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Everything is Only TV (2)

Are we all just living in a hallucination? The Buddha said so. Bodhidharma said so. All great meditators claim so, too. It is also my own experience.

How to grasp this without needing to do bone-breaking intensive practice?

This very recent BBC “Ideas” program report on the work of one of my intellectual heroes, Professor Anil Seth, gives the clearest yet explanation, from the standpoint of neuroscience and psychology, of what my teacher, Zen Master Seung Sahn, said to me in his room after we completed a fiery “Dharma combat“ session at the conclusion of my second 100-day solo retreat in the mountains: “Everything is just TV!“

Following this link, you will change your entire perspective on the nature of your reality. And you won’t need to go to the mountains, nearly kill yourself on dried pine needle powder, and meet a tiger-like Zen teacher to have it confirmed. (See my post from June 17, 2022 — “Everything is Just TV”, (https://blog.mirrorofzen.com/2022/06/17/everything-is-only-tv/)

An excellent, short filmic presentation of this fundamental point, it is definitely well worth your few minutes of time today to consider it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/ideas/videos/are-we-all-living-in-a-hallucination/p0cjqx25?playlist=ideas-from-radio-4

As a recent article in The Guardian rephrased Professor Seth’s point (and the Buddha’s and my Teacher’s — and mine):

Reality – or, at least, our perception of it – is a “controlled hallucination”, according to the neuroscientist Anil Seth. Everything we see, hear and perceive around us, our whole beautiful world, is a big lie created by our deceptive brains, like a forever version of The Truman Show, to placate us into living our lives.
Our minds invent for us a universe of colours, sounds, shapes and feelings through which we interact with our world and relate to each other, Seth argues. We even invent ourselves. Our reality, then, is an illusion, and understanding this involves tackling the thorny issue of consciousness: what it means to, well, be.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/25/being-you-by-professor-anil-seth-review-the-exhilarating-new-science-of-consciousness

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