Radical embrace of reality

I like the sound of it: radical embrace of reality. 

I'm not entirely sure what those words mean to me. They just popped into my head recently, and I've given them a home in my cranium until they decide to pop out and head somewhere else.

As long as this notion is rumbling around in my mind, I figure I might as well try to describe why I find it so appealing. 

Reality is a close relative of truth. I admire both -- reality and truth. When I used to give talks to fellow devotees of the Eastern form of spirituality I was a member of for thirty-five years, "ultimate reality" was an oft-repeated concept.

Now I'm not so enamored of ultimate. It conjures up an image of something so far off, it's really hard to get there. 

Which isn't the case with reality. At least, not the everyday sort of reality that I'm speaking of in radical embrace of reality. I'm not talking about discovering the essence of quantum phenomena or how the big bang brought our universe into being.

The reality I want to embrace is right here, right now. 

It's the Zen sort of chop wood, carry water reality, minus any esoteric B.S. that often comes along with Zen teachings. I simply want to be in touch with what really is to the fullest extent possible. 

At my age, 72, might be, could be, and maybe, though fine ideas, aren't as appealing as the inescapable reality that I'm living moment to moment.

So if I want to radically embrace something, it's not a possibility around a bend in the road of life but the scenery clearly visible from my current vantage point.

Why, then, do I view this as a radical embrace of reality? What's radical about being aware of what's right in front of me?

In one sense, nothing. In another sense, everything. I speak this way as someone who has meditated every day for over fifty years.

No matter how I've meditated, and I've experimented with quite a few approaches, it's devilishly difficult to keep my focus on what is actually happening in the present moment, rather than what was or could be. 

Now that I've centered my meditation on mindfulness practices, I'm getting better at simply being aware of my breathing, the feeling of sitting in a chair, sounds of the washer or dryer in an adjoining laundry room.

However, I'm continually amazed -- yet not surprised -- at how my mind would prefer to recall the past or imagine the future instead of embracing the here-and-now present. 

Or... comment on how the present moment would be oh-so-much-better if ______ was happening rather than ______. (My mind is adept at filling in the blanks)

So it really is radical to want to embrace reality. 

We humans are highly skilled at weaving layers of mental coverings, such as beliefs and desires, that we toss over the reality in which we find ourselves because we think this will be more fulfilling than plain naked reality.

And often it seems like those coverings really do make us feel better about our circumstances.

I'm not saying that fantasies about what could have been or might be should be discarded from our psyche entirely. Life is difficult. Whatever makes it less difficult is hard for me to argue against. 

Yet in the end, reality always has the last word.

Why? Because our best efforts to deny reality are almost certainly going to fail at some point. We can disguise reality with the mental coverings we're so fond of placing over it, but eventually reality will burst out and yell, "I'm back! Did you miss me?"

I guess I like the idea of welcoming reality since it going to be my companion regardless.

Pushing it away may seem like a good idea, especially when reality appears in the form of pain, suffering, anxiety, worries, and all the other nasty stuff that life brings along in addition to the good stuff.

However, we can do our best to improve our situation, along with that of others, while also pursuing a radical embrace of reality. In fact, being clear-eyed about what is probably is the best foundation for fashioning a desired will be.

Comments

[albert]

Thanks, Brian. Honest expressions hit home every time. Here is an excerpt of your feelings, as I caught them: "Why, then, do I view this as a radical embrace of reality? What's radical about being aware of what's right in front of me?"

It seems to me that you are "sold" on the evidence of the physical senses, as well as your mind that is interpreting those inputs, discriminating as to whether the moment is pleasing, painful or mediocre, and taking action to secure a greater state of happiness, albeit temporary (all experiences in the human body are changing and are temporary, as well as the body itself). The five senses' stimuli most certainly overwhelm and surfeit the mind with a constantly changing panoply of forms, sounds, tastes, smells and touch and no one, including myself, can ignore these inputs. Living on earth requires a high survival rate and this includes understanding the evidence of the physical senses and one's state of awareness in this physical reality. The pleasures of the senses are very, very powerful and form our "likes and dislikes" on an individual basis.

I am one of those who believes in the sanskrit term "mithya", in describing this world and the entire range of sensory-intellectual experience of the mundane mind. I believe that higher levels of "reality" exist, though subjective and experienced by the individual. Thus, no "proof" is possible except one's own personal experience of said higher levels. Here is an interesting assessment by Sri Ramana Maharshi:

"A dialogue between Sri Ramana Maharshi, while giving clarification on the same subject, and a devotee is as follows:

A visitor: “The Supreme Spirit (Brahman) is Real. The world (jagat) is illusion,” is the stock phrase of Sri Sankaracharya. Yet others say, “The world is reality”. Which is true?

Maharshee: Both statements are true. They refer to different stages of development and are spoken from different points of view. The aspirant (abhyasi) starts with the definition, that which is real exists always; then he eliminates the world as unreal because it is changing.

It cannot be real; ‘not this, not this!’ The seeker ultimately reaches the Self and there finds unity as the prevailing note. Then, that which was originally rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed in the Reality, the world also is Real. There is only being in Self-Realisation, and nothing but being.

Again Reality is used in a different sense and is applied loosely by some thinkers to objects. They say that the reflected (adhyasika) Reality admits of degrees which are named:

(1) Vyavaharika satya (everyday life) - this chair is seen by me and is real.

(2) Pratibhasika satya (illusory) - Illusion of a serpent in a coiled rope. The appearance is real to the man who thinks so.

This phenomenon appears at a point of time and under certain circumstances.

(3) Paramartika satya (ultimate) - Reality is that which remains the same always and without change.

If Reality be used in the wider sense the world may be said to have the everyday life and illusory degrees (vyavaharika and pratibhasika satya). Some, however, deny even the reality of practical life - vyavaharika satya and consider it to be only projection of the mind. According to them it is only pratibhasika satya, i.e., an illusion."

One's brain can get baked by these viewpoints! Thanks again for the stimulating post.

[Manoj]

radical embrace of reality

Sometimes it makes sense, of no sense

Being trapped within a one of a kind perfect path, LOL, like GSD & rs cult is a radical illusionary illness which eats at the core of the individuals soul.

Debilitating and Detrimental

How cunning and cuniving an individual GSD is making one think that he's on the right path back home, knowing all the time he's not!

Like the Wizard of OZ a lying little weasel hiding behind the curtain veil.

And that's the REALITY !!!

[Spence Tepper]

Embrace reality. If only we could.
But so long as we are seeing what the brain filters, what memory and association color, and what our wandering attention only sporadically delivers, we are embracing another illusion.

[albert]

Hello Mr. Tepper...hey, as far as I am concerned, you nailed it. How can the limited mundane mind possibly understand the "wholeness" of all levels of consciousness and Reality? If the mind is the sole instrument used to understand our experience, necessarily the conclusions drawn will be highly limited and only of the "part". Thanks much!