Explain the meaning of this debate

[Boku_]

I'm reading the eBook Bangkok tattoo and the following hypothetical situation has me baffled


At the beginning of this kalpa, three men traveled together, a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. They were good friends, and when they discussed spiritual matters, they seemed to agree on all points. Only when they turned their gaze on the outer world did their perceptions differ. One day they passed over a mountain ridge to behold a fertile and populated valley below. “How strange,” said the Christian. “In Village One down there the villagers are all fast asleep, whereas in Village Two they are lost in a hideous orgy of sin.” “You are quite wrong,” said the Muslim, “in Village One everyone is in a perpetual state of ecstasy, whereas in Village Two everyone is asleep.” “Idiots,” said the Buddhist. “There is only one village and only one set of villagers. They are dreaming themselves in and out of existence.”

 

[Boku_]

I don't get it

 

[sewerslide.666mg]

" they live we sleep"

 

[relex_author]

They were tripping

 

[Gloomp]

It sounds like a lot of prating. The latter sentence just gives away the author didn't even give a blimey enough to propose a proper thought experiment like college Philosophy 101 does. "They are dreaming themselves in and out of existence." Well thank you for your non-confirmable, immeasurable words. That Monk is a lazy dumbass. There. Solved.

 

[Vastness]

For the Christian, waking consciousness is to live in the shadow of original sin, and to be a human, awake, in the material world that we know, is an inherently sinful state. Those who abstain from the pleasures of the material world - whether they are sleeping or not - and who are not obviously engaged in any spiritual practice with Christ at the centre - appear to be dreamers, and "sleep" is perhaps a metaphor for ignorance of Christ.

For the Muslim, to live in the material world, without knowledge of Islam, and to indulge in material pleasures irreverent of whether they are permissible by Allah, is to be asleep - while those who are either literally asleep, or, perhaps, merely seemingly to be asleep by their abstinence from the pleasures of the material world - but living in a manner which is not in conflict with the strictest of Islamic teachings - are in fact in a state of ecstasy granted by Allah, by virtue of their of their fate in a paradisaical afterlife.

The Buddhist recognises that such distinctions are illusions - there is no difference in any life, or any choice or how to live, or even to be awake or dreaming - all subjective experience is at once reality and a dream.

That would be my interpretation, although it's not clear to me that such an interpretation really requires these 3 religions, specifically, playing with the wording of my interpretation a little would probably allow Christianity and Islam to be switched quite easily, or, indeed, probably most monotheistic or polytheistic or even atheistic religions could be substituted in. The Buddhist viewpoint is the only one that, to me, makes some kind of sense and also is fairly clearly in line with Buddhist interpretations of reality - at least as I understand them. I would agree however that the phrasing is unnecessarily cryptic and vague, and comes across as either a lazy attempt at a thought experiment or just a deliberately obtuse philosophical riddle that is not intended to illustrate any specific point, either as an attempt by the author to feign wisdom, or a mischievous attempt to confuse the reader. That said, I did enjoy trying to interpret it - so perhaps that was the intention, for those who have the patience for such things.