What are we but a bag of skin and bone burning with the fire of life for a while as it passes its way through us from the beginning of time to who knows where.
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Layers
We build our lives out of layer after layer of meaning, each piled chaotically one on top of the other, each weaving in and out of the rest, each binding us into place, each binding us into believing that those meanings are what we are, that those meanings are the sum and total of us - but they are not. They are only some of the possibilities of what we could be. They are only some of the paths we could walk. Even if we walked every pathway, even if we realised every possibility, they are still not what we are but only what we do, or could do, and, at the last, what we have done.
Snowflakes and rainbows
Snowflakes are important because they are, each and every one, the result of a causal process, and are, each and every one, different. You can predict exactly when snow will form, but it is impossible to predict the shape of any one snowflake. Understand this and you understand the interplay between strictly deterministic causality and chaos theory. The fine grained variability that limits what can be predicted. The fine balance between order and disorder as each flows into the other. It is the fundamental entropic flow of all existence.
And rainbow - well, they are curved because light travels in straight lines. There, in front of our eyes, the visible evidence of quantum theory - the paradox of light being both a wave and a particle. Which, of cause, results in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - that if you know the speed of a particle, you must be uncertain about its position, or if you know the position you must be uncertain about its speed - you cannot know both about the one and the same particle.
Now throw in Godel's incompleteness theorem - not even numbers work, they are not provably consistent - and Turing's halting problem - that you cannot know if a program will stop or not in advance of running it; and the result -
now why should I do the thinking for you?
Embrace the uncertainty, love the chaos, wonder at the creativity that results.
And rainbow - well, they are curved because light travels in straight lines. There, in front of our eyes, the visible evidence of quantum theory - the paradox of light being both a wave and a particle. Which, of cause, results in Heisenberg's uncertainty principle - that if you know the speed of a particle, you must be uncertain about its position, or if you know the position you must be uncertain about its speed - you cannot know both about the one and the same particle.
Now throw in Godel's incompleteness theorem - not even numbers work, they are not provably consistent - and Turing's halting problem - that you cannot know if a program will stop or not in advance of running it; and the result -
now why should I do the thinking for you?
Embrace the uncertainty, love the chaos, wonder at the creativity that results.
Which way?
The realisation that there is no internal world, only the external world internalised.
The realisation that there is no external world, only the internal world externalised.
Both are truths,
Both are untruths.
Descartes's "cogito" sees the world from the inside looking out and attempts to construct the outside from within.
Zen's "one-hand" sees the world pouring in from the outside and collapsing the self.
The realisation that there is no external world, only the internal world externalised.
Both are truths,
Both are untruths.
Descartes's "cogito" sees the world from the inside looking out and attempts to construct the outside from within.
Zen's "one-hand" sees the world pouring in from the outside and collapsing the self.
Beware the naming
Beware the naming of "God" for in that lies much danger and the building of temples. Soon fatwas and schisms, hight priests and sacraments, and "is the wine really turned to blood or do we spill blood so that we can say that it is?". Beware the naming, for in that there is so much prescription and hatred and communities split asunder. Do not go there, but rather place your fingers on your lips and say not a word. So, what is the name of - shoos, not a word, not a word!
The Foo Dogs Know
The first breath, the birth breath, that in-breath with which we join the world, us hung between that and the last breath, the out-breath, the death-breath with which we leave the world, and between, the mad dance.
The Foo-dogs know. She, mouth closed, is the in-breath, made through the nose in Buddhist practice. He, mouth open, is the out-breath, made through the mouth in Buddhist practice. They, the first and last, the alpha and omega, the guardians standing at our entrance and our exit and all life and fortune lying between.
She protecting those who enter in past her. He protecting those who exit out past him. Either side they stand of many doors. She, foot on their child, mindful of family and home - those things for which we enter in. He, foot on the world, mindful of work and voyaging - those things for which we exit out.
She protecting those who enter in past her. He protecting those who exit out past him. Either side they stand of many doors. She, foot on their child, mindful of family and home - those things for which we enter in. He, foot on the world, mindful of work and voyaging - those things for which we exit out.
She, mindful and accepting all that enters in, is the inward practice of meditation, of finding the peace, the love and the divine laughter within.
He, mindful and accepting of all that exits out, is the outward practice of embracing each moment of life and what falls in our path, and of giving out love and care for the world.
Creating monsters
Listening to the truth within,
Observing the wonder without.
Unbinding from the shackles of words:
Name it God and you create a monster,
Name it not and you close your heart.
Observing the wonder without.
Unbinding from the shackles of words:
Name it God and you create a monster,
Name it not and you close your heart.
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