I am not as enlightened as the self title “Buddha of Hollywood” might suggest.
Actually I chose that name for its ironic and funny side rather than for religious significance.
I am merely a student of Zen and life, more than anything else, and my only claim to fame is that I know that I don’t know shit about anything except that everybody else knows at least or less than me.
There is a lot of theory out there about enlightenment, satori, nirvana and getting your soul into heaven but aside my zazen practice nothing else has anything to do with the reality of life.
And reality is far from the Buddhist, Christian or other idealistic propaganda you might subscribe to.
You see for me reality is the ultimate truth.
I know, I know, there is no reality; reality is just an illusion.
But if I have to subscribe to that idea and accept the premise that it is all an illusion then this inexorable conclusion follows:
You are an illusion as well!
You are an illusion – the ego - trapped into another illusion – the world.
There is no escape from that predicament.
Well, you might say; not if you realize the illusion is just an illusion and not the real you.
But there is no real you – the ego is an illusion.
So now you are an illusion – the ego – that has an illusion – the real you – still trapped into another illusion – the world.
You see where this goes?
As an illusion you can only have another illusion.
There is no way out of the illusion until you actually return to the no-thig reality that created the illusion of the world and the ego in the first place.
In other words until you die.
So what all that means?
I don’t know what it means for you but for me it means one thing only.
Since this is my show, I will have to put up the best performance I am capable of and have the best time of my illusion called “life”
Break a leg!
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7 comments:
Hmm - I don't subscribe to the life is an illusion theory. Otherwise we would be able to control what happens in it and of course we would all have everything we have dreamt of all our lives. Perfect world, partners, children, self, riches, etc, etc - whatever particularly pushes your buttons. But there is flesh and blood and life and death and for some great suffering.
However, if it is an illusionary life you want - then I wish you a good one.
If life really were just an illusion, I would like to think I could conjure up a version of my own reality that matched what my heart and soul long for...the idea of "reality is illusion" leaves me feeling like a very poor magician!
I agree with everything you just said. I would just put a different accent to it.
good one :)
two questions though:
1. how exactly nothing creates anything?
2. if everything else is, why death is not an illusion? and life for that matter?
good luck.
mickael
Good one!
Okay, so I read the post and then the comments and started thinking about illusion. So I looked up the etymology and found it comes from the Latin and French words that mean to mock from a combination of 'against' and 'play'. Afterward, I started wandering around the streets of Hollywood on Google's streetview. In that process I was thinking about what BoH said and the commenters and I started to laugh because it seemed to me that the 'mocking', the illusion, was generated by myself! What a hoot!
Same question as Mickael, is death also an illusion?
Anyway, this reminded me of that saying, something like it's your life and you'd better show up for it!
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