“Gautama … finally realised that he was not seeing the world as it really was …” The meaning of Vipassana, the technique by which the Buddha became enlightened and which was his main teaching for 45 years, is “To see the world as it really is, not only as it seems to be.” It doesn’t mean rejecting the world at the gross, apparent level in which we live and function from day to day, but going beyond that to experience reality at the deepest level, as sub-atomic particles arising and passing away with great rapidity, and through this understanding the impermanent, essenceless, egoless nature of ourselves and the universe of which we are a microcosm. With that understanding, we can overcome the deep-seated mental conditionings which lead to lives of craving and aversion, of unhappiness and disharmony, and live happy, productive lives, good for us and good for others.
I highly recommend a ten-day Vipassana course, in the tradition of my late teacher S N Goenka, to all climate scientists (and everyone else).
Faustino
