flotsam

One of the scientists I have been trying to contact basically proved the existence of enlightenment yesterday. That is… incredible news. Genuinely world-changing if we can build tech that will bring this to people.

For me, a lot of my old conditioning seems to be coming to the surface at night. Minor anxieties about finances or ignored messages. These things used to eat me up; now they are like reverberations of the old ways.

I still feel the anxiety and my brain will start down the old paths, but the feeling is without the pain that used to accompany it. In the past I would have looped around the thoughts, with my stomach tying up in knots. Now I don’t. It’s strange. The thought and feeling is still there but it doesn’t eat me; it isn’t me. It’s just a passing thing.

I have been meditating quite intensely these last few days. My fire has been stoked; by what I cannot say. After cycling with Luca 3 days ago I threw some yoga into the middle of my evening sit and I have never been so incredibly relaxed yet focused in my life. I scanned behind my eyes and in my face for the usual traces of tension and there were none. Zero. I’ve never felt that before.

I think maybe this is the phase that comes after the initial consolidation, where the flotsam from the storm rises to the surface and is carried away. The only way out is through, and these feelings have haunted me for my whole life. Now it feels like they are being tested against the new non-self and coming up null.

I no longer feel inadequate or subservient. That conditioning is still there but again - there is no me - I am just part of the domino chain. The noises from the insects hit my ear drums and cause electrical impulses which trigger a release of endogenous chemicals which then trigger more impulses and that is it. That has always been it. How can someone ignoring a message harm it? It is just a flow; nothing more and nothing less.

It is amazing to honestly not care for the first time in my life, despite still semi-caring through habit.

Further thoughts on thoughts: the buddha had two aspects to awakening / cessation - the thing captured in that MRI in Harvard. One was mindfulness. The other was concentration. These are both integral to the noble eightfold path. The path itself is incredible now I’m translating it for a modern audience; it’s basically trauma therapy, and better than anything we have today. But anyway.

The concentration side can be summed up as proceeding through the jhānas. These are states of elevated tonic dopamine, serotonin and high concentration. There will be other things going on too, but essentially you are putting yourself into a state receptive to happy reprogramming before you turn the mind inward to the cause of your suffering.

The first jhāna has ‘applied thought and concentration’ and then after that he says ‘with thought and feeling falling away’. I think people misunderstand this to mean ‘without thought and feeling’.

When something falls away it doesn’t cease to exist. It just detaches. Coming back to my poem before this all began:

A leaf in the wind

Just waiting to fall

These are our thoughts. We are pruning the tree of our mind. When we enter the higher jhānas the thoughts and feelings do not cease immediately, though they do decrease and a clear mind from years of practice will naturally be emptier.

What happens is they come to the surface and are relieved of their emotional charge due to the high state of equanimity we are in. And then like a leaf from a tree in the autumn, they fall away. This is the precise language the buddha used.

The masters might say ‘empty mind’, but they are masters, remember. This is the aim. The goal. The lofty ideal they spent 50 years meditating for. Your aim may be to swim as quickly as Michael Phelps but you don’t get there without practice, and even if you do get there you have a different body so your form will be your own.

The same goes for mind. Your mind is different to the master’s mind. The parent of a teenager does not remember what it is like to handle a baby. How about the parent of a 30 year old adult? Viewing this like the birth of a child might be a helpful way to frame it.

Sure you can think about what university you want your kid to go to, or even what career they should have, but your child is not yours to control. Neither is your mind. It is a domino chain, shaped by the noises of the insects and the happenings of your life. Almost every synaptic connection was conditioned by some event or other; nothing is your own.

You are giving birth to a new entity and this entity will grow of its own accord. You can nudge it in the right direction but you cannot wrestle it into submission. It’s like the buddha with the analogy of the cowherd; you just prod it when it’s going wrong and otherwise observe it passively and let it be.

I guess the creature of my mind is about 2 months old now. Still a baby. Going to kick and scream a little while longer. But I will be a good parent this time round, I am sure.

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