From Samsara to Simulation: Escaping Cycles of Entrapment
- dingirfecho
- 4 minutes ago
- 2 min read
“The desert of the real itself.” — Jean Baudrillard
In our recent conversation with Lama Sherab and Lama Jillian, we explored the strange resonance between Buddhist Dharma and the postmodern landscapes of hyperreality.
What does it mean to live in a world of simulacra, where images no longer represent anything but themselves? And how might Dharma offer an escape route through compassion, awareness, and liberation?
Simulacra, Dharma, and the Net of Illusion
Baudrillard reminds us:
“With each copy, there’s a degradation of the real until we are divorced entirely from the real, living in a world that bears no relation to its origin.”
Buddhist texts diagnosed this long ago. The Mayājāla Tantra (“Net of Illusion”) describes beings ensnared by projections, unable to distinguish appearance from reality.
Yet Buddhism denies there was ever an “original” to be degraded. As Nagarjuna wrote:
“All is like a mirage, a dream, a reflection. So should one regard all conditioned things.”— Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 7:34
While Baudrillard laments the collapse of reference, Buddhadharma sees illusion as primordial — samsara itself is simulation without origin.
The Desert of the Real
Here Mark Fisher speaks:
“Capitalist realism… is not the conviction that capitalism is right, but the perception that it is the only viable system.”
This is samsaric conditioning in late modern form: mistaking the prison for the only possible world.
In Buddhist terms, this corresponds to the three sufferings:
The suffering of suffering — pain upon pain.
The suffering of change — pleasures that decay.
All-pervasive suffering — the very instability of the aggregates.
Baudrillard calls this the desert of the real.The Buddha names it dukkha.
Paths of Liberation
Unlike Baudrillard or Fisher, Dharma insists on escape routes:
Śrāvakayāna (Pratimokṣa): renunciation of the unreal.
Mahayana: turning outward, placing the liberation of others first.
Vajrayana: transformation, using even the poisons of hyperreality as fuel.
Sahajayana: direct recognition of emptiness and appearance as co-emergent.
“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”— Heart Sutra
Pure Lands, in this frame, are consensual hyperrealities: illusions consciously created not to entrap but to liberate.
Escaping the Iron Prison
When asked what first step we can take, Lama Sherab replied with startling simplicity:
“Turn to the other as soon as possible. Put others first. Love and compassion are the only escape routes from the cycle of illusion.”
If Baudrillard strands us in endless copies and Fisher traps us in capitalist realism, Dharma offers a key: compassion, the radical gesture that collapses the illusion of separation.
Toward the Art of Escape
This conversation is only the beginning. In our next session, we turn to:
“The Machinery of Suffering and the Art of Escape.”
For now, let us close with the Buddha’s own words:
“All conditioned things are impermanent. Work out your liberation with diligence.”— Mahāparinibbāna Sutta
From samsara to simulation, from illusion to liberation — the path begins when we dare to see through the copies, the distortions, the suffering, and step toward the real that was never there.
✨ Published as part of our ongoing series: The Tantric Engine of Hyperstitional Dharma
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