Illusion (Maya)

Wisdom Quarterly

Maya means illusion. In the uniquely Buddhist language, Pali, the word is moha, "delusion." It's the Indian concept that the world is not what it seems to be. The Buddha revealed that what seems like permanent, painless, and personal is anything but.

Maya, according to Heinrich Zimmer, manifests its force through the rolling universe and evolving forms of individuals. According to Vedic Hinduism there is a reality, Brahman, behind the illusory changing world. Buddhism considers the world an illusion because it is misleading and, as a result to our detriment, we become attached. Others misinterpret the Dharma that says the "self (composed of form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness) is emptiness" to mean that there is nothing. It is not nothing, but rather no substantial "thing."

Apparent "things" are without essence, unsatisfactory, and always in flux. But that is on an ultimate level, not to be arrived at by thinking or believing or faith. It is directly observable through serenity-and-insight meditation.

Not only is it true of mentality (the psychological components of being), it is even true of materiality (the physical components and structures). Not only is it true for every apparent "thing" in the universe, it is true for all the constituents of existence: The self is this way.

Matter is made up of invisible atoms. They can be divided into electrons, protons, and neutrons. These subatomic or elementary particles were thought to form matter, but hundreds of other elementary particles have been discovered such as mesons, muons, neutrinos, and positrons. Scientists have since discovered that these elementary particles are themselves made up of smaller particles called quarks, hypothetical particles that carry a fractional charge (Quarks Diagram, 4to40.com). Then there are the strings.

They are incessantly arising and passing away. They are incapable of satisfying. They are impersonal.

To understand that secret, to know how it works, and to transcend the cosmic spell of illusion -- simultaneously breaking outwardly through layers of appearance and inwardly through the intellectual and emotional layers of the psyche -– this is the pursuit conceived of by Indian philosophy to be the primary and finally undeniable human task.

If it were ultimately pleasant and worthy of experience, the Buddha would have commended it and spoken in praise of samsara. He did not. Instead, he spoke in praise of nirvana.