Danny says, ‘Can’t have form without space. Can’t experience light without dark… And any time you try to hold on to one thing, it slips away… It’s like a void… Empty but solid. Right under the surface… I don’t believe in God… Why would God make it like this?’ Amy replies, ‘Well, if God is everything, then we’re God. That means God is just like us. Maybe that’s why everything is the way it is.’ Danny adds, ‘God’s just trying not to feel alone in nothingness.’
Danny’s remarks on being caught within or between somethingness and nothingness, brightness and darkness speak of the duality of existence. That which is empty (hollow) can feel solid (substantial) illusorily due to attachment to form, just as that solid can feel empty illusorily due to attachment to nothingness. Yet, there is the Middle Path that describes reality too. Between somethingness and nothingness is ‘changing-ness’, the constant changing of everything material and mental. (Light is just the absence of dark, and dark the absence of light, although pure light in darkness cannot be seen unless falling on something.)
On perceiving and dealing with the fleeting, as Stonepeace put it, ‘Because everything (physical and mental) changes from moment to moment, we should treasure everything in this moment. Because everything changes from moment to moment, we should not be attached to anything in this moment.’ This is part of the Middle Path too. The key to unhappiness is to not treasure that present, while becoming attached to that in the past (or future). The key to happiness is to treasure that present, while not becoming attached to that in the past (or future).
Amy’s concept of ‘God’ is reminiscent of what Joan Osborne sang in ‘One Of Us’ — ‘What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus. Tryin’ to make his way home?’ Technically, the most common definition of ‘God’ is one who created everything; not ‘everything’ per se. As such a creator is supposed to be perfect, faith in one exactly like us becomes pointless. The question of why a perfect creator would make anything imperfect or anyone dissatisfactory remains unanswered… unless the answer is that such a being does not exist at all.
Related Review:
Some ‘Beef’ With Renunciation’s Misconceptions
https://thedailyenlightenment.com/2023/04/some-beef-with-renunciations-misconceptions
