If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him, Because God Is Dead - Our Illusions

If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! This is a famous quote by Chinese Buddhist monk Linji Yixuan. One of the main pillars of Buddhism is, of course, non-violence, so what does this mean? We should kill our idea of Buddha. The famous German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that God is dead. Many people believe in one and only God but the truth is that there are millions of Gods. Everyone has a completely different idea of God. Some people say that there are millions of gods in Hinduism that are, however, just different aspects of a one ultimate God. So how is it actually? This article does not answer that. In fact, there will never be an answer. Nobody will ever know for sure. We can think, speculate, believe, and do experiments, but we only approximate the world by our own knowledge. The founder of Taoism, Lao-c, said that when we give name to things, they are not the same things anymore. When we label things, we bound them by our own expectations. That's how our mind works, it can't be helped. In fact, it helps us survive and solve problems. But sometimes we can get really stuck in our own ideas!

I like the quote by Ajahn Brahm: Never let your knowledge stand in a way of truth. We often ignore reality because we do not want to give up our own beliefs and convictions. We are even willing to suffer a lot in order to protect our own truth even when we already know that reality is different. Why? Because it is OUR OWN truth. But how reliable is our mind and memory? Many of you must have experienced arguing with someone about some past events. Both people were there and both remember something different. A lot of research was conducted regarding eyewitness testimony reliability and the results showed that there are many factors that can lead to completely different versions of the same event. Maybe we might want to take our mind easy. Should we believe all the fears, anxieties, promises, desires? How reliable are they?

Buddha, Vyasa, Jesus, Mohammad, Abraham, Confucius, there are many spiritual figures from the past. They are being worshiped by their followers. They are called gods or reincarnations of exceptional spirits. The thing we often forget is that they were human beings. Felt exactly the same things as we do. Had the same flaws and quirks. These persons were idealized over the centuries. Doesn't this happen over and over again? Famous people nowadays, actors, politicians, leaders, or just people we know. We see their happy photos on social networks, they live great lives, much better than we. Again, all illusion. I saw people presenting various photos and information on their social profiles but in fact, they were completely different persons than their image they created in the Internet. Sometimes this disparity is almost incredible and nobody who follows them would believe that.

Our expectations and concepts about others, be it current living beings or ancient heroes, can create unrealistic ideas about our own life. We compare ourselves with these ideals. We judge our own behavior and thoughts according to them. And eventually, we find out that we can never actually fully follow them. Did you know that the famous Catholic saint Mother Theresa was actually quite desperate? Many saints went through the co called dark night of the soul. It seems that these spiritual crises can appear when we find out that our ideals are actually incomplete somehow. Everything crumbles instantly since all our beliefs were based on something that we do not see as solid as before. A famous Catholic scholar Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote a lot of philosophical studies about various religious terms and concepts. However, he suddenly stopped after an unknown spiritual experience and refused to write more. He even said that all he wrote so far was like a straw. I believe that the present experience is what is the most important thing. I have read many philosophical books and people who are interested in philosophy will probably understand when I say that sometimes I felt like losing my sanity when thinking about various philosophical ideas. My mind wanted to solve them! Have a solid ground! But even when I thought that I found the theory that makes sense and connects everything, there was always something new that changed it.

Maybe that's why many famous spiritual teachers like Sufi mystic Rumi come back to more basic concepts like spiritual love. Or brother Steindl-Rast, who promotes gratitude as one of the best ways to spirituality. Or Thích Nhất Hạnh who often brings very simple and cute concept to his meditation like breather in - I'm a flower, breathe out - I'm fresh. Things that are not that intellectual, but more emotional. Things that we can almost physically feel in our heart. Buddha encourages us to be islands and refuges to ourselves. Inquire, experiment with our beliefs. Trust your guts, but be ready to throw away our own ego. When we defend our own truth, it often leads to conflicts. Inner ones or with other people. What's even more funny is that the main points in these conflicts are often really stupid and banal things. When I was in Japan, I was quite surprised to see the Shinto shrines standing next to Buddhist temples. In Shinto, everything can become and object of worship. There are old trees, rocks, rivers, even ordinary objects that are just very old, which are being worshiped and possessed by a kami - spirit, god. No need to restrict the faith to one, two, three gods.

What is our ego anyway? The Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu once had a dream of being a butterfly. When he woke up, he was not sure if he was a butterfly dreaming about being Chuang Tzu or Chuang Tzu dreaming of being butterfly. Actually, doesn't this happen to us as well every day? Clashing with our own dreams about ourselves? When we luckily manage to live according to these dreams, we feel good. We feel depressed when we don't. What if we just take it all as a joke? Whatever, it's not me anyway. Isn't that a real freedom? Are we not too obsessed by our goals which we have to achieve? Even ancient Taoist master Zhuangzi compared how an archer when shooting for fun performs well. When he shoots for a valuable prize, he becomes so nervous that he cannot hit the target at all.

What is the goal or the goal of spirituality, religion, career, studies, all the activities we do, our whole life? Isn't it simple? Much simpler than we might want to admit? Just being happy...

Keywords: contemplation, biased mind, misconceptions
#philosophy #religion #Buddhism #Christianity