We spend our lives with the firm conviction that each of us is set apart, existing, acting and thinking. The phenomenon that we are and the phenomena that we observe and are supposedly part of creates an edifice of concrete reality. Our senses seem to indicate that feeling is real, thoughts are real, that the cosmos we inhabit is real. This makes us think and act, for the benefit or the detriment of ourselves and others. The effects we have on ourselves, others and our environment reinforces the strength of such a view.
If we examine closely, perturbation emerges as a given. Not uncertainty which gives rise to our hopes and fears but perturbation. This flux is the nature of both growth and decay. Perturbation is a hallmark of a system that is limited in some way. If there were complete freedom and unity, there would be no such flux and variance. That is in effect what we perhaps are, a state of limited change, and we assume that this circumscription is true reality. Can we deny that everything we are aware of is limited in some way? Perhaps not.
That which is a condition is subsumed by that which is not a condition. We can choose to look at that which is a condition and call it reality or we can choose to approach that which is not a condition. This begs the question, what is a condition? Everything is, from the teapot to the automobile to my body and mind. Not only this, everything and anything that can exist, or not exist from now to forever before and after has to be a condition, a state of limitation, of perturbation. And what is that which is not a condition? Something that forms both the skeletal framework of that which is a condition as well as its boundary and beyond. It therefore appears that that which is not a condition must be an overarching, all encompassing system of incomprehensible magnitude. In the face of such magnitude, can anything we call real actually be reality? Likely not!
In all likelihood, a system of such overarching, incomprehensible magnitude can only be approached and in the movement of this approach is bound to lie perturbation. Perhaps that is what we have to learn as we live our lives. That pain and suffering, change and dissolution are inevitable. From the largest galaxy cluster to the tiniest ant, everything is this flux, this limitation, and in comparison to an overarching system of immense magnitude, barely there and merely insufficiency! True reality might thus be an immense system, beyond the reach of our minds and lives which appear only as inadequacy in the face of absolute magnitude. Does this have to be a morbid realization? Absolutely not! For in approaching magnitude beyond measure, we can discover true joy in limitation. And we can aim to forever keep our sights trained on that which is above and beyond measure. In doing so, not only do we move towards complete freedom, we can live our lives filled with wonder at the magnitude of true reality as well as humility in being allowed to be part of it.