In Reality, Everything is Unreal
By David Listen
What is real? What is false? What parts of our everyday experience are genuine, and which are artificial? These are questions that scientists, philosophers, mystics, meditators — and people like you and me — seek to resolve. It is human’s nature to want to “know.” We desire to know the truth of reality, yet always find ourselves somewhat distant from it. Sometimes we think we understand, and we feel powerful and capable. At other times, we think we don’t know anything, and we feel weak and helpless. But even if we could discover what is real and what is false, what would we do with this insight? Would it lead to a life of peace and fulfillment? Would we then be able to make wise decisions and help correct the innumerable problems of our world? First, I’d like to invite you to forget this question. And I’ll forget it too, for now. Let’s take a walk.
Since it’s very busy and noisy on the streets, and there’s a lot to watch out for — people, cars, construction — let’s go to the park. I invite you to take your shoes off and feel the ground beneath your feet. Just walk. Walk like it’s the first time you’ve ever walked before. Just be fully aware of what it’s like to walk: feel your feet take each step; feel your body move and adjust with each step; relax your shoulders and feel your arms swing freely; relax your eye muscles and just gaze downwards to where you are walking; quiet your brain and don’t bother with thinking about the past or future; don’t even make comments on what you see or hear right now. Just be fully aware of walking in this moment, in this place.
We don’t have an agenda. There’s no special place to go. We don’t have anything to talk about, since we are just walking. We can connect with each other by walking in silence, and reconnect with our own body, mind, and environment. There’s a kind of “inter-being” — a togetherness that is already here — that doesn’t require effort or force. There’s a kind of flow, where each part of us is evolving with each step, and every place we step evolves along with us. A footprint here, a stone is moved there, a leaf is torn. A puddle is made thinner by your feet walking through and gently rippling water to the sides. We share the air as we breathe, and we release our breath back into the atmosphere.
Everything about this walk is real. We see the green and brown grass, smell the moist earth, and feel the texture of the ground with our feet. We experience the flickering of our thoughts, internal flashes of images, ideas, and sounds, and then maybe the hum of some inner silence. Everything about this walk is also false, or unreal. Each experience passes by — nothing stays. Each moment of sensation is like the swell of a wave on the surface of the ocean: What we see a moment ago — the light of the sun shining off a distant skyscraper — is always just gone. But the light reflects in a new way now. The laughter of the child we heard before is gone, but now they are laughing with a new voice.
Every experience is real, but not fixed. Each phenomenon is genuinely moving in and out of our sense-contact and perception. Yet, it’s unreal because it’s not permanently real, but just something that we notice existing because we feel or think about it. We ourselves are unreal, as every cell in our body is transforming from moment to moment, and every thought in our mind is born and dying instant to instant.
If we are mindful in our everyday lives, in the same way we are just walking through the park together, we may see ourselves and the world in a different light. We’ll see the impermanent nature of forms, and therefore, we may not be so frustrated by the information we absorb through the media. After all, media is just a shadow of a form that existed in the past. We may not be so upset by the words we hear from our family member’s mouth. We may not feel so helpless in the light of a political situation that seems so radical — either radically good or radically bad. We know that whatever information we receive through our senses is not ultimately real, just temporarily real. The views and ideas that are formulated to try and represent these sensations are not ultimately real either, they are just symbols of sorts. They are just perceptions — and most often, they are incorrect. They are tools to help us function in daily life, but we often become fooled by them. We mistake them for fixed realities: we mistake the sign “Central Park” for the park itself. We mistake the photo of the “Big Lawn” as the earth itself.
Cultivating this form of detached awareness, through a walk or otherwise, is not the same thing as distancing ourselves from the reality of the problems of the world. It is an act of learning, and one that teaches us to truly listen and be present to the world. Similarly, setting aside the time for this kind of action — one without an agenda — is not a form of being passive, but a way to diffuse our emotional reactivity. So much of our actions are in fact just reactions — responding to what we see with like or dislike, frustration, anger, or self-interest. To go for this kind of walk is to engage with our immediate surroundings, while being aware of our reactions. By doing so, we train ourselves to be more observant of how we impact the world and ourselves.
There are many methods of engaging with the world to improve conditions for all people. And we can engage with the same calm and ease as walking through a park. We can walk through the park of life — possibly one filled with trash or pollutants of all kinds — and yet not feel angry at “who” made the mess. We take responsibility for our own actions, and do our best to help clean up or prevent contamination. We can calmly pick up some trash along the walk, or respectfully yet powerfully communicate to our govt. representative about the importance of environmental protection. With awareness, we would become less trapped by extreme ideas: for example, that the world is ending or that everything is fine. With awareness, we would become less controlled by our emotional habits and impulsive behavior. We would respond in the best way that we could because we would respond from a place of peace. In this way, the reality of any moment cannot imprison us. Rather, with each moment, we are joyful and free.
Because in reality, everything is unreal. And that is wonderful.
David Listen currently resides in New York and continues to be active teaching Chan meditation and Buddhist practice in daily life, as well as writing articles and composing meditative music. He is a Life Mentor, which you can read more about at his website, DavidListen.com. David holds a Bachelor’s Degree of Science from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. You can read his contemplative essay, “Looking For the Buddha,” which was published in the first issue of The Seventh Wave, or his micro-essay “Definitive Belonging: I’m a Part of Totality,” which was published on The Dock.
