Category Archives: Spirituality

Inception

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Inception movie Here is another movie in my series on the top ten Buddhist movies. Inception came out in 2010 and demonstrates nicely the Buddhist concept that the reality we live in is merely a projection of our subconscious.

In the movie, people share dreams together.  One person, the architect, sets up the basic framework of the dream (location and environmental features) while the subject populates the dream with projections (people) that are parts of their subconscious.  Other dreamers can join the subject in the dream as well.  The movie plot focuses on using the dream state to either steal information from the subject (extraction) or to give the subject an idea that they will carry out during their awake time (inception).

My interest is not so much on the plot, which is fascinating in itself, but on how the movie as a whole models the Buddhist concept that the world we find ourselves in is really just a projection of our mind.  A school of Buddhist thought called the Mind Only School (Chittamatra or Yogacara) actually purports that the world we live in is just mind only.  The people in the movie (aside from the shared dreamers) are actually just projections of the dreamer’s subconscious.

My first reaction to the movie took a couple of days to wear off.  When the movie was over, I found myself viewing the world and the people around me with a different lens.  Each person I interacted with I saw as an extension of myself.  I couldn’t shake the sense that they were just an extension of my subconscious and that my world in a dream.

One of the themes of Inception is that the dreamers have to be on the alert about whether they are dreaming or awake. The dream is so real that discernment regarding their sleep state is nearly impossible.  This too is similar to the idea in Buddhism that our awake state is really just a dream state.  It is impossible to tell the two apart and like a dream what makes certain things occur or not is not readily apparent.  Our awake state seems real, when it it truly a deceptive reality.

Alternate Reality

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Yesterday, I was talking about the placebo effect of antidepressants.  I had started to write about my reaction to the denial surrounding the use of anti-depressants and went down a different thought train than I intended.  So, today I want to get back on track and talk about a new perspective I have been contemplating surrounding anti-depressant use.

It use to be that I lived in a world where I thought there was some truth I could find and adhere to.  For instance, I believed that anti-depressants did not work.  I even had scientific research to back it up. Now, I have an understanding that the world I live in is deceptive.  For instance, I once read research that claimed liquid extracts of feverfew were ineffective in treating migraines.  So, I stopped taking my feverfew tincture and my migraines came back.  So much for scientific research.

But it is not that the research is wrong…

Buddhism, Ho’oponopono, and new age perspectives all concur that the world we see around us is created (fully or in-part) by ourselves.  This means that just because antidepressants don’t work in my world, doesn’t mean they are not effective in other people’s worlds.

This means that I’ve “created” a world were anti-depressants do not work.  I see research that supports that, all my friends that use anti-depressants do not feel better, and I disregard claims that anti-depressants work as “placebo effect.”  And since the world I create is 100% real this is a valid reality.

On the other hand, other people live in a world where anti-depressants work.  Not just placebo work, but actually work.  They get mad at people like me that say their drugs do not work because they have evidence.  They have tried diet, exercise and herbs only to have those treatments fail.  These people go to doctors that know anti-depressants work and they feel better when they take them.  They really do have a brain chemistry imbalance that is corrected with pharmaceutical.  Their world is also 100% valid reality.

My reality is valid and all the alternative realities are also valid.

I have noticed that I spend a great deal of time arguing in support of my perceptions in my head.  I justify what I do by thoughts that support the rightness of it.  I also see others telling each other what to do and what works.  “All of us know what is right.”

I can imagine a true path to non-violence includes accepting that other people’s worlds are different from ours.  Not just their perspectives and experiences, but the actual makings of the world they live in are different.  They are not just apparently different.  They are functionally different as well.

I was once at a scientific conference with some of the big names in physics there.  One of the discussions centered on the problem of being able to replicate research.  For instance, someone (perhaps hypothetical) had developed a process of doing fission to create unlimited energy, but no one else could reproduce the process.  The creator had what it took to manifest this incredible creation, but others didn’t.  His world included fission, while for the rest of us it does not exist (yet).

The crux of the problem was what I just described.  Each person creates their world and if they do not have the karma or beliefs that include certain realities or if they have the beliefs that excludes certain realities then they will not experience them. As far as I know we have the technology to cure all disease, to feed all people, to clean up all pollution.  What stands between us and the Garden of Eden is simply misbeliefs held by the majority.  (That is why I like ThetaHealing so much.  It is a way to remove dysfunctional misbeliefs.)

 

Denial

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Denial means the act of declaring something is not true.  A simple enough word, but the way people use the word has become somewhat of a pet peeve for me.  I find that people use it in a derogatory way when they are judging another person’s actions and/or their stage of change level.  As commonly used, if I say you are in denial, what I am really saying is that I have the only truth.  And, perhaps, I know your truth better than you.

I’m not sure where our use of the word got off track.  It feels quite neutral to say that someone denies something, e.g. for many years I denied that eating saturated fats and eggs caused heart disease.  However, to say one is “in denial” feels charged, e.g. I was in denial that eating saturated fats and eggs caused heart disease.  “Being in denial”, inherently means I’m wrong, when it should just mean I don’t agree with something.

Consider the saturated fats and eggs example.  For many years, the mainstream thought that these items needed to be avoided for a healthy heart.  I denied this reality and, despite heart disease running in my family, continued to have the best cardiovascular system in my family.  Now, the mainstream has come around to my way of thinking.  Would I say they were in denial all those years?  Doesn’t that seem like a silly use of the term?  Perhaps they would have disagreed (denied) that my way is healthy, but it would seem strange to say they were in denial.

The “authorities” had taken all the available information and come to a different conclusion than me.  Then the mainstream had followed their advice. (I started to say they followed it “mindlessly” but realized that would be adding a judgement. Let’s just say they followed it without examining it further.)   In some traditions (Buddhism), this would not be called denial, but ignorance.  “Everybody” in my saturated fat example was simply ignorant of the truth.

The word ignorant rubs me wrong as well.  Inherent in the way it is commonly used, it suggests a mental deficiency, instead of just a simple and temporary not knowing. I prefer the term awareness.

Sometimes one is not aware that something is really a problem because no time has been taken to examine the situation objectively. This is the case when people accept things at face value, or accept information from people that they trust without examining it personally.

Other times people may be aware they are having a problem, but they ignore it because they cannot imagine an alternative or they think this is just how it is.  This is the case of the alcoholic/drug user that is surrounded by others that are drinking, using, getting DUIs and calling in sick to work due to hangovers.  It just doesn’t seem like a problem because it is normal.  I wouldn’t call that person in denial, they are just not aware of the alternative and/or aren’t looking for an alternative because they are already “normal”.

I think Socrates may sum it up best…

The unexamined life is not worth living.

-Socrates