How Assumptions Create the Matrix (aka Samsara)

We are always making assumptions about reality that are not based on any kind of honest investigation of our experience. Take craving for example, we can just assume that this mechanism  is there for our benefit, but do we know this as fact? Do we really know that a life spent chasing desires and trying to avoid anything we deem unpleasant is the best way to live? We could claim “well that is just the way we evolved” as if that settles the issue, but does it? What are we assuming here?

My favorite idea from Buddhism is that we suffer due to ignorance. This ignorance is not due to a lack of knowledge but from assuming things that we don’t actually know to be true (things that don’t hold up when we carefully examine our experience). Samsara refers to the world that is created by our assumptions about reality – it is not real but the suffering we experience because of it is very real.

We are usually completely blind to all of the assumptions we are making about reality. Our whole world is built on these assumptions, and it is usually only when we stop making them that we realize they were there in the first place. We have all been brainwashed into a cult, and the most dangerous cult is the one you don’t realize you are in. We are usually too busy chasing our tails to realize this. As Morpheus in the Matrix says, “…the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the Truth.”