10/01 : Why is there something instead of nothing?
Everything in this world is a result of the chain of cause and effect arising out of nothingness. Nothingness in its pure state is really beyond our comprehension So, let's say we are this awareness in this pure nothingness. There's really nothing to be aware about since there is nothing in the first place. When the first thing comes about, say the white background we know as emptiness (the absence of things) appears, that's when awareness becomes aware of the nothingness. That's the first thing in the chain of cause and effect. Then say, your body pops up floating in that emptiness, you can see your hands and feet, and somehow you associate it with your self. A mirror pops up and you see your self so you really start to think the awareness is your body. Then, a floor pops up, then walls, etc...origination by dependence. Everything in the chain of cause and effect around you reinforces the illusion that the awareness is the body of yours. However, the ultimate truth is that you are just the awareness witnessing/experiencing the moment. So, why did awareness create something out of nothing? So that it would come into existence. In other words, the universe just got bored and wanted to experience itself.
When we become attached to the illusion that we are our body and not the awareness that is experiencing the moment, we experience suffering. Why? Because our body gets sick and our body grows old. Our body is not really our body because we don't have total control over it - otherwise, we can tell it not to get sick and not to grow old. Our body is like a rented apartment. We still have to keep it in good condition if we want to have a decent lifestyle although it does not belong to us. However, if the wall cracks a little in our rented apartment, do we become so attached to it that we fuss over it day and night like we would do if it were our own house? Same thing goes with our body. If we are too attached to it, we suffer. It's all in our mind.
After that realization, we can't really do much with it since we are still part of awareness that is experiencing the body of ours. Welcome back to reality. However, now we realize that there are two extremes - complete emptiness in which there is no awareness and a world filled with things. So we take the middle way of realizing that we are the awareness that is emptiness. Then, we become less attached to anything in this world, less emotional and less prone to suffering. That is enlightenment and the subsequent coming back to reality. We go through stages where we have attachments to life, realize that things we are attached to are impermanent, suffer because of it, seek a way to end suffering, find enlightenment through self realization, realize that self is not just our body, realize that suffering/attachment (and everything) are one (so the world is perfect), and finally return to the real world where there is attachment but we can control suffering through less attachment (or to those that are important only) because of the realization.
Our cells die at each moment and new ones are regenerated. Same applies to the pathways in our brains. So we are reincarnated at each moment as we are never exactly the same person with each passing moment. Were we the same person as we were before we changed into our current self? Were we the same person before we experienced a certain something in life which changed our perspective of life, our religion, or our philosophy?
It doesn't always take such life changing moments if we care to notice the little differences in our body and all around us as time passes. We are reborn at each moment and at each moment, we can make a decision that will affect how we will be reincarnated in the next. From this perspective, each of our decision results in karma or cause and effect, which triggers what will happen the next moment as a result of our actions. If we link up the nodes of each decisions we make at each moment, it becomes the chain of cause and effect, also known as "karma" (nothing mystical about it), of our life. Once we realize this, we can stop mental suffering by not being attached to our decisions. The past is gone and the future has not even begun yet. The ultimate truth is right here right now at this very moment.
