How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

DaltheJigsaw

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

genkaku

If I call it real, I run into trouble.
If I call it unreal, I run into trouble.
I'm just a Buddhist wuss who likes to stay out of trouble.

formermonkJohn

why does it have to be real? you treat it as if its real, don't walk through walls etc, that still doesn't mean that how you see it or perceive it is necessarily real. IMO

Roger

Seriously: not trying to be a nuisance here; I'm quite serious:

Define "Reality."

The dictionary definition below is superficial.

"The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them."

DaltheJigsaw

If I call it real, I run into trouble.
If I call it unreal, I run into trouble.
I'm just a Buddhist wuss who likes to stay out of trouble.

So just go with the middle path?
Is that what you are saying?

DaltheJigsaw

why does it have to be real? you treat it as if its real, don't walk through walls etc, that still doesn't mean that how you see it or perceive it is necessarily real. IMO

I guess the ego cares to find what is real and what is an illusion?
Or is it the whole "western mind," thinking that I have to find what is "real," or not "real," because I wont be satisfied with just being? Or how can one just be? Is there not anything more out there?
Could it be age? (25)...
I don't know... Just wondering?

ravkes

Whether or not I think it's real, it'll still be as it is. If you run into the middle of the road and a bus hits you, you'll get hurt or die. You can think, "Hey! This isn't real.." But I guarantee you won't be saying that, you'd probably be crying out for an ambulance because of the pain that's felt. Therefore, these questions are irrelevant. I used to ask them until I realized that reality really doesn't give a crap if they're answered or not.. you're still going to drive on the right side of the road to work aren't you?

Simply put, reality is what enables us to direct our life. You knew that when you opened your computer you could access a website to ask this question, that's reality. Reality works according to it's own rules, not our desires..

I love reality! It's so simple and complex at the same time.

DaltheJigsaw

Seriously: not trying to be a nuisance here; I'm quite serious:

Define "Reality."

The dictionary definition below is superficial.

"The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them."

I guess reality as in...
When we dream is it also reality?

Cloud

How do we know anything?

formermonkJohn

people driving on the right side to work cause a lot of accidents in the UK and AU!!!!

Cloud

@LeonBasin, Things simply are what they are. If they're unreal, they're unreal. That doesn't change a thing. It comes down to navigating this life, whatever it is, and to do that we must be mindful of the nature of all phenomena. To do that properly, especially with minds conditioned by ignorance, we must relieve ourselves of the burden of ignorance-born suffering and awaken. That's all.

DaltheJigsaw

How do we know anything?

I guess we don't, but do we not question everything?
Or do we instead look internally and not externally?

rainbowwarrior

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

DaltheJigsaw

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Taste,Touch and so on?
Meditation?

rainbowwarrior

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Taste,Touch and so on?
Meditation?

I don't know - what do you think?

ShiftPlusOne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument

You don't. It's something you can't prove or disprove, like God. So, there's no point spending energy on it.

being

I believe as soon as we start to put reality into words/concepts/understandings, we actually stray away from reality. To 'see reality' is to see/feel everything without any labels, maybe?

genkaku

If I call it real, I run into trouble.
If I call it unreal, I run into trouble.
I'm just a Buddhist wuss who likes to stay out of trouble.

So just go with the middle path?
Is that what you are saying?

As one old-timer (can't remember the name) in the Zen line-up put it, "The middle way means the extremes."

Whoknows

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

Still wondering? How do I know that you're there, after all I'm only seeing colours on the screen? How can colour get "out there"? If its not "out there" how can mind be everywhere? If mind is everywhere how can it self define? If it is self referenced then is it real? Arggggggggh? Give up, stop trying to answer and rest in the space that's created, that's where you'll find peace. After all reality doesn't just stop when you determine its not inherently real, its still there. To keep a swing swinging you need to keep pushing it, if you stop pushing it it will stop rocking. Unfortunately we're conditioned to push the swing, we might stop for a while but we're most likely to push it again. What happens when it stops?

I like these questions as I get to play, thanks Leon

Cheers, WK

rainbowwarrior

WK - i like your explanation!

DaltheJigsaw

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

Still wondering? How do I know that you're there, after all I'm only seeing colours on the screen? How can colour get "out there"? If its not "out there" how can mind be everywhere? If mind is everywhere how can it self define? If it is self referenced then is it real? Arggggggggh? Give up, stop trying to answer and rest in the space that's created, that's where you'll find peace. After all reality doesn't just stop when you determine its not inherently real, its still there. To keep a swing swinging you need to keep pushing it, if you stop pushing it it will stop rocking. Unfortunately we're conditioned to push the swing, we might stop for a while but we're most likely to push it again. What happens when it stops?

I like these questions as I get to play, thanks Leon

Cheers, WK

Love it!
Thanks!
And Welcome!

Vajraheart

Our reality is relatively real, and it's level of relative reality is dependent upon how many co-subjective beings share it. All reality or realities is/are empty of inherent essence though.

Vajraheart

... and are not ultimate.

KarmaDondrupTashi

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Stick a fork in your hand.

mugzy

Stick a fork in your hand.

I feel pain in my dream if I believe I am being stabbed... does that make it real?

KarmaDondrupTashi

There's no "dream" as if one day we're going to "wake up" - there's only ever "dream". The pain of a fork in your hand is the pain of a fork in your hand. Emptiness is form.

DaltheJigsaw

Stick a fork in your hand.

I feel pain in my dream if I believe I am being stabbed... does that make it real?

Right exactly!
Or when you think you fall down in a dream and you have to wake up and go to the bathroom and throw up?

voyaging

The reality I know is real is the reality of my conscious mind. Any other belief in "reality" outside my mind is only assumed.

However, even though it is just an assumption, I do believe reality outside my own mind exists, and that it really is somewhat like how I believe it is (other humans are also conscious, nearly all mammals also are, matter has form, etc.). I don't know it's real, but I assume it is.

Right exactly!
Or when you think you fall down in a dream and you have to wake up and go to the bathroom and throw up?

That's never happened to me. Sounds pretty bad

DaltheJigsaw

Falling* Or are falling...

Vajraheart

Our reality is relatively real, and it's level of relative reality is dependent upon how many co-subjective beings share it. All reality or realities is/are empty of inherent essence though.

As in, it's defined by the amount of people that share it. So if your reality is only subjective to yourself, then you know it's a personal creation and not inter-personal, thus it's validity as really real is diminished.

Floating_Abu

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

If you name it, you miss it.

Cultivate a practice of meditation, Leon, this is closer to the truth, your final answers will never be on this forum IMO.

DaltheJigsaw

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

If you name it, you miss it.

Cultivate a practice of meditation, Leon, this is closer to the truth, your final answers will never be on this forum IMO.

There isn't any answers.
I rather observe how others view their reality like...

Cloud

There are answers, but you have to stop looking to see them.

NomaDBuddha

How Do You Know If Your Reality Is Real?

Pain. When I get hit or I hit something by accident, I just 'wake up' and see things as they are, so they must be real. If I lived in a dream-like reality pain would not exist.

KarmaDondrupTashi

Your reality is real for you to the extent it functions in a specific way. This object is real for me because it functions for me as a pen. It's real for the dog because it functions as a chew toy. It's real for the 13th century eskimo because it functions as an ice pick. It's real because of karma.

MindGate

What else can exist other than YOUR reality? Reality pretty much is what your senses perceive.

If you were to lose all your sense, what reality would exist? Only your thoughts - and your mind is part of the body that creates senses in the first place.

There doesn't seem to be any ultimate reality outside of our perception. Our perception is reality. My reality is real because it is my reality. It may not be real to someone else, but its real to me.



Just my thoughts as of now.

rainbowwarrior

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Stick a fork in your hand.

that would be an experience of sensation.

as mentioned above - emptiness is form, form is emptiness.

MellowViper

Much of the unreal stuff in life has to do with politics, business, organized religion, and the media, all of which are institutions that have a self aggrandizing view of their role in the world and in reality in general. I think people who do take life too seriously actually make it serious. Its a self fulfilling prophecy. When you think life is so serious you have to kill someone, you're making it serious. We create a lot of our own problems. I think what's real is what you perceive directly and intuitively. What you think about and grind on about in your mind is another story though. Constructs are just abstractions. Though they can model the world accurately at times, they're flawed in that they can be completely wrong other times. Its an evolutionary work in progress in my view. Mental abstraction is a system that hasn't been fully developed, and that's why its so volatile right now. You might not be able to ascertain what the will of God is, or what the right path is for your nation and peoples' destiny (all constructs that often cause a lot of bloodshed), but you can know that the direct sensations offered up to you by the moment are real and tangible. How you model perception with abstract thinking probably isn't 100% true though. I think to be 100% right, we'd have to know how the universe functions on a more fundamental level, but we simply aren't there yet and may never get there fully.

Roger

How do we know anything?

We know things like humans know things: partially&dimly, kind of slippery, rarely settled, mostly by cultural consensus sometimes we know stuff well enough to make a 99.9% correct prediction.

While we're at it? We can only know things like humans know things.

Meditation? That's gotta be the only time humans "know" something beyond the human realm, problem is: that knowing can NOT be communicated to others.

Works for me.

Roger

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Yup! Can't be done.

Humans think there are static forms and worlds that exist independently of our gushy, wet, chemical brains connected to blood-washed sense organs.

Problem is: there's nothing "really" there except when "whatever-it-is" comes via those sense organs.

"Reality" is a process everybody works with. Sometimes our "processing" overlaps with other people's and THEN we tend to start believing something permanent and independent is in play. It's not!

Sure is fun though. :clap:

MellowViper

Define real - how can we know what is real? How can we perceive real?

Yup! Can't be done.

Humans think there are static forms and worlds that exist independently of our gushy, wet, chemical brains connected to blood-washed sense organs.

Problem is: there's nothing "really" there except when "whatever-it-is" comes via those sense organs.

"Reality" is a process everybody works with. Sometimes our "processing" overlaps with other people's and THEN we tend to start believing something permanent and independent is in play. It's not!

Sure is fun though. :clap:

I think the overlapping of shared experience is something tangible though, and most of what we experience as humans is shared by all. Two people see the same object when standing in the same room, but the only thing that really differs is the mental constructs they build around that object through their differing vantage points (Is that what you mean by processing?). They're still receiving essentially the same sensory information from similar photon cluster patterns diffracting off the same object and working through the same, physical laws. Its proof, in some way, that were not alone and that our seemingly different vantage points branch from the same, common continuum of cosmic events.

The common continuum we live in is anything but static though, as evidenced by the findings of astrophysicists and the indefinite expansion of the universe (which I think is akin to the zooming of a fractal), let alone the experiences of day to day existence. This expansion also undermines the supposed permanence of the physical laws, but there is a common thread there still. The fact that we share all the same laws at any given time is, in some way, proof that were all the same organism. The fact we receive inter-related signals of some kind into our gushy organs is proof we have a common thread. I think were ultimately some kind of reflection of one another and that might be a permanent condition of the universe. The universe is constantly acting like a mirror unto itself. The fact all these atoms function seamlessly with another makes me think that, in some way, its the same object folded over itself a tremendous amount of times.

I have to disagree though. I think much of the overlapping is proof of something permanent and rudimentary to a certain extent, but I do agree with you that the notion of a world external to us is just an illusion.

MellowViper

This whole discussion puts me in mind of this song.