by Kimmy dojinyo

For today’s Dharma Talk, I would like to share something I have been thinking a lot about lately: The Purple Pill. Before you get up and leave, no, this Dharma Talk is not brought to you by “big pharma.” This isn’t one of those commercials that interrupts your favorite show every 7 minutes to give a list of side effects without actually discussing what the medicine treats. 

No, the intention for my talk today is to look at how we can prescribe ourselves a solution to some of life’s sufferings through practicing what Buddha taught as the middle way. 

The Purple Pill

This Dharma talk was inspired by the 1999 sci-fi classic: The Matrix. The movie’s premise is based on a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality created by intelligent machines. The main character is Neo. He receives several messages that lead him to a wise teacher, who reveals to him that the world he lives in is a delusion. 

Neo is presented with a choice. 

He is offered a red pill or a blue pill and is told,

“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”

When presented with this choice, what if there could be another option besides the red pill or the blue pill? What if there is a purple pill? Instead of digesting the blue pill that is ignorance and limitations or taking the red pill that is complete renunciation of the material world; what if it was possible to remain a lay person while simultaneously experiencing liberation from the delusion of form? 

I would like to imagine this is similar to what Shakyamuni Buddha discovered upon his enlightenment. After being born into royalty and having all of his desires catered to; sheltered from poverty, disease, old age, and death, he went outside the kingdom’s walls and observed great suffering, which lead him to renunciate his royal lifestyle and eventually moved him to live a life of asceticism. Living in the dangerous jungle and engaging in self-denial with strict physical practices, including extreme fasting. It was not through living a life where all of his desires were met or choosing the path of complete abandonment of the body that Buddha found enlightenment; it was through the middle way.

As Rev. Koyo Kubose of Bright Dawn Center of Oneness writes, “The goal of Buddhism is to live an absolute life in the relative world…or as it has been put, “be in the world but not of the world.” A paradox is when it is difficult to understand how two aspects are related to each other. However, this does not mean that the two things are necessarily contradictory to each other. Wisdom or “Right Understanding” means to have a wide perspective that encompasses different aspects and contexts.” 

Having a wide perspective means seeing beyond things dualistically as right or wrong, good or bad, success or failure.

It’s all a Dream

A saying from one of my teachers is,  

“Keep your head in the clouds 

and your feet on the ground”

What do you think that means? 

I reflect on these words as if they are an old Zen koan. I notice how often I keep my head down, looking towards the ground with tunnel vision, concerned with my last several steps or which direction I am going. I rarely daydream because I fear the unknown. This is not “wisdom” or “Right Understanding.” It is an attachment to the material world and to suffering. While it is important to stay grounded, we also get to keep our imaginations roaring like a hot kiln, constantly fanning our dreams, because this is what molds our reality.

Reflecting on this, I recalled when Kelly shared a Dharma talk that mentioned an ODESZA song called “A Moment Apart.” Kelly described how the song is about an astronaut, alone in space, who hears a mechanical ticking sound that he can’t escape. Eventually, he decides to “fall in love” with the sound and it turns into music. 

We are the creators of our own experience. 

As Willy Wonka puts it,

“There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination”…

“If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.”

Wonka also quotes a poem called Ode from the 1800’s when he says,

“We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams.”

Reality Check 

Just as in with the Buddha’s teachings, art and literature can be tools for awakening to this. They offer a breaking through, creating cracks in the illusion. Moments when the true nature of reality become visible.

Humans live in an age of unprecedented information, and a rising uncertainty about what is true. We have access to more knowledge than any previous generation, and many people feel increasingly controlled by systems we cannot understand. We are connected to billions of people through technology, and experience epidemic levels of loneliness. 

That is where the paradox Rev Kubose was referring to comes back into the narrative, an ongoing battle between light and darkness that has been described in many forms, cosmologically and psychologically

It is the struggle between 

who we are and who we think we should be…

authenticity and conformity…

seeing clearly and accepting blindly…

The Middle Way

In the movie, there is a scene with an individual who wants to go back into the previous state of delusion and forget all about the truth. While at dinner in the simulated reality, he says, “I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious…you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.” 

I felt similar after learning how much of my food is different from what appears on the label and even has harmful ingredients in it. Being aware of how unhealthy some of my favorite foods actually were; a part of me wished I could go back to being ignorant, and another part felt overwhelmed and wanted to stop eating altogether. Finding a middle way meant for me to dream up new ways of making my favorite dishes by deciding whether or not I want to use real or artificial ingredients and being kind to myself, either way. 

Knowledge is bliss!  

We can unite the dreamer and the realist by “being in the world and not of the world.” What this means in everyday Buddhism is that I can still enjoy my meals without having to give up on my dreams. Removing the veil of delusion and stepping into the Pure Land, here and now. 

Rev Koyo offers this, “So, in one’s spiritual journey, one can come to accept oneself as a human being, with all that that entails, and at the same time, constantly work at changing how his humanness is being manifested. This is an on-going process; one never is completely finished.”

Conclusion

I want to close by sharing that this purple pill is not a cure-all for getting out of our discomforts. It isn’t even something different from the red or blue pill. It is both, in their entirety.

Over the next week, I would like to invite each of you to put your feet in the dirt and stare at the clouds for a bit. 

Let this experience we call reality be an easy pill to swallow. 

Namo Amida Butsu.