even letting go of conventional stuffs is difficult for me :)

Yesterday I was listening to Discussion at Ivan and Elle’s house in Bangkok Sep 1993, a man voice mentioned "everything is made of something else", such as cars and .... Also, sometime ago I've heard Tam Bach made a question to Achaan about Siri (an AI app on Macbook), and perhaps those conditioned following trail of thoughts:

 

We're studying ultimate realities: namas and rupas so that one day there will be more understanding of whatever appears now, thus letting go of the idea of "someone" or "something" there, because ultimately there's no one, nothing there at all. Understanding is the most important factor, as we're always reminded.

 

At the same time, look at our conventional realities, like our sister Betty said: phone, cars, pens, tables .... At the intellectual level, don't we understand too well that a car is not quite there, it is merely assembled from chassis, body, tire, carburetor ... which are in their turn made from other nuts and bolts..... But still we've developed strong attachment to a "car" that when a tire get flat or a carburetor failed, we got angry and developed many dosa, moha .... Understanding that a car is not that different from a metal toy etc., but still we could not letting go of the idea of it, just like when we were an infant we clung so much to our Teddy bear ...

 

Cars are conventional "mechanical works". Things even got more intricate when it comes to the digital words. I myself used to be an intensive movie fan for example, used the computer intensively to play movies. These kind of conventional realities: computer, movie, actors are (to me, somehow) actually extremely similar to the dhamma. I understand very well below facts:

 - A movie scene is actually not moved, they are just static pixels that appear and disappear instantly very fast

 - A pixel is very short lived, and there're no same pixel, never again (because)

 - A pixel is made by electrical signals touch a specific LCD or LED surface, and no electrical signal are the same

 - A computer is essentially like a car, everything we see through its screen is not real, everything we see there is just a specific expression of the computer RAM, which made of only "binary, i.e 0 and 1" electrical signals

 

But still I've got addicted to computers, movies, etc ..... All kind of lobha, dosa arise when they malfunction, not played well or simply there're power outage. Basically I understand very well that "Ashley Judd" for example, is merely a concept, a figure that streamed to the eyes, each time it got streamed differently using different network, electrical signals (i.e conditions). Physicall this A. Judd figure is also not stored anywhere fixed, bit by bit its foundation pixels are scattered through a maze of virtual and ever-changing storage and such and such, but each time I am happily deceived myself that A. Judd is real and enjoy her movies. Understanding clearly A. Judd is made of instant, fleeting pixels and streamed online but still it's very difficult to stop "finding out" more, spend the whole morning searching for specific A. Judd movie with a lot of lobha, dosa  on and on.... With understanding (of conventional truth), letting go of the idea "something there" is still difficult. Why? May be because the attachments (to sensual pleasure) is so strong, and the attachments also accompanied by "understanding" that if "I" open the "computer" and perform some specific steps, this A. Judd can almost always be re-constructed, re-played, just the same as in life, there're understanding that if I go to specific "place" at specific time, I can almost surely meet Khun Sarah, Khun John or sister Tam Bach ... And in the future it can get worse too. Imagine that some company can now cleverly manufacture look-like-real, feel-like-real Ashley Judd AI robot, may be I will just happily buy one and even have feelings for this robot. And if "someone" hurt "my robot", "I" can get very angry even knowing very well it's just a robot, not even a living thing! 

 

If even with clearer understanding, with attachment so strong that we happily volunteer to be enslaved by sensual pleasures, still we could not let go of almost every "conventional" thing. Then (with lesser understanding of ultimate reality) it must be far more very very difficult to letting go of atta!

original post: https://groups.io/g/dsg/topic/even_letting_go_of/75512982