The Game Called "You"

Awakening from a deep sleep is like returning from another dimension, a journey through layers of oblivion. But some dreams etch themselves into memory not merely as images, but as an entire fabric of being, a different flesh, a different breath — as if a life lived in a parallel world. In the first moments of clarity, the cottony reality of the dream, where you soared like a bird over Himalayan peaks or haggled in the smoke-and-spice-infused bazaar of Varanasi, feels incomparably more tangible than the cool surface of the pillow and the morning light outside the window. At the juncture of these two realities, a poignant, elusive feeling is born, forcing one with renewed intensity to ask the eternal question: where is the true "self"? The one who felt every gust of wind over the summits, or the one lying in bed, hearing the muffled noise of the city? And what if both are merely phases of a single stream, merely masks, one of which fits the face a little tighter than the other? This confusion on the threshold of worlds, this subtle sensation of a dual reality — is perhaps the closest and most accessible key to comprehending the great Eastern concept of Lila, the divine play, where we are simultaneously the actors, the audience, and the stage itself.

The world as Lila is by no means an assertion that everything around us is "unreal" in the primitive sense of a cardboard backdrop. The assertion is far more subtle, profound, and poignant. It is a metaphor for creation as a spontaneous, self-forgetful, and purposeless act, akin to a dance or a child's play, wholly absorbed in the act of momentary creation. A child building a sandcastle is entirely given over to the process; they know a wave will wash their creation away, but this knowledge does not negate the seriousness of their effort, the fullness of their engagement in the moment of building. Similarly, the Absolute, Brahman, Emptiness "plays" at the universe, donning the masks of countless souls, objects, elements, laws — and each mask, for a time, becomes for It the one and only absolute reality. You, I, this book, the stars overhead — all are characters in a grand performance, staged simultaneously on trillions of stages, in an infinite multitude of dimensions. Illusoriness here lies not in denying existence, but in denying its self-sufficiency, its substantiality independent of the Player. Everything exists, but nothing exists by itself, just as a wave is inseparable from the ocean, a ray of light — from the sun. This thought, so paradoxical for the Western mind, reared on the idea of an individual, self-identical essence, finds precise reflection in the Buddhist concept of "Not-Self" (Anatta), which affirms that neither the body, nor feelings, nor perception, nor mental formations, nor even consciousness contain some immutable, eternal core. All of these are temporary, interdependent processes, a continuous flow with no solid shore.

To feel this on a living, everyday level is sometimes possible on an unusual day, when the habitual course of things cracks. You walk down a familiar street — and suddenly your gaze, usually skimming the surface, catches on something unexpected: your own reflection in a shop window, superimposed onto a soulless mannequin. For a second, a chimera appears — you in a business suit, but with empty, glassy eyes. And in that moment, the unshakable identity of "me" suddenly fractures. Who is that person in the window? Is that me? Or merely an image, a form I habitually consider myself? Or perhaps both the mannequin and I are made of the same "material" of perception, the same substance? The bus drives away, and you remain standing, experiencing a slight but piercing dizziness — the dizziness of freedom. It's a glimpse of understanding that you are not only an actor on the stage, but also, in a deep sense, an audience watching your own performance, and even — in a profound moment of insight — the director himself. However, following the glimpse often comes a shadow of unease, a vague, ancient fear of emptiness. The mind, accustomed to clinging to supports, to a stable "self," feels the ground slipping from under its feet and, in panic, tries to restore the collapsed walls, to return to the familiar prison of identifications.

But what supports this endless performance? What is its "stage," its foundation? Here we approach another, even more complex and thus often misunderstood concept — Shunyata. It is commonly translated as "emptiness," "nothingness," but it is not the emptiness of a cosmic vacuum or an absence of something. It is, if you will, the emptiness of a mirror. A mirror has no image of its own; it is empty of any permanent image, but precisely because of this fundamental emptiness, it is capable of containing any form, reflecting the entire world without distortion. Shunyata is absolute openness, boundless potential, devoid of its own fixed characteristics. It is the fundamental nature of reality, which is neither existent, nor non-existent, nor both simultaneously, nor neither. It eludes any logic, like water slipping from a clenched fist. The Tang dynasty poet Li Bai captured this elusive, inexpressible state with astonishing precision:

The moon illuminates the stream...

Up there, in the heavens — a celestial being,

And in the reflection of the earthly stream —

A second... And of such — countless are they under the Sky.

Here, the moon in the sky and the moon in the water are equally real and equally illusory. Where is the true moon? The question loses its original meaning, giving way to a pure, unmediated experience, in which the very boundary between the source and the reflection, between heaven and earth, between the one who looks and that which is looked upon, disappears. Only a radiant unity remains, where all is interpenetrating and interdependent.

Echoes of this emptiness can be found in everyday absurdity. Have you noticed how sometimes the most acute, all-consuming experience — be it physical pain or all-encompassing joy — crumbles to dust upon close examination? You try to recall yesterday's toothache: your mind knows it was unbearable, you can describe it in words, but the very living, burning substance of the experience is no longer there. It turned out to be empty, lacking self-existence. Or another example: for years you fear an important conversation, replay it in your head, your body responds with stress, cold sweat. But then the moment arrives, the event happens and... dissolves into the past, leaving a pale trace in memory. Where is that all-consuming terror? Was it something self-sustaining, unchanging? No. Its substance, its foundation — is Shunyata. It was like a pattern on water — emerging, playing, and vanishing, not even having fully arisen. It is precisely this transient, essenceless character of all things that evokes in the unprepared mind that devastating fear of emptiness. Clinging to forms, the mind desperately tries to deny their fundamental impermanence, building a prison from its own projections and illusions.

It is Shunyata that is the infinite "field," the foundation upon which Lila unfolds, dances, and plays. Without this empty, yawning foundation, the divine play would instantly turn into a nightmare of frozen, petrified forms. Imagine if a character in a painting wanted to remain forever in one pose, with one expression — it would kill the spirit of art, the very life of the image. Only because the canvas is initially empty can endless stories be painted on it. Only because consciousness, in its deep nature, is empty, has no permanent "self," can thoughts, feelings, images, entire worlds freely arise and disappear within it. The academic Eastern view, particularly within the Buddhist philosophy of the Madhyamaka school, brings this analysis to a virtuosic sharpness. The philosopher Nagarjuna, using impeccable logic, methodically dismantles any possible assertion about reality, any attempt to grasp a support. With exhaustive clarity, he shows that all things and phenomena lack inherent nature. They arise exclusively interdependently, within a vast web of causes and conditions. A table exists because there is wood, a forest, a lumberjack, the idea of a table, a craftsman who embodied it, and countless other factors. Dismantle this set of conditions — and you will not find a "table" as an independent, self-sufficient entity. It is "empty." But this is not a denial of its existence as such, but an assertion of its relative, dependent, conditional being. The entire perceived world is a grand, radiant, multi-layered pattern embroidered on the primordial canvas of Emptiness.

This realization, however, is not an endpoint, not some static state that can be achieved once and for all. It is only the beginning of a new, deeper level of the play itself. Having understood the conventionality of the rules, having peered behind the scenes, the player does not throw the dice and leave the table in disappointment. On the contrary, they gain genuine, unrestricted freedom of movement within the conventions themselves. The fear of mistake, paralyzing the will, gives way to a light, almost artistic attitude towards action, akin to the movement of a dancer who knows the stage is just a stage, and this knowledge allows them to soar. Herein lies the root of "non-doing," wu wei, of which the Taoists speak with such precision. It is not inaction, not apathy, but action devoid of internal tension, flowing from a spontaneous, instantaneous response to the situation, just as water flows around a stone without breaking its fluid nature. A martial arts master does not break his bones dodging a blow; his body, free from rigidity, finds the path of least resistance on its own, empty and therefore incredibly flexible and effective. It acts in full accordance with the principle of "Not-Self" — there is no separate, frightened "self" commanding the limbs; there is only a unified, holistic, and empty response of the entire being to the challenge of the moment, the dance of life with itself.

This realization transforms everyday absurdity into a living field for daily practice. Take, for example, standing in line — a humiliating, boring act, filled with irritation and futile expectation. You physically feel time slowing down, every second weighing on your psyche like a weight. But one can look at it differently, turn it into an act of contemplation. See in it a micro-model of all samsara — a chain of beings linked by common karma, striving towards an illusory goal that, once achieved, will immediately lose its magical gleam. One can go deeper: simply feel the feet firmly planted on the floor, sense the rhythm of breathing, hear individual sounds without weaving them into meaningful melodies. Realize that the "I, who is standing in line and languishing from boredom" is merely a temporary mental construct, assembled from impatience, social conditioning, and momentary discomfort. And then the line ceases to be a personal prison. It becomes an impersonal flow of events, a fluid pattern on the unchanging surface of awareness. Irritation, having arisen, is observed from the side and dissolves, finding no solid object to cling to. This is the small, everyday awakening, the practical taming of the ancient fear of emptiness, skillfully masquerading as ordinary impatience.

The art of the East, in its refined form, has always sought not to be a reflection of the world, but its direct, spontaneous continuation — just as empty and self-sufficient. Chinese monochrome ink painting is not a depiction of a mountain in its external form, but a brilliant attempt to become the mountain, to convey its internal "skeleton" and "breath," its spiritual essence. The artist contemplates long and aimlessly, lets the landscape enter them, merges with it, and then pours it onto silk with one virtuosic, continuous brushstroke, where there is no place for hesitation. The highest mastery lies in the artist's mind being absolutely empty, and the hand moving by itself, as nature itself would move, had it a brush. Here, the true creator is not the individual "self," but Shunyata itself, manifesting through honed skill.

Japanese haiku poetry is not a description of a moment, but the moment itself, snatched from the relentless flow of time and placed within seventeen syllables, as in a precious setting. The great Matsuo Basho captured:

The old pond;

A frog jumps in —

The sound of water.

In this deceptive simplicity — an abyss of meaning. Here there is no author with their personal psychology, ambitions, or judgments, there is only a pure, impersonal event, a link in the endless chain of interdependent origination. The splash is born from silent stillness and returns to stillness, leaving no trace. The stillness is Shunyata itself, and the splash is Lila, instantaneous, self-forgetful, and vanishing immediately. Such perception of reality utterly dissolves fundamental loneliness, for the poet does not observe the pond from the outside; he becomes this splash, this stillness, this old pond. The boundaries between "self" and "not-self" melt, giving way to a single, indivisible being-awareness.

Academic thought sternly warns against the temptation to turn Shunyata itself into a new abstract entity, a new god, a new support. This is the subtlest trap, which Nagarjuna called "the emptiness of emptiness" (shunyata shunyata). Clinging to the very idea of emptiness, elevating it to the rank of absolute truth — this is the same ancient clinging, a subtle, almost elusive egoism of the mind seeking a final foothold. Genuine, living understanding of emptiness must be total and include itself, like a fire that burns its own burning. It dissolves any dogma, any, even the most sublime concept, including the concept of "enlightenment" as a final state.

It is no coincidence that paradoxes (koans) are so popular in Chan Buddhism, which are fundamentally impossible to solve with the logical mind. "What was your original face before your parents were born?" The mind, trying to find an answer, reaches a total impasse, all concepts crumble, and in this moment of complete stoppage, in the rupture of habitual thinking, a direct, unmediated experience of what is may flash. It is by nature inexpressible, for language is a product of duality, but its echoes resonate in the verses of enlightened masters. The Zen master Hanshan conveyed this sensation thus:

My heart is like the autumn moon,

Clear and bright in the serene green pool.

No, comparisons cannot grasp it —

How can I explain it to you?

The moon here is a metaphor for the nature of mind, originally pure and empty, and its reflection in the pool — the temporary, clear, yet selfless phenomena of the world, the entire play of Lila. One cannot point directly to this state; one can only hint, causing the listener's mind to turn from the beaten path into the abyss of living, silent wonder.

In the modern world, with its cult of materialism, hyper-reality, and rigidly fixed identity, these ancient ideas acquire a new, almost therapeutic relevance. A person of Western disposition, raised in the paradigm of dualism, is accustomed to identifying with their job, thoughts, body, consumption, reputation in social networks. From childhood, they learn to build a sturdy fortress of "self," painstakingly erecting walls from achievements, opinions, property, and social connections, desperately defending it from the inevitable blows of fate. Sooner or later, the fortress cracks: illness comes, loss, the collapse of ideals. And then the person finds themselves in a complete vacuum, for their reality, which they considered the only possible one, has collapsed.

The Eastern approach, with its organic knowledge of the illusory and empty nature of this fortress, offers a different, much more flexible strategy — not to build a fortress at all, but to learn to swim in the infinite ocean of change, feeling its current. To be this very ocean. The fear of emptiness here gradually gives way to recognizing it as a creative, fertile beginning, the source of all possibility, not a threat.

The digital world, social networks, have become the brightest example and a ready-made testing ground for observing Lila in its most overt manifestation. This is a simulated universe for practice! People create avatars — their digital "selves," carefully sculpt an idealized image, display selected, retouched pieces of life, fully immersing themselves in the virtual game, forgetting its conventionality. But who truly suffers from the lack of likes or caustic comments? The avatar? No, it's just a set of data, pixels, and algorithms. The one who suffers is the one who unconditionally identified with this mask, mistook it for their true face.

Realizing that a social media profile is not you, but just another, albeit complex, role in the global digital spectacle, gives incredible, liberating freedom. You can continue to play, but you will no longer be wounded by its virtual arrows, for you know that beneath the avatar's mask there is nothing to wound. Transfer this understanding, this inner distance, to "real" life, to your physical body, profession, social role — and you will receive the key to great, unshakable peace. This is the most practical application of "Not-Self" — the ability to fully use the personality, its skills and qualities, without being caught by it, without becoming its hostage.

Thus, the entire journey from naive faith in the world's solidity to a deep, lived understanding of Lila and Shunyata — is by no means a path to nihilism, not a denial of the value of existence, but a path to genuine, unconditioned joy. It is an ascent from the darkness of ignorance not to the light of a new, final truth, but to a clarity capable of containing both darkness and light, preferring neither, seeing in each a necessary manifestation of the whole. The world does not become less bright, less flavorful, less painful because of this. On the contrary, it gains infinite depth and volume. Every form, every event, every, even the most fleeting emotion, begins to be perceived as a unique, momentary, and unrepeatable work of art, performed on the eternal stage of Emptiness.

The fundamental loneliness of "when all is one" loses its stinging, tragic drama and turns into a quiet, confident joy from the awareness of this totality, this all-encompassing unity. You are no longer alone, because you are everything. And at the same time, this "everything" is so empty and transparent that it leaves no traces, creates no burden.

And then even the simplest, routine action — say, washing dishes after evening tea — can become the deepest ritual, an act of meditation. You feel the warmth of the water, the slipperiness of the soap, the smoothness of the porcelain, observe the play of light on the soap bubbles. You see how a plate, being dirty, becomes clean. Dirt arises and disappears. Cleanliness arises and disappears. The one who washes, this feeling "I," arises and disappears with every breath. There is only this endless dance — of water, hands, light, sounds. In this dance, there is no goal of "washing the dishes" as a project to be completed. There is only the dance itself, pure presence in the process. This is Lila in its most intimate, most unpretentious, and therefore most authentic manifestation. The deity, playing at washing dishes, and finding in this simple action the greatest bliss, because for it, for this absolute consciousness, there is no fundamental difference between this moment and the contemplation of eternity. Eternity — here it is, right here, in the iridescent soap bubble about to pop, returning to the state of indistinguishable unity.

This all-pervading dance, however, lacks a center, has no fixed point around which everything revolves. Herein lies the most radical and difficult-to-accept aspect of the entire teaching for the ego. We instinctively seek a fulcrum, a "pilot in the cockpit," some permanent "self" that is the owner of experiences. But what if there is no such pilot? What if consciousness is not a stage with an actor, but an infinite, self-luminous screen upon which images arise and disappear, none of which is the owner of the screen itself? This thought, carried to its logical conclusion, is the essence of the "Not-Self" doctrine. It does not claim that a person does not exist at all — that would be a crude misconception. It points with crystal clarity to the fact that a person exists not as a thing, but as a process, as a conditional and mutable flow of physical and mental elements, devoid of some immutable, eternal core.

Take the simplest mental act — the perception of sound. First, there is silence, the background, Shunyata. Then a physical cause arises — vibration of the air. It reaches the ear, is converted into an electrical impulse. The impulse goes to the brain, processed by complex neural networks. And only then is the subjective experience of "sound" born. But where in this long, impartial chain is that very "I" that hears? Can we point a finger at it? Is it the ear? But the ear is merely flesh and cartilage, a complex biological instrument. Is it the brain? But the brain is simply a complex network of neurons, none of which individually possesses consciousness or selfhood. "Hearing" arises at the junction of all these conditions, like a pattern appearing on the water's surface under a certain wind and light. It happens, but there is no separate, independent "listener" standing behind it as a separate entity. There is simply the holistic, uninterrupted process of hearing itself. The experience is, but the "Experiencer" as a separate entity — is not.

Thus, the Eastern view of reality, having passed through the severe crucible of radical negation — negation of "Self," negation of the self-existent nature of things, negation of Emptiness itself as a concept — ultimately arrives at a triumphant, full-blooded, and unconditional affirmation of life in all its momentary and eternal fullness. This is not a retreat from the world into nirvana as some other state of being, but, on the contrary, a complete, total, and grateful immersion into its very core, into its innermost, pulsating mystery. The world does not need to be denied, overcome, or renounced. It only needs, finally, to be seen correctly. Seen as a dream dreamt by no one, as a magical hallucination without a hallucinator. Seen as a dance in which there is no separate dancer, but only the dance itself. Seen as the great, eternal Play, in which the Player and the Toy, the Creator and the creation, the Mirror and the reflection — are one and the same.

And in this insight, in this irreversible shift of perception, that very "unconditioned joy" is born, of which all mystics and prophets unanimously speak, regardless of tradition. It does not depend on external circumstances, on ups and downs, for its source is not outside, but in the very core of being; it is the very nature of mind, originally pure, clear, and perfect, like a diamond. It is like the sun, which always shines with the same intensity, even when temporarily obscured by thick clouds of worldly cares, anxieties, and sorrows. The task of a person, therefore, is not to create this inner sun, not to attain it as something external, but simply to clear away the clouds, to remove the obstacles — that is, to dissolve the illusions — so that its primordial, uncreated light can pour forth freely, filling every moment of existence. This endless process of "clearing," this constant, tremulous attention, is the essence of the spiritual path — the path of returning home, to that which we are originally and always, even in the darkest moments of oblivion.

To conclude this lengthy meditation, this mental journey from sleep to awakening within the dream itself, one wishes to use images that echo the eternal, cyclical return to oneself.

Imagine that after many years of wandering in the darkness of illusions, you suddenly find your home — unchanged, as before. In the garden, under a quiet rain, stands an old maple, and droplets stream from its leaves. Nothing has changed. And you understand that there is nothing left to seek.

In this seeming ultimate simplicity — lies the entire abyss of final understanding. Home, our true refuge, was always here. It was never lost. Nothing needed to be achieved, nowhere needed to go in search of ephemeral enlightenment. The entire centuries-long spiritual odyssey of humanity boils down to one thing: one simply had to stop wandering in the darkness of one's own projections and clingings and, finally, open one's eyes. And see what was right under one's nose all this time: the rain, the maple, the streaming droplets... and no one looking at it as something separate from themselves.

This final recognition is not an intellectual act. It is a total, physical sensation that the observer and the observed, the external and the internal, the subject and the object — are one field, one radiant fabric of being-awareness. There is no more division into sacred and profane, into spiritual practice and ordinary life. Sweeping the floor, writing a report, talking with a neighbor — all becomes a spontaneous, improvised movement in the eternal dance of Lila. The action is performed, but the doer is absent. There is no one who could say: "I did this." There is only the universe manifesting the act of sweeping, writing, talking. This is the genuine "non-doing" — action performed by the whole, not by a fragment calling itself "I."

Even the most difficult experiences — profound grief, incurable illness — are transformed in the light of this understanding. They are not denied, not declared "unspiritual." They are allowed to be, allowed to be felt with the full depth of one's being. But into the very thick of suffering penetrates a ray of impersonal awareness: "And this, too, is part of Lila. And this, too, is a manifestation of Emptiness." Physical pain remains pain, but the secondary, mental suffering disappears — resistance, the feeling of injustice, the question "why me?". Suffering ceases to be a personal drama and becomes an intense, impersonal experience, part of the constantly changing weather of the mind. And you — are not this weather, you are the entire sky, boundless and pure, in which this weather unfolds.

In social interaction, this deep understanding gives rise to a refined quality — compassion devoid of burnout. Seeing the suffering of another, you do not merge with them emotionally, do not lose boundaries. You see in them the same divine actor who has merely forgotten they are playing a role. Your compassion is not pity, but a deep, silent understanding of their delusion and a sincere desire to help them remember their true nature. But you also, with deep humility, understand that their path is their Lila, their unique script, and you cannot walk it for them. You can only be near, remaining a clear, stable space of awareness, which, by its silent presence, points to the very possibility of freedom.

And the final, most subtle veil — the veil of time — also dissolves. Past and future turn out to be mental constructs arising in the eternal Now. There is no one going from the past into the future. There is only this unchanging Presence, in which all worlds arise and disappear. Birth and death are seen as two doors to the same room — you enter through one and exit through the other, but the room, the very space of awareness, remains unchanged.

What remains? Life itself remains — not as a concept, but as a living, breathing, pulsating fact. The mysterious, indescribable Wonder remains, which shines in every stone, in every blade of grass, in every breath. And this Wonder requires no name, no worship, no understanding. It requires only one thing — to be acknowledged. For you, finally, to recognize yourself in it.

And in this acknowledgment, in this recognition, all seeking ends, because the seeker discovers that they are what they sought, and always have been. The play reaches its climax in the silence that is its source and essence. And in this silence, the only thing that could ever be said resounds: "I am." And even these words are merely an echo, reflected from the walls of eternity.

Awakening from a deep sleep is often like returning from another world. But when insight becomes your only reality, the very necessity for awakening disappears. And then even sleep, and even illusion, and even pain — all are revealed as infinitely diverse, self-forgetful, and perfect forms of the same eternal, radiant, silent Play.