by Tham Poh Peng

Created on: August 01, 2009

A Zen monk came rushing into his master's room, shouting excitedly: 'Master! Master! I've got it! I've gained enlightenment!' The master immediately retorted: 'Will you shut up! You'll wake the whole neighborhood!' The monk replied: 'What?' The master said: 'You've missed it!'

Did the monk experience 'reality' or did he not? The master had floored the monk with an unorthodox stream of statements by rebutting him for making such a din. It was an attempt by the master to test the authenticity of the monk's interpretation of reality, but the latter had unfortunately not been able to grasp the significance of his own experience.

What is reality then? According to the Wikipedia encyclopedia on the internet the word 'reality' includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible.

Let's try to explain reality in simple terms. First, we form our reality by our beliefs. Beliefs are thoughts in the mind, accumulated by years of learning, culture, upbringing, life experience in the world. You can say it is the sum total of all our thoughts as a human being. It is our past, present and future. We exist, therefore reality exists. We cannot conceive of reality if we don't exist. To illustrate: do we know day if there is no night? Do we know what evil is if there is no good?

Do we know reality? The physical world as we know it is made up of building blocks known as atoms and molecules. Scientists have told us that there are still smaller particles known as protons and neutrons, and quarks (considered to be the elementary particles of matter). We are sure that there are still smaller units which science has not discovered yet. We could not see these particles with our naked eyes but we know that they exist because of the disintegration we observe in nature. The manifestation of such events may or may not have occurred in the absence of our consciousness.

Does reality really change? The boy of ten years old is not the same as the man who is twenty five years later in terms of physical appearance, but at the same time they are not different. Here are the facts: first there is the baby being born, next the infant grows into a child and the body changes, biologically and psychologically. The child becomes a teenager, and a dozen years later the teenager turns into an adult of twenty-five years old. All the time the body changes as years are added to it. Here is the sixty-four dollar question: is the boy the same person as the adult

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