When we drink water, there is sensation of drinking. What if due to kamma, we are conditioned to experience this drinking sensation. Perhaps there is only a belief, although a very very strong one, that "we are drinking water from that bottle." It may be an illusion, no?
On the other hand, the "sensation of drinking" cannot be disproved because it is experienced (i.e. a billion people cannot convince me that there no sensation), but the contents of that sensation can be disproved (we can be dreaming of drinking, or awake and drinking), so beliefs can be changed. We see things, and believe that we see though our eyes, signs are processed in our brains due to the contact of photons on retina, etc. These are still only beliefs..., concepts.
Perhaps it doesn't matter at all if there really is the world out there or not.
As long as the experiences, not even the contents, have the characteristics of impermanent, stressful, not-self, they are simply samsara.
I am not trying to say that there is no physical world out there, that there is no fingers that are typing on the keyboard. What I try to say is that they cannot be proven to exist without the assumption that there "is" physical world in the first place. They can only be believed to exist.
Go a bit deeper...there is a catch
There is a sensation of "being". No doubt about it. Nobody can disprove that there is no experience of this "being", in whatever form. However, just as sight, sound, smell, etc, the sense of "being" comes and goes. The problem is that the believe in "being" is even stronger than the believe in the existence of the "world out there" (since it can be convinced that the world is an illusion or a dream; some people think life is a dream and a dream is life!!). As the sense of "being" is directly experienced, people across the span of time have no doubt about its existence and that it is indeed this"being" who do things, control things, experience things, aware of things.
But if there really is any "being" as in a soul or a self, why does it come and go? How does "being" be experienced at all? Not suggesting that there is a universal awareness or something, but by investigating the sensations and this "being" perhaps one will know its slippery true nature as impermanent, stressful, not-self, simply a conditioned thing arising due to ignorance, and ......may be ".." can be experienced (not jhanas), which is even stronger than any other experiences, and the world of samsara as we know it may be turned upside down, evaporated into stream of ever changing consciousness, and the existence or no existence of the universe rendered meaningless :)
Just a thought.
I am not trying to say that there is no physical world out there, that there is no fingers that are typing on the keyboard. What I try to say is that they cannot be proven to exist without the assumption that there "is" physical world in the first place. They can only be believed to exist.
Go a bit deeper...there is a catch
There is a sensation of "being". No doubt about it. Nobody can disprove that there is no experience of this "being", in whatever form. However, just as sight, sound, smell, etc, the sense of "being" comes and goes. The problem is that the believe in "being" is even stronger than the believe in the existence of the "world out there" (since it can be convinced that the world is an illusion or a dream; some people think life is a dream and a dream is life!!). As the sense of "being" is directly experienced, people across the span of time have no doubt about its existence and that it is indeed this"being" who do things, control things, experience things, aware of things.
But if there really is any "being" as in a soul or a self, why does it come and go? How does "being" be experienced at all? Not suggesting that there is a universal awareness or something, but by investigating the sensations and this "being" perhaps one will know its slippery true nature as impermanent, stressful, not-self, simply a conditioned thing arising due to ignorance, and ......may be ".." can be experienced (not jhanas), which is even stronger than any other experiences, and the world of samsara as we know it may be turned upside down, evaporated into stream of ever changing consciousness, and the existence or no existence of the universe rendered meaningless :)
Just a thought.
