The Unity Of The Apparent And The Real

Apparent: seemingly real or true, but not necessarily so.
Real/true: never changing.

This is fundamental to our sanity, and to understanding the Dharma, reality, and all our problems. The unity of these two aspects is noting the two at once – the seen and the seeing, the esoteric and the exoteric – and taking no side.

People accustomed to holding ideas want to take sides to show what they know. This is what causes friction with others who are also accustomed to expressing their way of thinking.

In our predictable human life, we perceive things and ideas, and believe them to be real. We become attached or repulsed, and tensions arise; we justify our reactions and hold on to them, thinking we’ve solved our problem, but we find that we’re just reacting to type.

This addiction to the apparent, the seemingly real, is due to the ghost in our mind. Our cherished self condemns us (consciousness) to react to appearances, and it is this that causes all our troubles. This reactive self seems to be so real that we forget the observation of pure consciousness because our actual reality has attached itself to ideas.

When we stop fixating about people or situations, we are liberated from this vicious cycle of existence. Ordinary people take sides and judge. Pure consciousness observes the apparent and harmonises with whatever appears, making the observation consistent and compatible.

We don’t go to the extremes of ideas about existence or non-existence.
That is happiness, as everything is a unity in opposites.