Tag Archives: buddhism

Matrix

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The Matrix is another Buddhist philosophythe matrix movie review film in my list of top ten movies for Buddhists.  This movie, like Inception, demonstrates the basic Tibetan Buddhist tenant that the world we see and experience is deceptive.  Deceptive, in this instance, means that it appears one way when it actually is a different way.  Sometimes people use the analogy that this reality is really just a dream or say it is an illusion, but this is not accurate.  If I dream I am being hurt, I will wake up to find myself unharmed.  If, in this reality, I experience my finger being cut off, that reality is persistent, at least for as long as I maintain my identity.

What this boils down to is that this reality, for all intents and purposes, is not a dream.  It is “real”.  It just is a “deceptive” reality.  The basic deception is that things seem to come from outside of ourselves.  They seem to be “solid”, self existent things.  For instance, when someone gets mad at us, we think that that is coming from them and not about us.  Well, it might not be about us in our current state, but the whole situation is created by our mental potentials or karmic seeds planted by our past thoughts and actions.

An intellectual understanding that the reality we live in comes from us is not enough to set us free.  The characters in the Matrix demonstrate this.  The ones that are no longer plugged into deceptive reality continuously, still cannot control the happenings when they do enter the “matrix” of deceptive reality.  However, the main character, Neo, does gain the ability to use his mind to transcend what normally would be considered human limitations.  He is then able to move in ways that are not humanly possible, such as fly and dodge bullets.

The movie also could be seen as a metaphor for the enlightenment process. Like in the movie, the majority of people we see around us are not aware that the world they see around them is actually an elaborate deception.  If we tried to point that fact out to them they might become angry and would certainly dismiss us.

In the movie, a small number of people have realized the deception, yet their awareness of the deception does not allow them to change things.  They know the matrix world is not ultimately real, but they act like it is when they are in it.  These people are like Buddhist aryas.  A arya (stream-enterer) knows that they are not a separate self and the world is not occupied by self-existent objects, but they are (initially) unable to experience the world as it is ultimately.matrix movie review picture of neo stopping bulletsNeo represents someone that is progressing rapidly along the path to enlightenment and as his experience of ultimate reality increases his ability to manipulate deceptive reality increases.  While this type of manipulation is not part of the goal of Buddhism, many advanced practitioners experience these changes naturally.  Indeed, Bernadette Roberts a few weeks before she entered the permanent state of “No-Self” found she could know the future, levitate, and leave her body.   (All of which she disliked and quickly found a way to extinguish.)

If you would like to see the films you can borrow a copy from me or use these links to purchase. Your purchase using the links supports TESLI. Thanks!

Reference:  Bernadette Roberts. (1991). The Path to No-Self.  State University of New York Press, Albany. p 169

The Four Truths

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The Four Truths are most frequently heard referred to as the Four Noble Truths, although a more accurate translation would be Four Arya Truths.  In brief, the Four Truths are:

  1. There is suffering
  2. Suffering has an origin
  3. Suffering has an end
  4. There is a way to end suffering

 

The Four Truths are a concise description of the worldview that leads to liberation.  Part of the attainment of stream-entry is the realization of these truths (hence the name Four Arya Truths).

The Buddha in his first teaching (Dhammacakka Sutta) said the following about the First Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering; illness is suffering; death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering.

The Second Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the origin of suffering: It is craving which produces rebirth, bound up with pleasure and greed. It finds delight in this and that; in other words, craving for sense pleasures, craving for existence or becoming and craving for nonexistence or self-annihilation.

The Third Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the cessation of suffering. It is the complete cessation of suffering, the giving up, renouncing, relinquishing, detaching from craving.

and The Fourth Truth:

This is the Noble Truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering. It is simply the Aryan Eightfold Path, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right awareness, and right concentration.

The first book that I picked up on Buddhism was Venerable Rewata Dhamma’s The First Discourse of the Buddha.  I highly recommend it.  It is a pith book that clearly outlines the Arya Eightfold Path and has a nice section on “right concentration” that describes the jhanas and other essentials.

Reference:  Rewata Dhamma (1997) The First Discourse of the Buddha.  Wisdom Press, Somerville Massachusetts.


Four Stages of Enlightenment

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The Four Paths or Four Stages of Enlightenment are an organizing structure that is part of Theraveda teachings.  The first path is stream-entry.  The second path is a once-returner.  The third path is a non-returner and the fourth path is an arahant or enlightened person.

Sometimes people consider obtainment of first path, “enlightenment”, so you have to watch your terms.  This distinction is used because people that have reached first path cannot be reborn in any lower realm (hell, hungry ghosts, animal) and have insight into reality that clearly sets them apart from ordinary humans.

The technical attributes of the different stages have to do with removal of specific limitations.  The limitations that fall away at each stage and consequently define that stage are referred to as fetters.

The ten fetters are:

  1. view that one is a separate self
  2. belief that rites and rituals alone could lead to liberation
  3. doubt or uncertainty, especially about the teachings regarding liberation (i.e. the eightfold noble path)
  4. sensual desire
  5. ill will
  6. craving for material existence
  7. craving for existence in the formlessness realm
  8. conceit
  9. restlessness
  10. ignorance

The first three fetters are eliminated when one reaches the first path (stream-entry or aryahood).  Someone that has reached second path has significantly weakened the next two fetters as well as eliminated the first three.  A non-returner (third path) person has eliminated the first five fetters.  Elimination of the last five fetters results in enlightenment or obtaining fourth path (arhat).