Bubble-lake

[Daniel Singer]

In a message dated 97-10-12 11:31:46 EDT, you write:

<<
 To me, an aphoristic way to present Shankara's concept of reality to
 someone is as follows (I first read it somewhere, and can't find the
 quote anymore):

      Brahman is real.
      The world is unreal.
      The world is Brahman.

 Which makes the world both real and unreal outside the aphorism.

 --Greg >>

One formulation I heard and found useful is the bubble on the lake
analogy....we are likened to a bubble on a lake, full and robust with a false
sense of autonomy, reflecting colors from our bubble dome,sliding now and
then across the lake with  pride and commmitment to our "bubble-hood"; and
yet, all along we are merely the lake. We appear and we  disappear, (birth
and death) yet, from the point of view of "lake-hood, which we are, we
neither appeared nor disappeared,(no birth, no death) for we are constantly
"lake". To come to realize we are "lake" regardless of the "bubble-ness" that
iappears to be  our present condition is our awakening.

Daniel