Views, interpretations and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Welcome back.

Today's show touches on freedom from suffering, Key philosophical and metaphysical questions, reincarnation, life's game, and ultimate reality. Now join Ryan and Peter for another episode of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast. Someone postulated that the structures in the brain that pertain to.

Oh boy, this is really embarrassing now that I can't remember my neuroscience. But essentially they're tree shaped structures and there's, there is a tree of knowledge in the brain that is sapiens, right?

It's the evolutionary structure that gives us intelligence which then causes stress. Like it's that ability to be distressed which causes suffering. So that's the tree.

That's an interesting.

Obviously not why the scripture writers, they weren't doing neurobiology saying, hey, look, here's a tree in here. But, but the idea that that knowledge or the nature of consciousness creates suffering.

So what my experience has been is that when I engage in certain practices, traditional Buddhist practices or not, I experience a freedom of suffering. And so that's kind of a basis for rational belief in the ability for us to end our suffering.

Now there are a lot of false paths and this is the key because obviously, oh, everybody's experienced a respite from suffering. I went out drinking and had a good time and I wasn't suffering at all. But things like that are not sustainable.

So, you know, so Buddhist practices are sustained practices that lead to sustained extinction of suffering. So I'm trying to think about this a bit because really the object is to be enlightened and to be completely free of suffering permanently.

But if you have to continually engage, continually engage in these practices and without engaging in these practices, you can't have an absence of suffering. How is that different from other practices that, you know, require, you know, taking drugs?

Like you have to keep on taking the drugs so that you can be not suffering. I think that's a very superficial question, but I, I had to raise it because that's where my brain was going.

Essentially the practices are based, again, are based in love and compassion and are not selfish and self serving at the expense of others will lead to ultimate cessation of suffering.

What's the purpose of suffering? Why do we suffer? In your understanding of suffering, there's no purpose.

It's a consequence.

It's a consequence of why are we incarnated the purpose of the incarnation?

Again, this is. So this is the, the met. These are the metaphysical questions Right, right.

Which Buddha didn't want to talk about.

Right? Yeah. So those are questions that don't bother me.

And I'm not sure whether it's because, you know, I read that Buddha said don't bother, you know, or whether they just don't bother me. But really, I don't know if that makes me less of a deep thinker.

I don't think it qualifies the level of your thinking, but I do think that it is expressive of where you are on your journey and what's important to you in this lifetime, like what the question of suffering was. And it's not to say I've never suffered, because I certainly have, but I think that it was not really something that bothered me.

You know, I think the, the question of suffering that intrigued me more was the ultimate. You know, if there's God and God is all loving, why is there something, you know, that's a hard one to answer?

And I think I understand it now, but it was only recently that I started to get some context around that. And then more so my questions are the, what's the purpose of this?

If we naturally exist in another plane of existence and we are already of divine nature and we have the ability to be all knowing in absolute bliss, why are we here? Why would one choose to leave that to be here?

And that's where, like, I started to gain some, some at least comforting understanding of why that may have happened.

So when you were talking about the origin and the act of creation and division, that was something that was very familiar to me from just some thoughts from long ago where I was just, I think, being creative with the idea of creation and how, you know, thinking very metaphysically of like, why would God do this? Why would a creator do this? And I came to the same thing, that the creator needed to experience something and in order to experience had to divide.

So that was not at all alien to me as a concept. And then kind of the purpose of the createes is to find their way back.

So one question which I haven't really thought about is, you know, well, I can't, I won't say I haven't thought about it, but. But what someone might say, one might ask is, oh, well, does that happen when you die? Like, does it just automatically happen when you die?

That's what automatically that we return to,.

That that's your ultimate destination.

I'm cautious about using this analogy, but it's the only one I really have. And it's that it's a game. Ultimate existence is all There is, which is all knowing and everything already happens. So what do we do?

Well, we play a game, right? And we go back and we go in and then we have this real hard time. And I think about it, even with video games, and it really kind of.

You're like, oh, I hate this game. And then shut it off. And then you like, I want to go back.

Or you win the game and you're like, I'm gonna start over again after you just went through all that stress. And it's entertaining, but it's also satisfying.

So you get through the experience. Whatever the experience is, you get through it and you go, oh, well, that was. That was interesting.

That was, you know, either I got killed in a really interesting way and it ended really badly, but it was interesting. I was interesting getting there, or I won. And, you know, it was interesting and satisfying. I agree with that.

So one thing just in terms of a concise belief. I believe in heaven on earth. I believe in God's kingdom come, I think. And this goes back to, you know, the idea of salvation.

That salvation isn't in an eternal afterlife.

It's in learning sufficiently to take care of yourself and others that you're no longer suffering and that it can be done and that there are many teachers that have done, have done and are doing this and that, you know, it's not to say that they then become immortal, because I think that's a big question. Like, oh, but then they died of cancer. So were they. Were they really enlightened because they died of cancer?

They shouldn't have had cancer if they were enlightened. It's like, no, they won the game because, you know, they had cancer, but they didn't suffer having cancer.

Like, they were able to get through it graciously and die well. And maybe they return to ground. Maybe they return to creation afterwards. Maybe not. That's like, again, that's metaphysical question.

It's like, we're not going to answer it. You know, I do believe that.

And that's something that I've come across many times, which is with different teachers of both Buddhist and Christian backgrounds saying that, you know, heaven isn't something you wait for. Heaven is something that, that. It's how you live. That's. That's heaven.

And there's traditional Zen teaching that says a samurai lord asked a, a monk master, a Zen master to teach him, like, the essence of reality. And the monk says, I couldn't teach such a stinking, unkempt, uncouth, you know, dog like you to, to understand any of this.

And the enraged samurai draws his sword and prepares to strike down the monk. And the monk says, this is the gate to hell.

And the Lord regains his composure and sheathes his sword and says, you know, realize, like he was about to do something terrible. And the monk says, this is the gate to heaven. And I think that's the essence. I think that's the only thing that we need to learn.

I don't think we have to worry about salvation after life and all that stuff. I think that it's that, you know, it's what you were saying, it's just love and fear. And that's exactly what's embodied in that story.

One of the Buddhist teachings, core teaching is that the great existential fear, the great fear, is the delusion of that reality is reality and the lack of understanding that there is an ultimate reality and that this is only conventional reality. And so in that sense, your dichotomy of reality, love and fear, you know, I. I find alignment with that as well.

Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast. Join us next time as we continue the discussion.

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