cycling

I am cycling in more ways that one right now. I’m on the bike doing my first nibbanic cycle tour, day 3, and I notice a few patterns emerging.

The first is that I am re-containerised overnight. I come back to the self, and then as the day goes on I realise that all the conditioned responses I have are currents in the wind and not me. The further through the day I get, the lighter I feel, and the more liberated and easygoing I become.

Previously this was the opposite: I would be re-containerised overnight and a lot of my problems would solve themselves in my sleep, but as the day proceeded I would wind up with tension through operating within the grooves of the self. The night would see the resolution of that tension, whereas now it merely sees a settling of ash.

What I think is happening is that the lessons of the day are being consolidated into my brain - encoded during the REM phase of sleep - and when I wake up I have the habitual impression of self. But there is still no centre around which these algorithms can tighten; they are pretty loose, even if it takes a few minutes to shake the cobwebs once I start moving.

I am pretty sure the buddhist traditions recommended the first watch of the night (early nighttime) being sitting meditation, the second (midnight) being sleep, and the third (pre-dawn) being walking and I can see why. It is easier to grease the wheels with physical activity than with dry sitting. You should never stretch before a warm-up.

The other cycle is some variant on the nanās (the theravāda insight cycle). I got on the boat with ultimate equanimity and then the first day I had quite a few surges of bliss. The second day was more contemplative and by the end I was actually a little afraid. In the evening the minor fear was about the possibility of this being a simulation (which it is, in terms of how our brains process our sense data into coherent units), but even if it was a ‘genuine’ simulation that would not matter: energy is mass and a simulated world would be just as valid as a material one. Thanks Einstein.

This morning it was a fear of death, but only an echo of the dread that used to permeate my life. This was a pang, like a ‘I forgot my keys’ kind of thing. Argh! I forgot that I would die! Quite the change in narrative. This passed quickly; I realised that a lot of my fear of death was a fear of leaving things unfinished. But there is no finished, and I am not an individual unit that can ‘finish things’ in this sandcastle world. It’s not like I come into the sandbox, make something, and go home afterward. The river becomes the sea becomes the clouds becomes the river again and I am but a cross section of the whole.

Here’s an interesting realisation after having an hourlong sit just now; my body feels borrowed. It does not feel like I own it, or it owns me. It is my vehicle and my only vehicle and I will care for it so that it cares for me. We are one and the same; I’m not delusional… but it no longer looks like one coherent mass which ‘is’ me.

My hands look like my grandad’s hands; wider and more textured. My face and eyes look like my children’s eyes, full of curiosity and easy alertness. The lack of tension in my cheek muscles… this is a joy I find hard to describe as someone who practiced smiles in the mirror as a child and went through life showing everyone my pearly whites in the hope that they would think I was a happy-go-lucky guy who they shouldn’t hurt.

And so it goes. I still don’t suffer. It is very hard to explain.

I feel pain. I got bitten about 50 times by mosquitoes last night (bad camping spot) and was itchy to the point of burning. I can feel imagined grief about the thought of not seeing my children again. But I do not suffer. I have pangs of ‘did I forget something’ or ‘must finish this’ but they are so toothless it’s almost funny. Within about half a breath they are gone, and I remember that it is all out of my hands. The data comes in, it hits my algorithms, and I output something, or not. 

My body and my mind do not fight me any more. I am not as good at fighting them, either; I cannot drive my legs as hard as I used to, nor force myself to write like I once did, because there is no egotistical drive at play. It has melted. There’s the habit of ego sometimes, but it’s a habit… nothing more. It’s a habit which is rapidly being dropped, like the drinker who finally intuits that the drink is not good. There’s no effort, no struggle; just a gentle guiding of the brain so that it takes a new path and lets the old one die.

It’s so cool. Who knew that the world was here all this time.

/jb202509251546