The sweet delights of philosophy

Why are we here?  What are we supposed to do?  With regard to the meaning of life; we were issued a body, but what happened to the book of instructions?  One possibility is that no one really knows the answer.  If that is the case (for the sake of argument, let’s say it is) then religions are bogus.  They all took the words of some wise person in history and manipulated the stories for political purposes.  They show us the  truth but “…through a glass, darkly…”  What if you are supposed to completely disregard the opinions of others and just go with your own experience?  Let’s try it.   So what do I know?

1)      I am conscious for most of the day.

2)     Even though I identify with my body and feel its sensations, I feel that I am somehow not the body; at least not ONLY the body. I witness it.

3)     The ‘I’ that feels seems to be composed of a stream of thoughts.  If I’m able to stand still for a moment I can actually feel the thoughts streaming by.  They seem to have a volition of their own and are, in some sense, not me.

4)     When I dream, my experience flows differently.  However, the impression of being a witness exists in dreams in a similar way.

5)     There seems to be a state between waking and dreaming wherein I am not conscious; although I evidently continue to exist.

6)     Even while I sleep the external world can continue to act on me so I conclude that there actually IS an objective world.

7)     Modern science has shown that we do not understand that world and that it is definitely NOT adequately described by what my senses tell me.

8)     Like other human beings I am pre-occupied with my relationship with others.  I care about what happens to them.  I care about what they think of me.  Even though I occupy a separate body I am not unmoved by the feelings of others.  On a good day, we call this ‘Love’.

9)     I can insulate myself from others, but this generally feels bad.  If I join with others there is more frequently a good feeling - a feeling of connection.

10)                        There are recorded instances of shared experience between individuals: connections with loved ones, crowd behaviour, contact with spirits, religious ecstasy, telepathy, accurate hunches, etc…

11)                        Here’s an intriguing thought experiment?  What if all life on the planet is actually one being?  A billion years ago (or something like that) it must have started as one being – the first living entity.  Maybe it just took so many forms that now each part has just forgotten its actual reality.  Deep within ourselves we are never quite satisfied.  We long to return home.

12)                        When the Buddha ‘awakened’ he knew something which changed the world. So he told us the 4 noble truths. Don't just believe them.  Test them out.

·       Ultimately, existence is suffering. 

·      This suffering is caused by desire and aversion.

·      The end to desire and aversion is the end of suffering.

·      You can experience this by following the 8 fold path.

You can’t easily refute these truths.  But you can live them.

13)                        Meditation is part of that path.  Here’s another intriguing thought experiment.  What would it be like to spend a whole day resting in total non-attachment to everything.  Just one day.  It doesn’t mean things cease to be beautiful, or cease to be painful.  It means to notice and accept what comes with no resorting to grasping or aversion.

14)                        Certainly I can practise this: just allow the breath to come in and go out without looking away and without requiring anything. If I have s desire, or if I have a fear, I can just observe it with equal vision – no pushing or pulling.

15)                        I think this is a good idea.  At 65 years of age I have never lost the notion of ‘something is missing’.  Even though I have had wishes fulfilled and gathered the trappings of worldly success I know this.  The heart becomes full, but always gets hungry again.  Know this.  It all goes on within a context that is called – emptiness.

16)                        Here’s another ‘What if?”  What if it really doesn’t matter what happens?  Yes, follow your dreams and make your life extraordinary….and then…. I mean, of course it matters in a relative sense, but what if the true value lies beyond the opposites of good and bad?  What if, at the deepest level, there is no separate self that lives and dies?  What if we are all one and the same being?  What if our true task is to wake up?

Spring fever

Part of the beautiful Xi'an delegation to the
Zhengzhou Toastmasters Conference

 People and places have crowded the month of May.  I'm ready to slow down a bit.  It goes without saying that the life of a foreigner in Xi'an has its challenges, but there are compensations if you slow down enough to appreciate them.

Tang Paradise - Xi'an

Getting ready for the Hash Run

I have been to Viet Nam, Zhengzhou and Tianjin all within the span of a month.  Its possible that the strain of all that movement is affecting me.
In the Tianjin Hotel I discovered I had left my computer in the Xi'an airport.  The resulting trauma of that caused the loss of my passport.  There's nothing more critical than your passport when you're in a foreign country - especially china.  Without my passport I can't even get on a train or a plane.  Turned out I'd left the passport in my jacket pocket and left my jacket on a chair in the hotel lobby.  So the hotel returned it to me in the morning.  But its a sign of stress - never lost rack of my passport before.
 

Don't forget to stop and smell the flowers.

 So this morning I took a trip back out to the airport and retrieved my computer.  The good part of that was a security officer named Ariel who spoke reasonable English and helped me to negotiate the shoals of airport security.  The Chinese sisterhood is still on the job I'm happy to say.
Taking part in the Hash Run was just another exercise in random occurrences.  The group below and to the right heads off along busy streets at a jog towards unknown destinations.  Every now and then we stop for beer, and to wait for whoever has become lost in the interim.  It was a lot of fun.  The finale is basically a party.  The participants spanned an impressive variety of nationalities: South Africa, USA, UK, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Canada and of course China.  I probably missed some.  Apparently they do this once a month.  Exercise for the liver?

Ex-pats in Xi'an are an interesting species.

Tianjin seems much more modern than Xi'an.  After our school visit we walked along the river and found an excellent coffee shop with a wide view and a cool breeze from the sea.  You can change your life completely by simply going to a new place.  To a far greater extent than we realize, we are a function of our environment.  All the sense impressions, the people we meet, the work we do... they all combine together to give us our identity.

Can't complain about Tianjin

I have consciously tried to disconnect from a rigid identity as much as possible so it is not surprising that the changes of the past month have induced a feeling of dislocation. Xi'an, Viet Nam, Zhengzhou, Tianjin - in each milieu I am someone different.  All the identities are sustainable and its all good; however I have no consistent relationship to anchor me, so that engenders a distinct vulnerability.  On a good day I am detached.  I am in the world, but not 'of the world'.  On a bad day, I am insecure.  I am battered by the world.  So may the winds of fortune blow as they please; let them do their wild work.  I'll set my sails and ride the waves until love and fame to nothingness do sink.

The Circle Game

The Circle Game

8th Century Xiao Yan Ta.  Used to store
translations of Buddhist scriptires

“The seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down.

We’re captured on a carousel of time.

We can’t return we can only look behind from where we came

And go round and round and round in the circle game.”

I spent quite a lot of time everyday observing my progress and my thoughts about my progress.  It’s as if my mind is a vehicle inside the body and there is a committee, of sorts, which makes decisions.  Conscious awareness fluctuates between sensations experienced by the vehicle and involvement in the rather complex and random deliberations of the committee.  Sometimes I watch a decision coming up with some interest to see how the committee reaches it’s conclusion.  I don’t believe there is a consistent executive branch so it’s hard to say who actually authorized the decision.  It becomes clear once action is taken.  

Distributed leadership is a better description of the process.

Here are a few examples.  Yesterday I went to the Shaanxi Museum.  Went by bus, waited in a long line-up, got in free thanks to my special card and wandered among wonders from ancient dynasties.  I like how Tang dynasty artists can project their humanity, even their sense of humour, over the intervening centuries.  The painted ponies toss their heads in tri-coloured glazes. This region nurtured human settlements for the last 6,000 years at a minimum.  We go round and round the seasons like the words of the song, going up and down as empires rise and fall.

Tang Dynasty Silk Road; Tri-coloured glaze

I returned to my neighbourhood in a taxi, went to the movie house on impulse and saw the poster of the movie about Xuan Zang – the famous Tang dynasty monk.  As luck would have it, the show started in five minutes!  I only had time to walk in and sit down before it began.  The movie itself was disappointing, but I enjoyed so much the synchronicity of the timing which I could not have arranged better even if I had carefully planned the whole day.  The monk himself would have been at pains to point out how this world has about it a dreamlike quality – images and sensations swirl around, ever-changing – only the dreamer is real.

This is not a ‘selfish’ view.  The reality of the dreamer encompasses all living beings.  We are all the same dreamer.  It is our nature to get caught in our imaginings like the dog which excitedly chases it’s tail.  “We can’t return, we can only look….”  If we look from the proper angle, with the right understanding, without attachment…………..the game is wondrous and bright with joy.