside of it objective reality.  And since subject and object are relative to each other, the more we attach to the subject, that is, our carnal body, the more the world outside of us becomes intensely real.

This bifurcated condition is the basis of illusion and why this existence is empty (śūnya) lacking any true reality (svabhāva). True reality can only be found by transcending this bifurcated consciousness (vijñāna) going beyond the illusion.

The Transcenders (Tathāgatas) look upon the denizens of this illusory world like the walking dead whose life is under the reign of suffering.  But the many cannot bear the message the Transcenders teach.  Ironically, it is too painful for us to hear.

By letting go of our attachments to this carnal body, we can transcend the limitations of vijñāna and experience the profound, non-dual Mind that aligns with the absolute divinity and complete transcendence that is sought in religious practice.

Buddhism teaches us that

Life is suffering insofar as we are deeply attached to an illusory psycho-physical body. It doesn't matter if we live, die, or commit suicide the attachment/desire continues. We are thrown back into another embodiment. Our unhappiness begins with our over-attachment to the left hemisphere of the brain which gives us the sense of embodiment as in "this body is me". The left parietal region of the brain holds an image of our body, from conception to death. At death, we are no longer embodied. We are situated between (antara) our previous life and another future life. Still, we have vivid memories of the past and strongly desire to be reincarnated into another "bio-container".

Jailbreaking the great cosmic simulation game (samsara)

Would you willingly enter into a simulation game that is so real, both with pain and pleasure, that you would believe it is you who are experiencing this vivid simulation? From the perspective of a Buddha you already have entered.  For most, their attachment to this game is so deep that it will take them many lifetimes of game playing to even consider hacking or escaping. But who is this Buddha? A Buddha is one who has escaped from the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

Joscha Bach, a cognitive scientist and artificial intelligence researcher said: “Some people think that a simulation can’t be conscious and only a physical system can. But they got it completely backward: a physical system cannot be conscious. Only a simulation can be conscious. Consciousness is a simulated property of the simulated self.”

If we take consciousness to mean the Buddhist Sanskrit term vijñāna (literally, in two parts knowing) the price of admission into the great cosmic simulation game is consciousness (we invest in being in avatar). Without consciousness our universe (or game) might not exist. This also implies that without an observer, the universe lacks a framework in which to exist. Consciousness is not merely a passive witness but an active participant in the great cosmic simulation game (samsara).

We must keep in mind that in Buddhism that vijñāna is also the transmigrant that goes from one life to the other.  A game bound entity. But an ātman never transmigrates. Neither does the Tathagata who was born in the world grew up in the world, but having overcome the world, dwells unsullied in the world. A Tathagata is a transcender.  One who has accomplished the great jailbreak.