I used to watch videos of Jiddu Krishnamurti, Chogyam Trungpa and the like, and something JK touched on in one of his last talks was that "Creation is something that is most holy; that's the most sacred thing in life". CT talked about "basic goodness" which went over my head, and Sadhguru talked about life being a "miracle" if I recall correctly. Enlightened or not, these people do take the claim for being so through their actions, although they can be quite cheeky about it.

What I find curious about this is the context of escaping suffering. JK in particular is a good example, he had many talks on escaping suffering, spoke of how horrible things happen in the world, war, children dying, etc. Yet in the end he calls creation sacred.

Which leads me to my question, which is not practical per se, but more of an intellectual curiosity: How could life or existence possibly be considered sacred or good? I admit the curiosity arises from a hope that life could be considered truly good, I crave that encouragement. But I feel to the contrary.

There are obvious points of violence, war, injustice, horrendous acts, etc., that make life seem very bad. But more relevant to this question than that kind of pain, there is unknowing. I’m here writing this, and I have no idea how I am. How do I exist? How am I here? It makes no sense. Whether I really am here or not according to the Dharma is also irrelevant. It *feels* like I’m here. Other people don’t feel like they’re in this body, but I do. And here in this body, there is a base level of confusion which is hard to describe.

It's not confusion from unknowing about the future, though that does also seem unfair in a way. I suppose it's more like "how did I get here?". Either I wasn't here before, and I suddenly was, or I was here before, but I don't remember. To put it harshly, both of those possibilities seem evil. To most people that probably sounds weird, but I would posit that everyone feels this way and doesn't realize it.

I'm trying to convey the point without seeming plain old pessimistic. I enjoy my life, although this whole Buddhism thing did take the reigns of my neuroticism and go a bit wild. Life has so much beauty. I have so many beautiful memories that I can't believe I was fortunate enough to experience, and I continue to shape my environment to invite the richness of adventure and love into my life as much as possible.

But in the face of even the most beautiful experience, though sometimes hidden it is faintly there, the confusion, the unknowing, the seeming impossibility of the fact that I am somehow here, without any true understanding of the context of my being. Even if it is possible to supposedly dissolve that confusion, the confusion existed in the first place. Whatever made it exist, however it came into existence, that process surely seems evil. How could that be sacred? How could that be good?

Any musings are appreciated
 

Sacred does not mean good. Sacred is it's own word. 

In the west we imagine a divine being that might be so good it would prevent all wars before they occured. A deity who cures every illness and pacifys every pain. 

We could also imagine instead a god that contains all possibilities, including war and violence and horror. When we envision such an entity I think it becomes completely obvious that this is a very different kind of thing. 

The first God is our father, the second is our lover. The first God is for children who need to be told how to behave. The second God is for adults who need to risk failure in order to grow. 

Without war, without pain, without suffering there is no growth.  

The sacred is not an idyllic paradise but the possibility of utter vulnerability in an utterly unknowable world. 

​​​​​​​The sacred is not the god realms, it is a universe that includes the hell realms and the human, that oh so crucial human experience, the most sacred of all the realms, the one realm in which at last one good decision can finally be made. 

Human minds love to place a value on things. This is the primary source of suffering. as in, "I want more of that good thing - go get it!" or "I want less of that bad thing - get away from it!" 

​​​​​​​There's a really big lesson to be taken from this and it can be applied to your question, Mikey. 

Answer to your question lies in this practice we all do here You will get the answer if you keep on keeping on observing the mind. 

You simply have to see directly how this "reality" of mine gets created by the mind. Only way is to keep examining the mind stream, one after the other, they rise and pass away ... .... keep at it  

I can tell you how deep the rabbit hole goes but that will mean absolutely nothing to you. It will not free you from anything. You must see it for yourself. Then you join all the Krishnamurtis of the world and tell us your view on "this"  

​​​​​​​Best wishes! 

Beautiful thread

Nothing makes sense in the physical world unless you understand it from a spiritual persepctive.

If you believe we have one life, limited to a physical existnece as a biological organism, your understanding will necessarily be limited.

If you believe you are non-physical consciousness that exists outside of time and space, you might be able to accept that your understanding will change when you return to the non-physical realm in which we dwell before and after our physical existence on earth.

People incarnate for all sorts of reasons. Some do it to have the experience of being a materialist atheist - so my advice is don't worry too much about it one way or the other.

How?  Created by a higher power; unknowable purpose beyond human conception or perception; a miraculous level of complexity and function - think atoms to molecules to cells to tissues to an autonomously functioning organism, which has the potential to evolve its own conciousness through experience, meditation, etc; the mysteries of birth and death (think NDEs); love, spiritual experience (visions, psychedelics, dreams..), ...

Sure, all kinds of fucked up things also happen on Earth, but within the context above. All of which is functionally hypothetical and comes down to the individual decide for themselves, hence humanities many philosophical tracks, nihilism, atheism, materialism, etc.

IMO the best and perhaps only "evidence for sacredness" occurs in direct personal experience, beyond conceptual and intellectual reasoning and rationalization.  In a naked glimpse of the ultimate unity and perceptual perfection of direct present moment experience, a deeper sacred essence of life and mind becomes hard to deny, despite the many sufferings of life that might point to the contrary.  Such that suffering and sacredness form something of a paradox..

Edit: It seems like your question was more along the lines of "why is there perceptual ignorance?" - which in brief I would say: to keep us engaged in the simulation (lol - no fun knowing all the answers from the beginning), or from a Buddhist perspective: to give us something to do, i.e. something to transcend.  

​​​​​​​Buddhism frames the overcoming of ignorance as the core goal of life but personally I see it as more of a side quest - that can be incredibly helpful and productive but is nevertheless debatable as being the core function and goal of human existence, at least in the black and white presentation of the wheel of samsara.  Surely there is meaning in a life well lived outside the dharma beyond just "whoops, another time 'round the wheel" ?   /digression.

The buddha cautioned against pondering cosmology etc, but he did say something when pressed that might be relevant. He was asked about the early universe and the origin of ignorance and related a story about a "flavor moon". Probably just a bad translation but the gist of it was that in the early universe when a new cycle began, the first nervous systems capable of contact came in contact with the first form of sensory information and thought "mmm, tasty!" and then wanted more. Because there was fundamental ignorance of suffering at that point, grasping and clinging caused the universe as we know it to roar into existence and just keep going.  That creation wasn't evil, it wasn't good, it was just due to ignorance of dependent origination and the nature of suffering etc.

Thankfully we can learn the links of dependent origination, trace backwards to contact and valence etc, and see for ourselves why that original "mistake" did what it does.