A Thought: THE MATRIX & BUDDHISM

I’ve watched all series of The Matrix several times. Last night, The Matrix Reloaded was shown again on TV. I didn’t know why after watching it, my head seemed to be filled with lots of inter-connection about things happened in that movie. Until this morning, I’m inspired to write my thought here. I found that the concept in The Matrix, to some extent, is similar to the concept of life according to Buddhism!!!

World Dimension
In The Matrix: they are struggling in the real world, riding a hovercraft ship observing all things that happened in the “programmed” world, called as the matrix. They have transporters to move them from the ship to the matrix; and the other way round, from the matrix to their ship using particular portals such as public phones and any other hard line.

In Buddhism: Buddhism believes in Karma. Depending on the karma, after one death, a creature can be born in any of these 31 (4+1+26) dimensions: hells (there are 4 different hells), 1 universe (our universe, but not necessarily in one place, could be in separate planet in any galaxy; earth is only one out of many other places), and heavens (there are 26 different heavens). Just like in The Matrix, a creature can also “move” from one dimension to any others and returns back again to the initial dimension. This concept in Buddhism is known as karma and punarbhava, a continuous birth and rebirth from one realm to any others before reaching Nirvana, the highest state of eternal happiness where the wheel of rebirth has been stopped.

I remember a short story told by my spiritual teacher:
A couple of husband and wife lived in heaven. One day the husband went out to pick some fruit. But then, he accidentally fell down from the tree, dropped off from heaven to earth. He’s born as a human baby, becoming adult, getting married, having children, getting old and eventually died. He then was born again in heaven, the same heaven as his previous place. His wife suddenly came and asked him, “Where have you been this whole morning? ... I thought you were picking some fruit!”***
I guess the story may give you a clearer idea, right? …that we all also live inside the “matrix”. But of course, we would not be able to move at anytime from one world to any other dimensions like in the movie using transporters and portals.

The rule of life
The matrix is created by the “Architect”. Within the matrix, all evil creatures like vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and demons are the form of system anomalies which are ruled by a programmer called the Merovingian. It is the Oracle the one who guides humans to free from the attachment of the matrix.

In Buddhism, the primary concept of Buddhism is “Life is suffering”. Since the 1st time a human is born, he/she will struggle with his/her craving (tanha), the main cause of all physical and mental suffering. Consequently, controlling our self from such desire leads only to 2 things: good or bad motivation/action. You have good motivation, you are making a good karma; bad motivation bad karma! That’s why where we lead our life depends on our self. It’s we are the one who have power to control our self.
To illustrate: when you lose a competition, you should congratulate the winner and say “I’m happy for you, I will put my effort to improve my self, so wait for me in the next competition”. This is a good thing, good motivation, hence a good karma. However, if you can’t accept this condition for not becoming the first, the winner, the best; you even talk some nasty swearing and do destructive action due to jealousy, you are accumulating your bad karma!

Furthermore, each of us is the “Architect” of our own life. We plan, control, decide what we WANT to do in living our life. Of course, in this process of living, there will be good things (as what our “Oracle” guides and advises us to do) and also bad things (as characteristics programmed by the Merovingian that leads to our own upheaval). Finally, it takes our hard effort to control our self, to free us from any attachment, to liberate us from suffering. Peace!

Acknowledgement: Diyono Puji Harjoko (Pak Puji)