Does Nondualism Apply to the Hyperreal? A Thought Experiment/Koan.

The answer: mu.

Damn. Why is the answer always mu? I feel like the students should all come together and stage an uprising against our gurus to show them who’s boss. Can we break free of our chains of enlightenment-seeking and wrest back control from the people who act like they’re farther down the path than we are? What if I think I’m farther down the path? What If I already recognize that the path is not a path, not in the sense that we think of it, in the sense that the path is somehow separate from other ways of living life? Ah, guru, you thought that you were on a path? That’s funny. That’s very funny.

path But then there’s that thing about how first the mountain is a mountain, then the mountain is not a mountain, then the mountain is a mountain again. I think I’m over the hill when it comes to the mountain thing. Still fully letting it sink in, but I think i’m starting to see the mountain as a mountain. It’s a mountain in the same way as I am an ant, but at the same time we’re not different from each other. I think it’s the four-dimensional being that helps me think of that. I think it’s the same four-dimensional being that is springing up both me and the mountain, which is a mountain. Of course the mountain isn’t not a mountain. Come on now. That’s kid stuff at this point.

The relationship to nondualism, though, does it apply to the hyperreal? And how? Are some things “not” in the hyperreal? It seems like nondualism tells us that “not” is not allowed in the world of the real. But what about the world of the hyperreal? Or, let me guess, the hyperreal is not different from the real? It’s just an echo or something, no less real than the real? And Baudrillard is a jackass dualist who tried to convince us that there are different things here?

Oh my god. I got got again. S▒▒▒▒, we need to rescue S▒▒▒▒. We need to get S▒▒▒▒ into nondualism so she can stop joining these people on their death spirals. We need to make her a death vector like me. I need to break people out of their spirals. At least get them vectored out so they can find a different one. Maybe one that…. I don’t know, actually. Because I was about to say something dualistic. Something about paths. And how they might get a better rebirth next time if they get themselves into a “better’ death spiral in this life before they die, as one of those things that you seem to have to resolve before you die.

It’s funny. There are things you have to resolve before you smoke weed, things you have to resolve before you go to bed, and things you have to resolve before you die. I feel like it’s a different kind of priority for each, but then it’s sort of not. I think what would be nice is if you had all of your long-term karmic debt well under control, and then all the littler debts that come up, you can just hit like whack-a-moles. Striking down your negative karma as you generate it: I think that’s a lot of the daily struggle of samsara. The problem, I think, is that it becomes so hard to track down where your karma is going because of the whole money thing. Does money stick to karma, does it not, does it matter how you spend your money, does it not, does it matter more how you......

No. It’s all not-different. Using money or not using money. Though I do completely now understand why the way of the monk is to only receive alms, to not spend money. It makes perfect sense to me. I think that would be the appropriate way to live life if you were trying to achieve a homeostasis—or, rather, a stasis—with your karma coming in. You’d want to be very careful about making new bad karma for yourself, and by bypassing money, you cut out a huge portion of the bad karma you could possibly earn. Because who knows if the money I just spent at McDonalds, or the money I just spent at Days Inn, is being somehow shipped to israel to make the bombs they’re dropping on iran or the guns they’re using to kill Palestinians or or or… any number of imperial stupid shit that I don’t want to be helping fund but am inadvertently helping fund.

Unfortunately, this is the brain I have. That’s not unfortunate. Well, it’s not not unfortunate, but the unfortunateness is not different from the fortunateness. They are both true. I am unfortunate, and I am fortunate, for the same reasons, in the same ways.