Have you ever wondered about how monotonous our human life can be, living day to day? We start and end our days with about the same kind of mundane tasks and activities, and sometimes, we will think about our true purpose in this mundane world and even let our thoughts linger on things like the afterlife and whether there is anything abstract beyond this world of existence.
Why do we exist in this mundane world? Is there any connection between the mundane world vs non-mundane sphere?
Let’s explore more below.
What is Mundane World?
Our mundane world is a three-dimensional world where everything looks real and solid but in reality, this world is all illusionary and temporary in phenomena.
Whenever any human comes onto this earth, this daily living is a mundane world of existence where everything is physical in activities along with the hive activities of celebrations and festivals.
Our mundane world is full of pleasurable, fun games and excursions as well as fine dining and cultural shows, including the ever-interesting romantic relationships with opposite partners.
As humans are so engrossed in all these earthly activities as well as electronic gadgets, mostly with great joy while indulging such mundane things, they become gradually attached to all these mundane activities. Upon attachment to all these external factors or things, we become slaves to this illusionary world of pleasure and fun.
However, nothing is free and humans then start to realize upon enjoying any kind of pleasurable activities and fun games or excursions come along with painful experiences and agony of great exposures. Many would then treat these setbacks as part and parcel of living in this world.
And it is only through years and years of hardships and painful sorrows of exposure, along with deep contemplations and meditation would then make one suddenly realize that there is a far better sphere of living than this sorrowful mundane life.
Also read: Do We Need Prayer Beads for Chanting?
The Catch of the Mundane World
At a glance, the Earth world seems like a beautiful place to live in forever. The neverending entertainment, the exciting challenges it presents, the romantic aspects, the scenic views, the monetary wealth, the power to be famous or important person…there is so much to see and do and absorb.
However, behind every beauty also lies the downside. Our mundane world is never free from epidemics, terminal illnesses, natural disasters such as tsunamis, earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, droughts and famines.
Other disastrous happenings in the case of our economies include the time of inflations, recessions and depressions, where humans suffer the woes of shortage of food, lack of financial spending and lastly starvation. All these unfortunate incidences of our mundane world are part and parcel way of living for where there is fun and joy, there will also come along the woes of suffering and painful encounters of living.
Experiencing The Mundane World With Five Sensual Desires
Then again, the only reason every human coming into this mundane world is able to taste and feel the ecstasy of these mundane activities is due to the fact that each human is born with a mind and five senses’ desires. And it is these five senses’ desires and the mind that create an atmosphere of Becoming, thus causing attachment to set into our life with endless woes of suffering.
It is ironic that without all these five sensual desires, this sensual world is then void and there will be nothing left experiencing with the absence of these five senses. From a different perspective, it is truly remarkable that if a person having all these five senses’ desires is able to train and master the art of combining them all to become one sense, then one has achieved liberation and attained a higher stage of enlightenment.
This is the simile of a dirty pond of water of lotus being able to have lotus plants emerge as beautiful blooms of lotus flowers rising above the polluted water. In much the same way, our polluted five senses can be retrained and prefiltered into a purer stage of development than just merely treating all these five senses as merely tools for sensual pleasures of enjoyment.
Emergence of Cults, Sects and Black Magic
Today, our mundane world of living is becoming more and more sophisticated with all kinds of spells and black magic. Sects and cult groups keep mushrooming all over the place, offering fast and good cultivation results when nothing in this mundane world could produce any fast and rapid successful attainment of cultivation except through our own strong determination, patience, tolerance, endurance and perseverance, all only reflected through our lifelong process of spiritual training.
Sadly, our modern generation of people is full of impatience, intolerance, lack of endurance and easily despair in any undertakings, thus easily fall victim to all these sect and cult groups. The only way to overcome any allurement to these unbeneficial groups is to remain steadfast in avoiding curiosity, cheap and rapid attainment of spirituality, as well as avoiding going for the easy way to do anything in our life.
Only through years and years of hardships and suffering in toiling our life do we really come to a sudden realization one day, that life is always full of impermanency and illusions. Once we have caught hold of this golden concept, only then will we begin our realization of commencing our spiritual training and cultivation as soon as possible to stop these mental woes.
Nobody in this world would ever come to contemplations of sudden realization nor the mindfulness of the mundane vs nonmundane worlds. Once we have come to this stage of the need to start exploring our spiritual training and cultivation, then we are on the correct path towards gaining purity of mind, heart and body. On this virtuous path, we will then begin to step into the journey towards the non-mundane world of existence.
What Is The Non-Mundane World of Existence?
In our non-mundane world of existence (also known as “lokuttara“, supermundane, supramundane), everything is relative and beyond the true reality of living.
Dimension is limitless.
Time is motionless.
Space is infinite.
Life itself is always peaceful, serene and vibrant in our mind, heart and body.
An inner joy is always prevailing in the nonmundane atmosphere.
No more worrisome of the mundane activities, no more restlessness of any sudden changes in worldly phenomena. A constant bliss of happiness and life is full of contentment and joyful feeling. Such is the lokuttara atmosphere of entering into the realm of immundane world of existence.
When we begin the virtuous path of cultivation, we will be fully aware that constant chanting of sutras and mantras is necessary to upkeep our calm mind, heart and body as well as partaking some vegetarian diets. These have to go along with listening to good golden Dhamma sermons plus contemplations, which will then strengthen our divinity of purity on our mind, heart and body.
After decades of training and cultivation, we will then come to a sudden reflection of inner peace within our heart and equanimity in our mind. We are now entering into the realm of the non-mundane world, where everything is mobile, flexible and elastic. There is no boundary or restrictions since bad can become good and vice versa.
Journeying From The Mundane World Into The Non-Mundane World
Indeed, it is a common tendency for everyone to undergo any form of the mundane world of existence, for this is the basic path before one could uplift oneself towards a higher form of realization into stepping towards the realm of the non-mundane world.
In other words, the mundane world is actually a school of training for everyone to polish up our crude mentality and egoistic mind into one of a more refined mental culture and wiser in thought. This will then gradually heighten our consciousness to intertwine with our subconscious mind to attain a complete and successful achievement of realization.
When we finally understand that the mundane world serves only as a stepping stone and that our ultimate goal is to cross to the non-mundane sphere towards emancipation of Nibbanaship, only then will we acknowledge the importance of properly cultivating our spirituality in life.