Seeing reality as it is: the Buddhist way

(Buddhism Podcast) Seeing reality as it is: The Buddhist way of seeing life

The Buddhist Way: As it is

(Bhikkhu Bodhi) Intro to Buddhism Series, Lecture 01. The Buddha

Reality comes before thought (podcast)

(Buddhism Podcast) Reality before thought: Buddhism on seeing things as they really are

We believe we are experiencing reality. But by the time we notice anything — a sound, a face, a feeling — the mind has already named it, judged it, labelled it, and wrapped it in a story.

The Buddha traced this [nearly automatic] process with extraordinary precision, showing how a single moment of sensory contact explodes into an entire world of speculations, fears, and suffering.

He also showed where the stifling chain can be broken — and what remains when we stop adding to, embellishing, and distorting what is already here.

This teaching changed Bāhiya of the Barkcloth's life in a single breath, as he achieved enlightenment more quickly than anyone in the recorded history of Buddhism, having heard a single stanza from the Buddha.

It might change the way we see our own "reality."

• 00:00 - The question that stops the mind
• 03:47 - The trap: searching for a pure reality behind thought
• 07:27 - So what is actually happening?
• 13:29 - Seeing clearly: the space where freedom lives
• 19:08 - The teaching to Bāhiya: the ultimate answer
• 25:52 - The lesson that changes everything
• Reality Before Thought: Buddhism on Seeing Things as They Are

Paradox: Thinking without thoughts

How wonderful is real silence, inner-peace!

There is such a thing as thoughtless consciousness, bare awareness without commentary, without chatter, inner silence. It can happen. How it happens, what brings it about, that is hard to say. Begin with outer silence. Bring the mind to a single object for long enough, and it may happen. Feel the freedom. There is full knowing, better knowing than when words/thoughts are intervening. But it must be experienced to believe how wonderful the silence and stillness is. (Jhana or "meditative absorption" moves away from the noise toward the sweet silence and sanity of stillness).

The Paradox of Thoughtless Consciousness

(The Mountain) March 28, 2025: The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. #quantumconsciousness #paradox #selfawareness

• 00:00 Thoughtless thinker
• 00:33 Distance between reality - thought - speech
• 01:13 Time zone difference
• 01:53 Retrospective mind
• 02:31 Meta thinking and language filter
• 04:38 Raw awareness
• 5:27 Is there a state of no-thought?
• 7:16 Surrender of the seeker
• 9:02 How to arrive at no destination

TAGS: Quantum Consciousness, Observer Effect, Reality Fabrication, Perception Alchemy, Thought Manifestation, Mind Over Matter, Holographic Universe, Wavefunction Collapse, Reality Distortion, Dimensional Awareness, Mental Projection, Non-Dual Awareness, Conscious Creation, Observer Reality Loop, Awareness Constructs Matter, Perceptual Engineering, Cosmic Mind, Simulation Hypothesis, Lucid Manifestation, Ontological Design

Monkey Mind (thought) can stop?

Tortured by thinking: Monkey Mind anxiety

"I already live this way *lol* it's kool" (Ayr Hed)

The Buddhist term "monkey mind" originates from Chinese xīnyuán and/or Chinese-Japanese shin'en (心猿). It is a Buddhist concept that literally means "heart-mind monkey [business]," for it describes a state of discursive restlessness, capriciousness, and lack of self-control in one's thoughts and emotions.

The "mind monkey" metaphor is found in Buddhist writings in Zen and Chan, Consciousness-only, Pure Land, and Shingon.

It has also been adopted by Taoism, Neo-Confucianism, Chinese poetry, theater, and literature. The expression "monkey mind" commonly appears in two reversible four-character idioms paired with yima or iba (意馬). It translates as "idea horse." 

Chinese xinyuanyima (心猿意馬) and Japanese ibashin'en (意馬心猿) illustrate the interconnectedness of a restless mind and wandering thoughts.

The "Monkey King" Sun Wukong in the classic Buddhist Chinese novel Journey to the West is an iconic personification of feeling indecisive and unsettled. More

We need brains, but do we need thoughts?

Few people waste more time overthinking than we do around here at the office of Wisdom Quarterly. It is no way to be. Thinking might make a person smart. Might. It will definitely make her or him obsessive, neurotic, unhappy, and exhausted. Lev Z lost his brain in the war and lived.

• Consciousness without a brain? Beyond the final breath: How this impersonal process of being persists past death

What is there instead of thinking, worrying, anxiously projecting, predicting, prognosticating, forecasting, mental doomscrolling, trying to avoid everything bad that can happen? One time on retreat with a very great Buddhist meditation master who was visiting California from Asia for the first time, I was spending all my sitting time thinking and pondering.

I would ask him solutions to my thoughts, which would put to rest my worries. But I would soon think of something new to ask, an unsolvable mental construct, philosophical question, or paradox.

• 

  Monkey Mind Workout for... (Walmart)

  I remember mainly thinking about karma -- the process by which our intentional (cetana) deeds bring about many wished for and unwished for results even though we do most things in ignorance, not with the "intention" that they should bring about the results they do: How can this be "fair" if we didn't know?
• I think this sort of questioning brought him to him to the limit of tolerating my nonsense and indulging my endless stream of questions. Thereafter, every time I'd ask anything speculative or philosophical, he'd answer by asking, "How's your meditation going?"
• I would laugh, realizing that I was spending way more time thinking than "meditating." He asked me how, and I explained my system: Since I only had to be aware of "breathing" (in), I would let my mind wander the rest of the time (when I was breathing out or when the breath was pausing in between, so I was actually able to get a lot of thinking in while still being aware or counting the breath as it happened, only drifting off the rest of the time.
• He was astonished someone could be so utterly daft (or neurotic and full of too much zeal and too overbearing a sense of urgency when what was desperately needed was contentment), and no wonder I wasn't making any progress. "Who told you to do that?" he asked.
• I didn't answer, but the answer was obvious: "No one ever told me not to." (I like thinking, why wouldn't I think? I'm thinking all the time, it's my thing, my jam, my delight, and apparently my downfall!) It was true. I was only supposed to be aware of the breath -- so he again defined "breath" for me:
• "Breath" in BREATH MEDITATION is mindful awareness of anapana (the in-and-out breath and any time in between, which becomes vanishingly brief the slower one breathes for the person paying more and more attention to the whole-body-of-the-breath like the Satipatthana Sutra instructs).

Aah, then everything came to a rest: blissful peace

Then not long after, it happened. It was a miracle. I would not have thought it was possible. And thinking so much, there wasn't much I thought impossible. Nearly everything is possible by some twist with enough creative imagination.

What happened? THINKING STOPPED. (I didn't stop; it stopped). It was the strangest thing. I wasn't expecting it to. I didn't know it could. I don't think I was doing anything different than normal (other than maybe not thinking for once). IT REALLY STOPPED. I kept checking it to be sure. I was fully aware.

Earlier in the day, I had taken a walk in the woods and seen wild turkey and deer, and I had found a giant rusty cistern, a big corrugated water tank, the size of a grain silo, just in the middle of nowhere in the woods. It had no water in it. Imagine dragging a stick across it, the sound it would make, clang-clang-clang: that's what my thinking was like.

What a strange album art idea... or is it?

As a teen in high school, I was in some bands, and one of the hardest things about being in a band was coming up with a satisfying name. (It's very hard, so the best bands, the legends, just take on any nonsense and by their greatness, they make the dumb name great. It's almost the dumber the name the better because their fame will have to eclipse it and raise it to the status of "wow, what a name," whereas the dumb names keep sounding dumb because the music isn't that good to our ears. Lead Zeppelin, what kind of dumb name is that? Lead (leed as in leader). Hey, I know, we'll drop the a so nobody will ever mispronounce it! It was a self-deprecating expectation of how their new group would go over when they launched, like a leaden blimp, dwhoop all the way down to a crash and burn like the Hindenburg, which was used as the cover of their first album. So I thought a great name for my next band would be No Mind Asylum. It didn't go over very well because no one knew what it meant, which I thought was self-evident. People liked the sound of it; only no one thought it had a meaning. My friend heard it, didn't judge, thought about it, and asked, "What does it mean?" I was flabbergasted. "Well, isn't it obvious?" It wasn't. It means how pleasant it would be, if such a thing were possible, to find asylum from so much thinking. After all, too much thinking doesn't pay. "That's what it means, being sent to a mental asylum!?" "Not a mental asylum! A mental asylum is called an asylum as a euphemism, a pleasant place, a safety, a refuge, how nice it would be to go to give the mind a rest." Suddenly the name Led Zep was looking really good by comparison.

But here it was. I found it without looking. I had my asylum. There was compulsive thinking. Here's the amazing thing, thinking was possible, it just wasn't automatic. There was peace, rest, direct knowing. That's the thing: I would have thought, if asked before this, "Why think so much?" My answer would have been "To know." But there's no knowing that way. There's only speculation, pondering, wondering, probabilities, possibilities, imagining ways to test intuitions, inspirations, guesses, or logical suppositions and conclusions.

Now, here, the most amazing thing was happening to me -- like everyone had always said was impossible and NOT the goal of meditation. Not thinking it was the goal, here I was enjoying it. And like said, I could think. It just seemed dumb to. Thinking stands between us and direct experience. It's a buffer, a block, a kind of dirty glass we look through for so long we fail to notice how dirty and distorting it is. A rain comes along, like maybe a good long sleep, and things seem clearer -- clearer for not having thought. Thinking gets in the way, yet it's glorified, particularly in the university system.

Eckhart Tolle: Even the Sun Will Die

It seems even now that no one appreciates any of this except maybe Eckhart Tolle. He sat on a bench in a park perfectly content to keep sitting there. It was such a relief compared to all his previous worries, ego-trips in the highly competitive world of academics and self-promotion university faculty maneuvers. Imagine Descartes, Sophia, Nietzche, Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle getting a day off -- getting some no mind asylum (benevolent respite, safety, exile, expat vacation) time. Remember the paean, the joy the Buddha felt right after his great awakening (maha-bodhi). He KNEW freedom was possible and directly attainable here and now. There was no need to die and hope for a heaven. Here and now he saw things clearly.

As it was happening, because it went on for a long time (until it was about to be ruined by having to get up from my meditation mat to go to the restroom before the long evening Dharma talk started and I would be trapped in the hall holding it in for two hours or so), it occurred to me how I might explain this to anyone who might in the future ask. I had to kind of explain it to myself, too, because I was fully conscious, much more conscious, undistracted, and in the moment than I normally was. In fact, I normally tried to keep myself in abstractions most of the time, finding it fun to pose philosophical questions about reality then tackling them with an explanation that could be verified. The verification would show if the speculation or intuition were true. So these were not just pointless thoughts with no purpose; they were grand thoughts about life, the universe, and everything, musings of which Douglas Adams could be proud.

The explanation that spontaneously came to mind -- in just the same way that once when the Buddha was asked if he planned his answers to questions in advance or just spoke extemporaneously as it now occurred to him, he said there was no need to premeditate any more. He instantly knew the answer as the question was being asked. The analogy came to me what it was like, this "not having a brain"/"not thinking" was like, which as I said should be impossible to our normal way of thinking, speaking, conceiving, or imagining. It was exactly like this:

Normally and usually when we "think," it's like tossing a rock into a giant old empty cistern (corrugated galvanized rippled metal water tank) or big storm runoff corrugated drainage pipe, so big one can stand in it, and around here such underground pipes pour runoff into the LA River. It's not a sewer but a wash, a cemented over arroyo. Throw a rock in it, and it ricochets and echoes after hitting multiple times. One question (thought, stone, disturbance), many ripples (vrittis). The commotion of my mind was that nearly anything could trigger it. Now it was at rest, contented and peaceful. I knew not why.

Whatever desire-to-know arose, there the obvious answer simultaneously arose with it. There was no need to ponder or wrack my brain or stir up a hornets' nest of thoughts and questions. I toss one stone, and the reply is one thud, at which point the stone is done, no echo, no commotion, no ripples in the mind or aftereffects.

• I had the factor of enlightenment passaddhi
• I had contentment or santutthi
• Beautiful mental factors (Buddhism)
• I had equanimity or uppekha/upekṣā
• I had forbearance khanti/kshanti

Brain can blow up yet awareness remains?

It was blissfully beautiful, and one could imagine living that way for the rest of one's contented life. THIS WAS BETTER THAN THINKING BECAUSE THE ANSWER WAS IMMEDIATE AND UNMEDIATED BY LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR, THOUGHT CONSTRUCTS, AND SO ON. There was just direct knowing.

When external disturbances (my having to get up, impelled by the urge to pee which was uncomfortable to hold and conscientiously not wanting to disturb the Dharma talk later by getting up in the middle of it, being bumped by other meditators trying to signal me that we were switching from silent meditation to Dharma talk as if it were possible that I forgot) forced me to get up, move, and slowly head toward the bathroom, the peace and silence remained. It was not an artifact of perfect stillness; I was not asleep or in anyway unconscious, semi-conscious, or unmindfully out of it. I was bright, mindful, and much more away of what was really happening in the moment than usual.

Anyone who says nonthinking is wrong. Anyone who says it is not the goal of meditation is right. Making it the goal, striving not to think or trying to stifle the brain/mind, which has as its job to think, is no way to peace. Being aware just of this moment without evaluation, judgment, ambition, resistance, nonacceptance, force, efforting, that is far more likely to result in this kind of blissful abiding, this "peace of mind."

• Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Ashley Wells (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

Tiny 'brains' found between brain cells

This bulge of brain cells should not be that hard to understand. What we need are tools.

Behold, the physical base of consciousness? NO

Between and around the billions of neurons in the human brain is an equally vital scaffold, the extracellular matrix (ECM).

An interlinked net of proteins and sugars that surrounds brain cells, the ECM is more than simple structural support; changes in the ECM can regulate complex brain functions including memory, learning, and behavior.

Buddha's Brain (Rick Hanson)

But studies of the brain's ECM have been limited by the lack of tools to observe dynamic changes to its structure. Now, a new genetic labeling tool developed by University of Utah Health researchers Dr. Igal Sterin, Ph.D. and Dr. Sungjin Park, Ph.D. has revealed new patterns in brain ECM in mice, including differences in the amount of matrix deposited on different types of neurons.

A major advantage of the tool is that it can detect changes in the ECM over time, giving new insights into how the brain develops.

The research is published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

• In biology, the extracellular matrix (ECM) [1, 2] also called intercellular matrix (ICM), is a network consisting of extracellular macromolecules and minerals, such as collagen, enzymes, glycoproteins, and hydroxyapatite that provide structural and biochemical support to surrounding [brain] cells [called neurons] [3, 4, 5]. Because multicellularity evolved independently in different multicellular lineages, the composition of ECM varies between multicellular structures; however, cell adhesion, cell-to-cell communication, and differentiation are common functions of the ECM [6]. More: extracellular matrix

Hacking of the American Mind (How? Dopamine)

The new tool has two main parts -- a protein that binds to the main ingredients of the brain ECM fused to another protein that irreversibly sticks to a variety of synthetic fluorescent dyes.

When scientists introduced the tool into neurons, it bound to the surrounding matrix. They then added a fluorescent dye to make matrix structures visible.

Using this tool, the researchers were able to watch as ECM was deposited over time in cultured rodent brain cells, making out dense clusters of matrix that appeared on only certain neurons and at different times.

More on this breakthrough: New tool reveals details of the microscopic brain structures between neurons

• Fluorescent microscopy image of a section of mouse brain, where green is a conventional brain ECM marker. Magenta is the new tool developed by the researchers. Credit: The Journal of Neuroscience (2024). DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0666-24.2024.
• The Practical Neuroscience of Buddha's Brain: Happiness, Love, & Wisdom by Dr. Rick Hanson
• The Hacking of the American Mind by Dr. Robert Lustig, M.D.

Is consciousness an illusion? (video)

Kmele Foster, Dispatches from The Well, Big Think, Jan. 11, 2024; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Jump real spiritual answers from Hindu monk Swami Sarvapriyananda, Vedanta Society. New York

Is consciousness an illusion? 5 experts explain

(Big Think) “If science aims to describe everything, how can it not describe the simple fact of our existence?”

On this episode of Dispatches, Kmele Foster speaks with the scientists, mathematicians, and spiritual leaders trying to do just that.

This video is an episode from @The-Well, a publication about ideas that inspire a life well-lived, created with the @JohnTempletonFoundation.

Subscribe to The Well on YouTube ► https://bit.ly/thewell-youtube Watch the full podcast now ► • Dispatches from The Well. In the newest episode of Dispatches from The Well, we’re diving deep into the “hard problem of consciousness.”

Here, Kmele Foster combines the perspectives of five different scientists, philosophers, and spiritual leaders to approach one of humanity’s most pressing questions: What is consciousness?

In the AI age, the question of consciousness is more prevalent than ever. Is every single thing in the universe self-aware? What does it actually mean to be conscious? Are our bodies really just a vessel for our thoughts?

Foster asks these and many more questions in the most thought-provoking episode yet. This is Dispatches from The Well. Featuring: Sir Roger Penrose, Christof Koch, Melanie Mitchell, Reid Hoffman, Swami Sarvapriyananda.

Read video transcript ► bigthink.com/the-well/dispatc...

ABOUT: Kmele Foster is a media entrepreneur, commentator, and regular contributor to various national publications. He is the co-founder and co-host of The Fifth Column, a popular media criticism podcast. He is the head of content at Founders Fund, a San Francisco based venture capital firm investing in companies building revolutionary technologies, and a partner at Freethink, a digital media company focused on the people and ideas changing our world. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).

• Read more from The Well:
• Actually, neuroscience suggests the “self” is real ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/actuall...
• Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein can illuminate the debate over generative AI ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/mary-sh...
• Few of us desire true equality. It’s time to own up to it ► https://bigthink.com/the-well/few-des...

About The Well Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds. Together, let's learn from them. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter ► https://bit.ly/thewellemailsignup

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How to train the mind to meditate

Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, Wiki edit

To train a wild elephant (the mind), tether it to a post until it calms down.

.

The goad

B. Alan Wallace and Daniel Goleman discuss shamatha (serenity), mindfulness, and introspection, which they tie to metacognition:

"Throughout Buddhist literature the training in shamatha [serenity meditation] is often likened to training a wild elephant, and the two primary instruments for this are the tether of mindfulness and the goad of introspection."

• The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind (2006, Wisdom Publications, p. 79):

The Attention Revolution (B. Alan Wallace)

"Buddhist psychology classifies introspection as a form of intelligence (prajna), and its development has long been an important element of Buddhist meditation.

"A similar mental faculty, usually called metacognition, is now coming under the scrutiny of modern psychologists.

"Cognitive researchers have defined metacognition as knowing of one's own cognitive and affective processes and states, as well as the ability to consciously and deliberately monitor and regulate those processes and states.

"This appears to be an especially rich area for collaborative research between Buddhist contemplatives and cognitive scientists."

How our emotions affect our minds (video)

Dr. Mate via Christine Wong, 1/7/16; Pat Macpherson, Crystal Q. (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

I can't think straight when I hurt so much and feel so bad. I need a real cure.

How emotions affect cognitive functioning

I hate it when I love too much, so sad.

For a dozen years Dr. Gabor Maté worked in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside with hardcore drug addicts -- patients suffering from depression, mental illness, HIV, and also worked at Vancouver’s Supervised Injection Site.

With over 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience and extensive knowledge of leading edge research, Dr. Maté is a much sought-after speaker regularly addressing health professionals, educators, and the public all over North America.

He says our cognitive capabilities are impaired and improved by our affect, our emotions. Everyone, particularly mothers, must watch this to understand:

We first need to understand WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US then OUR CHILDREN. As we understand, we can become more aware of our own behaviors and challenges to determine if we need to seek intervention with some issue.

Prof. Franz Ruppert has an intervention method for mental, emotional, and physical issues that includes addiction and relationship issues (goo.gl/JjHNSX). In Singapore or Asia, contact Christine Foong-Wong co-founder of rhemaworks.com. For more info on Prof. Ruppert's work, email christine@rhemaworks.com.

SUTRA: Mara's power (video)

Ven. Thanissaro (trans.), Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, Marapasa Sutra (SN 35.115)

(WLP) Viewer discretion advised. The world is sicker than we thought. Christians are piss*ed.

 

Mara's a devilish Cupid/Kamadeva

"Meditators, there are sights [forms, shapes] cognizable through the eye -- agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing.

"If a meditator relishes them, welcomes them, and remains fastened to them, one is said to be a meditator fettered to sights cognizable through the eye. One has gone over to Mara's camp; one has come under Mara's power. The Evil One can do with one as he wills.

• "There are sounds cognizable through the ear...
• "There are scents cognizable through the nose...
• "There are savors cognizable through the tongue...
• "There are tactile sensations cognizable through the [skin of the] body...

Ahhh, you're no fun (Mara Stewie)

"There are things cognizable through the mind -- agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. If a meditator relishes them, welcomes them, and remains fastened to them, one is said to be a meditator fettered to things cognizable through the mind. One has gone over to Mara's camp; one has come under Mara's power. The Evil One can do with one as he wills.
 
"[On the other hand,] there are sights cognizable through the eye -- agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. If a meditator does NOT relish them, welcome them, or remain fastened to them, one is said to be a meditator freed from sights cognizable through the eye. One has not gone over to Mara's camp; one has not come under Mara's power. The Evil One cannot do with one as he wills.

• "There are sounds cognizable through the ear...
• "There are scents cognizable through the nose...
• "There are savors cognizable through the tongue...
• "There are tactile sensations cognizable through the [skin of the] body...

"There are things cognizable through the mind -- agreeable, pleasing, charming, endearing, fostering desire, enticing. If a meditator does not relish them, welcome them, or remain fastened to them, one is said to be a meditator freed from things cognizable through the mind. One has not gone over to Mara's camp; one has not come under Mara's power. The Evil One cannot do with one as he wills."

Science reveals: Reality is NOT Real (video)

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Prof. Donald D. Hoffman (UCI), Patt Morrison (AirTalk)

Visitors inspect the work "Spazio ad attivazione cinetica" by Italian artist Marina Apollonio at the Schirn Kunsthalle museum in Frankfurt. The museum shows large-format paintings, objects, and environments by artists fascinated by the physical laws of light and optics who dedicated their work to the study of visual phenomena and principles of perception (Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty).

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Reality is nothing like what we think, says UCI neuroscientist

(The Richest) Illusions are real, in a sense. The mind often fills in blanks and really is fooled. There are two kinds of people in the world. One who extrapolates from incomplete information and. (lol)

In the 1999 dystopian sci-fi film “The Matrix,” the character played by Keanu Reeves (Neo) is presented with two pills.

The blue pill will keep things the way they are. The red pill will usher in an entirely different universe. Crips vs. Bloods, Dems vs. Reps, water vs. fire...or there's purple, the blend of the two.

The idea that “reality” is actually nothing like what we perceive it to be is not new, particularly in the realm of film, literature, or conspiracy theory. As science shows, it turns out that trippy notion might really be true.

Instead of some larger evil force trying to pull the wool over our eyes, however, a neuroscientist at UC Irvine (Orange County) who’s studied perception and artificial intelligence says (like the Buddha said long before him) that it is our senses -- touch, smell, taste, and so on -- that are doing the cheating.

AirTalk guest host Patt Morrison speaks with him about his research. Professor of Cognitive Science at University of California, Irvine Donald Hoffman has some startling things to say. AUDIO

(The Richest) 10 mind blowing optical illusions prove that the camera lies, we can't trust our own eyes, and the label (interpretation) we place on incoming information (sense data) changes what we perceive to what we cognize. "Reality" is not real because it is being distorted and brought into being at the point of entry. As the Buddha said, "I declare within this body, with its perception and intellect, is the world" (AN 4.45). We aren't seeing what's out there but the distortions we cling to and take to be real.

• "Self" is the ultimate illusion (maya in the world)

The Case Against Reality 

Amanda Gefter (The Atlantic, April 25, 2016) edited by Wisdom Quarterly

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions -- sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes, thoughts -- are an accurate portrayal of the real world.

When we stop and think about it -- or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion -- we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality.

Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it weren’t, wouldn’t evolution [or the nearest predator] have weeded us out by now?

The True Reality

Light dawns, and all is clear (Damon Billian).

The true reality might be forever beyond our reach.

[That is, if we fail to meditate, undistort the distortions, and find reality using systematic insight-exercises with mind-purifying-serenity, fourfold mindfulness, vipassana, and the analysis of the dependent origination of all things (with the sole exception of nirvana) which the Buddha made known. Buddhist practice leads out of ignorance and therefore frees us of all suffering].

But surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what true reality is really like? Not so, says Donald D. Hoffman... More

• 30th anniversary of the LA Central Library fire
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• Is monotasking the new multitasking?
• Physicists Hunt for the Big Bang's Triangles
• The Beasts That Keep the Beat
• In Newly Created Life Form, a Major Mystery

What is "art"? (cartoons, illusions...)

Amber Larson, CC Liu, and Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; the artist Saara (Arkiharha)

Saara (Arkiharha) pondering art and free expression in Finland (Weekday-Illusion)

 

The fun Finnish cartoonist, devi, and graphic artist noticed our coverage. Saara is an obscure but prolific talent. We love her work, which can be found at many outlets like such as Arkiharha and such as Weekday-Illusion (our nod to awkward beauty pageant contestant Miss South Carolina).
 
She is expressing herself in her work and in a letter to us:

 

"Susse" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

"Wow, it's crazy to find a post full of my pictures and comics! Nice analysis, too. Maybe I kinda succeeded to pass on my thoughts in a visual way, because you get the idea from most of them -- even when they are written in Finnish!"
 
See Wisdom Quarterly coverage here: My cartoon ART is your perception

REPLY: Saara, send in art you are eager for the world to see, like your beautiful sketches of the Buddha. We would be overjoyed to feature more.

 

Comic vignettes as art "Kuva" (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

If you have "class" you know a bottle of "fine" wine and classical string instruments like a Stratavarious are the only things to sip or listen to. But you're wrong. Science says you're wrong. So surely when you add that only oil on canvas can be art and not no people pleasing cartoony comics, you're wrong, too. Don't tell us. We like classical. Tell it to science:

 

The way to get people to better enjoy craapy fermented grape juice that sells for thousands of dollars is to say it sells for more. Just a better bottle and a price change, or serving it with an elegant story of its venerable origins, its pedigree, is enough to make it "taste" better. How classy of study participants.

Can comics and webcam colors be called art?

fMRI scans prove bad alcohol actually tastes better when it's two-buck-chuck krup is said to be something more expensive and classy. Expensive wine tastes better. Let's call it "neuromarketing." Marketers have known about this effect for years regarding other foods. Before they started loading fruit juices with added flavorants (cynically called "natural flavors" not because they're natural but because they synthetically mimic something "natural" rather than something artificial) and artificial colorants.

My doggy, my doggy...oh, you've come back! "Sarjis 12.8"  (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr)

 

Vegan Food Fest, Los Angeles

Flavorless red colors make things taste better. Blindfolded we might not be able to tell a difference or say which drink is what fruit. We use color as a clue, and it works. The flavor of dull tasting juice is brightened just by brightening its color. Such is the illusion we live in and the hypnotic states we fall into every other moment.

If we would meditate, we could emerge and be dehypnotized.

Hungry ghost, psychic ("Bobb")

But we love our illusions, delusions, and dreams. And we would directly-personally-verifiably find that we are (w)holistic beings, not mind (intangible processes)/body (senses) possessing spirits like it seems.

 

Today a study is making headlines saying that an old Stradavarius violin sounds no better than a modern one. In fact, if one believes this study, the modern one sounds better. More musicians prefer it. (But maybe they are voting for the one they think is the Strad which is the one they fear the study would find inferior?)

The Distortions

It's all how we look at the world we are creating each and every without realizing what we're choosing. Art can sensitize and teach us as we clear our mental perception of the distortions/perversions (Wisdom Quarterly). "Hiljattain päivitetty" (Saara/Arkiharha).

Audio Test: Can we tell the difference between expensive and overpriced instruments?