Through Infinite Lives, Eternal Eyes See

Pt. 1: The Death of Jampa Choden

The sign on the rust curdled iron gate read, “वेनेरेबल जाम्पा चोडेन। एक मानिस अहिले विगतमा छ, तर केवल पछि मात्र बिर्सिए। बुद्ध अवतार को लागी एक उम्मेद्वार। 1980”. Translation, “Venerable Jampa Choden. A man now past, but only much later forgotten. A candidate for the Buddha incarnate. 1980” He was the only such person to elude my interview. It was his lifestyle as a hermit of the Himalayas which saw him inaccessible for the likes of myself, an American journalist abroad. I had traveled all over Asia interviewing people who were venerated by others as our contemporary incarnation of the Buddha. It is said that if you meet a self-proclaimed Buddha on the side of the road, you should kill him, for he is an imposter. However, if you meet a man who is thought to be the Buddha in the minds of many, then that individual might just be something more. Now present at his funeral procession in the foothills of Nepal, I was one of many in a foreign party of travelers, tourists, and journalists. 

Above us, a clear thinly stretched sky of blue and white lay peaceably on a bed of distant, and joyously snow-capped peaks. Beyond the gate, our feet pattered up the smooth ancient cobblestone of the monastery yard. The bare feet of the monks slapped the bald stone in droves. The breaches of the picketed fence offered only fragments of the children playing beyond it. They kicked tatter-flapped soccer balls and ran blissfully past the long line of attending men and women in their sheathed garb. The sustain of mesmerizing tones emanated from the strikes of various brass alloy bowls which littered the courtyard and surrounded the front gate. Under the brilliance of the sun, they aspired to a fine shimmer of gold. The ebbs and flows of their various tones pacified those solemnly present and washed away somber eyes. I stared ahead quite fixated on the entranceway before me. The monastery was of an old stone construction with glassless windows and wooden accents. I slid my hand over the rusted fixtures of the rot-ridden mahogany door, the brass handles coated in a thick powder filth and bright teal-green oxidation. 

Chanting emanated through the aperture of the dark corridor before me. There was an enigmatic aroma that pierced the melancholy ambiance. As if it were in the air we breathed, pain flooded our chests as we entered the smoky darkness of the ancient structure. Cast rays penetrated the ceiling through the haphazard stone cradles of light above. Eyes gleamed through the soft spiraling of blush red dust and emotion. The windswept breaches above released low roars and vivacious whispers. Aromatic anger and dingy infinite disgust permeated the cavernous labyrinth of these filthy, straw-laden hallways. In a single file, we shuffled past the stone archway of the ceremonial gathering chamber. The stale dust perturbed only by the audible gasps and wails of women who sobbed and wept. His eternal stillness smote the hearts of those present for his laughter no longer beckoned their appraisal. He was said to be a man so wise that he knew only how to laugh and to love.

There was an ever-present rustle of crimson pulu and sheathed silk. The reluctantly crossed legs of the sangha were supported only by a starkly haphazard stone floor; cracked and uneven. It is said that a lotus can’t grow from stone and that there is nothing more elegant than to imagine that it could. On that day, under the stoic, sprawling eye of the Himalayas, it was we together who became the stone-birthed lotus of ten-thousand folds. A wavering sea of raised right palms expelled fear from the graven chamber with their mudra; the Buddha’s personal token against existential dilemma. Emotions were present over the silence illustrating the depth of his grasp on all whom he touched.

The body of Jampa Choden lay still before all. As if to be risen, whimsical particulates climbed the solitary band of light that illuminated the altar beneath him. The candle cast shadows of all who loved him congealed on the surrounding walls as a single dancing entity. The vibrating dark mass was more him than those who composed it. Impermanence’s crimson, blood rusted dagger birthed cleavage in the hearts of all those present. Glassed eyes rested fastidiously upon the bright gleaming corpse. His leathery unfurrowed brow now washed in the morning sunlight. His hands lay crossed above his abdomen and his empty satchel upon his chest. 

The satchel paid homage to the local tradition of carrying no-things. Only once a brittle dryness had befallen the goat’s skin was it then immersed into a mixture of Indigo and jackfruit dyes to produce the incontrovertible sage green of the hide satchels. Like emeralds, they adorned the sides of every monk in the ceremony. Carried by a corpse, the satchel is a reminder that nothing possessed can be carried into the afterlife. It wreaked of futility and spelled out the inevitability of death and its necessary but often reluctant acceptance. 

The mystery of Jampa’s wisdom seemingly climbed the sawdust pillars that befell his corpse, like music visible in the light. A whiskey smoke emanated from the eternal flame by the crown of his head. The atmosphere of the ceremony commanded both reverence and awe. From my left was handed to me a torn page of Jampa’s book with the following underscored in thick black ink, “Death feasts on the softest of  innards, the ageless clam is no longer reluctant to split.” 

After the ceremony, it was announced that Jampa’s ashes would be returned to his mountain dwelling on the side of mount Kyanjin Ri in the small mountain village of Kyanjin Gompa. The pilgrimage would be a small group of mountain sherpas, townspeople, and returning monks. We departed the following morning.

A man named Ankar was assigned to assist me throughout the 5-day arduous journey. He was an old and kind man with a demeanour placid and giddy like that of a docile jackal. His teeth looked like they were lovingly dappled in place by a blind man, intertwined and overlapped like the fingers of a botched handshake. His fur hat was reminiscent of a vigorous juniper and his skin creviced like dried fruit. It was Ankar who held my hand when the air got thin and it was his smile that comforted me when there was no distinguishable path forward.

A steep mountain ridge stood rising from its alluvial bed. Its jagged supine tip raked the underbelly of the soupy mist as it descended upon us. The climb was arduous and steep. Dry snow released cold onomatopoetic expletives under my feet. Compressing peaceably as if it weren’t actually there, the lack of resistance painted it as a hallucinogenic figment amidst a beauty so unimaginable that it called into question the nature of this reality. Above the clouds, erected were only untrodden snow-capped amber and ash stone faces. The pink bulge of the dying sun splashed its hue indiscriminately upon all. Cumulonimbus clouds hid their secrets in mauve dimples and stole from the sun brilliant shades of salmon, fuchsia, and magenta. As the sun descended into its cloudy grave, its fires cremated the world before it anew. From atop that precipice I had never been more isolated, and yet I had never felt more connected with the whole of the world.

It took Jampa’s death to finally get me out here, past the pebbly riverbank and beyond the sawdust beach. This was proof to me that this man would still make the world a better place, even from beyond the grave. As the clouds filled in below us, we were now entering into the monk’s mountain dwelling. Above the clouds, splendour, below, a mystery. By this time, the world had surmised that this man was not the Buddha incarnate. With that said, it was from Jampa’s perch, high-up in the monk’s dwelling of Kyanjin Gompa, that I could then clearly see that the Buddha does indeed reside in each and every one of us.

Pt. 2: Between Death and Dust

From my left was handed to me a torn page of Jampa’s book with the following underscored in thick black ink, “Death feasts on the softest of innards, the ageless clam is no longer reluctant to split.” With a vague grasp of the sentiment, I conceded to ponder it over later and passed the page along to the curious eyes looming over my right shoulder. The high timbre of their thin whispers was abruptly silenced as the elders began to murmur to each other. As all took notice that their stillness had broken, it was as if it had instantaneously permeated throughout the room, stopping dead all present in respectful homage.

At the front of the room sat two respected Buddhist elders, Rinpoche Coliquo from Tibet and Ajahn Vijhammido from Thailand. It was my understanding that the three of these old and disciplined teachers were all once very close and largely came to form their Buddhist studies together in the same small monastery just a few hundred miles south of where we were then. They had not only made this journey to pay respect to their close and longtime friend, Jampa Choden, but also to deliver some words for him at the ceremony of his death. It was Ajahn Vijhammido, the English orator who began to speak first.

“For reasons which will become self-evident shortly, I am sure that Jampa would have rather had you all hear about yourselves and not another word about him. After All, his incarnation has now ended and yours still carry on… Here is what I know Jampa would have wanted for you all to hear, and I know because I have heard him argue these points many times before. When we were younger, I found him to be quite stubborn but as I have aged, I can now say that he was always very wise in spite of his age, it took me many years to come to these same conclusions.”

From his full lotus position on the floor, he continued,

“The part of you that is experiencing this life… that part is not synonymous with the part that controls it. Some say that life is directed by choice and not by chance, but Rinpoche Choden’s response would be, “Then what are the chances that one might make a particular choice?” He was inclined to say that all choice was predetermined by chance, which then, was a function of circumstance, beyond that of an individual and their experiences, that no experience of having choice could impress itself into the determining factors of chance.

“If you compare yourself to others”, he continued. “No matter if you come out on top or not, it is, in either case, a matter of a lack of compassion in one way or the other. Comparison is a natural outcome of separation, but separation is a false conclusion, to begin with. Whether you lack compassion towards yourself, or towards others, is really irrelevant to the more central understanding that all is one. It is in light of this simple fact that true equanimity can be arrived at. This is certainly the point that Jampa would have wanted to be expressed here at his funeral and cremation ceremony.

“It was, after all, his unique interpretation of reincarnation, one in which, “what it is like to be you” and “what it is like to be me” are really the exact same experiential entity, separated only by their distinct places on the timeline of existence. We are all the same conscious fluid if you will. And I quote…” he announced, “Every life that I exit is yet another into which I enter, into which we enter. Reborn as a baby with insomnia, a totally annihilated history of past lives, narrowed to the singularity of this one present life… for when I die, a baby will inevitably be born, and it will be the same meta-phenomena of consciousness which resides in it as in all other beings… for consciousness itself is featureless. 

“Only once you see that you and your enemy are one and the same, do you cease to have an enemy at all. Only once you realize that you and those that you care for, are one and the same, do you truly connect with them in a confluence of love. Jampa was a man that saw the beauty in the universe of things, just as they were, and never aspired to inject the freedom of the will into this grand image. It is larger than the life-blood of consciousness which courses through it, it is the ultimate determining factor, while consciousness, as we all experience it, is no more than one of the plethora of features of the grand cosmic play. Jampa often espoused how these understandings could convey the ultimate source of wisdom. A wisdom before which all things fell perfectly in place, to exist just as they were meant to, free from judgment, desire and aversion. He called this wisdom “the light”, it was that by which all sense could be illuminated and accepted just as it was formed.

“In a world of infinite information, we often find ourselves overwhelmed by an abundance of the irrelevant and the extraneous. Learning how to Identify what is pertinent to you and your life is a very valuable skill.

“No matter what terms you define life by, scientific or otherwise, there is always an element of uncertainty, of magic to be found somewhere in your thesis. There is always a gap or two in any theory’s completion and logical deficits to be had at every turn. Existence is nothing short of miraculous.

“I get so caught up being me that I lose sight of the oddity that is to be me, to exist at all. Being me is all I have ever known and all that I ever will. I am honestly starting to believe that you and I, we have always existed and that that’s not going to change anytime soon.

“Where there is a lack of compassion, there the universe knows itself not. Not only are we all created equal, but what exists within us is identical. To understand this is the ultimate wisdom. From wisdom, no misery can be derived and no judgment can be passed. The ego is confusion, it is a distraction. We feel as though we are each a part of the cosmos, rather, we should feel that it is a part of us and that we are all one.

“Should we see that we are one, then there are no grounds to take anything personally. In separation, we are no more than deterministically driven causal actors, or put another way, we are simply expressions of our surroundings influences, the conduit through which they pass. Just as one can come to see that there is no “self” within, they must recognize that this applies to all others too. The conventional and intuitive formula is that this point in space is affecting that point in space when really the formula is much more complex, there is one puzzle, a systemic confluence of infinite and interlocking pieces. Rinpoche Choden would say that each piece of the universal puzzle was predetermined, or to put it another way, cut on myriad angles and that it was these unique angles that determined how each of us, each piece, was to interact with all other pieces. Those who understand this are impervious to the inflictions of others. For, when I fully understand you, what you are, what I am, then no matter what our interaction may be, my reaction, my resulting expressions, my actions, are no longer tainted by your influencing actions. Those who see this truth in the world can’t be hurt by others, nor can they act on the world in unskilful ways.

“The mark of the beast is to lie. To lie is an expression of fear. This fear is derived from the misunderstanding of the fundamental nature of all things. When you catch yourself lying, know that.

“Ultimately, this world is better characterized by its ephemerality than by its solidity and conservation. Time is a gauntlet that very little survives. Not much lasts and even less matters.

“Often, it is those among us who are conventionally considered to be the luckiest, that must most face the irony of misery.

“Those of us who are lucky enough to watch our family and friends die…

“Those of us who are lucky enough to watch our skin wilt…

“Those of us who are lucky enough to feel our bodies deteriorate…

“Those of us who are lucky enough to feel our mental capacities fade…

“Those of us who are lucky enough to witness our accomplishments collapse into the sands of time…

“Each and every day those who are conventionally accepted as the lucky ones undertake the sorrow that accompanies their transient lifestyles. Constantly propped up, just to have it pulled out from under them.

His tone became surprisingly radiant and joyful as he carried on,

“The problem is that I have quite the imagination, often I confuse it with revelation and become its marionette. On the topic of Karma, Rinpoche Choden had much to say…

He continued, “The western convention of karma, that what happens to you is caused by a reciprocal universe. As if there is some higher power watching, judging, and disciplining or rewarding; an all-seeing arbiter of justice, if you will. This is clearly a western contortion of karmic principles by the influence of Abrahamic religions. You know, the ones in which there exists an omnipotent and omniscient creator god with his hands in the mix. The average westerner simply removes their god, gives the powers to the universe itself, and calls that Karma. This couldn’t be more wrong.

“To a Buddhist, karma is quite simply the recognition of causality… of determinism. Now, even under a deterministic framework, it is plain to see that it is one’s own mind which disciplines them in circumstances where they go against their principles and ethics. 

“It is not the fact that you have done something wrong which hurts you, it is the fact that you know that you have done something wrong which hurts you.

“Discipline is everything. It is what saves us from unskillful action and defines skillful action. Discipline is self-rewarding and it is what forges the best possible life. Indiscriminate satisfaction is the truest form of happiness and well-being, and discipline is the straightest path to it.

“Karma is cause and effect, it is one thought leading to another, it is one action leading to another, it is one word leading to another, it is one world leading to another. Just as the present, in general, determines the future. Your current mental state is determined by your prior mental states, which in turn determine your future mental states. Coming to understand the concept of determinism is itself yet another mental state and one which can be quite far-reaching in terms of influencing future mental states. All concepts are like this to some degree.

“Those who investigate the self, sooner or later realize that they are the effect, not the cause, that they are the action, not the actor.

“You see…”, he carefully continued.

“The addition of awareness is synonymous with the subtraction of distraction. True awareness is realized in the absence of distraction. So enlightenment has more to do with the loss of mental modifications than their acquisition. Awareness is the result of dropping that which distracts you from this current moment.

“You see, the enlightened mind-state is a state of pure awareness, completely and utterly unadulterated and undistracted. The study, experience, and development of our mental faculties, as to create an overall skillful mind, is what ultimately acts as the fertile substrate from which true awareness can sprout. With that said, the enlightened mind-state necessitates transcending beyond our mental faculties, words, and concepts. Forgetting life’s description is one and the same as realizing life itself… in its most visceral and tangible form. It is direct and non-conceptual.

“The life that most people lead is very much so a dream. You see, dreams appear to have a reliability and solidity to them while one is dreaming. In just this same manner, one’s experience of waking life appears reliable, dependable, and solid until that experience has passed, it then loses its solidity and credibility in much the same way as last night’s dream. The more entangled with thought that one’s mind is, the less it actually touches that which is solid of their surrounding reality. Most are often so distracted by mental artifacts that they may as well be dreaming. Dreams, much like our thoughts, especially those of the past or future, are insubstantial relative to the reality of the here and of the now.

“The past and future are merely artifacts of the mind and any engagement with either comes at the cost of our awareness of the present moment.

“Yes, felt states of enlightenment occur in the absence of mental artifacts such as words and concepts… it is the result of pure uncontaminated awareness. It doesn’t matter what the subject of awareness is, so long as it is external and experienced fully, this creates the mind’s state of satori, of nibanna, which is itself a mental artifact of a direct and relational sort. Words and concepts, on the other hand, are indirect and semantic, they are tools that accomplish much in their domain but ultimately, only exist to impede direct experience. In other words, get away from that which separates you from your direct experience of reality… words, and concepts. In this new circumstance wherein you have a pure awareness over your external reality, then comes into fruition the new inner sentiment of enlightened awareness.

“The truth is that in the normal mind, everything culminates in sorrow, eventually.

“It is the melding of one’s mind with the universe’s, in a kind of euphoric confluence which can’t be described, only felt. This is nibanna.

“With this wisdom comes a perspective that captures the big picture. If you are having anxiety over trivial things, then you simply are not seeing the big picture, you don’t yet get it, you don’t see what this life is… what it can be.

“Let go, live a life of acceptance, nothing matters anymore, connect with reality directly, be at peace. This is how Jampa would have us center ourselves in a lopsided and unstable world.

“The general aura of amor fati that enveloped Rinpoche Choden will surely ease our burden as we move forward with the proceedings and reconvene at the fire mounds for his cremation following Rinpoche Coliquo’s delivery of these words for the Nepalese attendees. With all the grace and skillfulness of the Buddha, we thank you all for attending.

Pt. 3: The Flame of Amor Fati

Following the lead of the fleeing sangha, I stepped out of the monastery into a bombardment of eye-crippling Nepalese sunshine. In a single file, we meandered down the cobblestone path under the lush green sun-cast foliage of the monastery yard. All present remained relatively hushed until we passed the open gate of the rusted iron palisade. One by one, each person in the convoy respectfully brushed their fingertips across the engraved surface of Rinpoche Choden’s commemorative plaque.

The pathway beyond the monastery gate was little more than a sun-dried russet brown lather of monsoon mud. It was grooved with deep cartwheel tracks and yak hoof footprints. I could see the red dust of the dried path in a whirling disturbance around the feet of those before me. Though the sun had cooked the season’s rains out of the pottery-like path, the fertility of the monsoon season was still very present in the lush surrounding flora where bending branches burgeoned with fruit.

The sinuous path seemed only to mind boulders which were too large to move and trees too tall to fall. On the tail-end of an approaching curve, there was a small, derelict, stone and wood arch-bridge, it circumvented a torrent of rushing rapids and carried us to the cremation grounds through the rapid’s roar. Its wooden structure was swollen with moisture and its surface was sporadically covered in a sponge-like green and yellow moss. It was an effort to not slide down the arch of the bridge’s back with my brown, leather loafers. The monks, however, made no changes to their stoic postures, their short, deliberate strides remained at ease above the grip of their bare and hardened feet.

At the entrance to the cremation grounds, there stood a group of young women surrounded by children. At the time, I supposed that they were teachers from the local school who had brought a large party of children to take part in the ceremony. I was captivated by the collage of their young angelic faces and suddenly stunned by the gaze of one particular woman’s eyes, they glinted in the morning sunlight and I couldn’t look away. Her beauty had the perfection of a beach-smoothed stone and the intricacy of harrowing waves in crescendo.

When I finally did manage to break her spell, my eyes would be drawn back to hers right away. There was no doubting the attraction. With the deep pierce of her appraising eyes, I was reminded of a woman I once knew, a woman who struck me in a similar way. She stood by the stage at a small band show I was door-manning and even there, in a dirty dive-bar, it was as if her beauty were god’s personal art. She wore fishnet stockings and high-cut jean shorts, her hair fell in long, blonde, flowing waves around her deep red lipstick and dark eyeliner. Her beauty was simply beyond belief and there was no stopping my feet as they carried me across the dance floor to her. I’m still reminded of her more often than I’d like to admit. Sometimes when I hear the soft, depressing ambiance of melancholy music, or see a long and distant horizon. Honestly, just the sun on my face can remind me of her warmth.

The procession carried on and I soon found myself beyond the old stone stack walls of the cremation grounds. Within the high-reaching walls of this roofless structure, there lingered a stagnant odour of coal and smoke. We were instructed to remove our footwear as it was customary to be barefoot within the sacred location. The townsmen lowered the gurney, atop of which Rinpoche Choden’s body rested, onto a trellis of barkless and knotty logs. As the procession continued to enter I kept my eyes peeled for the face of the woman I had seen. It wasn’t until the two old Elder monks began to light the fire that children could be seen entering. Surely, she would come in with them, or so I thought, but still, I failed to find her.

The Monks aligned themselves in rows backing onto the nearest stone wall to the firing area. As they sat they folded and tucked their ochre robes under their crossed legs. Once sat in their noble-nonchalance, polite remarks could be heard amongst the nervousness of the crowd. For most of us, there was palpable discomfort and concern in the air.

To them, all things acquired, all things achieved and all lives lived were but shallow remnants of their egos. The suffering of the pursuit, the suffering of the acquisition, the suffering of the maintenance. These men had nothing left to lose, they had abandoned all worldly features and therefore had abandoned all fear, hope, desire, and aversion. 

The monks understood deeply that one does not have possessions, but rather that what they have inevitably possesses them. As a community, they had expressed ardently for years that time was both the provider and the depriver of all things, of all relationships and that it was we ourselves that created happiness and misery around this fact. “It is down to each individual to create their own disposition to the world, it is a matter of perception.” they would say.

As the smoke started to rise, it was as if a calm came over the crowd. I felt an affable breeze sweep through the shade and across the cool surface of the stone floor beneath the soft souls of my feet. As the flames licked Jampa’s body, the air began to fill with the scent of fired flesh. Before our eyes, he began to char black as if to deflect our gaze once again.

Standing at the head of Jampa Choden’s resting corpse, Ajahn Vijhammido’s voice reverberated through the stone-walled structure, “It is the scarcity of life, or rather its realization, that is the ultimate catalyst of a life worth living. A creative and enthusiastic life awaits those who can see the finiteness of their life and the inevitability of their death. It becomes preposterous to waste even one more second. It becomes absurd to spend your time in ways which you will regret.”

In the eyes of the gathered and now gazing Nepali kin, flesh turned to ash and the crackling of wood and bone was a tangible force that pulsed through the throng. By leaping flame, the old Rinpoche’s body was reduced into the hardwood and cow patty coal on which it laid.

After our eyes had fallen upon each other, I couldn’t remove her from my mind. Though I was fully entrenched in the ceremony around me, her presence seemed to remain hidden in the backdrop of my mind. I’d find my eyes wandering through the faces of the crowd, searching hers out and to no avail. I had not traveled to Asia in the hopes of falling in love. In fact, my journey to such distant lands may have been, at least partially, motivated by the exact opposite, a desire to fall out of it. Admittedly, even after over a half-decade of adventure and myriad other lovers, I still hadn’t managed to remove my first love from my mind. She was still very present in my dreams and often I would wake up sick with her absence. I never did recover and I had, in all honesty, dismissed the notion of romantic love from my life with no future expectations of finding it ever again. I am of the belief that there are precisely two personal sources of happiness one can derive in this life; 1- finding and realizing the beauty of truly and sincerely connecting with another human being and 2- discovering the real depth in your own person. The latter I could still do and so I made it my life’s innermost objective. To have both in one lifetime, you can consider yourself lucky, to somehow cobble the two together simultaneously… Well, you must be living in a world of Wattsian physics. 

“To the pain of the past and to the fertility it can provide…”, Ajahn Vijhammido continued. “To all of the new beginnings made possible only by the fact of something else’s end. To the future, we owe the past and to the present, we owe all things. Jampa’s dying wish was for you all, especially the young, to know this, to feel it within your heart.”

Pt. 4: Alternative Altitudes

Nature’s careful balance of fresh cedar and clean spruce rode the new air as it settled. The loftiness of the skylight held a bright illuminated web. A fiery-white daylight beamed past unpolished glass, a cool sinuous breeze around its open lip. The brilliance of the snow’s white was emphasized by the contrasting black of the creek. It rushed by over smooth eroded stone. I could hear its bubble and its churn. 

The green of the conifer and the chalk-white of the birch. Six tall windows formed the wall to my left, a modest shrine before us. Seven closed-eyed laymen sat cross-legged and silent. Before me was a young woman wearing striped pastel slacks adorning bare feet. I could see it in her calm, that she had stillness within her. A burgundy and gold rug befit the hall. All had seemingly departed in meditation, and yet, I remained. My feet were numb, they tingled and pulsed as I untied the knot of my legs.

Like the pillars of life, the forest stood tall. I stared past it, into tranquility. Before me was a word of infinite syllables, a picture of departure. I was acquainted with equanimity and in love with her serene nature. Through the silence staggered but only the occasional soft breath.

For a series of hours, we sat as the day was replaced by night. From white to blue azure, to sangria, the room was shaded in. The glow of the candles beamed brighter, eliciting yet a deeper penetration of my eye’s lids. What was once a black and blue froth, now seethed of yellow and orange flesh. With a solitary strike of the then singing bowl, our tepid postures were broken. Bowing laymen bathed in the meaningless wisdom of the bowl’s multi-tone voice. One, two, three times their heads descended before the shrine. Last meditation at Tinando Monastery.

A few years prior to my search for the Buddha incarnate, I was a victim of my own demise. I was a journalist of war. I had spent years in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Lebanon. It was a job that was both inexplicably exciting and absolutely heartbreaking. I thought I may never be able to un-see the horrors of those wars and that my life was forever changed by them. This was a time before the term post-traumatic stress disorder was even recognized. I had no idea that I had developed a medical condition but I could nonetheless feel its weight and I knew that I had to fix myself.

It was this same period of time when eastern philosophy was first being introduced to the west. It was part and parcel of what instigated the hippy revolution of the 1970s. Communities were being built on unused farmland and gurus were being extruded from the great cultural and social machine. Amidst the wars of the world, here on our home soil, many were championing the virtues of peace and love. Before I knew it, I found myself in the aggregate of lost and hurt souls, people in search of serenity and acceptance, attributes long lost to the modern world and scarcely available, even to the most rural of communes.

It was a time of liberal drug use, mostly ganja, psilocybin mushrooms, and LSD. The memories I have from this period of my life are nothing short of spectacular. Amongst the magic and the colours, I recall deriving immense happiness from even the most simple of things. The sway of the golden wheat stalk in the afternoon breeze. The chorus of our young voices around a sparking bonfire. The frolic of our half-dozen heinz 57 mongrels as they tore through the fields and around our old, ramshackle trailers. 

There was one particular girl in the community that took a real liking to me. Her name was Harmony. She was short and shapely, with emphasized feminine traits. She had strong and high cheekbones that centered on a cute button nose. Her forehead was beautifully rounded beneath her thick, long curly brown hair. I recall staring past her long fluttering eyelashes and into her deep hazel green eyes for hours on end. Our love was a youthful one full of immature childish voice acting, alter egos, as well as, playful inside jokes and analogies. She had a motherly affection for the world though she swore she wouldn’t ever be one herself. Her shy demeanour would blossom with a little watering from an alcoholic beverage or two. 

We had a deep affection for each other but nonetheless knew of a lustful world beyond each other’s grasps. Of the women I had come to know, she was by far the cleanest and most orderly. I think it stemmed from her protestant upbringing and the fact that she was a mirror’s image of her mother who was a devout churchgoer and voluntarist. Though she rarely went to church herself, she saw the world through a lens honed by the pasture’s voice.

I could see it in her face that she held a deep shame in our intimacy. I thought that perhaps she was also a little embarrassed of my heathen bravado. Though I could honestly say that I was in love with her, it wasn’t long before she couldn’t say the same of me. This was yet another way the world seemed to be collapsing in on me during my most vulnerable of times. Like an animal backed into a corner, my ego inflamed as it fought her rejection. I was both heartbroken and angry. In the end, I tried to hurt her with my words, to make her feel small and unimportant. I would make fun of what we had together, what I used to find the most fulfilling. I didn’t want to accept it, and if I had to, then I wanted for her to have something to accept too. This vitriolic behaviour was the mark of a weak and desperate person. Looking back I feel ashamed and regret how I acted.

It would inevitably be this collision of influences that would make the bubble of my ego large enough to finally pop. I took the world personally and I was far from skillful about it. Beaten and bruised by what I perceived to be a world colluding against me, I was now on track to find my center, though I didn’t know it at the time. 

It was there, in a spray-painted trailer, tucked into the back corner of an old wheat field that I had first heard of Tinando monastery. It was a new Buddhist monastery that had just opened to the public in our small, northeastern American town. Though I would spend the rest of the summer in a polyamorous melting pot of haphazardly placed trailers filled with young, happy, and free iconoclasts, it would ultimately fail to fill the void left by my time abroad. It seemed that my hands were then forced into a transition away from documenting the wars of the world, to instead, documenting the wars of my own mind.

The monastery consisted of an old white-pillared farmhouse, two large barns, a newly constructed place of ceremony, which contained a small mediation hall, and several tiny kuti huts where immigrant monks resided. The property itself was many acres; some field, some grass, and some forested. Sinuous pathways negotiated the hilly landscape where the monk’s kutis were quite arbitrarily scattered. In the fall, the property was overwhelmed by deer, birds, squirrels and a diverse host of other animals. The winter saw a decline not only in wildlife but also in visitors to the monastery. It was largely a time of self-reflection and meditation for its residents. By most, it was considered to be a time of retreat.

I was welcomed into this monastic community as an anagarika, this is the Pali term for homeless one. I had not propositioned to ordain but rather just to live there in the hopes of healing. My time there was initially indefinite, though I had a hunch that I may not be able to lock myself down for more than a few months. Though the monastery was the epitome of calm relaxation, monastic study, and self-discovery, my mind began contriving elaborate ideas of travel and adventure that I yearned to relive. Looking back on it, I was happier there than I had ever been before… or since, for that matter.

It was a magical place filled with the most wonderful people. We had a very structured day of chores, work periods, meals, and communal meditations. The environment was highly stress-reducing and the people were beyond accepting. Everyone there acted as skillfully as they possibly could and no one ever had anything negative to say, especially not of one another. It was almost eerie at first but I soon discovered it to be the foremost conclusion of how human behaviour ought to be.

After the war, my time at the commune taught me love, lust, and the difference therein. I was, however, still an unskillful person, well capable of selfish blindness and woeful indiscretion. It wasn’t until months into my time as an anagarika at Tinando that I really found myself shaping up. My mind had been given an environment in which it could heal, a place where it had no stress and no worries. It was there that I first learned the basics of the Buddhist path.

I learned to see my suffering, incompleteness and dissatisfaction with the world as a symptom of having a diseased mind. The cause of which was Tanha, which in Pali means “thirst”, this was the bodily analogy for desire, craving, grasping, and clinging. These things are creations of the mind, dispositions of the mind to the world and it is our own mind, therefore, that is the cause of our suffering. This realization is the prognosis, it is the understanding that cessation of dukkha, or suffering, is possible. The Buddhist cure was to follow the eight-fold path, which is essentially just a list of disciplines and efforts designed to hone one’s virtue, concentration, and wisdom.

There are three principle concepts in Buddhism which must be known firsthand for the development of insight. First, there is dukkha, as described above, it is suffering or unsatisfactoriness, then there is anicca which is best understood as impermanence, and lastly, there is anatta, or not-self, which has to do with fundamentally shifting one’s perspective away from that of an ego. It was impressed upon me that understanding not-self and living a life which reflects that understanding, is the greatest virtue of them all.

I can recall my first real lesson in Buddhism as if it was just yesterday. It was a simple one on one, sit-down with a Monk named venerable Khutibah on the 4th day after my arrival at Tinando. The following is what he told me.

“When turning to Buddhism, we must first recognize the fact that we all arrive here with the heavy burden of our past, our memories, and habits, as well as our great plans for the future. If Buddhism is to be the path for you, then it will certainly shake you free from all of this.

“Buddhism is the “ism” of awakening. To awaken is to cease to exist in a dream state. It symbolizes a move from a false state to a correct state. This is what Siddhartha Gotama is said to have done by way of achieving great wisdom through his own effort. At its core, the conventional understanding of life is inadequate, and to have this realization is to see the dream for what it is. Before a solution can be deliberately implemented in one’s life, there must first be an awareness of the source of the inadequacy. This is the enterprise around which the Buddha’s wisdom is erected. 

“By becoming a Buddhist, you are in effect committing yourself to a lifestyle which promotes community, compassion, and generosity. This promotion corresponds to a demotion of the self and the circumstances of which the self is derived. This is the concept of anatta, that the self one perceives themselves to be, is in fact a transient feature of their broader consciousness. 

“Now the first bit worth noting about Buddhism is that it is divided, both by geography and perspective, into three main factions or schools of thought. There is Vajrayana, the diamond vehicle of Tibet and Nepal. Then there is Mahayana, the great vehicle of Korea, China, and Japan. And lastly, there is the school that we here at Tinando monastery subscribe to, Therevada, otherwise known as the school of the elders, which still persists throughout Laos, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. 

“Now, one must have a basic understanding of the Buddhist path. Get to know the three refuges of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Respectively, they represent wisdom, truth, and virtue. You can imagine them as the teacher, the teaching, and the receptive ones. You see, the Dhamma is the oral tradition of the Buddha as chronicled by his disciples and the sangha is the community of followers; the monks, nuns and laypeople alike. 

“For each of us as individuals approaching Buddhism for the first time, the path should be looked at as follows. You become a member of the sangha, the spiritual community of Buddhists, by accepting the ‘three refuges’ along with the ‘five percepts’, or the ‘eight precepts’. And by being an active member of this community, you cultivate self-discipline and virtue. The next pillar is that of meditation, which is the other side of the aspect of truth within the path of an active Buddhist. Where the Dhamma guides us, meditation is our personal discovery of the truths it describes. Lastly, there is the pillar of wisdom. It is the fruit of our practice and must be cultivated slowly and with persistence as we make progress with becoming virtuous individuals. So to summarize, as Buddhists, virtue, truth, and wisdom are the general qualities that we seek to develop. 

“Let’s explore the idea of meditation some more. So what is meditation? At its core, it is the act of repeatedly refocusing attention on an object. When the mind is pacified, it is conducive to the broadening of our understanding of that object. Meditation is also a practice of detachment. It is a momentary release from our possessions, our thoughts, our circumstances, and the suffering that they derive.

“The most common object of meditation is that of the breath. Close your eyes, sit still, bring your attention to the breath, and in due course, lucidity and serenity will emerge. In this meditative disposition, our stresses, as well as our suppositions, can become discerned with more clarity and therefore are more likely to become subject to resolution. 

“Mindfulness is a more versatile attention, one that can be maintained throughout daily life. By focusing of attention on our tasks and how they make us feel, we can make life’s activities our object of meditation. Mindfulness can also refer to our ability to keep something in mind as we move through our day. This is the sense of the word which we are referring to when we discuss the ‘right mindfulness’ of the noble eightfold path. It is to consider the occurrences of our life through the aperture of a specific context. It is to see the world through the deliberately elected framing of our choice. So for example, if one’s intention is to resolve to abandon unskillful behaviours and develop skillful ones, then they must keep these criteria in mind and consider each development as it arises in these terms. To be mindful is to be free from all-consuming doubts and worries.

“Now what of enlightenment? Awakening? Nibbana? Satori? Or As we westerners often refer to it, Nirvana of the Sanskrit? Well, most think of it as some state of mind that must be sought after for a lifetime before being achieved. That it is some magical state that transcends life as we know it. This is hyperbole. In fact, I would contend that we have all tasted it ourselves at one point or another. Nibbana is after all not something that we acquire but rather it is what already exists as the base layer of our consciousness. It is the way the mind is when it is no longer burdened by the habits and pressures of the ego. Extract the ego, even if just for a moment, and there, one will find the serenity and joy that come from detaching from circumstance. 

“As for Buddhist Wisdom, well there isn’t all that much that I can offer you apart from recommending that you read the Dhamma. I can however outline the general direction that Buddhist wisdom leans towards. You see, ultimate-truth is less prevalent due to the fact that claims of this sort lead to division, argumentation, and in some instances, where the parties are unwise enough, even violence. Buddhist wisdom instead describes what one will come to know about life, through practicing meditation and virtuosity, under the guidance of the Dhamma, and without having to accept any particular beliefs. 

“I Came to a realization some years ago. That being that it occurred to me that what was most important was the magic of the mystery and a greater life purpose. I needed some sort of higher calling, one that satiated my mind in all of its aspects. One that helped others and served the greater good. For me, that was ordaining, becoming a servant of the Buddha and the Dhamma. 

“I am incredibly grateful for the forces that brought this to fruition and I have never been happier. When the Buddha was asked why his followers all appeared so joyful, he responded that they, like himself, had forgotten the past and lost their concern and speculation for the future. He continued to explain that because of this, they resided in the present moment and were therefore free. In their radiant freedom, they were no longer attached to any particular mental or physical phenomena, and that their serene joy was the fruit of their independence from circumstance.

“Without monks, the three refuges are incomplete, unviable. We act as spiritual companions for all those on this path. We unambiguously represent the values of the Buddha and his Dhamma. We support the lay population and they can achieve their merit and develop their generosity by supporting us.  We all have our roles within our communities and society as a whole. The role of the monk has many folds but I like to think of us as beacons of compassion in a world starved of it. With the four sublime attitudes, that of limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity monks act as a counter, or opposition to those of immense wealth who remain greedy, those of immense fear who remain mean, careless, and destructive. Monks are a beacon of hope in a world of confused conventions.

“With the above said, I think there is nothing more important to teach a new interest in Buddhism than that of the four noble truths. There is ‘the fact of Dukkha’, ‘the origin of Dukkha’, ‘the end of Dukkha’ and  ‘the path to the end of Dukkha’. Come to know these simple truths and you will find your inner serenity. That I promise you, my new friend.

“The Fact of Dukkha…”, he began. 

“Firstly, and as you likely already know, Dukkha is a Pali term which translates to English as something along the lines of dissatisfaction, unsatisfactoriness, suffering, or stress. Secondly, note that the conventional understanding of life is not adequate as it necessarily leads to a large portion of our life experiences being unsatisfactory and stressful. Life as most know it is riddled with traps and inevitable negative eventualities. Buddhism not only helps us avoid these traps and pitfalls but also preferably orients our perspective to better deal with these sorts of unavoidable negative events.

“The Origin of Dukkha…”, he continued.

“Our suffering has a handful of origins. At the center of all is the concept of desire. We have our attachments, conscious or otherwise and these dictate to what we grasp or cling, as well as what constitutes our aversions. Our desires define what push and pull us. They are false motivations. In fact, they all lead to suffering, even when we find ourselves in agreeable circumstances, they ultimately will prove to be vulnerable and transient. This is the concept of Anicca, a Pali term for impermanence. Desires achieved upon false motivations are like houses built on sand, their foundation is shaky and inevitably impermanent. In short, even when things go our way, are enjoyable, and appear positive, they will ultimately result in a sense of loss. This is the fate of those who seek fulfillment in that which is impermanent. This is the concept of anicca.

“You see, not getting what you want is dukkha… and even getting what you want eventually leads to dukkha… therefore wanting, in general, is dukkha. Forget what you think you desire, what you actually desire is a relationship with the cosmos of peace and understanding. Illness, aging, pain, and death are inevitabilities of life. So the question is, how can one approach life in a manner that does not derive unnecessary stress and anxiety from these formalities? How can one save their diminishing sense of purpose? The answer…

“The End of Dukkha…”, he squeezed through his smirk.

“The more ego one has, the more vulnerable they become the barbs of the world. Just as flesh gets caught on metal barbs, the ego gets caught on mental ones. So long as there is an ego within, pulling the strings and evaluating our world of experience, there will be dukkha. Therefore, one could say that the end of dukkha is contingent on the release of not only our ego’s habits but also its perspective. The ego is the mechanism by which we attach ourselves to circumstance. 1- Achieving Nibanna, that being a happiness and inner peace that exists as independent of circumstance, and 2- the dismantling of one’s ego, are largely one and the same proposition. 

“The mark of the beast here is the emotions of pride, and shame, along with the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, as well as, fame and disrepute. These are the limbs of the ego and to cut them off is no small task. It must be fostered slowly and with care. As one’s generosity begins to exceed their greed, as their love exceeds their hatred and their wisdom exceeds their delusion, they are lessening the presence of their ego as the mediator of their experience. 

‘“Let me reiterate… regarding pride, shame and guilt… the degree to which one harbours these emotions is precisely the degree to which they are identified with a small sense of self, the degree to which they are in the grasp of a self-feeding and self-serving ego, the degree to which they are falsely motivated. At base, to have an ego is to be driven by a false narrative. It is to be blind to what actually is, and by extension, ignorant of what actually matters.

“So what does the end of an ego look like? It will lack pride and shame. It will not consist of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, or fame and disrepute. It will not display clinging or repulsion, desire or aversion. Its greed will dwindle in the flame of generosity. Its hatred will drown in the ocean that is its all-encompassing love. Its delusion will be resolved into the light of its wisdom.

“When one is no longer falsely motivated by their ego and its pursuit of fulfillment in that which is impermanent, one may become available to the splendour that is living a more spiritually-attuned life. The Pali term for this concept is samvega, which is a general dissatisfaction with the purposelessness many find while living a conventional lifestyle. The spiritual enrichment of one’s life opens them up to a world of unshakable fulfillment and a life of greater purpose.

“Lastly, the fourth noble truth, the Path to the End of Dukkha…”, he carried on.

“This path represents the journey to the cessation of our worldly stress and suffering. It requires only that we know of it and have the persistence and wisdom required to accomplish it. 

“The noble eightfold path. In Buddhist iconography, symbolized by a wheel with eight mutually supportive spokes, each in place of a percept, is the defined way to this release from dukkha. They are as follows: Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Where their qualification as ‘right’ pertains to their directionality away from self-centered habits and instead to harmony with the virtue, truth, and wisdom of the Buddhist path.

“Allow me to quickly go over each…

“Right view, to see experience in terms of the noble truths.

“Right intention, to resolve to abandon thoughts of sensuality, ill-will, and harm.

“Right speech, to abstain from telling lies, speaking divisively, speaking harshly of others, and partaking in idle-chatter.

“Right action, to abstain from killing, inflicting harm, stealing and participating in illicit sexually behaviour.

“Right livelihood, to not make a living out of something which is dishonest and or, harmful.

“Right effort, to resolve to abandon unskillful behaviour and the develop skillful behaviour.

“Right mindfulness, to keep attention focused thoroughly on the task at hand without distraction and also, and more importantly, to keep right effort in mind throughout the course of daily life.

“Finally, there is right concentration, which has to do with the four levels of Jhana meditation that the Buddha achieved beneath the bodhi tree at the time of his enlightenment. 

“I know this can all be very overwhelming at first glance but I promise you that there is a brilliant life awaiting all who accept this challenging method of development through the noble eightfold path. For now, here is a shortlist of mantras that you can memorize. They contain much of the sentiment I have discussed here and will help to orient you on your path.

He handed me a folded piece of paper, its edges were aged, slightly browned, and worn. Upon opening it, there, written across its deep folds were the following lines:

“-If you know what is wrong, foolish and unworthy, what leads to harm and discontent, then abandon it. If you know what is right, good, virtuous, and wise, then develop it

-During times of difficulty, serenity and patience are within me

During times of good fortune, compassion and generosity are within me

May my mind and heart stay steady and buoyant throughout all of life’s circumstances

-May my generosity exceed my greed, my love exceed my hatred and my wisdom exceed my delusion

-I will be mindful of the origins of suffering; desire and aversion, impermanence and unfavourable circumstance

-The vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, pride and shame, as well as, fame and disrepute are the ego’s limbs

-The development of compassion, patience, and service are my methods

-My body is a temple in which resides a skillful and cleanly mind

-My purpose in life is to love, nourish, nurture and assist others for they are I and I am them, together we are one

-I am happy, I am healthy and life is good, as I am immersed in a beautiful world. The world is beautiful as it consists invariably of inevitable conditions

-I cultivate non-resistance, non-judgment, non-reaction, and non-attachment”

It was the confluence of many factors that soon had me on a plane to Fukui, Japan. I had the pain of my past, a couple of consequential and failed love affairs, as well as that which still haunted me from my time as a journalist of war. I had the urge of wanderlust fuelling my departure, the thrill of the mysterious yet awaited me and I could feel that deep within. The whole adventure was motivated by my time at Tinando. I wanted to pursue Buddhism but I knew that being yet another layman wasn’t going to be enough for me. On the other side of the equation, I knew that ordaining as a monk was a step further than my desire to travel would allow me to take. And so it was settled, I would sell what few possessions I had left and board a flight to Japan to begin my hunt for the Buddha incarnate. Later I would find myself journalling all over Asia; Japan, Thailand, rural China, India, and Nepal.

Pt. 5: The Bonsai of Impermanence 

The morning of my flight was an exciting time as it once again stirred my sense of adventure. I was headed to Fukui, a quaint and budding city about three hundred miles up the northwestern coast from Hiroshima. Nestled between the mountains of Ryōhaku and the sea of Japan, Fukui existed as a modern economic development built atop an ancient structure rich with Zen and Samurai history. It was a great example of how quickly times can change and the ingenuity of man can progress. Like moss over a stone, the modern structures of our time paint the earth’s surface only to ultimately crumble back into it.

Being so close to the site of the Hiroshima bombing, I could not help but ponder it. It was about 35 years removed and yet to me, as a foreigner, it felt so fresh. A single atom bomb, delivered by a handful of operators in a B-22 bomber, killed an estimated 80,000 people upon impact and tens of thousands more later from residual radiation exposure. If that wasn’t enough, they repeated this horror in Nagasaki. This unconscionable loss really puts the fragility of life into perspective, that it can indeed be taken away in a literal flash.

My first love gifted me a brown leather-backed notebook, it was no bigger than the spread of my hand. I had many possessions that I could leave behind but this wasn’t one of them. I had no intention of writing in it, it was more of a keepsake. Little did I know that the notebook’s sentimental value would make it all that much more conducive to capturing my emotions. There was a higher standard for what my pen’s ink would bleed into its pages. The book meant too much to me to be filled with my usual rubbish. I reserved it for truly inspired moments. There, in that airplane, over the loud roar of its engines, I wrote my first entry in my beloved book. Each pen stroke was especially tidy and deliberate.

“The tree inadvertently arranges its form into a complex of entanglement. And so, in this form, its lower branches do not hesitate to catch and hold any such limb which should fall from its higher regions. Much in the same way, when the mind experiences loss; be it the death, rejection, or the passing-by of a loved one, its attachment exceeds its permanence. And so, the mind is left in a state analogous to that of a tree which has suffered a lightning strike, it captures and arrests the dismembered appendage on its journey to the ground. The larger the branch, or the more consequential the person, the more likely it is to become entangled in the edifice below. We grasp onto the remnants of our losses, we grip the artifacts of the past and in doing so, we fail in returning them to the ground from which they grew. Though a detached branch may be released from its entanglement by a sufficiently strong wind, the tree does not have the capacity to voluntarily let go. While on the other hand, the mind, when faced with impermanence, has no other option than to exonerate itself. For it is the earth from which all relationships grow and it is the earth to which all will return; to decay, to be reclaimed, and to one day re-amalgamate as new life. One must remember that it is the ethereal nature of life that gives rise to the dynamics of change and novelty, and thusly allows for us to ephemeralize our world. To cling to the past is to be static and to be static is to be dead. All life emerges from its own impermanence“

The funny thing about suffering is that it is both a product of the ego and also the greatest tool for penetrating it. Most commonly, suffering is a trivial, surface-level scraping of our identity. The ego is so fragile and responsive that it can build itself up in its own defense. While this is true, deep suffering can be so consequential as to uproot the ego entirely. Losing a loved one can be like being a musician who loses his ears, or an artist who loses their eyes. Romantic love, when we are immersed in it, can taste like nectar and feel like sunshine. Losing this can cause a person to broaden the scope of their awareness as they retreat from pain. Eventually, it can erode one’s identity, their ego, entirely.

Japan is home to the relatively strict Buddhist practice of Zen. At its core, Zen is a Mahayana fork of Buddhist philosophy. This branch is called the great vehicle and is considered to be the most stringent of all Buddhist practices. Zen focuses on direct engagement with reality and views thought as a barrier to it. If the mind is to be broken down into two basic categories, they may as well be that of sense-perceptions -the qualia of consciousness itself, or rather, how it feels to be you- and those of thought-perceptions -the mind and its contents as they are constituted in their semantic nature-. Zen Buddhists feel that if we are to best understand reality, that this cannot be achieved through the misleading conceptual scaffold of logic and language. In principle, life must be experienced directly through the senses to be understood. The more closely one can connect with their senses, the closer they come to reality itself.

I was headed to Eihei-Ji Temple to study under the great Zen Master Sanshoho Daibutsuji. The Mahayana Buddhist mindset is one of compassion. So much so, that even when enlightenment is achieved, a Mahayana master will choose to be reborn into the samsara that is human existence in order to help those less fortunate achieve enlightenment as well. My logic was that if anyone was truly enlightened, it would be one of these returning Mahayana Masters. If the Buddha was to still walk the earth, he would certainly only do so to help others find their way beyond the cycle of rebirth and unenlightened lives. Master Daibutsuji was my safest bet, “surely he was the Buddha”, I thought.

I took a taxi from the airport straight to the front gate of Eihei-Ji. Through a rain-speckled window, I could see the beaches and cliffs where the land sank beneath the sea of Japan. The beginning of the ride took us through the heart of the Fukui metropolis and before I knew it, we had emerged at the sparsely populated rural mountain landscape of Ryōhaku.

When I arrived at Eihei-Ji I was greeted by a lone monk at the gate, he instructed me to wait for Master Daibutsuji if I wanted to enter the Temple. As he turned away, he winked and motioned for me to sit on the bottom step of the grand staircase he then slowly ascended to the temple’s entranceway. So I did, I sat and I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. 

It was a dismal overcast day. You know, the kind where the sky is grey, everything is ten shades darker than it should be and covered in a reflective wet sheen. The kind of day where the mountain mist is so heavy that you might as well be in a cloud. Everything was through-and-through wet to its core. The soaked and drooping leaves of the forest shimmered with sedated water droplets developing at their bases. I felt as if I had been submerged into the fog, it was more of an atmosphere than I typically credited Appalachian fog with. You could see the infinite suspended droplets in the air as they delicately floated to the ground in unison. It was the wettest day of my life. 

I sat through the day and then through the night. I was too wet to sleep and too cold to meditate. I recall a deep frustration welling up inside of me. Was I being played? Was this their way of telling me that I wasn’t welcome? Was it because I was a westerner? If it wasn’t for the fact that I simply had nowhere else to go, I likely would have stormed off in anger and never returned. 

Before I knew it the sun had risen and the cool dampness was lifted. The sky illuminated everything with a rose gold hue and I suddenly felt all of my resentment fading. If it weren’t for the fact that I was physically shaken out of samadhi by the bony hands of a hurried monk, I wouldn’t have even opened my eyes when the monk returned to collect me. 

I didn’t know it at the time but it was customary to be left alone outside of Zen temples, for a day’s time, before they would consider granting you entry. It was their way of weeding out the undisciplined and impatient. Zen is, after all, the most strict and restrictive of all branches of Buddhism. If they just left the doors open, they would have nearly as many people leaving as they did arriving. It was no small task to stay the course with a real Zen Master. 

The Monk who retrieved me was named Manny. He was a tri-lingual English and French teacher from the north of Japan. He was the only English-speaking monk at Eihei-Ji. Not that we did much talking at the temple but it was nice to have someone to translate for me occasionally. Though I fell in line with the daily activities of the Monks, I was very much so left to my own devices mentally. Unlike the monks at Tinando, no one here was holding my hand and giving me mental instruction. We did about 5 or 6, or maybe, 7 or 8 hours of meditation a day. To be honest, It was hard to tell because I didn’t have a clock for the entire length of my stay. I simply woke when the monks ran down the hallway beating a drum and stick. This wake-up call was not to be taken lightly, anything less than jumping out of bed was frowned upon. Then we meditated for some unknown but lengthy amount of time before cleaning everything as if it had never been cleaned before and eating a very modest rice, tofu, and vegetable broth breakfast. This breakfast was our only meal for the day and after it, we would return to meditation.

At Eihei-Ji, the mediation hall was literally a hallway. On either side, there were elevated platforms that ran its length. These platforms were where Monks sat for Samadhi and also to eat. Divided by the Master’s pathway down the length of the room, monks sat facing each other but never looked at each other. Monk’s eyes were always either closed or looking at the ground a few feet in front of them.

During meditation periods, it was of the utmost importance that you sat with the best possible straight-back posture. Holding a large bamboo stick, Master Daibutsuji would pace up and down the length of the meditation hall. The soft shuffle of his feet was mesmerizing but heaven forbid you heard them come to a stop in front of you. For more often than not, this was followed by the loud howl of his hollow bamboo shaft as it swung through the air to strike your shoulder. This being the consequence of slouching or falling asleep. The crack of his corrective tool would leave marks of red and could even draw blood.

Though hardly a word was shared with me, my stay at Eihei-Ji taught me many things. The discipline of routine. The simplicity of non-indulgence. The calm of stilling one’s mind. The beauty of silence.

Manny would accompany me to my meetings with Master Daibutsuji. This is where he would silently evaluate our progress and deliver a fitting Zen koan for us to ponder until our next meeting. I would tell Sanshoho what conclusions his last koan lead me to and after Manny translated, Master Daibutsuji would sit silently for a moment or two, deeply staring into my eyes before responding with yet another koan. This made up the entirety of my exposure to Sanshoho. If he wasn’t hitting me with a stick, he was giving me an impossible puzzle to ponder, or at least that was what I thought at the time.

The Zen koan is a tool designed to provoke doubt within an individual’s mind. The mind will attempt to answer the riddle logically but ultimately what logical prowess it has will be built atop a shaky set of underlying assumptions. Assumptions represent a lack of knowledge, and or, information. An honest mind will see this deficit and a great doubt will arise within it. This “doubt”, shifts attention away from the analytical apparatus of the mind and towards that which can be known, without doubt, our direct experience. At least, this is how Sanshoho Dabibutsuji described the koan to me. I recall him saying that, “Most people are like a numb arm stuck through a hole in a wall, blindly probing around in an environment they are failing to sense or experience.” Surely, this is hyperbole. Of course, we sense our surroundings, of course, we come to know our environments. The point is not to paint a black and white landscape here, but rather to describe the degree to which our mental noise and fictions can distract from what is right in front of us. Just as a spoon can stir sugar into coffee, the koan, in a far more complex way, stirs life back into our hearts.

My favourite of Sanshoho’s koans went something like this, “What is the sound of a tree falling, if nothing or no one is there to hear it?”. Well, the logical mind says that if there is nothing, or no one there to hear it, then it doesn’t make any noise at all. Sound is an auditory experience, it requires ears and a whole central nervous system to produce it. Sound is ontologically subjective. Now, what does that mean? It basically means that its existence is dependent on a consciousness to host it. In other words, sound is observer relative. So what does the tree make when it falls? It makes pressure waves in the air, these pressure waves exist out there in the objective world whether there is a central nervous system present to interpret them as sound or not. Therefore, these pressure waves are ontologically objective and observer-independent… No observer? then no sound. No perceiving awareness present? Then nothing can be perceived.

While this logic and reason approach to understanding reality serves its purpose in many regards and on many fronts, Zen practitioners emphasize coming to understand reality directly through experience itself. Explanations offer a semantic understanding, whereas direct qualaic experience, or rather, the world as it penetrates our senses, offers a tangible one. If one’s goal is to achieve a greater sensual awareness, that being, a deeper connection with their experience of the here and now, then facts and knowledge-based understandings, as well as, our subjective interpretations of the world, can in many regards, act as obstacles to this enterprise.

Manny and I would spend our late afternoons in open-eyed meditation in the garden. At Eihei-Ji, there was the most beautiful of Japanese gardens. It was full of grand hinoki cypress, vigorous Japanese maple, strong sacred bamboo, and beautiful pink, kwanzan cherry. At the heart of it, there was a small rock garden of raked gravel that circled around 5 prominent and unique boulders. During the morning chore period, this garden would be raked slowly and deliberately, as if it were being massaged by the long tongs of the oak appendage. Not only did it tidy things up and remove fallen debris but it was also done for its symbolism. It represented impermanence, dynamism, acceptance, and appreciation. 

It fell upon me to rake the rock garden a handful of times. I wasn’t particularly good at it and I didn’t paint a particularly beautiful landscape but I definitely tidied it up well. Raking the garden ingrained in me a love for the tedious. Picking the fallen peddles of the pink kwanzan trees from between the tiny stones became an exercise in futility that would follow me for the rest of my life.

Like all things in the garden, there was a frail arch bridge that seemingly served no purpose, to the untrained eye, it went nowhere. It simply popped up from the ground in one location and sank back into it in another. It was only about 20 feet long and it crossed over nothing save a small patch of well-manicured grass. One of my most vivid memories of my time in the garden is of Manny describing purposelessness to me. He said, “That bridge, it goes nowhere, it circumvents no obstacle, no one has any expectations of it nor does it expect to be utilized by anyone. And yet, it is. You see its purpose is of a higher order, it has a… higher purpose! You see, Its purpose is to teach purposelessness! Some men walk the path to arrive somewhere, while others walk it to arrive nowhere. Some women do things to achieve something, while others do things to achieve nothing! When I listen to Japanese flute, I don’t expect any destination to be arrived at, I simply enjoy the journey of it. When nature grows, it doesn’t expect to grow into any particular end form. Do you think the eons and eons of waves lapping on beaches have any meaning? Nature is purposeless. It carries no intention and has no goal, it simply is. I myself, well I… I strive to embody that principle, to be like nature, to be purposeless!”

Looking back on it, Manny strived to be purposeless, so that he too, like the bridge, could teach purposelessness, this was his purpose and it was this, in and of itself, that was the primary reason that he was failing to reach his goal, it was the mere fact that he had one at all. He needed to drop his intentions and become like the eons and eons of lapping waves, of anicca. 

Pt. 6: The Lotus of Ten-thousand Folds

My next stop landed me in Chiang Mai Thailand. I was tracking down the most venerable of Theravada Monks, Ajahn Chah. Theravada is the school of the Elders and Ajahn Chah was indeed the oldest and most noble of the Thai Buddhist elders of the forest tradition. Where Zen monks aimed to perpetuate life and use it to help others escape the cycles of reincarnation, the school of the elders was one that recognized their leaders as those readiest to graduate from the samsara of incarnation. With that said, I thought that this would be my only chance to study under the great, venerable Ajahn Chah before he ceased to reincarnate. 

From the airport, I was taxied in a small cloth-topped Suzuki sidekick to the base of a mountain just beyond the lights of the Chiang Mai skyline. The moon was bright and full, casting a smooth yellow-white brilliance over the crowns of the mountain landscape. The ride was rough and I often found myself bouncing out of my seat in sync with the beat of the Thai kantrum music playing softly over the radio.

Ahead on the road, I saw three Robed monks strolling up the mountain. I thought they must be headed to where I was going, so I instructed the driver to pull over. To my surprise these men were caucasian, clearly, they were westerners like myself. As I reached back into the cab of the truck to grab my backpack, I began introducing myself to the monks. They responded with their names, followed by a quick raise of their clasped hands to their foreheads and a slight bow in my direction. 

Their names I would never forget. There was Viradhammo, Sumedo, and Jack. Over the course of our stroll up the mountain’s side, I would quickly come to learn that they were all incredibly intelligent and wise for their young age. The three of them wore wide smiles as they told me about Ajahn Chah’s brilliance and leadership. They joked about how the white of the anagarika robe was near impossible to keep unbesmirched, especially with all of the outdoor chores I would have ahead of me. But they assured me that I had come to the right place if I was hoping to learn of Dukkha and its cessation. 

I was awakened by the warmth of the morning sun on my chest. Behind closed eyes, the Thai sun crept in and slowly penetrated my dream. I was holding my first love, squeezing her so tightly that every muscle in my body was violently quivering with the contractions of an absolute and total emotion. As she faded into the wash of the blinding light that entered my opening eyes, I knew that I would be carrying into my day, the emotional pain of missing her. The pain of having to let go of her embrace once again. 

I was sharing a hut with Jack and this was my first morning awakening to the song of the Thai birds. The summer mugginess of southern Asia’s tropical climate was something that I had not experienced in years. It thrust me into a series of flashbacks, some of Cambodia and some of Vietnam. Needless to say, I wasn’t having the smoothest of mornings. I seemed to be tripping over an unusual amount of hang-ups, my emotional memory was both triggered and inflamed. 

As I sat up in my bed, I could see that Jack’s was both empty and made with the tension of a military tuck. Before me was the horse stall, half-door of the hut’s eastern facing side. Beyond it,  I could see the sun bleached straw thatching of the hut’s roof as it descended upon a lush and vigorous, green vista. There was a fragrance of blossoms on the air, like that of a blissfully scented garden. At my feet were my whites and after dressing, I turned to find the silhouette of a small-statured man standing just beyond the closed half-door. With shock and surprise in my voice, I uttered a tepid, “hello… good morning…”. 

With a chuckle, the man used a come-here motion with one hand as he pushed the door open for me with the other. As I stepped out of the hut, the small man’s silhouette bloomed with the detail of a thousand colours. As I walked past him, It occurred to me that this was none other than Ajahn Chah himself. His small body radiated a tremendous aura, not only of joy but also of kindness. He wore a brilliant smile, it was absolutely contagious and now I understood why the three monks I had met on the road had such eccentric grins. 

“Your heart young Ana…” as he would call me, “We will train it to forget your self-centered habits!” He said enthusiastically. “Each and every day…” He continued,

“We are faced with our greatest of challenges, they come in the form of our own delusion, our own fear, hatred, and greed. If you have come here, then I presume that you did so to ward them off, to rid your life of them. Here you will find peace, as well as freedom, and you will do so by ceasing to identify with your temporary and dynamic form of being. When you leave here, you will be hardened by wisdom, patience, and faith, and you will be as such in the face of all hardships. This is your warrior heart, my new friend. 

Leaning towards my face, and propping himself up higher on his tip-toes, he carried on, “I can see in your eyes that you have felt great dukkha, I will point you to its source but ultimately, it will be up to you to let it go. I am called Ajahn. Do you know what that means?” He asked.

“No…” I began to respond before being sharply interrupted. 

“It means teacher!” He stated abruptly.

“Now, as your teacher, there are things which I must tell you now, I will not be able to teach you what you must learn. I can only point the way, as a finger can point at the moon. You must be your own teacher as well. A wise man allows everything in his surroundings to instruct him. He learns from the problems he faces, he is instructed by all events and he looks to nature for guidance.

“With the Dhamma, we must let go. With the discipline of monasticism, we must grip tightly. A monastic life is the only thing that one may cling to without jeopardizing their mental sanctuary. Hold to the conventions but do not be burdened by them. See the beauty of the world but don’t dream about it. If you can sincerely commit to your precepts, then that commitment will be the source of your young wisdom!”

We began to walk down the narrow, meandering kuti-hut path. For such a small man, his hard leather thongs still managed to make quite a ruckus. As if it were orchestrated, the grind of the sand and the pop of the stone beneath his feet acted as a kind of percussive rhythm that carried his words. 

“All that I ask of you, is that your efforts be put into upholding the structure of the eight-fold path. Sila, or as you will be familiar with it, virtuous speech and action, will bring your heart into confluence with the Dhamma. Remember that it is your foundation, it is where the structure of your liberation, concentration, and insights will be built.

“The progress of your spiritual life will be predicated on your ability to develop right-view, as well as, the purity of your conduct. Right-view is to see the mind and world in their truest forms, to have a map which charts their landscapes and relationships. Right-view will require that you learn what is truly meant by karma, or kamma, as we call it here in Thailand. It also means that you will come to see your life experiences in light of the four truths… suffering, its cause, its end and the path to it. If you can do this, your perceptions of the world will become fuel for your insight.

“The world has taught you evil. I will point you in the direction of what is good. When you have come to know the difference between the two. You can first begin by distancing yourself from evil. You can then establish what is good and lastly, you can give both up. The path of perpetual wandering, samsara, is a path that exists not only between what is good and what is evil but also between the sensory indulgences of pleasure and pain. If one indulges in sensory pleasures, then they must fluctuate between the opposites poles of pain and pleasure. These are the ways of slackness and tension. The way of intoxication, not of meditation. Thusly they will never find peace. 

“You must transcend unhappiness and happiness alike. Tension within is anger, it is sorrow, it is fear. Slackness within is just a refined form of tension… happiness is just a refined form of unhappiness. For when happiness disappears, unhappiness arises. They alike are not peaceful states of mind. They are the mindset of a wanderer, aimless on any meaningful level, and naive to the skillful way. To follow good and evil… to be driven by the pursuit of happiness and to retreat from unhappiness, these are the markings of a lost mind, a mind blinded by delusion. 

He paused briefly to scan our surroundings, “You see happiness cannot be sought after, it is what there is when you cease to look for it. Do you want to know who the happiest people are? The skillful ones!” He answered.

“Their intentions to find happiness have been left by the wayside. Instead, they focus their intentions on being conscientious deliverers of an unconfrontational world…”

Chah then pointed to a bench by a small pond, he smiled at me and as I began to walk to it, he turned his back to me and started to walk in the opposite direction. “See you later tonight for a Dhamma talk!” He yelled as he walked away.

I would then spend almost the entirety of the day sitting on that bench. Seeing as it was my first day at Wat Pah Nanachat, I really had nowhere else to be until the evening Dhamma talk. I split my time between periods of meditation, periods of admiration for the beauty and serenity of the Wat Pah garden, and of course, I spent some time thinking about all that I had learned and how I could apply it to my life moving forward.

The pond was as flat as glass and as reflective as a mirror. The bubbly clouds appeared both above my head and beneath my feet. There was a large seated Buddha statue at either side of the pond, each sitting in the shade of short palms that swayed with grace in the breeze. The statues were made of heavy and solid concrete construction. They were painted with a yellow-gold and covered with a dried and pale sage-green moss, as well as a dark stained patina that ran in water lines over their flowing curves.

Wat Pah Nanachat was a new monastery. It was built specifically to take in non-Thai practitioners of the forest tradition. It reminded me very much of Tinando but was in many ways, even more welcoming. Somehow, all of these like-minded westerners had all found the same place, the same guru, and the same philosophical disposition. Most were quite educated and had left behind what were otherwise quite prosperous young lives in the free world. They did so in exchange for strict precepts, daily chores, humble meals, and a stiff cot in a room empty of personal possessions. 

This lifestyle starts by stripping away all of the unnecessary and materialistic personal things we surround ourselves with. It removes that which we use to build our identities. The books that make you appear smart, the car that makes you appear successful, the house that makes you appear wealthy, and the spouse that makes you appear happy. In removing these things from one’s life, there is a real opportunity to start to unravel the baggage of one’s past as well. To strip one’s self down in this manner is the most direct path to healing, acceptance, and forgiveness. It is a return to the true identity, the god-head. 

These are the conclusions that one must reach in order to live on a deeper level, one impervious to the world and its effects. After all, what is God? Who are Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna? They are pure and egoless. They are acceptance and forgiveness. They are an inexorable love, indiscriminate and unconditional. 

If one loses their identity, then by default they must be identified with all things. You see, there is a holistic ego, one which sees through god’s eyes and becomes the whole world in its entirety. This is where one can find them-self after dispatching of their possessions, their beliefs, their dispositions, and their self-preservation. After all, what is an egoless entity that is self-centered? It is an entity that has nothing but love for all things. It is the cosmos. It is God.

There, alone on that bench, I had a very powerful vipassana experience. I felt as though there were no deeper insights to behold. Imagine finding the solution to an impossible riddle. It was indeed as if my life had become a riddle and that my mind had somehow worked out a viable solution to my world of troubles. Like the roots of a tree, this solution seemed to penetrate every part of me, dissolving every worry and releasing the tensions throughout my body. I felt my burdens lift as my body found a level of relaxation that I had never before experienced. It was a sort of soft, sinking feeling as if I were becoming one with the earth below me. My body became a cloud of subtle sensations. I could feel the stillness of my mind. A resilient focus centered on my breath. It was soft and smooth, as if the air I breathed were silk. This was the beginning of what I believe to be my first real experience of samadhi. 

Hours passed as I dropped out of ordinary consciousness and into a dimensionless realm of tactile awareness. From the depths of my being, I could feel the all-consuming growth of a vibratory buzz arising from my core. As it came over me, I realized that it was somehow familiar, as if I had been there before and had just forgotten all about it until that moment.  My visual field was a wall of ever-changing geometric patterns of orange and blue. Though I had seen the back of my eyelids literally every day of my life, I had never seen them like this. It was as if the relaxed state of my body had released a tension in my eyes, or perhaps in my occipital lobe. In either case, there was an overwhelming visual display of shapeshifting polyhedrons suspended in a depthless dimension.

“Ana, Ana!” A voice shouted from behind me. 

As my eyes opened, I could feel the world come flooding back in. Like a stone cast onto still water, the impact of the sound reverberated throughout the nerves of my body with all of the intensity of an electric shock. I gasped for breath as I caught myself returning to the earthly realm. “Had I stopped breathing?”, I wondered.

It was Jack. As he approached he carried on, “There you are Ana, I’ve been looking all over for you my new friend… Come fast or we’ll be late for the Dhamma talk!”

My legs were stiff and cumbersome as I uncrossed them and got up from my lotus position on the bench. Beneath my shuffling feet, I could feel the gentle caress of each blade of grass. My mind maintained its stillness as we smiled at one another. I don’t think that I had ever before felt more aware than I did at that moment. The nuances of the world were brilliant and I felt entirely immersed in them as we walked through the garden to the Dhamma hall. The taffy pink peddles of the lotus, the auburn red of the needle flower, and the paint palette of a thousand green foliages.

I followed Jack to an unoccupied area on the large Persian rug. This Dhamma and mediation hall had a large Thai-style roof supported only by pillars. There were no walls to obscure a full view of the surrounding jungle, nor did it obscure the sea of crickets as they filled the evening air with their chirps. There was a strong, warm breeze that passed between the rows of seated monks. There must have been about 30 of us and not a soul made a peep. Ajahn Chah sat in front of us, he faced away while he initiated the chanting. It was only a moment or two before the monks all followed his lead, bowing and raising their clasped hands in synchrony. 

It was then that Luang Por Chah turned to face us, sitting in a calm and alert posture his eyes landed upon my own. With the crack of his lips, I felt my anxiety rise as he said, “Ana, Ana, please address your fellows with the intentions you bring to my monastery…”. 

And so, with some hesitation, I began to scan the room as I informed them that this request was quickly replacing the calm state of mind that I had spent most of the day cultivating with anxious and frightened energy. 

“I’m from the United States and I come here on a bit of a mission. You see, I was introduced to Buddhism quite recently and after falling irreversibly so for its philosophical principles, I conjured up a hunt of sorts, one which would take me to the corners of the world in search of… the Buddha.

“My being here is part of this journey. So far I have been to a great Zen temple in Japan and after some time here, I intend to continue on to China.”, I stopped speaking abruptly to insinuate that I had shared all that I had intended.

After a moment of pause, Luang Por Chah replied, “Ahhh, so you are searching for the Buddha… you let me know if you ever find him… but wait, I feel that this is a deeper question than it appears at its surface… Am I the Buddha?… Am I awakened?… Am I the reincarnation of Siddhattha Gotama? Are these not all the same question?… I think this question has more to do with the nature of consciousness and reincarnation than it does with me. If I am all of the above, then certainly you are as well.” His grin grew wide as he thanked me for introducing myself and announced that we would be diving deep into a Metta meditation for the rest of the evening.

We were instructed to think of people we loved, to wish them happy and fulfilling lives. It was an effort to express our love to them within the sanctity of our own minds. I was quite certain that the effect was for myself, though it was targeted upon others who were then thousands of kilometers away. I recall then thinking that a younger, more naive version of myself would have likely conceived of this act as an effort to somehow causally affect the state of their lives.

I was sorting through the rolodex of the people whom I cherished the most. With the exception of my mother, my father, and my siblings, I had only but a few close friends to bring to mind. Sooner than I would like to admit, I found that the well had run dry. That there were, admittedly, embarrassingly few people in my life with whom I still had a two-way relationship. 

At first, I found it odd who my honest mind chose to center its loving-kindness around. It seemed that the momentum I had built up while thinking about my family had carried itself across a bridge I hadn’t crossed in a long time. It was the cold and uncomfortable corner of my mind in which my estranged past resided. I don’t know if it was because I was just an unlikeable personality, or if perhaps I was viewed as an asshole or maybe too self-centered but the majority of the friends that I had throughout my life each ultimately made the very same decision to shut me out of theirs. Perhaps as many as a dozen of my closest friends and partners had either stopped replying to my attempts to contact them or they outright told me to leave them be and to never contact them again. In some way beyond my awareness, I must have wronged them. Whatever the matter may be, each of them gave to me the same lesson, that I was in some way flawed and not worthy of their companionship. These were the people who hurt me the most, but they were also the ones who taught me the greatest lessons of all. 

First, I was shown by the consistency of their actions that I had something to change about myself. They had each given up on me and it was the exact same result in each case. I therefore must have been the weak link, the party with the unacceptable flaw. With each of their rejections, I felt additional pain and separation from the world accruing. Little did I know, that at the time,  this was exactly what I needed.

Then too, this pain was a teacher in and of itself. It was the pressure that finally broke me… a movement that swept thru my core and washed away the very structure of my identity. It was unconscious at the time but escaping the pain meant destroying that which was reacting to it… the ego around which all of my worldly conceptions revolved.

Lastly, and to truly put it to rest, I would have to forgive them for disowning me as they had and recognize that it was ultimately my fault to begin with. My actions had been an unobserved thorn in their side. With this, I realized that if I truly loved them, I would be happy for them to have escaped it. Moving forward meant that I would have to accept that I was a burden on them and also that I owed them every bit of love and respect for showing me my wrongs. They were the mirror in which the monster could show its ugly face. The pain that I felt was to be my propellant for change. It is only in hindsight that I could see that it was these very people who should be credited with showing me the best path forward. And as I recall it, it was this Metta session where I finally connected these dots and once again, genuinely felt the love I originally had for them. They were and always will be my greatest friends. I owe to them the vast majority of everything good about my life now. Every functional relationship that I would maintain from then on, would be built on top of the change that they inspired at the foundation of who I am. Finding Metta for those who have hurt you is synonymous with finding the end of that variety of suffering. Until it is done, you will feel the hatred and anguish of abandonment, betrayal, and or, deception. The end of suffering, or at least one of them, lies just past unconditional love for all beings.

Once the meditation had concluded, Ajahn Chah approached me at the exit, and with a small clasped hand on my elbow, he pulled me aside. As he looked up and into my eyes he began, “Ana, the Buddha is an archetype, one around which my character is formed. By being here, you too are allowing it to guide you. You say you are searching for the Buddha, I don’t know that you will find him out there…”

After a brief pause, Chah looked over his shoulder and continued, “ You see Ana, I am the Buddha in the same way that a black hole is a sun. If the Buddha is the sun, shining brightly, then I am the blackhole accepting its nurturing rays. I capture the light but will never, no matter how enlightened I become, be able to, myself, shine like the sun.”

The next morning, Jack invited me to go for a bike ride with him. Behind our kuti hut, he had two very modern 10-speed bicycles. They were shinny and well kept with drop-down bars, spider fang brakes/ shifters, and thin 23mm tires with every spoke intact. He provided me with a helmet, along with a whispey cycling shirt and shorts. We looked like professional riders about to hit the tour de France, a far stretch from Thai monks in traditional garb.

As we started to pedal our way out of the monastery compound, Jack began to explain, “For a very long time, I have suffered from severe depression. It has pushed me to places most never visit. There are really just a handful of tricks that I have found, out of necessity, to combat my poor neurochemistry. Running and riding, I find them to be interchangeable with mindfulness meditation. They share the effects of being tuned in to your body and conscious of your breath.

“Exercise is king my friend! The mind-body connection is often overlooked and rarely do we put it to the test and push its boundaries. No concept has been more beneficial to my mental suffering than the strengthening of my mind through the strengthening of my body. 

“I’ll tell you this now Ana, if the benefits of a proper exercise routine could be captured in a pill, well… that would be the most important pharmaceutical ever devised.

“Some might consider running or riding a bike up a hill to be itself a species of suffering… and I suppose it depends on how one defines suffering. I personally make a distinction between pain and suffering. A max effort can be a physically painful exertion. But ultimately, if it has a positive effect on the state of one’s mind, then the effect, I would say, is a net positive. Think about it this way, if you can come to embrace the sensations afforded by high exertion efforts, then you are on the quickest path to an expanding mind. That’s the way I like to think of it, if depression is a mind that is turning off, cowering, disinterested and lonesome, then its opposite would be an inquisitive, interested, excited, open, and all-inclusive one. Ultimately, how we treat our bodies has psychological consequences.”

To me, Thailand was a very hot and muggy place. The terrain was composed mostly of steep hills and mountains, some of which were so steep that the roads couldn’t be paved with black tar asphalt but were instead made of concrete. The efforts I would put in on the bike with Jack were excruciating, especially the first few weeks that he took me riding. Having overcome the “suffering” of regular and hard exercise, I soon found my mind gravitating towards a different genre of suffering. As we grinded our way up the mountainous roadways I often found myself reminded of my time in Vietnam and Cambodia. The jungle and general environment were so similar as to be interchangeable. The horrors of those wars would regularly flash before my eyes. Honestly, they made for great fuel while climbing hills, but deep down I knew that this was a type of suffering that would require a different kind of remedy.

The day was hot but the sky grey. I had just finished eating when I was approached by venerable Viradhammo. He sat next to me and asked how things were going. I could sense that he had a genuine concern for how I was progressing and so I told him briefly that I was for the most part better than ever, despite having these powerful memories of the Asian wars that I had journaled in my recent past. I told him how they were often triggered by nothing in particular and that they would catch me off guard with near certainty.

To my surprise, he responded, “You know, I know who you are… I mean, I have read an article of yours. The one published in the national geographic about ancient civilizations. I, like you, have always had a weakness for the exploration of world history. The archeology, anthropology, astronomy, and cartography. You know, the great explorers, the great leaders, the great civilizations of antiquity. Within all of it, buried alongside it, there are horrors… demons among the saints.  For instance, the human sacrifice of children under the foundation stones of Gezer, and for what? The appeal of some god that no one had actually ever witnessed. History is a graveyard of great evils, and yet, even so, it is so beautiful, so magical.

Viradhammo continued, “Our lives, they are much the same. Amongst the beauties and the splendours are hidden a great many horrors. It’s all part of the story and to be picky and choosy about what we allow into that tale is to do so at the expense of it. Every piece of our history, good or bad, has its place. The sooner you recognize that the sooner you can accept it as such. This is the truth of suffering. Luckily, there are other truths that follow from this one. The is the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path to the end of suffering. I’m glad to inform you that you are well on your way along that path. These are the four noble truths. They are how you will see the brilliance of acceptance, the chastity of desire, and the unity of all things. Embrace the difficulties that these traumas present, for they may be the greatest of lessons my friend.”

My time amongst the thick, heavy, moist air of the Thai jungles had come to an end. I promised my new friends that I would never forget them, nor their wisdom. They showed me that the path to peace was paved in morality, concentration, and wise understanding. 

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Simple.

Life is simple. 

Do good. Don’t do bad.

Follow you own intuition, 

You know right from wrong,

Pain from pleasure.

Suffering from contentment.

Be a source of good and skillful merit.

Don’t become a creator of pain and chaos.

Creating pain and chaos in the world causes suffering in the minds of bad actors. 

Life is too simple.

A mind that knows it has done the right thing, by it’s own intuition, is a content mind.

Contentment breeds peace, and peace leads to purity, both calm and clear.

Reflect upon your life, how you treat others but also your own body.

You know what is bad for your health, for your body. Disregard these things.

You know what is good for your health, for your body. Feed on the meritorious sources.

A considerate mind is a good actor. Reflect upon your choices, do they come at the expense of others? How can you rectify this? For you know what it is to be alive, and to live with the impositions of others. Simply, do not do to other beings what you would not have others do to you. And if you do to other beings what you would not have done to yourself, then you do no better to your conscience and your mind results in suffering and chaos.

Let your ethical intuitions guide your actions and you will find what you seek.

If your ethics guide your consumption, then you will only consume what is best. Consider not only the source of what is being consumed, it’s expense to others but also the implications of its consumption, if it comes at the expense of your own health, your body, your mind. 

If your health is failing, then your ignorance is thriving and your path needs redirection.

If your body is not optimized, then you are being lead by inferior motivations. 

Life is too simple.

In living, do right by your body and do right by others. 

In doing so, you will ease your conscience, you will do right by yourself.

This is the treatment for all things.

Rorschach Blot Deity

Competent, coherent, brilliant, and well-spoken.

She can ring the very flesh of her study.

To its deepest depths, she has explored this chasm.

Her knowledge is refined.

Her awareness is bright.

Her compassion feels every crevice of what it touches.

Able to expand their understanding and grow their psychological fortitude.

The afflicted flock to her.

Her words are the closest thing to magic.

They caress every wound and unwind every confusion.

Who knows how many lives they will save.

How many minds they will make fertile for love.

How much trepidation they will prevent.

How many minds they will unshackle.

Her work is fulfilling and rewarding, yet it is not how it makes her feel that drives her.

So why does she do it?

Simply, she couldn’t do otherwise.

Like a god in the flesh, pure virtue animates her.

Inevitably, she feels what they feel.

Their words come to life within her.

She endures their pain so that she may emancipate them from it.

Her history is their salvation.

Her pain is their gift.

Release

A bright autumn morning.

A brisk breeze runs beneath an open sky.

She sits and her hair stands.

Her exposed skin lapping up the sun’s rays.

It occupies her sensation, her presence, her being.

The confluence where the sun’s warmth and autumn’s chill dance.

How lucky she is to be such a thing.

She isn’t just beautiful, she feels it also.

It’s quiet but nature interrupts periodically.

The brilliant shine of the day’s youth cast upon her relaxed face.

No where to go and no one else to please.

She sits in silence and forgets the world.

Her body so relaxed, deeper and deeper it slips away from her.

Every muscle has found its slack, the pinnacle of relaxation.

As her eyes softly close, her body relinquishes its shape.

A cloud of undefined sensation overtakes her.

Pins here, needles there.

Pressure ebbs where pain used to flow.

Her moment is now.

Soon, to be once again eclipsed by the story of her life.

It doesn’t matter, at least not now.

She will not forget this place.

This place of release.

Discussing Buddhism; an excerpt from ‘Through Infinite Lives, Eternal Eyes See’

“When turning to Buddhism, we must first recognize the fact that we all arrive here with the heavy burden of our past, our memories, and habits, as well as our great plans for the future. If Buddhism is to be the path for you, then it will certainly shake you free from all of this.

“Buddhism is the “ism” of awakening. To awaken is to cease to exist in a dream state. It symbolizes a move from a false state to a correct state. This is what Siddhartha Gotama is said to have done by way of achieving great wisdom through his own effort. At its core, the conventional understanding of life is inadequate, and to have this realization is to see the dream for what it is. Before a solution can be deliberately implemented in one’s life, there must first be an awareness of the source of the inadequacy. This is the enterprise around which the Buddha’s wisdom is erected. 

“By becoming a Buddhist, you are in effect committing yourself to a lifestyle which promotes community, compassion, and generosity. This promotion corresponds to a demotion of the self and the circumstances of which the self is derived. This is the concept of anatta, that the self one perceives themselves to be, is in fact a transient feature of their broader consciousness. 

“Now the first bit worth noting about Buddhism is that it is divided, both by geography and perspective, into three main factions or schools of thought. There is Vajrayana, the diamond vehicle of Tibet and Nepal. Then there is Mahayana, the great vehicle of Korea, China, and Japan. And lastly, there is the school that we here at Tinando monastery subscribe to, Therevada, otherwise known as the school of the elders, which still persists throughout Laos, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. 

“Now, one must have a basic understanding of the Buddhist path. Get to know the three refuges of the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. Respectively, they represent wisdom, truth, and virtue. You can imagine them as the teacher, the teaching, and the receptive ones. You see, the Dhamma is the oral tradition of the Buddha as chronicled by his disciples and the sangha is the community of followers; the monks, nuns and laypeople alike. 

“For each of us as individuals approaching Buddhism for the first time, the path should be looked at as follows. You become a member of the sangha, the spiritual community of Buddhists, by accepting the ‘three refuges’ along with the ‘five percepts’, or the ‘eight precepts‘. And by being an active member of this community, you cultivate self-discipline and virtue. The next pillar is that of meditation, which is the other side of the aspect of truth within the path of an active Buddhist. Where the Dhamma guides us, meditation is our personal discovery of the truths it describes. Lastly, there is the pillar of wisdom. It is the fruit of our practice and must be cultivated slowly and with persistence as we make progress with becoming virtuous individuals. So to summarize, as Buddhists, virtue, truth, and wisdom are the general qualities that we seek to develop. 

“Let’s explore the idea of meditation some more. So what is meditation? At its core, it is the act of repeatedly refocusing attention on an object. When the mind is pacified, it is conducive to the broadening of our understanding of that object. Meditation is also a practice of detachment. It is a momentary release from our possessions, our thoughts, our circumstances, and the suffering that they derive.

“The most common object of meditation is that of the breath. Close your eyes, sit still, bring your attention to the breath, and in due course, lucidity and serenity will emerge. In this meditative disposition, our stresses, as well as our suppositions, can become discerned with more clarity and therefore are more likely to become subject to resolution. 

“Mindfulness is a more versatile attention, one that can be maintained throughout daily life. By focusing of attention on our tasks and how they make us feel, we can make life’s activities our object of meditation. Mindfulness can also refer to our ability to keep something in mind as we move through our day. This is the sense of the word which we are referring to when we discuss the ‘right mindfulness’ of the noble eightfold path. It is to consider the occurrences of our life through the aperture of a specific context. It is to see the world through the deliberately elected framing of our choice. So for example, if one’s intention is to resolve to abandon unskillful behaviours and develop skillful ones, then they must keep these criteria in mind and consider each development as it arises in these terms. To be mindful is to be free from all-consuming doubts and worries.

“Now what of enlightenment? Awakening? Nibbana? Satori? Or As we westerners often refer to it, Nirvana of the Sanskrit? Well, most think of it as some state of mind that must be sought after for a lifetime before being achieved. That it is some magical state that transcends life as we know it. This is hyperbole. In fact, I would contend that we have all tasted it ourselves at one point or another. Nibbana is after all not something that we acquire but rather it is what already exists as the base layer of our consciousness. It is the way the mind is when it is no longer burdened by the habits and pressures of the ego. Extract the ego, even if just for a moment, and there, one will find the serenity and joy that come from detaching from circumstance. 

“As for Buddhist Wisdom, well there isn’t all that much that I can offer you apart from recommending that you read the Dhamma. I can however outline the general direction that Buddhist wisdom leans towards. You see, ultimate-truth is less prevalent due to the fact that claims of this sort lead to division, argumentation, and in some instances, where the parties are unwise enough, even violence. Buddhist wisdom instead describes what one will come to know about life, through practicing meditation and virtuosity, under the guidance of the Dhamma, and without having to accept any particular beliefs. 

“I Came to a realization some years ago. That being that it occurred to me that what was most important was the magic of the mystery and a greater life purpose. I needed some sort of higher calling, one that satiated my mind in all of its aspects. One that helped others and served the greater good. For me, that was ordaining, becoming a servant of the Buddha and the Dhamma. 

“I am incredibly grateful for the forces that brought this to fruition and I have never been happier. When the Buddha was asked why his followers all appeared so joyful, he responded that they, like himself, had forgotten the past and lost their concern and speculation for the future. He continued to explain that because of this, they resided in the present moment and were therefore free. In their radiant freedom, they were no longer attached to any particular mental or physical phenomena, and that their serene joy was the fruit of their independence from circumstance.

“Without monks, the three refuges are incomplete, unviable. We act as spiritual companions for all those on this path. We unambiguously represent the values of the Buddha and his Dhamma. We support the lay population and they can achieve their merit and develop their generosity by supporting us.  We all have our roles within our communities and society as a whole. The role of the monk has many folds but I like to think of us as beacons of compassion in a world starved of it. With the four sublime attitudes, that of limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity monks act as a counter, or opposition to those of immense wealth who remain greedy, those of immense fear who remain mean, careless, and destructive. Monks are a beacon of hope in a world of confused conventions.

“With the above said, I think there is nothing more important to teach a new interest in Buddhism than that of the four noble truths. There is ‘the fact of Dukkha’, ‘the origin of Dukkha’, ‘the end of Dukkha’ and  ‘the path to the end of Dukkha’. Come to know these simple truths and you will find your inner serenity. That I promise you, my new friend.

“The Fact of Dukkha…”, he began. 

“Firstly, and as you likely already know, Dukkha is a Pali term which translates to English as something along the lines of dissatisfaction, unsatisfactoriness, suffering, or stress. Secondly, note that the conventional understanding of life is not adequate as it necessarily leads to a large portion of our life experiences being unsatisfactory and stressful. Life as most know it is riddled with traps and inevitable negative eventualities. Buddhism not only helps us avoid these traps and pitfalls but also preferably orients our perspective to better deal with these sorts of unavoidable negative events.

“The Origin of Dukkha…”, he continued.

“Our suffering has a handful of origins. At the center of all is the concept of desire. We have our attachments, conscious or otherwise and these dictate to what we grasp or cling, as well as what constitutes our aversions. Our desires define what push and pull us. They are false motivations. In fact, they all lead to suffering, even when we find ourselves in agreeable circumstances, they ultimately will prove to be vulnerable and transient. This is the concept of Anicca, a Pali term for impermanence. Desires achieved upon false motivations are like houses built on sand, their foundation is shaky and inevitably impermanent. In short, even when things go our way, are enjoyable, and appear positive, they will ultimately result in a sense of loss. This is the fate of those who seek fulfillment in that which is impermanent. This is the concept of anicca.

“You see, not getting what you want is dukkha… and even getting what you want eventually leads to dukkha… therefore wanting, in general, is dukkha. Forget what you think you desire, what you actually desire is a relationship with the cosmos of peace and understanding. Illness, aging, pain, and death are inevitabilities of life. So the question is, how can one approach life in a manner that does not derive unnecessary stress and anxiety from these formalities? How can one save their diminishing sense of purpose? The answer…

“The End of Dukkha…”, he squeezed through his smirk.

“The more ego one has, the more vulnerable they become the barbs of the world. Just as flesh gets caught on metal barbs, the ego gets caught on mental ones. So long as there is an ego within, pulling the strings and evaluating our world of experience, there will be dukkha. Therefore, one could say that the end of dukkha is contingent on the release of not only our ego’s habits but also its perspective. The ego is the mechanism by which we attach ourselves to circumstance. 1- Achieving Nibanna, that being a happiness and inner peace that exists as independent of circumstance, and 2- the dismantling of one’s ego, are largely one and the same proposition. 

“The mark of the beast here is the emotions of pride, and shame, along with the vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, as well as, fame and disrepute. These are the limbs of the ego and to cut them off is no small task. It must be fostered slowly and with care. As one’s generosity begins to exceed their greed, as their love exceeds their hatred and their wisdom exceeds their delusion, they are lessening the presence of their ego as the mediator of their experience. 

‘“Let me reiterate… regarding pride, shame and guilt… the degree to which one harbours these emotions is precisely the degree to which they are identified with a small sense of self, the degree to which they are in the grasp of a self-feeding and self-serving ego, the degree to which they are falsely motivated. At base, to have an ego is to be driven by a false narrative. It is to be blind to what actually is, and by extension, ignorant of what actually matters.

“So what does the end of an ego look like? It will lack pride and shame. It will not consist of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, or fame and disrepute. It will not display clinging or repulsion, desire or aversion. Its greed will dwindle in the flame of generosity. Its hatred will drown in the ocean that is its all-encompassing love. Its delusion will be resolved into the light of its wisdom.

“When one is no longer falsely motivated by their ego and its pursuit of fulfillment in that which is impermanent, one may become available to the splendour that is living a more spiritually-attuned life. The Pali term for this concept is samvega, which is a general dissatisfaction with the purposelessness many find while living a conventional lifestyle. The spiritual enrichment of one’s life opens them up to a world of unshakable fulfillment and a life of greater purpose.

“Lastly, the fourth noble truth, the Path to the End of Dukkha…”, he carried on.

“This path represents the journey to the cessation of our worldly stress and suffering. It requires only that we know of it and have the persistence and wisdom required to accomplish it. 

“The noble eightfold path. In Buddhist iconography, symbolized by a wheel with eight mutually supportive spokes, each in place of a percept, is the defined way to this release from dukkha. They are as follows: Right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Where their qualification as ‘right’ pertains to their directionality away from self-centered habits and instead to harmony with the virtue, truth, and wisdom of the Buddhist path.

“Allow me to quickly go over each…

“Right view, to see experience in terms of the noble truths.

“Right intention, to resolve to abandon thoughts of sensuality, ill-will, and harm.

“Right speech, to abstain from telling lies, speaking divisively, speaking harshly of others, and partaking in idle-chatter.

“Right action, to abstain from killing, inflicting harm, stealing and participating in illicit sexually behaviour.

“Right livelihood, to not make a living out of something which is dishonest and or, harmful.

“Right effort, to resolve to abandon unskillful behaviour and the develop skillful behaviour.

“Right mindfulness, to keep attention focused thoroughly on the task at hand without distraction and also, and more importantly, to keep right effort in mind throughout the course of daily life.

“Finally, there is right concentration, which has to do with the four levels of Jhana meditation that the Buddha achieved beneath the bodhi tree at the time of his enlightenment. 

“I know this can all be very overwhelming at first glance but I promise you that there is a brilliant life awaiting all who accept this challenging method of development through the noble eightfold path. For now, here is a shortlist of mantras that you can memorize. They contain much of the sentiment I have discussed here and will help to orient you on your path.

He handed me a folded piece of paper, its edges were aged, slightly browned, and worn. Upon opening it, there, written across its deep folds were the following lines:

“-If you know what is wrong, foolish and unworthy, what leads to harm and discontent, then abandon it. If you know what is right, good, virtuous, and wise, then develop it

-During times of difficulty, serenity and patience are within me

During times of good fortune, compassion and generosity are within me

May my mind and heart stay steady and buoyant throughout all of life’s circumstances

-May my generosity exceed my greed, my love exceed my hatred and my wisdom exceed my delusion

-I will be mindful of the origins of suffering; desire and aversion, impermanence and unfavourable circumstance

-The vicissitudes of pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, pride and shame, as well as, fame and disrepute are the ego’s limbs

-The development of compassion, patience, and service are my methods

-My body is a temple in which resides a skillful and cleanly mind

-My purpose in life is to love, nourish, nurture and assist others for they are I and I am them, together we are one

-I am happy, I am healthy and life is good, as I am immersed in a beautiful world. The world is beautiful as it consists invariably of inevitable conditions

-I cultivate non-resistance, non-judgment, non-reaction, and non-attachment”

The Intended Attention

Prior to coming to embody a meditation practice, the typical default state of one’s mind is that of distraction. That is to be moving from one mental item to another in such a way as to make the transition blindly. With little regard to each item as they arise, we can forgo offering the space in memory for capturing referent of thoughts now vanished. With no referent, there is no context and thus present items of the mind exist in a whimsical and belittled way. It is what consciousness is like between thoughts that stands in contrast to them. Attention is easily stolen away from that which does not exist in a strong foundation of context. We are often too distracted to even notice how distracted we are. It doesn’t itself arise in the mind and thus we run from thought to thought unmitigated for unconscionable lengths of time. To quote Sam Harris, “Having an ego is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you’re thinking”. What is it to be thinking without knowing that you are thinking? It’s an odd statement and one which is confounded by the difficulties surrounding how terms like concentration, focus, and attention are defined. Tell a man to focus and he takes aim at a torrent, however, give him something to focus on, say the breath, and the inundation of thought becomes apparent as he is now separating himself from the torrent, placing himself beside it, so to speak, he is dis-identifying with it. This constant battle to remain with the breath is a direct showcase of the unabated distraction our minds maintain as default. It’s a house full of thieves -as the analogy goes- when the mind is calm, thoughts are like thieves entering an empty house. They arise, they are observed without identification, and then their unravelment is witnessed. It’s the space between thoughts that becomes their context and it is this buffer that prevents them from stealing away our attention, or to put it another way, distracting us from what we really are underlying it all, that being consciousness.

It is thought that if there is a sense of free will that is worth discussing, then it will be derived from the space between thoughts where there is the calm of uncertainty and nothing is yet particular. This is the gap through which agency is thought to have the potential to emerge. Or, is agency the ability to witness thoughts as they arise and to choose which to identify with. Agency is, after all, a sense that we author our volition in a commanding and deliberate way. Thoughts just appear, they don’t appear to have a discernible source, all we know is that one moment we’re thinking this and the next that. Though there is no source to be found, in the temporal gap between thoughts we can notice when they arise and thus take the appropriate response as to not become identified with and therefore lost in the distraction that is identifying with any particular thought. Thoughts just appear, they emerge from the woodwork, they arise from the ether of the mind. Causation is the arbiter of thought and the only way to discern this fact firsthand, subjectively, is to create a context in the form of space within consciousness, wherein the objects of consciousness, that being thoughts, can be witnessed arising from and vanishing into the fabric of consciousness despite any perceived mental effort or direction. The only possible perception of thoughts, when viewed in isolation like this, is that they are some random display of components of our overall awareness and that they are separate from consciousness itself, which is what we really are, a passive witness, a sensory meta-phenomena of the object of the physical body, of the brain. 

We seem to be on the hunt for a prey that doesn’t run from us, one for which there is no chase. Instead, it is elusive by dint of the fact that we struggle to settle into it. What the mind is truly after is calm, relaxation, to rest in the present moment, to become one with the sensory stimulus of the now. Our goals are seemingly predicated on the promised relapse to this state when accomplished. Calm is the self-prescribed reward for performing difficult work. Our peace is also what we trade-off for our desires. Each desire is synonymous with agreeing to be in a state of mental discomfort until it is achieved.  

There is nearly always something wrong with the present moment. Some series of opaque layers between us and now. Things that are not quite right, and so we feel it as such, even in the presence of an otherwise perfect moment. The opaqueness of our unactualized desires dulls our experience of the world in the present. We seem to be haunted by promises of the past; our commitments, and failures alike. Simply by allowing a desire into your life, you are committing yourself to the space between, a space that feels like the exact opposite, that being, the desire in its unfulfilled state. Like a wind at our sails, this discomfort pushes us towards the desire until it is realized. In this way, by allowing a desire into our life, we are trading off the comfort of the present moment. In a perfect world, a desire would hijack our attention completely until met. Needless to say, it would demand the entirety of our attention. It is, however,  our unfortunate circumstance that this is not the case. We seem to be compelled by weak spirits and many of them at that. There are many fleeting potentials vying for our attention, each promising relief from the discomfort of its presence. Our desires are often paper-thin, and fickle, superficial, and totally unnecessary. We waste our time weighing between options when there is hardly a difference at all. What we really want is a return to the calm of the present. The attainment of things desired serves only to act as an inferior source of temporary and inadequate states of psychological well-being, the present moment is the greatest source of psychological stability. Our desires are transient, while the conscious space which hosts them, is ever-present. If there exists happiness beyond the blind reiteration of what pleasures us, it has to come from someplace deeper.

It seems that we never have good reason to be happy right now, that we are to be perpetually dissatisfied with the present moment, that the circumstances of this moment couldn’t possibly be good enough. The fact of the matter is that now and the primary reason to be there are one and the same. Simply put, being in the present moment is its own motivation to remain there. It is analogous to returning to the center from the peripherals of life. It feels like a return to surrender.

It is from the centrality of the present moment that the condition of humanity can best be evaluated and realized. We are so intimately connected through causality and the ontologically objective domain that the consciousness behind each subjectivity could literally be said to be one and the same, wherein the meta-fluid of universal consciousness is split only by dint of the fact that each iteration resides as locked into a unique spatio-temporal physical individual. This separation is a degree of circumstance, it is the many angles of the same shape and the many perspectives of the same image. Simultaneously, we are so separate from each other that lovers never actually touch for atomic forces forbid this. We never actually see the true and full nature of each other, as there remains the submerged section of the iceberg that eludes our limited sensory apparatus. My internal model of who and what you are is necessarily partial to your full being. In fact, I would go so far as to speculate that if I could see your full being, I would certainly see that we are indeed one and the same underneath it all. Regarding our internal and subjective dioramas of reality, it is not the models of the mind that dictate the outcome, it is the churning cogs of the underlying substrate that binds all. It matters what our thoughts are only insofar as they play a role in determining our behaviour. Ultimately, the substrate is the foundation and the whole of what exists, it compels all things. 

My inability to see you fully is one and the same as my inability to see myself fully, even reality in general. Seeing the above fully unites them. To be distracted by the presentation that is your subjective experience is one level of the illusion; while doing so, unaware of the fact that personal agency is a myth, is yet another. 

In light of dispelling the notion of the self, we lose that which anchors concepts such as pride and shame. We become like people locked away in a prison due to their inability to rationalize concepts like personal ownership. We have no self to be critical of, no other to be in competition with, no personal history, no predictable future, no embarrassment, no envy, no judgment, no attachment… By seeing all eyes as apertures through which the same light bleeds, we can truly drop the internal model wherein we speculate the opinions, judgments, and actions of others. I drop back into what I am, from the much more active state of existence in which I am what I think you think I am. In essence, this is how I become what we are despite how you feel about it.

A general notion of reincarnation exists, one wherein a new form is taken by the fluid of consciousness as it fills a new being and resides there for the life of that being, everyday awakening to that same iteration of existence, observing the temporal developments in the conditions which surround it. Every life I exit is yet another into which I enter, we enter. Reborn as a baby with insomnia, a totally annihilated history of past lives, narrowed to the singularity of this one present life… for when I die, a baby will inevitably be born, and it will be the same meta-phenomena of consciousness which resides in it as all other beings… for consciousness itself is featureless. And once again, the struggle of life will persist so long as its various aspects are identified with. Those iterations wherein the lack of agency is identified will be those iterations where we fall back into the flow of the river and surrender our ceaseless struggle with the current; your battle with yourself. This is the Taoist principle of wu Wei, doing without doing, or living without struggle, without perceived effort. To submit to the current is to end this fight. This is, in a way, a measure of the virtuous life, a way of determining what true virtues are, redefining them as those categories of actions that elicit no negative mental perturbance or struggle. They are their own reward. All virtues produce good feelings but not all good feelings are the product of virtuous acts.

Meditation is one of these virtuous ways to use one’s time. Developing calm of mind and insight through mediation is invaluable as our perception of the world determines our experience in it. Our sense of self is a false sense and meditation is the direct means of realizing this. No realization can impact one’s life and behaviour to the extent that realizing the fallacies of one’s perceived agency and sense of self. Holding and accepting a self-derived agency is tantamount to being entranced, possessed by an idea. The idea, in this case, embodies the person, reversing the directionality in the relationship between people and ideas, genes, and memes. People are owned by their beliefs, not the other way around. The sense of self is composed of a body of coinciding and compatible ideas, yet, as a whole, the sense of self is incompatible with the felt subjective nature of consciousness. 

Modern western culture is the epitome of a desire-driven mechanism of material possession and consequently, dissatisfied psychological states are abundant. Marketing is the manufacturer of desire and retail is the false solution to the problem which we feel but struggle to identify. Economics revolves around the variability of forms that one can sacrifice to the yawning chasm that is human dissatisfaction. An infinite supply of wrong answers exists when you are asking the wrong question. The problem of psychological stability and well-being is exacerbated by this onslaught of false answers. Attention bound up in this culture’s devices becomes self-centered, trivial, and superficial. In turn, our response to our dissatisfaction becomes increasingly so. How we are molded and formed over time is largely dependent on what captures our attention now. 

Culture is a device that guides how we use our minds and in turn, it has great influence over the mind’s development. The course becomes increasingly hard to correct as it builds momentum, as it leads us out further and further over the illusory terrain that supports all manufactured desires. 

Liberation is to be had in the discovery that it is never any time other than right now. The present moment is inescapable, however, our attention is readily captured by memories of the past and speculations of the future. Existence, as we live it,  is firmly planted in the present moment. While there can be physical pain in the present moment, mental incursions are predicated on the sorts of thoughts that steal our attention away from the bliss of this moment. Calm, peaceful, blissful, and tranquil are all words that best describe how it feels to be one with the present moment. To be mindful, however, is the act itself, of being in the present moment. It is when a mind is actively embracing this moment with a transparent, unidentified, and undistracted focus. It is the having of mental objects without the clinging, without the identification, without being repulsed by them. It consequently lacks the type of mental effects that are predicated on self-centric perspectives. To be mindful, one must only focus their attention on what is before them with acceptance, as well as, a passion for the processes unfolding before them. Acceptance keeps identification at bay and this subsequently aids in the diminishment of the sense of self. Having a passion for consciousness and its ever-changing objects is what maintains attention. Could it be that this passion is not only the product of coming to enjoy the features of the present moment but also one of developing a new perspective from which to view those features? A perspective birthed from the understanding that all are connected by a physical and causal linkage, that no man is an island, that any sense of authorship, agency, or control is illusory, that there is inherent impermanence to every aspect of consciousness and every component of its contents, and also that our sense of self is misappropriated. 

A well-developed state of mindfulness is a conduit to contentment. It makes possible levels of appreciation for life that a distracted mind couldn’t conceive. In turn, the mindful state results in fewer regrets, less misplaced and misdirected attention, less wasted time and effort. Mindfulness is what it is to discover the subjective reality of every moment and not find it wanting. Rather, overwhelming would be closer to the truth. The difficulty in establishing mindfulness is due to just how ingrained our habits of thought are. Thought chains, trail on and on, conditioning this distraction ad nauseam. Meditation is a difficult task at first but becomes increasingly benign as the behaviour is inculcated. Mindfulness is a tool for living a better life, a skill well worth developing. Thoughts void of identification, and distinguished by the mark of acceptance are part of a highly evolved process when compared to being suffocated by a torrent, lost in the seemingly irresistible charm of each new distraction. It’s as if you are too consumed with the actors and their drama to realize the show. Knowing your place in the theatre is invaluable in terms of perspective afforded. The drama, when taken to be a reality, perpetuates unsatisfactoriness, of which, being mindful is the remedy. Mindfulness affords the space required to detach and distance the subject of consciousness, that being our sense of self, from the objects of consciousness. Distraction is what it feels like to conflate the two. No matter where any given moment is perceived to fit on the spectrum of desirability, it is mindfulness that facilitates the truest interpretation of the item. This is due to the objectification made possible when we are adequately distanced and cease to take it personally. This distancing we are speaking of here is between that of featureless consciousness and its content, and it is of course supplied in the re-conception of those contents as they no longer reflect a self, that there is no self with which to identify.

We start by watching the breath. Before we know it, we realize that we are thinking about school or work, and also that the 5 minutes preceding were spent thinking about the holidays, family, and the neighbour’s pet dog. From here we divert our attention back to the breath and start again only to make it a brief moment once again before being seduced unwittingly into another rabbit hole of distraction. Hopefully next time around we realize it sooner. The more often we start this process over, the greater the conditioning and the more developed mindfulness becomes.

The trance is only recognized as a trance after the fact. It requires a mental space, a pause in the action, one from which awareness can then recognize the distracted trance state for what it is. The main objective of meditation practice is to condition the mind to depart from the trance state more often and also to recognize it more readily, mitigating the associated emotional reactions and our identification with them. This is the insertion of the sort of awareness that renders deliberate that which could prior only be considered reflex.

Pushed and pulled, without consideration, like an unmanned boat, we drift according to the whim of the sea’s current. Chasing pleasure unimpeded by any higher cognition. Fleeing pain without considering the consequences. A mind susceptible to running away with itself, exaggerating its issues, and taking personal offense to merely everything. A mind that the world is pitted against. A mind incapable of observing itself without becoming entranced by the hypnotic lulls of its sense of self. Enticed by the meanderings of speculation and possible outcomes, enveloped by unnecessary worry and concerns beyond control. A mind oblivious to the vibrant world of sensory stimulation inculcating it. A mind unaware. We make monsters out of molehills. Even when in times of relative prosperity, we find intolerable issues and imperfections in all things. A distracted mind sleeps in an emotional bed of nails.

The alternative is a mind composed of a different species of thought. The main categorical distinction is that they lack in their formation a directionality towards a self. These thoughts exist in an aura of acceptance and have no perceivable necessity. The conscious attention observing them isn’t tricked into identification with them. They simply aren’t barbed in a way that results in possession. The formula for possession by thought harbours the necessary component of perceived selfhood. A sense of self which the form of each thought is shaped to fit. The perception that there is a self, is a necessary component of identification with thought. Also necessary, is that the thought takes the sort of form capable of eliciting an emotional reaction. The emotional impact is perceived with urgency and consequently drives the production of further related thoughts of the resolution, and or, repercussions. It is the self that is reactionary, consciousness itself is not reactive.

The sense of self is something we feel, as it is built into nearly every thought we think. Despite this, the central form of the self is that of an idea. An idea so central to the inner workings of the mind, that its influence is felt globally throughout it. Being, at base, an idea, it is within the capacity of the mind -in training- to recognize it as such and ultimately reject it as a notion worth maintaining. It is possible to feel there is no “you” that exists as the seer of sights, the feeler of feelings, the knower of knowledge, no agent within acting as the doer, the thinker. It is possible for experience to be simple and to simply experience.

Though the sense of self is an illusion, we act as though it is not and it is this act that we call the ego. An idea -of the self- infects the system and in turn, corrupts all that it produces -each thought- causing the emergence of a set of behavioural traits -an ego- which reflects a self-centered relationship between that which is internal and external. A confused perception of reality convinces us of the freedom of the will. Subjectively speaking, we feel a sense of self in this supposed agency, and this sanctions the manifestation of the ego, a phenomenon of the universe that acts through a perceived sense of isolation, whilst maintaining every bit of its causal linkage, its ultimate connection with all things external. The cosmos is so complex, as to produce fountains of confusion in itself, wherein, each cog takes ownership of its actions without referring to the whole, despite obvious underlying connectivity amongst the totality of the operation.

Primarily, what we all have in this life, is the fact of our consciousness. Everything else is a component of it and therefore secondary to it. The quality of life one perceives them-self to have is very much dependent on the state of their subjectivity at any given moment. It is possible to have excellent external conditions in the midst of a sour psychological state and consequently leaves its relative prosperity unrealized. It is also possible for a mind functioning in times of relative deprivation to be quite content and even fulfilled. The primary factor in determining the condition of one’s life is the constitution of their mind. A mind that is lost in distraction, is a mind that is very reflective of the circumstances surrounding it. A mind, however, which is tethered to the greater context of mindful awareness is capable of seeing beyond any current circumstance and, in turn, of producing within itself otherwise unlikely psychological states despite surrounding influences. Due to this fact, a well-trained mind can equate to a higher quality of life, even when one’s surrounding conditions are of relatively low quality, and so, it seems that the directionality of causation regarding the condition of psychological states can be directly related to one’s ability to reconnect with the present moment.

While training one’s mind to avoid identification with thought may be the single greatest determinant of overall well-being, there are some sub-factors, ones that can be realized in real-time, which should receive the benefit of consideration on a regular basis. For instance, the recognition of impermanence, as it pertains to thought. This is a reminder that no matter how entranced one may be by a particular thought, that its capture is but only temporary. It is only a matter of time before we are afforded a chance to reassert our disillusioned sense of will over the landscape of potential thought. 

Being with the present moment is the goal. Developing paths back to it is the purpose of the training. In general, behavioural conditioning, through sheer inculcation, can be used to increase the occurrence of the thoughts that can act as mechanisms of return to the present. This is what instilling objects of meditation, such as the breath, tends to do. The more paths back, the more often the return. In the case of the breath, we are always breathing and so the potential to trip over the fact of the breath’s presence renders it as having a greater potential to arise while in a state of distracted thought. So, the more sensation-based objects of meditation, the greater sensation’s ability is to catalyze a return to the present moment.

There is also a natural operant conditioning that can occur as a result of becoming enthralled with the clarity and calm felt outside of distracted mental states. It simply feels better than the alternative. This can actually become problematic to the enterprise of being present because to put it crudely, it can fill the present with thoughts about how wonderful it is to exist there, this comes in the form of yet another distraction. Feeling the present is the goal, fanatical thinking about it is yet another distraction from it, the form of this one being quite paradoxical indeed.

What are the necessary preconditions for an interest in the nature of one’s own mind and consciousness to develop? Why does my personal interest in this subject matter fluctuate in and out of existence? To be actively investigating consciousness and its contents, of them, defining which are healthy and which are not, instilling new behaviours, and breaking bad habits to influence the shape of thought. A transformation in what thought arises next translates into a transformation in the way one feels in any given moment. A shift in the tides of thought equates to the promotion of the associated emotions. The promotion of some content is synonymous with the demotion of other content.

A movement towards positive change within the mind requires an awareness, not only of the change but one which presides over it in an impersonal way. The act of training in meditation involves the internal objectification of the contents of consciousness, as well as, that of the underlying mechanisms which drive them into awareness. Our understandings of the mechanisms which populate the mind are necessarily conceptual, and therefore exist as thoughts, or are reflected in their architecture. When we’re lucky, they themselves exist as contents of consciousness. Perhaps the distinction to be made is between that of thoughts that pertain directly to the world-individual relationship and those which transcend that paradigm. It’s a meta-cognition that takes into consideration both the fact of thought itself and the structures and processes which underlie it.

Inward thought, also known as introspection, is the act of turning the mind upon itself. It is practices of this sort of thinking, which teach us how to think. Practices of this sort are like a meta-process by which one can come to understand the mechanics of their mind and target specific patterns and constellations of thought for change. The thinking mind begins to incorporate itself into its own grand picture, coming to view itself as just another object in the world. A mind with the intention of influencing itself, manipulating itself, just as it would any other object in the external environment, is a mind engaged in the meta-cognitive activity of introspection. 

We are born of causal conditions. Our bodies are adhered together by atomic forces and our actions are but a function of cellular symbiosis. At the center of the illusion of free will is that there is a perceived sense of self in the mind. It is that fact of continuity that resides throughout our ontologically subjective existence; our experience, our psychology. There is a felt continuity there, passing from moment to moment, and it is this perceived presence, around which, we erect the illusion of agency. We attribute to it a capacity that can only arise within the context of a perceived state of detachment from the causal backdrop. The law of cause and effect is an impregnable causal linkage. To posit agency of the sort which we feel we have is to posit an uncaused- cause into this linkage.

The actions taken by our internal arbiter are no less mysterious to us than those of a stranger. It is an illusion to think that we can somehow provide post hoc justifications for our actions that are any closer to the truth than that of sheer speculations sounding the actions of others. The simple fact of the matter is, that not one of us knows what we will think next before we actually think it. In fact, it only becomes a thought once it is thought. Though the contents of the thoughts themselves are a definite factor in the determination of what follows, why any particular content of consciousness arises, in the first place, and how it comes to be, remains subjectively mysterious.

It is worth mentioning another species of thought here, to make two points. First, bodily movement, and -the question of- how it is performed is subjectively mysterious. Just how is it that you move your hand? Is it possible that the movement of the body is performed and we mistake the respective sensations with a false sense of agency? That we are imbuing into the sensation a sense of conductivity, all the while, the sensation of the movement exists only to be passively witnessed?

Secondly, bodily movement is an action of the brain that exists as distinct from language-based thought. Clearly, animals of all sorts, readily move their bodies without a lick of associated language to drive the action. It is an artifact of the human mind that relationships can be made between bodily movements and linguistic commands which may premeditate them. It is exactly this confluence of events from which one can derive a false sense of agency. The fact still remains that the unfolding of the movement itself, as well as, the arising of the respective directing thought, both remain subjectively mysterious. Though it is possible, and even quite common, to have premeditated bodily movement, it is obvious that the two do not necessitate each other. How often do you find yourself scratching an itch in a premeditated fashion? And how often do you suddenly find your hand clawing away, only after the relief is already being had? The sensation of the itch, whether it is present in the awareness of consciousness or not, acts as both the instigator and the commander of the bodily response, with no directing thought of linguistic form or otherwise being involved, the process can be passively witnessed as content in consciousness. As is often the case, itches can also be scratched in an entirely unconscious manner.

To quote Sam Harris, “ Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes, of which we are unaware, and over which we exert no conscious control [2]”. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary action hinges on the intuition that we as the conscious arbiters and articulators of our thoughts and intentions, negotiate and forge our own path; we are, in other words, self-determined. However, contrary to this notion, it is becoming ever more clear that subjective states are a product of the brain, its underlying genetic makeup as expressed through the pressures of its environment. 

The Libet experiment, in 1983, was the first to demonstrate how observing physical brain states, via EEG, could reliably predict the relative time of antecedent conscious decisions within 200ms. Theretofore, these results have been reprised by others utilizing similar methods and modern implements to the effect of a 50-fold increase with regard to how far in advance a subject’s brain depicts their action before they’re subjectively aware of it [3].

The study, “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” utilized modern fMRI technology to both spatially map neuronal activity associated with readiness-potential and produce more accurate depictions of its time of genesis. Further ambiguities identified in Libet’s experimental design were accounted for by the implementation of a clock designed to allow for the relatively more explicit discernment of time. On which, random letters flash on a screen in succession, and subjects are asked to note what is present on the screen at the time of their decision[4]. Also, to add more dimensions to the subject’s decision-making processes, they were given buttons in both hands to choose from. fMRI-derived neural information depicted a rise in readiness-potential up to ten seconds prior to the subject’s conscious awareness of their decision. Spatially mapped neuronal activity was found to not only correlate with when a subject would decide, as well as, which hand they would use to do so.

Neuroscience is producing some very counter-intuitive data which suggests that our decisions are pre-formed well before we are aware of them. Extrapolating this understanding to encompass all of the mind’s contents; thoughts, feelings, intentions, and motor commands, renders all human action manifestly involuntary in the truest sense. Yes, one can define volition as those actions which follow from an intention but the fact of the matter is that the emergence of our intention is no less mysterious than any other content of consciousness. A man void of volition is a mere marionette at the whim of circumstance, deeply and irrevocably embedded in the causal linkage.

Path of causal determination of thought. -Roderick Pritchard, unpub. 2016 

In any given deliberation, our decision is confined to what occurs in the mind’s eye for us to choose from. What occurs is confined to those things of which we are aware. What we are aware of is confined by what our senses afford us and what our senses afford is confined by what proximity affords. Levels 3-5 in the above depict what “agency” in the colloquial sense, is confined to and therefore must operate within. Even those who believe in the freedom of the will cannot deny the fact that they did not choose their defining circumstances; their genes, parents, physical state, developmental environment, time and location of birth, cultural climate, and zeitgeist, etc. Levels 1 and 2 are where neuroscience is unearthing what only introspection could in the past. The simple fact is, that thoughts, in and of themselves, have a subjectively mysterious origin. An origin that can only be vaguely accounted for via post hoc rationales.

Note that in the above depiction, proximity -level 5- is not just speaking of the physical proximity of time or space but also that of technology. Our technology, after all, determines how distant and how small one can perceive. Also, it is worth mentioning here that level 3 -awareness- accounts for that which we can comprehend and is therefore determined by our underlying genetic potential for intelligence as expressed through its environment.

By some constellation of matter, consciousness bleeds through the ontological substrate and coats its existence. Conventionally speaking, there is matter presumed to underlie all things, and it is the organization of this underlying matter which gives rise to the specific properties inherent. Just as it is understood that diamonds are carbon crystals and that the property of their hardness is inherent to this underlying structure, it is commonly accepted that the property of consciousness is a phenomenon exclusive to the highly complex biological infrastructure of the brain. Is the development of consciousness owed solely to the self-organizing nature of evolutionary forces as they act on the underlying matter? Or does consciousness itself play a role in its own development? Perhaps consciousness is a mechanism through which the underlying matter wraps back around to effect change in itself that it could not otherwise accomplish?

It is said that if consciousness is to exist at all, which it self-evidently does, then it ought to have a purpose, a role in the evolutionary success of the host organism. The argument goes, that having consciousness comes at a cost and that the benefits of having consciousness must outweigh the expenditure of energy required to produce it. This is a great argument that consciousness has some input, or is utilized by the brain as a mechanism of modifying its organizational arrangement. However, it assumes that consciousness does indeed come at a cost to its host. If theoretically, consciousness has no cost, then it would follow that it would not be required to have any beneficial role to the organism either, existing merely as an epiphenomenon of the brain, a mere by-product if you will, much like the exhaust of an engine.

So the question then becomes, if there is no acting self at the center of consciousness, rifling off arbitrations, playing the role of the author regarding thoughts and bodily movement and that the sense of self we do have, is best described as, that of a passive witness to the contents of consciousness, then in light of this, we are left to investigate, in this given context, what remains and what possible purposes this sort of consciousness could have. Does the conscious state produced by the brain have any influence over it? Does consciousness, as a product of the brain, affect any change in its underlying physical structure? It is questions of this sort that will surely be involved in redefining the way we approach self-hood and where its lines are drawn.

Let’s now return to the phenomenology of sensation briefly. It is hard to imagine having sensations that are not attended by a conscious state of awareness (one in which the sensation is experienced first hand). It is almost an intrinsic part of the way we define sensation, that it be experienced, felt. Nonetheless, if directed to pay particular attention to any of the myriad bodily sensations available to us, at any given moment, it becomes obvious that just beyond our awareness exists a churning sea of potential bodily sensations, which though they remain available to us, often go largely unnoticed. For example, take a moment to direct your attention to your breath, or your toes. There are ever-present changes percolating throughout the body, and it seems to be a necessity that we afford them as little attention as possible, lest we become entirely distracted, and overwhelmed by them. Once again, consider the phenomena of an itch. As an aside, and because I cannot refuse the opportunity to make the point, note that an itch is an excellent example of an ontologically subjective item. That is to say, that an itch only exists in that it is felt… that its appearance and existence are identical, as opposed to being ontologically objective, wherein the item’s appearance and existence are distinct (such as a planet for example)[5]. Now with that stated, consider that we often find ourselves scratching an itch without any recognition of an itch prior, to instigate the behaviour, nor any premeditating thought such as, “My nose itches, I better scratch it..”. If we find ourselves in the heat of the satisfaction afforded by the action of scratching an itch, but that this is our first recognition of the itch’s existence, then we are left to wonder how the itch was identified subconsciously, to begin with, not to mention what directed the response to scratch it. Clearly this scenario -one which we are bound to find ourselves in often- is perplexing as it undercuts our general notions of what exists as a sensation, as well as, our sense of self-authorship regarding thought and bodily action.

The itch must have an ontologically objective existence that drives the automatic, and unsolicited response of the body to scratch it (solicitation, in this case, constitutes a conscious awareness of the ontologically subjective incarnation that is the sensation of itchiness in a specific location). This ontologically objective form, in which the itch exists, is obviously just its underlying physiology. So the question is, If the physiology is sufficient to cause the appropriate response, in this case, scratching, then why is consciousness involved here at all? In this example, consciousness is simply attending to the resulting sensation, that of satisfaction and relief. And not in the form of some accompanying thought such as, “ahhhh, now I am relieved…” but rather in the form of yet another ontologically subjective item, a feeling of pleasure. Also, note that a feeling of pleasure -a pleasurable sensation- is a form, or shape of ontologically subjective content that is inherently compelling, as is that of pain.

What role does consciousness play? Well, to answer that, we must describe what it is doing. Consciousness, at base, exists as a form of signaling. It is a logical deduction to say that consciousness must be employed where the signaling in the brain cannot be sufficiently achieved in the absence of ontologically subjective content. In the case of the itch, consciousness, as a higher-order, attending entity, is not required to identify the underlying disturbance in the underlying physiology, nor is it required to elicit the appropriate response. The more primitive and ancient portions of the brain are capable of authoring these sorts of responses with automaticity, just as all of our basic bodily functions, such as heartbeat and digestion seemingly take care of themselves.

This suggests that consciousness exists to facilitate the signaling of higher-order information. Though it is the underlying neurophysiology that constitutes the linguistic capacities of speaking, reading, and writing, how the brain accomplishes these tasks remains a mystery to the consciousness which hosts its iterations. How I complete this sentence, along with how my many small mouth movements pronounce its syllables, are not suggested by the actual experience itself. One second they are content within consciousness, and the next, they are replaced by something different altogether. All that we are acquainted with is the felt experience that is their ontologically subjective manifestation. It may be tautological to say, but anything iterated within consciousness must exist there because it requires this treatment to be adequately processed. Does this understanding of consciousness provide a logical space in which we can inject a “generator of uncaused cause”, an origin of authorship and agency, a self?

Consciousness is merely the fact of a perceived continuity in awareness and awareness appears to be a necessary mechanism of -at least some types of- information processing. Consciousness is the substrate of which all ontologically subjective iterations are a modification. It is not only inextricably tied into this physical system of causation but it actually is itself a mechanism by which the most complex of physical crystallization is achieved. Causation permeates all, unabated by our misperception of it… our disillusionment that we are somehow separate from it. Consciousness is what it feels like to be a highly complex cog in the machine of physical causation. The role of consciousness is that of information processing.

It is thought that just as my consciousness and yours are separate, that there may be a similar arrangement within each of our brains and even throughout our bodies. If this were the case, in this theory of split consciousness, the other forms of consciousness would have to be of the sort that can’t communicate with the form that is actively reading these words, or in my case, writing them. As far as I can tell, I stand alone in this moment of awareness. The only communications received from internal to my organism arise in the form of sensations within this conscious awareness, not as separate, autonomous, and intelligent instances of awareness in and of themselves. It begs the question, why would the digestive tract, or the pituitary gland, necessitate its own separate consciousnesses, and if they did, what purpose would they serve to their physiological function? It seems more appropriate to consider them unconscious components of the physiology which vie for attention only when consciousness is required for higher-order information processing related to their underlying states. When they do arise in awareness, as ontologically subjective items, we need not consider this indicative that they are themselves instantiations of ontologically subjective domains, islands of consciousness. These organs do not, on their own, take part in the sort of information processing that necessitates the mechanism of consciousness. They are, however, part of a physiological system that does. Hence why there is something that it is like to be that system, something that it is like to be you. The ordinary human brain is itself partially divided already, this is why we have two hemispheres to refer to and not just one. Nonetheless, these two hemispheres produce one instance of consciousness, so long as they are still joined. There is, however, always the possibility that other systems within the body, such as the digestive tract are producing a “something” that it is like to be that system, as a product of their own information processing needs. There is just little evidence that any system beyond that of the brain, has the sorts of required cellular composition and general physiology that suggests that there is any sort of independent information processing, of this sort, happening.

The brain, in particular, is however one exception to the above. If its two hemispheres are split, as is done in a procedure known as a corpus callosotomy, the result is indeed two seemingly separate instances of consciousness residing in the same physiological system. Demonstrations have been conducted which reveal that the divide is not just of the attending awareness, which seemingly doubles, but also that there arises a divide of the sensory apparatus of the organism, wherein, for example, the left eye feeds information to the right side of the brain only and vice versa. This essentially creates two different people within the same body, with distinct cognitive abilities, memories (presumably), and sensory apparatus (at least partially). Without getting too involved with this example, the main takeaway is that there is no longer one instance of what it is like to be that organism, there are two.

Multiple instances of consciousness that harbour the same body may be easier to imagine in the case of conjoined twins, wherein there are two separate brains at birth. But in the case of corpus callosotomy, it is the implications regarding the continuity of the subject’s awareness that makes it so interesting. Essentially, splitting the brain creates two separate brains, though diminished in capacity and ability as they may be, they each produce their own instance of consciousness. And it is this transition from one brain to two that deserves our attention.

As a thought exercise, imagine you are the subject requiring a corpus callosotomy, you are to remain conscious throughout the procedure (as is typical during brain surgery). After the knife broadens the cleavage between the hemispheres of your brain, on what side will your conscious awareness land? The right? The left? Neither? Both? Is it tantamount to death? Does the flame of consciousness get extinguished? Does it change? If so, how?

While it may seem counter-intuitive, the behavioural study of subjects post corpus callosotomy, suggests that not only does consciousness remain intact throughout the procedure but also that it divides -unannounced to itself- to land on both sides. What it feels like to be you would become two and each would have the sense of continuity with the original instance of conscious awareness. Though dividing the brain must split the contents of the mind in non-negligible ways, each side must inherit a portion of the prior mind. In real-world cases, this inheritance has been sufficient to provide both sides historical and psychological continuity with the sense of self which existed prior to the split. Hypothetically speaking, both sides of the brain would claim to be one and the same with the original consciousness, and yes, both sides would claim that the other couldn’t possibly have continuity with the consciousness prior to the surgery, as that awareness obviously landed on its respective side. Splitting the physical brain, surely divides what it feels like to be that brain but multiplies the something that it is like to be that brain and consequently the sense of self associated with that something. Intuition would likely have us believe we can somehow accommodate both resulting sides but to even attempt to imagine both points of view simultaneously is futile. In principle, consciousness is invariably a single point of view, a solitary and central awareness. It is this which leads to the notion that consciousness is dualistic, and it is this dualism, along with its continuity across time, which subsequently facilitates the sense of self we all default to.

Consciousness is a meta-substance that exists in constant flux, forever being modified by the sensory apparatus and the cognitive causation which informs its content. This content is thought to be perceived as separate from that which is perceiving it, the mind, therefore, creates a subject-object relationship within itself and so consciousness is thought to be dualistic in at least that sense. This is a fallacious notion which we carry over from our understanding of how the physical body relates to its surroundings. Out there in the world exists objects, the mode of their existence is ontologically objective, that is to say, that their appearance and existence are distinct. Ontologically objective items, such as mountains exist as what they are in and of themselves, which is necessarily distinct from the way they appear to us. The appearance of the same mountain will necessarily be different for any two observers. The visual experience produced within the two observers of the mountain -as perceived through their unique sensory apparatus- will be unique to each. The visual experience itself is therefore ontologically subjective, that is to say, that its appearance and existence are identical[5]. Ontologically objective objects exist out there in the world, while ontologically subjective ones exist as contents of consciousness. Regarding existence, that of the objective mountain is independent of any observer, while the existence of any observer’s perception of that same mountain is necessarily observer relative and therefore ontologically subjective. All of this is to say that ontologically objective items, such as mountains, exist to be seen by the eye, and perceived, while the consequent ontologically subjective item, the visual experience, is itself the perception that cannot be seen. It is a confusion of the mind to think that we are actively seeing what is already a perception within consciousness. Seeing is performed by eyes, perception… by brains. All sense data that is afforded awareness is already a perception. The true nature of consciousness is not dualistic but rather monistic as there is no difference between it and its contents, its thoughts, and perceptions, it simply exists as them and they are simply modifications of it. A visual perception already contains within it relational content of both that which is seen and the relative position of that which is doing the seeing, the eye. The perception cannot itself be seen, the seeing modifies the existing consciousness to the form of its content.

As an aside here, it is probably a good time to discuss the hallucinatory case. A hallucination is a thought that masquerades as a perception. That is to say that it purports to be the sensory data of one, or even multiple sensory modalities when it is in fact not. It is a thought interpreted as a perception, where the difference is that perception is derived from the friction of an external object and the sensory apparatus. Hypothetically, the contents in both instances could be the exact same but the hallucination lacks the causal sensory impression of an external object and is instead the product of the underlying neurochemistry alone.

Consider the sensory modality of hearing. The directionality of hearing, that being, our ability to sense from what direction a sound is coming, is actually contingent on the fact that we have two ears. If there is a sound at 30 degrees to your right, there will be a discrepancy in the distance between the source of the noise and each of your ears. Due to the fact that the speed of sound is constant, this discrepancy in distance equates to a discrepancy in the arrival time of the air pressure wave at the sensory apparatus of the eardrum. So at any given moment, the source of the sound at 30 degrees to your right, will be arriving late to your left ear by some non-negligible amount of time. It will also be reaching the left side of the head at a lower decibel, as it will be impeded by the skull. So, in terms of the physics, we have discrepancies in both time and volume which would translate into at least two separate instances of the respective sense data; one left, one right. The underlying physiology then has to parse this information and render a single perception to consciousness, wherein, a directional content replaces the fact of the physical discrepancy between distance, arrival time, and volume. It is the information processing of sense data that gives rise to the content of directionality in audible perceptions.

So again, consciousness is not afforded raw sense data, it itself takes the form of a perception. Just as seeing describes the eye’s involvement in the production of visual sense data, hearing describes the ear’s involvement in the production of audible sense data. These terms cannot be applied to the having of perceptions. This would be tantamount to saying that there is a homunculus within the skull that maintains a subject-object relationship with perceptions. This can be how it feels for many of us, our default understanding, or shall I say misunderstanding, and it is this that is the proximal cause of the sense of self. We are the perceptions, we are the consciousness of which they consist. Beyond the borders of consciousness, exists a dark and silent machine of determined causal flux, one which is rendered as perceptions through many layers of physical and physiological circumstance, and of which, nearly entirely eludes capture.

With the above understanding of how a false sense of self can arise, we should now look at the various forms of continuity that support it. At base, there is continuity in our sense perceptions from moment to moment. Each morning you awake in the same skin, there is a psychological, and physical continuity with the person you were when you went to sleep. But what makes this continuity possible at all is the continuity of point of view, the fact that you don’t awake to a different set of psychological and physical circumstances, that you maintain the same sense of self and don’t awake to see the world through someone else’s eyes. The objective world envelopes and impresses itself upon the sense organs, squeezing out the sense perceptions which we feel we are. Consciousness thus takes the point of view of the sense organs and coming together defines the central perspective which we refer to as “I”. When we feel that we have agency over our bodily movements and are the authors of our thoughts, it is from the seat of this perspective that that sense arises. What arises here, is the false sense of seeing visual perceptions, hearing audible perceptions, again we do not see them, we do not hear them, they themselves are modifications of consciousness. From the percolating subconscious, springs forth thought and motor function, they too are modifications of consciousness itself, things which arise, as content, into the awareness of consciousness to be witnessed. This witnessing is what it is for consciousness to take their form. Consciousness takes their form because the underlying information processing would otherwise be incomplete. When something becomes content in consciousness, it is the form of the content itself that drives the underlying causation. The content, of which we have no purchase, has inherent to it the winds of causal determination. 

Consciousness does not host some homunculus that exerts itself over its contents, the contents themselves, which simply arise, are the necessary exertion of the underlying physiological system’s determination.

One sense-perception leads to the next. One thought leads to the next. You get the picture. The specific shape of a specific thought’s content has unique implications on the underlying processing. It is a cyclic process, wherein influence is exerted by preceding thoughts and sense perceptions. There is a continuity intrinsic to the thought process itself. Short-term memory is in some sense, the mere fact that the content of a current thought can be at least partially derived from thoughts preceding it and therefore can contain at least a single aspect of them. Carried across time is this unifying aspect. This is another sense in which there is continuity within our experience.

Long-term memory could be thought of as stored packets of content, or bundles of thoughts and sense perceptions. Each is a closed system that shares some theme. Ubiquitous throughout the bundle is at least one unifying aspect. These are the types of memory of which psychological and historical continuity consists. There is a story behind how each of us arrives at the present moment, it is like a disassembled puzzle, wherein each memory is a single piece of a much greater historical picture. There is a continuity to be found in the formation and evolution of our belief structures, our habitual behaviours, and our personal preferences, likes, and dislikes. All of which come together to form a complex structure that supports our sense of self.

We are each a unique constellation of historical and psychological happenstance. With that said, we are merely different corners of the same web of causation. There is a greater picture, one of which we are all apart. It is the actual arbiter behind the marionettes of our bodies. Consciousness is itself featureless. It is the contents that populate it that give it its character, its defining features. The specifics of these features are what frame continuity and corner it, so to speak, into a single identity.

Any content of consciousness could be said to have two essential defining traits. The analogy of a message and package is applicable here. All contents of consciousness have an underlying message and they each come packaged in a particular way. The message is the semantic content, while the package is the details that pertain to its delivery. The idiosyncrasies of our minds, their content, that being their semantic content and how it is delivered are determined by the tools which underlie them. For example, the state and development of each organism’s sensory apparatus varies, and so it follows that the sensory perceptions delivered will have a unique character. Let’s say, in the case of visual perception, perhaps there is a floater in the left eye. Character is afforded by our underlying tools, it influences the shape or form of the contents of consciousness. In just this same way, one’s knowledge, belief structure, and memory determine the semantic content of their mind while details of its delivery are afforded by the underlying tool of one’s vocabulary, amongst other influences, such as the social environment in which they find them-self. One’s vocabulary will influence the way linguistic content is expressed. There are many words that share meaning, and or have similar uses, and so it follows that there are many linguistic forms of delivery that any given semantic content can take. It is the logical consistency between both semantic content and the form of its delivery that creates the perception of continuity in real-time, from moment to moment.

Subjectively speaking, we are consciousness, we are the instantiation of content within it. With this realization, into awareness emerges a new potential to objectify thought and sense perception as the mere transient apparitions they are. This is to decouple from our sense of self, to cease to bind to thought through the act of identification with it. What is meant by “I”, “me” and “my”? Well, the default is to use these pronouns to refer to the sense of self as it is perceived to exist through the presence of a perceptual center of experience, one which maintains a physical, historical, and psychological continuity across time and also exerts its free will upon the world. What we think is highly influential of how we feel, and with an interpretation of the world as separate from that of the self,  it can put us into a position where we feel at odds with it. A position from which we can’t help but take the happenstance of our environment personally, a position from which the mind is inclined to create suffering as a response. Though the fluctuation between pain, pleasure, and neutrality is a seemingly necessary component of what it is to be alive, suffering, stress, and anxiety are merely the product of confusion surrounding our understanding of what we are. Though we are occasionally shot by arrows, there is no need to remove them just to repeatedly plunge them back into our flesh, ad nauseam.

It is through confusions surrounding the sense of self that the mind derives its potential to transform into a self-perpetuating cycle of torture. The disturbance of pain emerges in consciousness, it is taken as a provocation against the self and this creates a chain of reaction that causes a further disturbance. To be host to a conventional sense of self not only erects the sort of structure of expectation that makes the transgressions of the world possible but it also gives them a home within, an identity upon which they can attach. Like a stone cast into a pond, the perturbation ripples across self-hood. Take away this false sense of self and the stone passes by as if there is nothing there at all.

Thought is the generator of all suffering. All suffering arises in the form of reactive thought. That is to say, as a reaction to something. Reactive thought largely goes off-line where the climate of the mind is not to identify with thoughts. Suffering is a species of thought that comes packaged with sense perceptions, feelings, and or moods, ones that taint the moment with negativity. Their self-perpetuating nature is the product of their being packaged together. The negative perception, or mood, is what stimulates the next thought in the chain of suffering. The fact of their partnership is a necessary feature because thought which is not coupled with this sort of undesirable perception is not what we mean by suffering in the first place. Thought is not the enemy, It is the framing that can render it so. The framing, or context, dictates the form in which thought takes. It controls for how its content is oriented and ultimately determines if the house is glass or not. The context that frames thought is the mind’s understanding of the self, of the world, and their relationship.

There is nothing so important as understanding the mechanisms of one’s mind, and also that the universe is best viewed in its oneness. To embody the above principles, is to modify one’s framing, the context which determines the shape of our thoughts, whether or not they are selfish, fearful, anxious, greedy, hateful, judging, reactive, resistant, attached, clinging, needy, dependent, etc. It seems that there are really two archetypal forms to which our perception of self can fit. Together they define the continuum on which we all exist. There is the ego on one end, and then there is oneness on the other. Depending upon what our understanding of reality is, we all exist somewhere between the two. We have isolation versus connectedness. We have rejection versus acceptance. We have ingratitude versus gratitude. To believe in free will is a misunderstanding of the causation behind what dictates our thoughts and motor function, it pushes one towards the ego, towards isolation, and away from being connected to the oneness that determines all things. What is it to be connected to the true will, that of the cosmos itself? Well, it is simply what happens when there is no self to reject the happenstance of their world. Everything happening is nestled neatly in a bed of acceptance and gratefulness. It is a position of understanding which embraces the ultimate will. It is the great Taoist principle of not fighting the current, but rather going with the flow. We arrive there by redefining our understanding of the context in which we find ourselves, this changes who and what we are. A change in one’s belief structure towards the archetype of oneness changes the qualitative content of one’s mind. Moving from the ego archetype to the one of oneness is synonymous with replacing the author sitting behind the typewriter of our thoughts. Our thoughts are in synergy with the qualitative content which defines our experience from moment to moment. Realigning with oneness is tantamount to a shift away from the abrasion of negative moods and negative interpretations of sensations. It is a step towards greater well-being and an atmosphere of mind conducive to it.

It is said that the average person has 50-thousand thoughts per day. While this is an astonishing and counter-intuitive figure, there is an even greater surprise to be had when we analyze the contents of those thoughts. Write down on a piece of paper those thoughts which occupy your mind the most. The rolodex of one’s mind is in constant motion, yet the actual content is mind-numbingly repetitive. The mind has an inherent inclination towards repetition. It loves constantly rehashing broken-in thought processes, and or, specific sensory stimuli which it knows will give it a fresh hit of dopamine.

We are addicted to these thoughts and the biochemical hold they have on us. We are creatures of habit, and few among us can say that the pool of habits in which they currently swim is the optimal one. In fact, we often know that many of these habits are degrading our lives, wasting our time, and pulling us further into a state of automata. We know this because, like habits of the past, the ones which haunt us now are only temporary. They will likely be part of our mental recursion so long as they can still provide a hit, boost, or bump. That is, if we keep up our dependence on their false provisions of warmth. By swaying our intentions to new content, we can slowly come to center our focus on new items. We can establish new habits, ones that don’t give us instant gratification but rather higher-order contentment and long-term fulfillment. The kind of satisfaction felt when goals are realized and principles are followed. True happiness is to be found in overcoming obstacles and fulfilling your responsibilities. It comes with the personal celebrations which are had in the absence of toxic behaviour. It forms out of the flesh of successfully conquered vices and manifests itself in the pursuit of further skillful procession.

So, challenge yourself to examine the contents of your mind and cast an honest judgment on those items which compel you by way of instant gratification. What stimulus do you seek for comfort? Don’t seek comfort -comfort is death- live by pursuing forward movement for the sake of making the most out of this one life, this one opportunity to progress. Set goals, and with your intention as rails, move towards them with everything you have got to give. When you reach them, let that felt fulfillment push you even further. Feed off the momentum and embrace the process of reinforcing good habits.

With that said, we should be avoiding certain detrimental stimuli as well as “comfortable” thought processes and, in their place, we should insert carefully selected activities that can provide forward movement and help build momentum therein. Activities that support only aspects of our lives that are substantial to our self-optimization, personal growth, and productivity. It’s about having the foresight to occupy your time with things that you won’t regret having cared about. It comes down to deciding who it is you want to become, setting goals, and filling your time with activities that will manifest as the achievement of the goals. All the while, aim towards smothering those all-to-comfortable habitual activities which promise instant gratification and a timely soul-death.

When confronted with a proposition, choose the more emotionally difficult choice, because there’s always another option, a better option. One must have in their awareness multiple options, that being viable alternatives. When the thought of sitting down and indulging in junk food, pop culture, or drama arises, one must know that this is detrimental to their well-being and that it persists only as the current easy route, the path of least resistance. Take your flow in a more beneficial, positive direction. Supplement in place of that which is detrimental, activities which stimulate the mind such as reading a book, writing, study or meditation. Do the things that you consider productive. This executes a great display of self-control. With each instance in which this is done, one is building momentum towards greater self-control. The ability to control your fate, the ability to move towards what is right in your mind and good in the world. Opt for the good and your impact in the world will be meaningful, if not to the world, at least to you. Act not on the course of least resistance but rather choose the right choice, often the emotionally difficult choice, the choice that stands on the side of progress. This is how your will creates the person you want to become.

The brain is habitual and changing habits takes time. Specifically, it takes continual incremental reinforcement over long durations of time. Therefore, one must use the temporal dimension in front of them to make true progress. To choose the immediately gratifying solution to the issue of your life right now, as it is, is not going to fix the problem. The easy solution will ultimately hurt you, whether physically, emotionally, or psychologically. This just pushes the problem further down the road and puts even more momentum behind it and thus makes it even more difficult to correct later on. In this way, you’ll meet it again and again and again, and each iteration of this demon will be that much more powerful than the last. You must have the courage to take a stand now. Over and over, one must take this stand against their inner demons. Make time your ally, if you don’t it will become your enemy. By taking these stands against the weaker part of you, you are changing your habits, changing your brain’s biochemistry, bit by bit.

The brain is plastic; moldable yet limited. And so, it is analogous to a great staircase. The first thing to understand is that with each step you go up, the higher you get. Secondly, the amount one can travel with the lift of a single leg is limited. There is a relationship between the size of the steps and the length of the leg, it determines the height to which one can elevate themselves above their prior position. One can typically climb one step comfortably but with 2 or 3 or 4 steps at a time, it becomes increasingly difficult. And so, steps are sequential and in this way, steps toward becoming the person we want to become are also sequential. We must come to see these steps as a plethora stretched over time. It is with small incremental moves, small decisions, small choices, and small divergences from our habitual program that we can come to form new habits and reshape the form of our brain via its inherent plasticity.

Save the details, as these are topics for another day, but some fundamentals worth stating here would include NOT neglecting the physical side of the mind-body equation. Diet and exercise have a massive influence on the way we feel as well as our capacities and potentials. With skillful action, we can optimize our physical regimen to produce the optimal mental state. Also, there will be those paths forward which you know are skillful because you have prior experience with them and there will also be those paths that will necessitate some research to find. Be open-minded and explore new avenues. There is no one path, nor is there one destination.

Not only are the majority of thoughts incessant, repetitive, deranged, deluded, and ego-centric but also, more often than not, they are trivial. The practice of mindfulness promotes the mechanism of evaluating the triviality of particular thoughts and thought patterns. It builds in an awareness and consequently the recognition of thoughts as either trivial or valuable and offers an interface with which the mind can look upon itself and drop its trivial components. This happens one by one and in real-time through the repetition of using this interface. In this way, the mind reinforces its goal of moving away from trivialities and re-establishes itself as a more valuable thought structure entirely. Whether the inculcation of a particular thought is good or bad depends entirely on the thought in question.

Meditation and mantra are weapons in a war of attrition against the ego. Mantra is positive reinforcement as it adds desired components to the mind, whereas meditation is a negative reinforcement as it removes the undesired components. Think of mantra as the programming of the occurrence of particular thoughts. Mantra is a genre of reinforcement, and or, conditioning. Choose what you want. Find the content that appeals to that desired state and program it with targeted mantras. Think happier thoughts and become happier. Inculcate your principles and you will come to embody them.

I have found that much of my ambiguous stress, discomfort, and unease -the unwarranted background buzz to be had in any given moment- has been the result of not knowing why I am doing whatever it may be that I am doing at that moment. If we are to avoid unnecessary performative stress, then whatever it is that we are doing, we must be doing it to full effect. In order to slide comfortably into the moment’s activity, wholeheartedly, with flow, we should have zero hangups, zero unanswered questions, or that is to say, we should know why we are doing what it is that we are doing. Without the scalpel of a clear-cut intention, as well as, an awareness of our motivations and incentives, we are often haunted by the background noise of question, worry, and indecision, especially when we are doing nothing at all. To be indecisive is synonymous with limbo, and limbo is a jungle gym of discomfort, and is essentially, to feel out of place, or, as if one is between places. If one chooses to do nothing, that is, to meditate, then they had best do it with conviction and self-allowance, less they transform clear-minded bliss into discursive stress-inducing indirection.

Providing ourselves with a thorough inspection of what activities we take part in and why we choose them in particular, offers up a much-needed foundation of certainty, of definitive belonging, that is to say, feeling as though you are exactly where you are meant to be, and doing exactly what you should be. Of course, you couldn’t actually be anywhere else, could you? You are always right here, doing whatever it is that you are doing, right now, and so, you should feel as if you belong in precisely that equation. Have conviction in what you choose to do, remove doubt through inquiry, lose the mental wobble. To be at one with the present moment, you must accept yourself within it.

Our feet are cemented in a perpetual present, we simply cannot get away from it, and yet the mind spends so much time over-looking this fact, washing around between memories of the past, desires, and fears for the future, as well as thought that has departed from the stimulus of the here and of the now. We use the facility of the now, where things are real, to host fantasy. The mind wanders so freely that it gets lost within itself. A lost mind believes its own fictions, it takes its dreams as reality, at least for a moment. It cuts us twice, first by stealing the present moment and second by inflicting emotional damage. So too, the opposite is true. By example, the contemplation of impermanence both incentivizes us to remain in the present and allows us to accept that which we have lost.

The tree inadvertently arranges its form into a complex of entanglement. And so, in this form, its lower branches do not hesitate to catch and hold any such limb which should fall from its higher regions. Much in the same way, when the mind experiences loss; be it the death, rejection, or the passing-by of a loved one, its attachment exceeds its permanence. And so, the mind is left in a state analogous to that of a tree which has suffered a lightning strike, it captures and arrests the dismembered appendage on its journey to the ground. The larger the branch, or the more consequential the person, the more likely it is to become entangled in the edifice below. We grasp onto the remnants of our losses, we grip the artifacts of the past and in doing so, we fail in returning them to the ground from which they grew. Though a detached branch may be released from its entanglement by a sufficiently strong wind, the tree does not have the capacity to voluntarily let go. While on the other hand, the mind, when faced with impermanence, has no other option than to exonerate itself. For it is the earth from which all relationships grow and it is the earth to which all will return; to decay, to be reclaimed, and to one day re-amalgamate as new life. One must remember that it is the ethereal nature of life that gives rise to the dynamics of change and novelty, and thusly allows for us to ephemeralize our world. To cling to the past is to be static and to be static is to be dead. All life emerges from its own impermanence.

Find a seat with a vast view, a vega, field, or vista, one with an open sky will do quite well. Take a moment and visualize something placed before you which isn’t; a seated dog, a resting bird, or even a small shrub. The fact that you can do this, and most people, in fact, can, is a demonstration of your brain’s capacity to evoke ontologically subjective entities and place them amongst the display of the visual field derived from the interactions of the central nervous system and the objective features of the world beyond it.

Now, as you stare out over the distance, focus your attention where the sky meets the horizon. The greater the distance before you the more profound the following insight may appear. Using your capacity for visualization, supplant the sky you see with what you imagine the surface of your brain may look like. Almost as if the whole world were enveloped not by a blue sky, but by an empty shell of pink, rich with folds and blood vessels. This exercise is one designed to facilitate the feeling which accompanies the recognition that, subjectively speaking, the world as you experience it, is indeed encased in bone and organ. The visual field, no matter how vast a physical distance it captures, exists within the confines of an organ roughly the size of a small cantaloupe. 

As another perspective, sit in a  room facing a windowless wall. The wall is the barrier of your visual field, you can’t see through or past it, only what is between it and your location or point of view. Now recognize that the room before you -in your visual field- is arising as qualia in the physical organ of the brain. It then follows that the physical organs of your eyes are actually located on the other side of the wall seen before you. The physical organ that does the seeing, is actually doing so behind the wall. Now, this really captures the subjective nature of our experience. In contrast, we can imagine the objective world beyond the wall, beyond the physical structure of the eye, as a world that is very much the same as the world we are subjectively experiencing. However, I should point out here that the ontologically objective case, that being the world that actually exists beyond the eyes is a world that could appear in as many unique ways as there are different eyes and brains to interpret it. Right, we see what is in front of the eyes, but the experience actually occurs behind the eyes and it is the eyes themselves, as a conduit, in conjunction with the rest of the brain which determines how the actual visual experience appears.

Is the world inside the head? The head inside the world? Or both? To further our first-hand experience of what it is like to feel the world as it exists within the skull, let’s now put emphasis on the size of the organ generating our experience as well as the full spectrum of physical sensation itself. Take a moment to feel the physical sensations of your body. The breeze through your hair, the pressures on your skin, the tingles and pains. Acknowledge its size, recognize that the brain is within it, and also that the subjective experience of having this body is manifest only within the brain. Try to feel what it is like to put your body, as you know and experience it, inside of your brain. At this point, it may become clear to you that the experiential window through which we feel the world is in actuality a sort of miniature diorama of the objective world. 

To further this exercise, imagine that you are to take a step backward outside of your body. Provide yourself with a point of view from which you can see your body and all of the world surrounding it. Imagine the first person view from your body and visualize it as superimposed on the back of the head. Let the constellation of bodily sensation exist there as well. From this third-person perspective, you can better place just how miniature the diorama of the mind must be relative to the objective physical world beyond the brain. That is not to say that the experiential domain is an object of space, only that it is the meta-process of a small organ.

The seamless overlay of our experiences onto objective reality is cohesive enough as to never appear suspect, let alone illusory. Nevertheless, we know that the world, as experienced, must exist within the confines of the skull and also that the physical artifact of the skull must exist within the objective domain. Though it is conventional wisdom to be able to differentiate between the two, it is seldom that we can peer through the guise of this woven illusion, where two worlds meld to one and experience the isolation of being trapped in a dioramic experience.

I like to think about this divide between the modes of existence. It seems to me that no matter what distinctions are made here, how we partition the world, that there is always an explanatory gap and that further distinctions could always be drawn. Refining our tools of categorization, such as with that of John Searle’s terminology regarding the modes of existence, it can at least feel as though we are getting closer to the truth. Perhaps it is worth elaborating on here.

Most notably known for his Chinese room argument, John Searle is a contemporary philosopher of mind who has unearthed many novel concepts therein. Time and time again, Searle has demonstrated himself to be an outside-of-the-box thinker within many genres of philosophy. The topic of discussion here is no exception. Essentially, Searle has combined conventional conceptions to produce a broadened categorization of what he calls “modes of existence”.  Though the component terms are quite commonplace and generally understood, at the end of this discussion I have included some standard definitions just so we have all of the parts on the table. For a further elaboration of the distinctions discussed below, please refer to Searle’s 2015 release titled, “Seeing Things As They Are: A Theory of Perception”.

Regarding the modes of existence, I have tried to offer different angles of approach as to press the distinction made. At base, we have two modes of existence, that being two forms in which the “things” that make up reality can take. The first is the ontologically objective, a planet or any other physical object would be an example. Secondly, we have the ontologically subjective, an itch would be an example. Planets exist independently of observers because their appearance and existence are distinct while the existence of an itch or a pain is dependent on an observer to experience it and so we can say that its appearance and existence are identical[5].

Searle states that the distinction between the objective and subjective is ambiguous between the ontological sense and the epistemic sense. This can make for some confusion, as an item such as money can be both objective in some sense and subjective in another. Ontology is the study of existence or being and so it is fundamental but let’s now have a look at the higher-order category of epistemology, the mode of knowledge. Here the subject-object distinction separates factual statements about the veridical case from statements of opinion which describe some subjective relationship between the ontologically subjective mode to the ontologically objective one. The epistemic mode -knowledge- has to do with the types of claims being made. Whereas the ontological mode -existence- has to do with whether or not the existence and appearance of an object qualify it as either dependent or independent of the mind of a conscious creature.

Searle’s distinction is especially useful for classifying those items which cross the ambiguous line between the objective and subjective modes. Enter axiology, the philosophical study of value, and how it is allotted. Our notions of worth, ethics, and aesthetics are in every instance subjective in some sense but also objective in other senses. For example, Searle often uses a 20-dollar bill to make this point. A paper bill denoting a 20-dollar value is a physical entity and is, therefore, an ontologically objective item, he would say that it is a matter of objective fact. But the value denoted and that it is honoured is a matter of our subjective attitudes towards it. The fact that the bill denotes monetary value/ purchase power at all is dependent on the eye of the beholder; their subjective attitude towards it. Alan Watts has often made the point that you can’t gain sustenance from the act of consuming a paper bill, that it has no intrinsic value in this regard. Whether or not a trader will accept it as compensation for food, on the other hand, is a matter of what value the trader imbues the note with. The fact of the value is what Searle refers to as an institutional fact. It is a fact in the sense that we are in agreement upon it.

Now let’s consider some clear examples of the subjective and objective epistemic senses. To say that Rene Descartes was the best philosopher of all time is an opinion and to say such a thing is to create an epistemically subjective assertion. It is relating the subjective attitude of an observer -an item of the ontologically subjective mode within one particular conscious creature- to the world of brute facts.  Whereas a statement such as Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, is an epistemically objective fact because its validity can be arrived at independent of the opinions and attitudes of observers. It is a statement that has a direct relation to an ontologically objective instance, that being the death of Descartes.

Let’s quickly contrast brute facts with institutional facts. Brute facts are those which are independent of any institution and relate to or speak of ontologically objective features of existence directly. On the other hand, institutional facts are those which cannot exist void of some underlying institution to facilitate their existence. Like the value denoted on and afforded to the 20-dollar paper-note in your pocket, statements such as Obama was president and the police must dictate your rights upon arrest are both institutional facts. Institutional facts are objective in an observer relative sense as they are also entirely dependent on our agreement upon them. Searle says that institutions are those entities of convention which are designated as such by having an underlying “system of constitutive rules”.

Within the ontologically subjective mode -let’s just refer to it as consciousness here- there is a distinction to be made between intentional and non-intentional phenomena. The contents of consciousness such as desire, aversion, hope, etc. are intentional, whereas intrinsically mental phenomena such as pain and itchiness are non-intentional. These are mind-dependent as their existence is identical to their appearance[5]. As hashed out above, the ontologically objective mode contains those entities which exist independent of any mind, as their existence is distinct from their appearance. And so, Searle adds a third category which he refers to as observer-relative, wherein the phenomena in question share a peculiar confluence of features including both an existence which is dependent on our attitudes toward them and also that they are not actually located in the mind. Included are money, rights, property, ownership, marriage, divorce, etc. As an aside the natural sciences consist of and deal with observer-independent phenomena, while the social sciences typically deal with observer relative phenomena.

Searle says, “Money is money because the actual participant in the institution regards it as money.” To further tease the two apart, when Searle speaks of objective, observer relative phenomena that are also intentional, he refers to it as an intentionality-relative phenomenon. Money, games, and government are all examples of intentionality-relative phenomena. Mental states such as fear, love, beliefs, desires, and aversions are also intentional and observer relative but are entirely subjective in nature, thus don’t qualify as intentionality-relative phenomena.

Let’s now consider the equivalent in the physical world. An ontologically objective body has primary properties that are directly quantifiable such as mass, solidity, fluidity, hardness, motion, etc., and secondary properties such as colour, smell, sound, and taste. And so, the particular shade, and or, colour that is seen by two observers when looking at the same rose may be unique to each of them -as this phenomenon is relative to their particular sensory apparatus- and in this example, the qualia -the colour as experienced- would also be classed as a non-intentional, observer relative phenomena. Needless to say, it is experientially subjective, as it exists within the scope of the body in question as relative to the observer’s sensory apparatus. The very same rose has many aspects that are quantifiable such as its length, girth, hardness, moisture content, etc. and facts about these properties must exist as measurements within the convention of some system of measurement, an institution. As such the measurements are epistemically objective, institutional facts. Due to the necessity of the convention -the system of measurement- to render objectively quantifiable facts regarding the rose, these facts are also both intentional and observer relative, while the subject the facts point to -the rose- remains observer-independent and ontologically objective. Thus the primary properties, as measured, exist in the same regard as intentionality-relative phenomena of the mind such as money. Whereas the secondary properties, being subjective in nature, exist as non-intentional, observer relative phenomena within the ontologically subjective mode much like pain or an itch. In short, the rose itself exists as an ontologically objective body of the ontologically objective mode of existence. Our experiences involving the rose exist in the ontologically subjective mode. All quantification of the rose exists in the epistemically objective mode and whether or not you like roses is an item of the epistemically subjective mode.

With the above said, some of the terms above could use further definition. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. That which is objective is 1-the existence thereof is independent of a subject, 2- the veridical case, and 3- reality as agreed upon. That which is subjective is 1-the existence thereof is dependent on a subject, 2- the preferential or relational case, 3- reality as interpreted by an individual. The objective mode is the mode of existence that is independent of any mind. The subjective one is the mode of existence that is dependent on a mind.

As for the four primary modes of existence:

Epistemically Objective

Ex. The sandalwood incense are kept next to the vanilla incense         

KNOWLEDGE OF THE OBJECTIVE

What we can know objectively

Reality as it is described                                    

Statements of what “we” know to be the case independent of one’s feelings towards it

Assertions “we” make about reality as it is

Epistemically Subjective

Ex. Sandalwood incense smell better than vanilla                      

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECTIVE

What we can know subjectively

Reality as it is judged and selected for by an individual

Statement of what “I” know to be the case

Statement of opinion or preference

Assertions one makes about the “something” it is like to be them

Ontologically Objective

Ex. The fact that there are sandalwood incense                                

EXISTENCE OF THE OBJECTIVE

Reality as it exists

What has an objective existence

Something which exists independent of perception

What physical reality is

Ontologically Subjective  

Ex. The way sandalwood smells (to an observer)                                                

EXISTENCE OF THE SUBJECTIVE

Reality as it is experienced

What has a subjective existence

Something which is dependent on perception for its existence

What that subjective “something” is like for the subject

We all start at the same place, the ontologically subjective mode, or consciousness. It is the aperture through which the appearance of existence obtains. And as Rene Descartes deduced, it is the limit case of that which he could doubt, and accordingly, it is the epistemological bedrock that requires no assumptions to verify or render coherent. Descartes himself phrased it, “Cogito, ergo sum”, or, “I think; therefore, I am”. Descartes found that he could not ignore the supposition that it was he who was doubting and therefore that he must certainly exist; conversely, if he did not exist then the doubt would not exist either. Descartes’s appraisal by doubt establishes that the appearance of his ability to think, or more specifically doubt, is in some sense identical to its being or existence and by extension himself. There is something which it is like to be that which doubts and therefore it cannot doubt that there is something that it is like to be. In short, to have a state of experientiality is to have self-evident knowledge of that state and so this is man’s fundamental epistemic axiom.

Thought is an invaluable asset to all human enterprises. The most basic of civilities would be lost if it were to cease. It is a misinterpretation of Buddhism to think that the Monk’s goal is to stop thinking. Thought itself is not the enemy, it is the habituation of thought -distraction by it- and its framing -identification with it- which are culpable in the fruition of our suffering. If one is too involved with their thoughts, to the point of being distracted by them, then their attention is not free for the sensory perceptions of the present. Discursive thought shares this theme with that of being in a dream state. Identification with thought is another parallel between thinking and dreaming. Most dreaming involves that we don’t know that we are dreaming, the whole dream is itself existing within the context that it is real. There is of course the exception of lucid dreaming, wherein the dreamer is aware that they are in fact in a dream and therefore that it is not their veridical reality. The act of lucid dreaming is the dream-state equivalent of adjusting the framing of one’s waking thoughts as to result in their disidentification from them. Dream-states and wakeful states of discursive thought both lack the presence of an awareness that would otherwise be the end of them. In both cases, it is the content itself that has to reflect the understanding that underwrites them. Within a lucid dream, the context is that the subject is in fact dreaming, this understanding is built-in, there is a signature of this awareness in every turn. Redefining one’s sense of self has a similar effect on one’s waking thoughts, each thought is formed with this understanding built-in. Reflected in each thought’s form, in the very architecture of their content, is an understanding of self that impedes identification with them. To the opposite effect, the conventional ego arises where the architecture of thought reflects that of a false sense of self. One birthed of the false sense that there is an internal thinker of thought, an experiencer of experience, a perceiver of sensory perceptions. 

The majority of one’s life can easily be spent in a state of mental captivity. So long as we are seduced by the notion of the self, we can’t readily associate with our immediate surroundings, especially not in a detached manner, one which is free of judgment, reactivity, resistance, and attachment. We are the prisoners of our own self-hood. We are captivated by these thoughts,  they become our identity in that moment, and their negativity, and or, uncertainty take form as our personal burden to suffer. There is an intrinsic well-being available when the sense of self is stripped away. With the exorcism of the self, a truer connection with, and a deeper understanding of the cosmos is made available. Who and what we think we are mediates how we interact with our environment. Between the vastness and the familiar exists a filter that selects for that which is important and against that which is not. Any misunderstanding built into this edifice serves only to distort the message. Something funny happens when the sense of self is lost, reality emerges.

The idea of the self is just one interpretation of what the world is and how it works, how it all comes together. The sense of self is how it feels to be captivated by this idea. The ego is the resulting psychology of hosting this ideation. Consciousness is the fundamental condition of awareness that presides over all of the above. It is a pure and subjective field of visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory sense perceptions that exist in a constant temporal flux. Overlaid by a presentation of thought patterns that are extruded by the epistemological edifice of our understanding, knowledge, and belief. No matter what our belief structure and consequent psychology, consciousness persists unadulterated. It is only temporarily modified by stimulus and never truly takes on any identity. 

To disengage from the ideation of self is the prerequisite action in the process of disbarring the associated feeling of sensing the self and of forming your inner world around it. This is both the beginning of the cultivation of selfless action, as well as, the beginning of the war against it. Our conscious awareness is intrinsically selfless and yet this must be learned by way of dissecting the very idea of the self. It is however also possible to just drop the charade and simply witness what is happening. The flame of thought need not be extinguished, rather it must be used to warm our hands. Feeling the heat of the flame doesn’t turn you into it, the heat doesn’t become what you are. Yet it is this very principle at work in the mind. Thought can sneak up, as to not be seen coming and hijack the mind, seemingly becoming what you are, how you are identified at that moment. The space we create through mindfulness practice broadens the awareness which presides over the movements of the mind and facilitates the hosting of thought as opposed to identification with it. The flame is recognized as a transitory apparition, a useful tool but also a hazard that requires great care. It is this cultivation of mental space, or if you will, awareness, that works in tandem with the reformation of our understanding of self that determines how present one is capable of being.

The goal of mindfulness isn’t to alter the state of consciousness but rather to become aware of the state in which it already exists. Awareness here in this moment is ultimately what translates into changes in both the immediate and distant future. It happens of itself. It might sound tautological but simply notice that which emerges to be noticed. If you sense that you are reacting to what you are noticing, simply notice that reaction as well. Recognize it as an inflection of the mind, a response to the environment. One which is the product of being actively identified with the contents of consciousness. We are not trying to access rarified states of ecstasy or unearth some esoteric experience. Just notice what is happening, no matter if it is pleasant or unpleasant, and bear witness to the present moment no matter what it brings. Items simply appear and persist until they don’t. All that is unpleasant in the mind is impermanent and therefore never truly becomes what we are, though the sense that it does may be present. If we regard ourselves as something which can be affected in this regard, then that suffering is likely that impinge on subsequent thought. The path out of this knot is acceptance, that is to say, to not push that which is unwanted and unpleasant away. We must accept all things and let them come and go, arise and pass of themselves. This impermanence is, after all, their nature.

Consciousness is the identifier of pleasure and pain, what is pleasant and unpleasant. Generally speaking, our movement is towards pleasure and away from pain, towards relief and away from suffering. Regarding sensory perceptions, consciousness is the fact that an awareness presides over them. As such, it is consciousness that delineates between the two and identifies the path of least resistance. If we perceive that there is a self that is performing the delineation, then it makes sense for us to feel as though we are responsible for the resulting performative direction the body takes. To not see the inherent impermanence behind all contents of consciousness, to identify as a self that is central to all experience, to feel the body’s reaction as our action, to take responsibility for the delineation of pleasure and pain, to be the arbiter behind bodily movements. While these are some of our greatest confusions, becoming attached to the contents of consciousness is our greatest mistake. The remedy to which is found only through acceptance, as acceptance is what it is to truly let go.

There are two very different lives available on either side of a simple decision. Once one develops the awareness required to get a taste of the examined life, one must decide whether or not to pursue it. This is an ongoing proposition as many will find that the awareness and motivation required to stay the course are quite slippery at first. The body defaults back to self-oriented thought, back to the unexamined life of an automaton, where one is confused about the nature of their mind and fails to see the selfless nature of consciousness. Meditation is valuable to this enterprise as it acquaints us directly with this fact. Discipline and consistency go a long way in this war of attrition against the delusion of the self and the dream-like state of living under its false pretenses. Living the examined life is much like lucid dreaming, wherein the awareness is not of the fact of dreaming but rather of understanding the nature of one’s mind. Living the examined life is lucid-living. Though consciousness underlies and therefore supports both routes, it thrives on the lucid side of things. Under lucid eyes, the entirety of the world is perceived differently. A life examined is one in which worldly events are impersonal and mental happenings are recognized as insubstantial. It is after all our confusion surrounding the two which are responsible for the degradation of the quality of one’s life. Consciousness itself is impervious to this degradation, it is our confusion surrounding its nature that makes it feel as though it is not. All suffering is the delusion of a confused mind.

We have all felt the profundity of sudden realization, the way that having an epiphany seemingly causes a reshuffling within the knowledge base of the mind. This closer approximation of the mind to reality is intrinsically positive and feels like no less than a step in the right direction. A similar experience is available to us in every moment as consciousness is in and of itself profound when experienced for its own sake. It is the meter stick by which all virtue obtains and all value is measured.

Citations:

1-Harris, S.(2014) Waking Up. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster (p.102)

2-Harris, S.(2012) Free Will. New York, NY: Free Press (p.5)

3-Libet, B., Gleason, C. A., Wright, E. W., & Pearl, D. K. (1993) Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral Activity (readiness-Potential). Neurophysiology of consciousness, 249-268. Doi: 10.1007/987-1-4612-0355-1_15

4-Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H., & Haynes, J. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 11(5), 5430545. doi:10.1038/nn.2112

5-Searle, J. R. (2015). Seeing things as they are: A theory of perception. New York: Oxford University Press. (p.16)

John Searle’s Distinction -Objective and Subjective Epistemology and Ontology

Most notably known for his Chinese room argument, John Searle is a contemporary philosopher of mind who has unearthed many novel concepts therein. Time and time again, Searle has demonstrated himself to be an outside of the box thinker within many genres of philosophy. The topic of discussion here is no exception. Essentially, Searle has combined conventional conceptions to produce a broadened categorization of what he calls “modes of existence”.  Though the component terms are quite commonplace and generally understood, at the end of this discussion I have included some standard definitions just so we have all of the parts on the table. For a further elaboration of the distinctions discussed below, please refer to Searle’s 2015 release titled, “Seeing Things As They Are: A Theory of Perception”.

Regarding the modes of existence, I have tried to offer different angles of approach as to press the distinction made. At base, we have two modes of existence, that being two forms in which the “things” that makeup reality can take. The first being the ontologically objective, a planet or any other physical object would be an example. Secondly, we have the ontologically subjective, an itch would be an example. Planets exist independently of observers because their appearance and existence are distinct while the existence of an itch or a pain is dependent on an observer to experience it and so we can say that its appearance and existence are identical[5].

Searle states that the distinction between the objective and subjective is ambiguous between the ontological sense and the epistemic sense. This can make for some confusion, as an item such as money can be both objective in some sense and subjective in another. Ontology is the study of existence or being and so it is fundamental but let’s now have a look at the higher-order category of epistemology, the mode of knowledge. Here the subject-object distinction separates factual statements about the veridical case from statements of opinion which describe some subjective relationship between the ontologically subjective mode to the ontologically objective one. The epistemic mode -knowledge- has to do with the types of claims being made. Whereas the ontological mode -existence- has to do with whether or not the existence and appearance of an object qualify it as either dependent or independent of the mind of a conscious creature.

Searle’s distinction is especially useful for classifying those items which cross the ambiguous line between the objective and subjective modes. Enter axiology, the philosophical study of value, and how it is allotted. Our notions of worth, ethics and aesthetics are in every instance subjective in some sense but also objective in other senses. For example, Searle often uses a 20-dollar bill to make this point. A paper bill denoting a 20-dollar value is a physical entity and is, therefore, an ontologically objective item, he would say that it is a matter of objective fact. But the value denoted and that it is honoured is a matter of our subjective attitudes towards it. The fact that the bill denotes monetary value/ purchase power at all is dependent on the eye of the beholder; their subjective attitude towards it. Alan Watts has often made the point that you can’t gain sustenance from the act of consuming a paper bill, that it has no intrinsic value in this regard. Whether or not a trader will accept it as compensation for food, on the other hand, is a matter of what value the trader imbues the note with. The fact of the value is what Searle refers to as an institutional fact. It is a fact in the sense that we are in agreement upon it.

Now let’s consider some clear examples of the subjective and objective epistemic senses. To say that Rene Descartes was the best philosopher of all time is an opinion and to say such a thing is to create an epistemically subjective assertion. It is relating the subjective attitude of an observer -an item of the ontologically subjective mode within one particular conscious creature- to the world of brute facts.  Whereas a statement such as Rene Descartes was born on March 31, 1596, is an epistemically objective fact because its validity can be arrived at independent of the opinions and attitudes of observers. It is a statement that has a direct relation to an ontologically objective instance, that being the life of Descartes.

Let’s quickly contrast brute facts with institutional facts. Brute facts are those which are independent of any institution and relate to or speak of ontologically objective features of existence directly. On the other hand, institutional facts are those which cannot exist void of some underlying institution to facilitate their existence. Like the value denoted on and afforded to the 20-dollar paper-note in your pocket, statements such as Obama was president and the police must dictate your rights upon arrest are both institutional facts. Institutional facts are objective in an observer relative sense as they are also entirely dependent on our agreement upon them. Searle says that institutions are those entities of convention which are designated as such by having an underlying “system of constitutive rules”.

Within the ontologically subjective mode -let’s just refer to it as consciousness here- there is a distinction to be made between intentional and non-intentional phenomena. The contents of consciousness such as desire, aversion, hope, etc. are intentional, whereas intrinsically mental phenomena such as pain and itchiness are non-intentional. These are mind-dependent as their existence is identical to their appearance[5]. As hashed out above, the ontologically objective mode contains those entities which exist independent of any mind, as their existence is distinct from their appearance. And so, Searle adds a third category which he refers to as observer-relative, wherein the phenomena in question share a peculiar confluence of features including both an existence which is dependent on our attitudes toward them and also that they are not actually located in the mind. Included are money, rights, property, ownership, marriage, divorce, etc. As an aside the natural sciences consist of and deal with observer-independent phenomena, while the social sciences typically deal with observer relative phenomena.

Searle says, “Money is money because the actual participant in the institution regards it as money.” To further tease the two apart, when Searle speaks of objective, observer relative phenomena which are also intentional, he refers to it as an intentionality-relative phenomenon. Money, games and government are all examples of intentionality-relative phenomena. Mental states such as fear, love, beliefs, desires and aversions are also intentional and observer relative but are entirely subjective in nature, thus don’t qualify as intentionality-relative phenomena.

Let’s now consider the equivalent in the physical world. An ontologically objective body has primary properties that are directly quantifiable such as mass, solidity, fluidity, hardness, motion etc. and secondary properties such as colour, smell, sound and taste. And so, the particular shade, and or, colour that is seen by two observers when looking at the same rose may be unique to each of them -as this phenomenon is relative to their particular sensory apparatus- and in this example, the qualia -the colour as experienced- would also be classed as a non-intentional, observer relative phenomena. Needless to say, it is experientially subjective, as it exists within the scope of the body in question as relative to the observer’s sensory apparatus. The very same rose has many aspects that are quantifiable such as its length, girth, hardness, moisture content etc. and facts about these properties must exist as measurements within the convention of some system of measurement, an institution. As such the measurements are epistemically objective, institutional facts. Due to the necessity of the convention -the system of measurement- to render objectively quantifiable facts regarding the rose, these facts are also both intentional and observer relative, while the subject the facts point to -the rose- remains observer-independent and ontologically objective. Thus the primary properties, as measured, exist in the same regard as intentionality-relative phenomena of the mind such as money. Whereas the secondary properties, being subjective in nature, exist as non-intentional, observer relative phenomena within the ontologically subjective mode much like pain or an itch. In short, the rose itself exists as an ontologically objective body of the ontologically objective mode of existence. Our experiences involving the rose exist in the ontologically subjective mode. All quantification of the rose exists in the epistemically objective mode and whether or not you like roses is an item of the epistemically subjective mode.

With the above said, some of the terms above could use further definition. Ontology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge. That which is objective is 1-the existence thereof is independent of a subject, 2- the veridical case and 3- reality as agreed upon. That which is subjective is 1-the existence thereof is dependent on a subject, 2- the preferential or relational case, 3- reality as interpreted by an individual. The objective mode is the mode of existence which is independent of any mind. The subjective one is the mode of existence which is dependent on a mind.

Ontology

The branch of metaphysics which deals with the nature of being

Epistemology

The branch of philosophy concerned with the theory of knowledge

Objective

The existence thereof is independent of a subject

The veridical case

Reality as agreed upon

Subjective

The existence thereof is dependent on a subject

The preferential  or relational case

Reality as interpreted by an individual

Objective Mode

The mode of existence which is independent of the mind

Subjective Mode

The mode of existence which is dependent on the mind

Object

A thing whose appearance and being are distinct and are of the external world (reality)

Ideation/ Thought

A thing whose appearance and being are identical and are of the internal world (mind)

Observer Relative

Instances of existence which are dependent on, or relative to the attitude of an observer but are not located in the mind of an observer

Observer Independent

Instances of existence which are independent of an observer

 

Modes of existence

Epistemically Objective

Ex.The sandalwood incense are kept next to the vanilla incense         

KNOWLEDGE OF THE OBJECTIVE

What we can know objectively

Reality as it is described                                    

Statements of what “we” know to be the case independent of one’s feelings towards it

Assertions “we” make about reality as it is

 

Epistemically Subjective

Ex. Sandalwood incense smell better than vanilla                      

KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUBJECTIVE

What we can know subjectively

Reality as it is judged and selected for by an individual

Statement of what “I” know to be the case

Statement of opinion or preference

Assertions one makes about the “something” it is like to be them

 

Ontologically Objective

Ex. The fact that there are sandalwood incense                                      

EXISTENCE OF THE OBJECTIVE

Reality as it exists

Reality: the physical, spatial and temporal matrix of existence

What has an objective existence

Something which exists independent of perception

What physical reality is

 

Ontologically Subjective  

Ex. The way sandalwood smells (to an observer)                                                   

EXISTENCE OF THE SUBJECTIVE

Consciousness: the personal experience of any individual conscious creature

Reality as it is experienced

What has a subjective existence

Something which is dependent on perception for its existence

What that subjective “something” is like for the subject

 

Redefining the distinction between voluntary and involuntary action: Free Will (2017)