In the morning – 40 minutes. Two damn good coffees were not enough to wake me up fully. Nonsensical thoughts. 20 minutes of Buddho, followed by 20 minutes of anapanasati and body awareness. My mindfulness of lack of mindfulness was spectacular. Years of practice finally paying off, I guess?
An idea: the main purpose of the practice is to understand one’s Self. Once this is understood the rest will fall into place. It tickles me to think about the unsolvable mysteries of existence: what is “I”? What is time? Would there still be time if humanity disappeared? What does the ending of the final Twin Peaks episode mean?
I really like Rudolph Tanzi’s interpretation of self. In his theory the main ingredient of consciousness is the short-term memory that allows us to keep track of our cognition, ensuring its continuity. He goes on saying:
The Self is the awareness that thoughts, feelings, sensations are happening. The brain is bringing you information, thoughts, feelings all the time. But it’s not who you are. That’s just a brain doing its job. The real you is the being that’s aware that it’s happening. Being aware of being cognitive is the consciousness that is the true self.
What about the perception of time? Could time be a product of Self? What if time is actually a space between two memories in our brains?
When I came across the interview with Rudolph Tanzi last night I immediately remembered about a poem I’ve written months ago about the perception of time. A pretty peculiar topic for a poem… but it’s just so much easier to write about those things without proper punctuation.
damn continuity
the past is gone
the future is yet to come
and the present just slipped away
yet we manage to evolve (or regress)
what if there is no time at all?
(ask Parmenides or Julian Barbour from Banbury, Platonia)
every moment exists simultaneously
like photos
pinned to an endless wall
and what we call time
is like crossing illusory bridges
or maybe
as conservatives would say
all was created by almighty Jack
at the beginning of time
(but if time has a beginning
then a woman can give birth to her own mother)
or maybe time is solid
and we could go back
digging through the layers
we won’t know more
than an impression of continuity
why would the Universe
speak our language?
Bad At Being Still 