Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What's Real
"One day I happened to mention something about the psychic powers that come with meditation, and I mentioned devas, I think, as well. So the next day I got a question in the box: “I don’t want to hear anything about this supernatural stuff. I don’t want to believe in anything that I can’t see with my own eyes.” That was the question. And then right next to it was another question: “Why is it that teachers in Western Buddhism are so afraid of talking about the supernatural side of the tradition?”
The answer to the second question, of course, was the first question. In a form of Buddhism that’s very sensitive to market forces, teachers tend to shy away from issues that would stir up the militant materialists. But the answer to the first question is a bit more complex. As I said that afternoon, how do you know that what seems to be the natural world really is real? We don’t have any proof that there really is a world out there, that other beings really exist. What we do know, though, is that we suffer. Some people have the kamma to experience only a natural world; other people have the kamma to experience a lot of supernatural things. But both kinds of people suffer, and this is what Buddhism is all about: teaching us how to not suffer.
The problem is not with the worlds out there. It’s what’s in our minds. The world may be real, it may not be real — this is another issue that came up during the retreat. Apparently, at an earlier retreat, the teacher had taught that reality is actually an illusion. Well, the Buddha never went that far. He didn’t say that the world doesn’t exist. But the world is not the problem. The problem is inside. The suffering we create for ourselves is real, and the way we create it is real. Even though we may be operating under illusions, the suffering we create from our illusions is real. And the way we can solve that problem is also real."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What's Real"
25 June 2023
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