A closer look
Long before The Matrix hit theaters, the 4th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu built an entire mystical framework around the idea that objective reality does not exist. Through the Yogācāra school, he mapped out the "Ālaya-vijñāna," or Storehouse Consciousness—a deep psychological basement where all our karmic seeds are stored. By employing brutal meditation techniques, practitioners realized that the mountains, stars, and people they interacted with were simply luminous projections regurgitated by their own minds.
