: Conventional society seems to know a lot about trying to escape from or ignoring reality. It seems to want to ignore quite a bit of reality, and gives the impression that permanent happiness, a happiness that is based on things outside of ourselves, is obtainable in an impermanent world. So as far as escape from reality, there are a lot of wrong views in conventional society.
Does such a reality exist in the mind? In order to know the truth we have to start to train the mind so we can observe what is real, and what is the truth. In order to do that, we have to first train our mind to come into the present moment. Then we can observe, like scientists, what is going on in this body and the mind in order to understand the characteristics of existence. As we observe the mind and the body, we start to see things are impermanent. Escaping from reality is forming the view and opinion that we are these impermanent thoughts, we are these impermanent experiences that arise and pass away. So yes, many people escape from reality by forming opinions and views that are not true.
It really depends on what you think is reality. Some people form views and opinions about what people should do in their life. If people don't conform to that view, they will often say that you're escaping from reality, but it's just their reality. So we really want to decide which reality we are. If people would say to me "You are escaping from the real world," I would say, "What is the real world? Is that the Western ideal of what is useful, and what is beneficial?" Actually, we have to know for ourselves the path to happiness and the reality of what true happiness is, not just assume that what society teaches about happiness is real and true and valid.
So what is reality? We have to observe to know what is true. As we build the power of our awareness we start to observe cause and effect. As we observe cause and effect, we start to see for ourselves what brings happiness and what brings suffering. And then we know for ourselves. This is the building of experiential wisdom, so that we don't want to escape from reality when the truth of impermanent things manifests. If we say it should not have passed away, that is escaping from reality, because things are impermanent, and not really ours.
So we have to be careful about who is saying we are escaping from reality, and investigate into what they mean by escaping from reality. Sure, some people do try to escape from the responsibilities of taking care of their body and their mind.
However we have to investigate carefully to see what they mean by this phrase. See if it is in line with what we know to be true from our own investigation into cause and effect within ourselves, such as when we observe the hindrances and start to see that when we have anger, fear, or desire, it brings suffering to the body and mind. Conventional society normally says that if you build a lot of desire, and go out to get what you want, then you will have happiness. If we observe in ourselves when we are compassionate, when we have lovingkindness, when we are generous, we see that we feel happy, we feel good, even though conventional society often says that getting is much better than giving. With investigation, we see for ourselves that giving and unselfish emotions feel a lot better than selfish emotions.