A reflection on how we turn thoughts and sensations into seemingly objective realities, and what happens when we stop doing so.
A reflection on how we turn thoughts and sensations into seemingly objective realities, and what happens when we stop doing so.
This is what happens. Someone could be angry, and I don't have to have an emotional reaction that makes the whole thing worse. But there is an assumption of something, and we make it real.
What "making it real" means
I want to clarify what I mean by "real." By real, I mean I assume something to be other than what it is. Take, for example, the thought of a man across the room. When I make it real, it becomes more than a thought. If I'm aware that I have a thought, an imagination that the person across the room is upset with me, and I know that's just a thought, it could be correct. But when it stops being just a thought, when it actually is the man across the room, then I'm making the thought into something other than what it is. I'm turning it into a reality that is, in a sense, objective.
Sensation before story
On the other side of this, if I'm having an emotional reaction, a pain, and I'm aware of it, all it is, is sensation. It's just a texture of sensation. But when I make it real, it takes on an objective quality. It becomes a pain that has an origin, and the origin is beyond me. It's probably connected to something that happened. But I've made the sensation more than just sensation.
Nothing is absolutely real
When ultimately what is happening is that there are thoughts, there are sensations, there are sounds, there are images, and from there we can navigate. Nothing is absolutely real. It's all possibly more real than something else and less real than something else. It's all in this dance of reality. I can never know for sure what is real and what is not. Nothing is fully, ultimately real, or fully, ultimately not real. Only there can I be unconditioned. Only there can I navigate with more discernment.
When the unreal falls away
All of the stuff that isn't real starts to fall away remarkably fast. Things that seemed to be absolutely real suddenly reveal themselves as just imagination, having nothing to do with what's actually happening. They fall. A great deal starts to dissolve, and then everything becomes much easier to navigate.