Month: March 2016

Where does one begin when one wants to explore the nature of the world around them and the world within them?  At the moment I have a sneaking suspicion that a juicy part of the story is in the place where the two meet.  Strange things can happen as the focus of one’s conscious awareness moves from the external world where there are words on this page, to one’s internal, subjective world of experience where it seems no one else can ever really enter.  In here are thoughts and feelings that can only be conveyed to the outside world via the limited means of words, movements, art, etc.  Back “out there” the vast majority of us generally agree on most things – the green chair is right there.  Yes, we agree.  However, what I think and feel about that green chair being right there, well, that seems like a whole other story.   For most people the flip between “out there” and “in here” happens so quickly and so completely that pinpointing the moment when your focused awareness moves from one to the other seems difficult and I believe that meditation serves as a way be aware of this moment in a kind of slow motion which seems to allow the mind time to process the incoming perceptions so that a more appropriate interpretation of meaning can be formed.  In this way, it is less likely that we will jump to the wrong conclusions or just respond with conditioned behavior.  Here is some basic info about your brain on meditation: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/use-your-mind-change-your-brain/201305/is-your-brain-meditation.

My personal meditation practice has produced an experience of going so deeply inward that inward seemed to encompassed everything outward.  I can’t help but wonder if one were to go far enough out to the edge of everything might it somehow turn in on itself and then one would find themselves now on the inside again?

I’ve heard math described as a portal to another abstract dimension.   How could we use math to understand our internal landscape?  An interesting note: the part of your brain that lights up when you see a number lights up even when you don’t know you saw a number.  http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/2016PlenaryDehaene.htm

The body is doing all kinds of things all the time without conscious awareness of it.  The brain is reacting to all kinds of perceptions under the radar of conscious awareness.  Why does most western thought so often imagine that conscious awareness has control of the situation?

Should you chance upon this little letter, with all its faults and all its fetters, may the powers-that-be gift you greatly, for trying to interpret what’s been in my head lately.

It comes and it goes like the rise of the tide. When it’s up you’ll be in the life of your ride.  When it’s down there is seldom a more lonesome sight – faded wreckage, long forgotten, until this very night.

Now, I’ll tell you what I see from the land of the lost, I see sticks in the mud and stones that were tossed. I see shells of strange creatures that were formerly living, and a sun beating down strong, unforgiving.

But wait, there’s a sparkle amidst the debris, an inkling of something of no use to the sea.  What is it you wonder?  Well, you’ll have to read more.  You won’t find this treasure on the dry sandy shore.