Etta: I don’t want to choose suffering on a regular basis but this life, all aspects of it, is fascinating. It is too beautiful.
Mark: I have a hard time communicating that suffering can be beautiful. It’s sort of poetic in a way.
Etta: Lately I have come to realize that cognitive dissonance is my only problem. It’s always about this conflict.
iRealization: Yeah. Everything is in conflict with everything else in the world.
Etta: Otherwise it wouldn’t exist, no?
iRealization: Not that it wouldn’t exist. Any material object, matter, is an inert thing. It is inert. It has no cognitive properties as such. Yet we feel so many things about inert matter. That’s the fundamental conflict. It is an inert thing! How can it cause any kind of experience, you know?
Mark: Do the inert things include the mind, and thoughts, and sensations?
iRealization: Anything. Any objectification is of matter. That’s why they say “What’s the matter?”, when you are feeling sad.
*laughs*
Mark: Is that why?
iRealization: Because they are discussing matter at that point. If they were discussing the real you, there was never a problem. So the matter creates the problem, which is called suffering. But it’s inert. Therefore, where’s the actual suffering coming from?
Mark: Good question.
iRealization: Because it is inert, it doesn’t even know it’s matter. It’s like a shadow – dead.
Mark: Even the reaction that deems it bad – and that I don’t want to experience it – even that reaction is inert, right?
iRealization: The word “matter” is a reaction, no?
Mark: What do you mean with “the word”?
iRealization: We gave it a name called “matter”, which is already apart from its true nature. You create a shadow, you call it “a shadow”. But what is the use of a name when it is right there?
Mark: I mean, even if I don’t call it anything, it still produces suffering, right?
iRealization: Not at all. See if that’s true.
For example, let us say you are the only person on the planet. Whatever is happening, would you call it suffering? If you do, who would you communicate that to?
Mark: I can be secluded and still suffer.
iRealization: When I say that I’m angry, that I'm suffering. What is that exactly? Something happened yesterday and I was angry. Right?
Mark: Yeah.
iRealization: On the other hand, if you don’t call it anything. What exactly is it? Can it form a memory if you don’t give it a name? See, what has actually happened is… Some trigger has occurred and you got angry. But in actuality what is happening is, a thought is arising that says “So and so is not okay”, and that’s what you call anger. But if you just see that as a thought, along with everything else, it rises and falls.
Mark: Yeah. The issue seems to be the identification.
iRealization: The identification can only happen when you are seeing that through the eye of memory. Which is through the concepts. Through the description of “This happened to me”, “That happened to me”. Otherwise nothing happened, you know? There’s nothing to be stored and there is no identity there. If there is a lot of fighting going on in the war, it’s a periphery, you know? One can feel many things but in reality, it’s not happening to you. Yet it’s happening. Is it happening or not happening?
Etta: We’re creating all of it, rather than sitting back, waiting, and seeing what comes, seeing what arises. We typically just go and create a lot of suffering.
iRealization: So if you see the whole universe is made of matter, and is inert, all matter being inert, matter cannot know itself. It doesn’t know it’s matter. Much less that it’s Ukraine, or that it is suffering, or whatever it is. So, what exactly is suffering? And, can suffering be beautiful as you guys mentioned earlier? Are all these things possible? Or are they again more thoughts? More consolation?
Beauty is when there’s absolutely nothing left to say, you know? That state is indescribable. A state of complete and utter absorption. There’s nothing to say. You just stare at it. Like a sunset. Like a sunrise. You can turn to the other person and say “So beautiful!” What a foolish sentence that is.
So, when there’s absolutely nothing to say, the actual is beauty. Because it is complete. It has no room for any kind of description. It is as it is. Showing you in full glory. Right there. What else do you want to say about it?
Artwork - Courtesy of Miriam Espacio
