It is the Tao

“He, like everyone else, […] is exactly where, exactly what, exactly when he is meant to be. It is the Tao.”

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read William Gibson’s All Tomorrow’s Parties but that line didn’t hit me until I came across it today. Timing, right? American democracy on the ropes. Millions dead/dying from a global pandemic. The planet gasping for breath. And here I am, exactly where/what/when I was meant to be. Seriously, this is the most peaceful I’ve felt in months.

700 Days

I started meditating in 2008 but didn’t make it a regular (daily) part of my life until November 30, 2014. At least that is the date I started keeping track. Since then — as noted here previously — I have missed just two days, for a total of 1,343 days on the cushion. Today’s practice was 700 days without missing.

I sit for either 30 minutes or 45 minutes depending on what’s going on. I am a firm believer in making meditation a daily part of one’s life, if only 10 minutes.

I hope to share “1,000 Days” with you next year.

Fear Hologram Projector

The brain has the ability to generate vivid, life-like images and scenes. It does this seemingly on its own. These scenes can appear in one’s consciousness at any moment and they can be nearly indistinguishable from reality (‘out there’ as opposed to ‘in your head’). These thoughts, in my experience, are mostly beyond ‘our’ control. They happen to us. And while we can’t prevent them, we can — with practice — observe them. See them for what they are. The analogy that best captures this for me is a Fear Hologram Projector.

“Fear” because the scenarios that trouble me most involve fear and worry and anxiety. “Hologram” because these little mental vignettes are so incredibly real. I don’t know why the brain (some brains) persists in creating these but the brain in my head pulls from a lifetime of images and situations and mashes them up with the most negative of emotions and ideas.

It’s like walking down one of the endless passages in my brain and suddenly finding myself in one of these holograms. And the more mental attention I give it, the sharper and more detailed it seems. The hologram seems to need the energy of my attention to project. The fear hologram can loop endlessly for days or weeks. Or longer.

The brain can, of course, create a more positive, pleasant scenario. We like to imagine good and happy things happening. It would seem to be just as easy to create that kind of hologram as the awful kind. If ‘I’ am going to imagine some future, why wouldn’t I choose to something pleasant? The only answer I can come up with is I don’t get to choose. These mostly just happen. They come unbidden.

How do we turn off the Fear Hologram Projector?

Well, we can’t turn it off until we recognize what’s happening. We can’t see the projector when we’re in the middle of the hologram loop. The key here is probably mindfulness. Seeing what is really occurring. Not in your head but in the real, objective world around you (if you believe in such a thing). We might think of this as “experiential reality.” What we see, hear, touch, smell, taste.

When I find myself trapped in a fear hologram, it feels dark, like a movie theater. The images on the screen are more vivid in a darkened theater. And I can’t see the projector because I don’t know to look for it, or where to look.

But if I can be mindful enough to recognize I’m in a hologram — something generated by a (I choose not to say ‘my’) mind — I can bring up the house lights of my awareness! And in that instant I can see that the images are not real. They’re brain stuff. Stuff ‘I’ didn’t choose. Under the bright light of my awareness, the hologram images fade and as my awareness stops powering the projector, the images disappear. My belief, my buy-in is necessary for the hologram to exist.

I’m reminded of lines from my reading about Buddhism and Taoism.

“Am I conscious now? It troubles me that I seem so often to be unconscious. I wonder what this unconsciousness is. I cannot believe I spend most of my life in a kind of darkness. Surely that cannot be so. Yet every time I ask the question it feels as though I am waking up, or that a light is switching on.” – Ten Zen Questions

“Belief is at best an educated, informed conjecture about Reality. In contrast, seeing — raw, direct, unadulterated experience — is the direct perception of Reality Itself. […] Base your actions on what you see, rather than on what you think.” – Buddhism Plain and Simple

The bad news: our brains (okay, fuck it! My brain) have an endless capacity for materializing FHP’s (Fear Hologram Projectors), twenty-four/seven. And a lifetime of material from which to create the loops. Access to all our fears and anxieties.

The good news: it’s pretty easy to hit the house lights, spot the projector and pull the attention plug. If we can stay mindful. Of course, mindfulness doesn’t necessarily mean a state of meditative bliss. If you’re rocketing down a black ski slope; lining up for a night landing on an aircraft carrier; or in the middle of brain surgery… you’re probably not trapped on some mental fear loop. And lots of daily, less challenging tasks, can help us stay in the moment. But the mind never stops. You can hit the house lights and pull the plug on the fear projector… and find yourself back in some anxious future 30 seconds later. And this can repeat over and over, day and night.

At the risk of oversimplifying, I am either ‘awake’ or not-awake. Not-awake can take several forms, of course. There the subconscious which is probably what I’ve been talking about. How frustrating that it handles all of those life and death tasks (breathing, heart, etc) without any help from the conscious me…. and still finds time to gin up endless fear and anxiety scenarios.

Then there are dreams — which tend to be more real than the Fear Holograms — but there’s nothing we can do about those. Fortunately, mine seem to fade quickly upon awakening. And I’ve read that we also experience unconsciousness most nights. Dreamless sleep. Would like to have more of that.

I expect to be reaching for the switch to the house lights for the rest of my life. Endlessly pulling the plug on the FHP. But I find some comfort in the belief that “Thoughts think themselves.” I don’t control them. That’s the subconscious, forever and always.

And I have the cushion. Meditation. Observing the mind, allowing it to become quieter (rarely quiet). Awakening, if only for a moment.

Comfortable with Emptiness

I came across the following eight or nine years ago on a blog called Beyond Karma. The title of the post was “Cease to Cherish Opinion” and the line that has stuck with me is: “Do not seek the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.” You can and will have opinions, of course… but hold them lightly. Don’t cherish them. At least that’s been my understanding. But the “Do not seek the truth” part has always puzzled me. Why wouldn’t you want to seek the truth? Because (I think) “truth” is a concept. A word we’ll come back to in a minute.

“Rely only on direct experience. It may feel little uncomfortable to rely only direct experience, because what do we really know from direct experience? If you go into it, there isn’t much we can be sure of. “I exist,” there is Awareness, and all experience is in the Now. That’s about it.”

“Get comfortable with the emptiness of no beliefs, no ideas, no concepts, no knowing, no desires, no anticipation, no system, and no future.”

The notion of “emptiness” comes up a lot in Buddhism and Taoism. But what does it mean to to have no beliefs, no ideas, and all the rest. I’ve read that last sentence so many times the words lost all meaning and became just sounds coming out of my mouth. So I looked up the definitions.

Belief – an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
Doesn’t sound all that iron-clad, does it. “I’m not certain, but I believe…” Okay, I can sorta see no beliefs.

Idea – a thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action; the aim or purpose.
A “possible course of action” isn’t the sort of thing you can take to the bank, is it. And who hasn’t admitted to being “fresh out of ideas.” Sure. No ideas.

Concept – an abstract idea; a general notion.
I’m thinking I could go for a while without a concept. I thought an ‘idea’ seemed a little ‘abstract’ so an ‘abstract idea’ is fuzzy enough to put down for a bit.

Knowing – be aware of through observation, inquiry, or information.
To know something through “inquiry or information” doesn’t seem that rock solid. We get bad information all the time. But isn’t observation as good as it gets, reliance-wise? David Blaine says no. Our powers of observation aren’t really that powerful. I can get comfortable with no knowing.

Desire – a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.
This one sounds easy to give up but we all want things to be the way we want them to be. Even after they aren’t, if you know what I mean. But desire feels like an emergent property to me. I don’t decide to desire. Desire just is. From out of nowhere (probably the brain). I’d be happy to relinquish desire if someone can tell me how.

Anticipation – the action of anticipating something; expectation or prediction.
This is sort of a ground ball. Maybe. Anticipation must be of a future event or time but the anticipating can only happen now. The future is, after all, imaginary. Not real. Not yet. If I’m anticipating something — even something very pleasant — I’m missing out on the here and now which is the only real time. So let’s “be in the moment” and no anticipation.

System – set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole, in particular.
This one has me stumped. What would it mean to be comfortable with no system? And why would we want to? If I had to guess, this has something to do with spontaneity. Don’t plan, just wait and see what happens.

Future – the time or a period of time following the moment of speaking or writing; time regarded as still to come.
Did we cover this with anticipation? The future only exists in my head. Mind stuff. Sure, I can think about the future but I can only do that thinking in this moment. Now. Put me down for no future.

So we’re “comfortable with the emptiness of no beliefs, no ideas, no concepts, no knowing, no desires, no anticipation, no system, and no future.” What is this state of being? What could be happening?

I could hear a bird singing. I could feel the sun on my face. I could smell that first delicious whiff of a double espresso.

Seems to me the one thing beliefs and ideas and concepts and all the rest have in common is thinking. Thoughts. But no thinking is required for most of the really good stuff. I’m not sure it’s possible to intentionally stop thinking but we do experience moments where the mind becomes still and focused. Jumping the boat’s wake at 40mph is something you do (not me but you, probably) without thinking. The guitarist completely in the groove, playing that song she’s practiced a thousand times. Those moments in deep meditation when the chattering voice in your head becomes silent for just a moment. Emptiness filled with a special kind of awareness, perhaps.

Dreams of stuff that never happened

The subject of memory comes up a lot in my reading. Cognitive science; philosophy; Buddhism and Taoism. Eventually they all get around to talking about the sense of self. That feeling of “I” that almost everyone experiences. Memory seems to be the glue that holds the self together throughout the years. I few nights ago I was reminded there are two types of memory (perhaps more, but two that I’m aware of).

I was going to call the first — and most common — “real memory.” But memories don’t seem as real to me as they once did. I considered “Memories of Stuff that Probably Happened,” but that’s a mouthful. Let’s call these Accessible Memories. I’m sure people who study this kind of stuff have a name for these, I just don’t know what it is.

Accessible Memories are of people, places, things that (probably) existed or happened in your past. I call them “accessible” because you can “go back” and retrieve them. Let’s say someone you work with mentions taking her son to Little League practice. If you played you probably have memories and you can intentionally retrieve some of them. In my experience, it’s usually the same ones. Perhaps because they’re good memories… or bad memories. In my experience, the longer I spend thinking about that time in my life, the more memories I can access. But my sense is there is a finite number of memories. Perhaps with drugs or hypnosis I could recall all of my memories but that’s another topic. But for whatever reason, I have a strong sense these memories are of stuff that happened.

Let’s talk about dreams for a moment. Most of my dreams involve people and places from my past. As well as events that, though distorted and warped, have some basis in experience. But every so often I’ll have a dream that features totally unfamiliar elements, involving people/places/events that were never part of my waking life. Where did those images come from? Creepier still, one of these “made up” dreams might reoccur months or years later.

I’m aware of these “made up” dreams because I remember them. Sometimes upon awakening. Sometimes days later, “out of the blue” as it were. This is the other type of memory that I find so mysterious. Can one have a memory of something that never happened. Not just an inaccurate memory where you get some of the details wrong. But of something completely… imaginary? But that’s not right. The dream did happen. And I’m having a memory of that dream. Are dreams and memories completely different phenomenon? Can I dream about a memory? Why not?

Since I can have a memory of a dream (based on experiences), why not a memory of a dream featuring people that never existed and stuff that never happened? It feels like I’m conflating dreams and memories and they’re probably two different but related experiences. But these memories-of-dreams-of-stuff-that-never-happened fascinate me. And make my head hurt. (I keep looking for Leonardo DiCaprio’s little top from the movie Inception.)

Memories and dreams are “head stuff.” That’s the only place they happen (I know, I know. That’s the only place everything happens). So they feel less real to me than, say, the breath I’m taking at this moment. I can reach into wherever memories are kept and paw through them like a shoebox full of old photos… I can’t go digging around for a favorite dream. They’re mostly gone. For good reasons, I’m told. But once in awhile one “pops into our heads.” A memory, but always fleeting. Perhaps dreams-of-stuff-that-never-happened (DOSTNH) belong to someone else and got caught in a cosmic consciousness riptide before drifting over to one of my dreams.

The Fear Basket

I’ve struggled with worry and anxiety my entire life. Tried a little counseling. A mild anti-anxiety drug for a while. Lots of reading on the subject. And, in recent years, meditation. I suspect a professional would put me on the low end of the anxiety spectrum, if there is such a thing. At this point in my life, I don’t expect to ever be completely worry-free. I’ve learned to live with it. Continue reading

meOS

“This very large thing (the net) provides a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall, planetary scope) and a new mind for an old species. It is the Beginning. […] At its core 7 billion humans, soon to be 9 billion, are quickly cloaking themselves with an always-on layer of connectivity that comes close to directly linking their brains to each other. […] By the year 2025 every person alive — that is, 100 percent of the planet’s inhabitants — will have access to this platform via some almost-free device. Everyone will be on it. Or in it. Or, simply, everyone will be it.”

— The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly

“All information will come in by super-realistic television and other electronic devices as yet in the planning stage or barely imagined. In one way this will enable the individual to extend himself anywhere without moving his body— even to distant regions of space. But this will be a new kind of individual— an individual with a colossal external nervous system reaching out and out into infinity. And this electronic nervous system will be so interconnected that all individuals plugged in will tend to share the same thoughts, the same feelings, and the same experiences. […] If all this ends with the human race leaving no more trace of itself in the universe than a system of electronic patterns, why should that trouble us? For that is exactly what we are now!”

— The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

“Humanity is developing a sort of global eyesight as millions of video cameras on satellites, desktops, and street corners are connected to the Internet. In your lifetime it will be possible to see almost anything on the planet from any computer. And society’s intelligence is merging over the Internet, creating, in effect, a global mind that can do vastly more than any individual mind. Eventually everything that is known by one person will be available to all. A decision can be made by the collective mind of humanity and instantly communicated to the body of society.”

— God’s Debris by Scott Adams


In all of my reading about Taoism, Buddhism and other eastern mystical traditions, one theme repeats over and over. That there is no permanent, on-going self. That feeling of “me” and “I” is an illusion. And the source of all suffering. Clinging and resisting is mixed in (I want things to be the way I want things to be) but I won’t try to tackle that here.

There is nothing more difficult for me to comprehend than the idea that my feeling of “me-ness” is just an illusion. Not real. I’ve been struggling with this for many years. And I’ve grabbed on to various metaphors in an effort to see (or feel) how this could possibly be.

 

For the last week or so I’ve been thinking of myself as a computer connected to a vast network of other computers. Over the years, every part of the computer has been replaced. The monitor, the hard drive, the keyboard, all the internal parts… all have been replaced. In no sense is the computer the same computer that was there in the beginning.

In this tortured analogy, the computer operating system is my brain(mind?). But from the very beginning, the OS was being continuously updated. This is where the analogy gets wobbly because who or what is using the computer? I don’t have a clue so I’m gonna say the computer OS is using itself and, in the process, creating an imaginary sense of self that believes it is operating the computer. Why is it doing this? No clue. How is it doing this? No clue.

But every day the OS changes and evolves as it processes ever more information. Emails, text messages, videos, songs, news articles, and all the rest. Every new bit makes a tiny change in the OS so it is never the same from one moment to the next. From the computer’s perspective, everything is humming along fine. An endless flow of new and interesting stuff.

But let’s assume we can only keep the hardware and software running for 80 years. Manufacturer’s planned obsolescence or something. The network knows this and when one computer goes “offline,” another one comes on, running the latest OS. The network is always becoming. It only exists as an entity in relation to the network.

But the imagined self — the ghost in my machine — is horrified by this prospect. It doesn’t know (can’t know?) it’s not real. It’s non-existence is horrifying and unimaginable (take a moment to appreciate the irony). I took a moment to watch the final scene of 2010 (A Space Odyssey) in which Dr. Chandra explains to HAL that it will be destroyed.

So, no self… happy ending (No ending, actually). Self… The End. Oblivion. Easy choice. But it is only from my God-like, Creator of the Analogy perspective that any of this can be considered. The only way I can keep my head from exploding (one of the most difficult parts to replace) is to imagine the “always Becoming OS” can generate this view, this understanding and in so doing, recognize the illusory nature of the self. Enlightenment.


Additional reading:
Neuroscience backs up the Buddhist belief  that “the self” isn’t constant, but ever-changing
You’re a completely different person at 14 and 77

Patterns and nodal points

“Speaking of nodal points in history, of some emerging pattern in the texture of things. Of everything changing. Laney is a sport, a mutant, the accidental product of covert clinical trials of a drug that induced something oddly akin to psychic abilities in a small percentage of test subjects. But Laney isn’t psychic in any non-rational sense; rather he is able, through the organic changes wrought long ago by 5-SB, this drug, to somehow perceive change emerging from vast flows of data.”

All Tomorrow’s Parties (William Gibson)

Patterns (and nodal points) in “vast flows of data” is a recurring theme in Gibson’s stories, going back to a time before the Big Data we hear so much about these days. If we had all the data (whatever that might mean) and the horsepower to process it, could we know where we are and, perhaps, where we’re headed? As I said to the cute TSA agent, search me. A few passing references to the Tao (in the book above) suggests that Gibson sees this ocean of data as something we live in, that we are part of, waves we can ride but not steer.

We think we can see the patterns but it’s just the motion of change we feel.

“In constant motion we no longer notice the motion. […] We are constantly surprised by things that have been happening for 20 years or longer. […] Sometimes we didn’t see what was becoming because we didn’t want it to happen that way.” (Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable)

“No one can deliberately do it”

After years of reading and thinking about Zen (and, more recently, Taoism) a common theme seems to be if you’re reading and thinking about Zen, you’re missing the point. And there is is no point. If you’re looking for “it” you won’t find “it.” The quotes below (by Alan Watts and Ray Grigg) are just a few of hundreds that express this idea (not a popular word in Zen and Taoism). I’m terrible with puzzles so it’s a bit surprising I’ve given so much time to this consideration. But I really don’t have anything better to do, so…

wood stones

I think it was Mr. Grigg who wrote, “Taoism and Zen cannot properly be understood, but they can be experienced.” I like that. And every now and then I get what feels like a brief glimpse. Splitting logs for firewood gives me a little zen tingle (until I catch myself thinking that while I’m doing it). Same for stacking up a bunch of rocks. Oh, and the Cdim chord on the uke.

Strictly speaking, there are no Zen masters because Zen has nothing to teach. […] the experience of awakening (satori) is not to be found by seeking.

The only purpose of any consideration of Zen is eventually to be freed of that consideration.

The process of searching for Zen seems at first to be a further violation of Zen.

When stripped of formality and returned to its natural shape, Zen is earthy and ordinary. Nothing special.

The deliberate, conscious practice of Zen is a self-defeating process, an exercise in futility.

Most people have no conceptual grasp of Zen, which is the best approach to it.

When (Zen) is itself, it is so uncontrived and subtle that it goes nearly unnoticed. And no one can deliberately do it.

Anything that can be said about (Zen and Taoism) is incomplete, misleading, and largely wrong.

Taoism and Zen cannot properly be understood, but they can be experienced.

The Way can be recognized but not explained.

The essence of Taoism and Zen is the art of living rather than the philosophy of life.

When all doing is happening with the spontaneity of just being ordinary, this is living the practice of Taoism and Zen. The simplicity of this process becomes difficult only when considered.