Thoughts Arise

“What was your original face before even your parents were born?” The first time I heard this koan the question seemed absurd. But over time it began to carry a certain promise. It seemed to point directly at the enigmatic insight of “emptiness”. Today the curtain lifted a bit further as I meditated on this koan. My heart began to fill with marvel at the experiences that had filled my day. It had been a very fulfilling day, spent outdoors with my wife and child, and perhaps that helped summon feelings of wonder and gratitude. How did the day end up unfolding this way? From where did all this experience arise? “What is your original face, the face you had before you were born?” My earliest memories are from when I was three years old. Presumably I was conscious before then, but when did the first spark of awareness arise? Could there even be a moment where I went from a dead thing to a conscious being? There seemed to be a clue in the way I now perceived the events of the day. Events ar

I’m lying on the floor. As I listen to the wisdom of another, I see the carpet in a different light. Row upon row of entangled fibres. The intricate pattern I see is a fabrication of my mind; an interpretation based on the range of my senses. Elaborate, yet simplistic. Matter is mostly empty, and the rest is not a material thing. The universe contains information. It is experience which contains solid objects, colours and textures. The thought occurs that this is all generated by me . But I recognise it is a half-truth. This me is just one point of view in a boundless sea of information. And if a current in this sea can be aware, what does that say about the sea itself? A few minutes later, I notice a tiny spider, still and perhaps dead. I prod the area in its vicinity and it moves. I’m about to end its existence, but something stops me. Doesn’t it deserve to live? I carry it to the backyard and let it go. If it were bigger or more threatening I would probably have acted differently. B

Space and time are relative; it is the speed of light that is constant. From this brilliant insight comes a fascinating corollary; at the speed of light there is no concept of distance and time stands still. Imagine beams of radiation spreading across vast distances, travelling across eons. But that is our perspective. For light, the source and destination are one, and there is only a singular moment of existence. To us the universe seems mostly empty, dotted with rare and beautiful structures, but at light speed it is all interconnected; a single point, here and now. What really happens when light falls into a black hole? Does the sense of space emerge even for light? Does the stillness of its existence stretch into the flow of time? I see in this an allegory for the human mind. A distinct self, cut off from the universe, caught in the relentless flow of time. Yet deep down the mind’s true nature seems timeless and boundless. Could natural selection give rise to this ? Or did life har

A God separate to the universe seems impossible. Consider the universe; a flat, possibly boundless, plane. If there is a separate God, It exists outside this spacetime. So for the moment imagine God existing on another plane. On this plane, which predates space and time, there can be nothing but God. It cannot be an entity inside a bubble of spacetime, because then the bubble would have to exist first. Now consider God creating the universe. When the universe is created it would be inside God, or rather not outside , as there is nothing else where a bubble of spacetime can be created. And what would this universe be created from, but the essence of God? Yet how could the essence of a single indivisible sentience create separate things, both sentient and non-sentient? But separation has emerged. So perhaps there is no God. Or this separation is an illusion; everything is and exists within God; the Mind at Large . In either case, a God separate to everything else seems impossible. We are

Today at the beach I closed my eyes and listened. For a few minutes the sound of the waves was almost all there was. I heard the rumbling roar of the crests, followed by the fizzling hum of the foam, and this duet filled my mind to the brim. The sound grew louder and the crescendo enveloped me till the waves seemed to crash over my head, toying with my sense of direction. There was a sense of unfathomable power, yet also deep calm, both spread over some immense distance. It was the sea announcing itself in the realm of my mind. Later in the day, during a more traditional meditation, I felt a similarity in the nature of sounds and thoughts. Sounds arise spontaneously. I have no control other than the level of concentration applied to the sound, and even that is hardly a conscious choice. Sounds are one way in which the natural processes of the world become known to us. Thoughts are really the same. I have no control over my next thought; it arises as mysteriously as a sound. Even concep

I went for a run while repeating this pointer. I could soon feel myself brushing the world in the wondrous hues of spring. Colours point out how the world we see is not simply perceived as it is, but being modelled by our minds. And this can be felt rather than just understood. Trees, birds and flowers. When I named something "out there", I felt these labels existed in the world rather than in my head. And so naming became more intimate; connecting to these entities, rather than simply observing from a distance. As I came upon a person from behind, I recognised my expectations influencing perception. It was as if I imagined eyes in the back of their head, pointed at me and converging at some focal point behind my face. A while later, I heard a cyclist coming up from behind me, and this time the sensation was of their eyes boring into the back of my head. Is the felt location of the self simply a mental algorithm? Isn’t my heart as much a part of me as my brain? Pondering this

Self loathing, social anxiety, embarrassment, and regret. I have felt them all strongly in my life. I think the misery of these mental states comes from the assumption of a better self. If only I was able to express my true self, life would be fulfilling. But, before we know it, we have been moulded by our genes and our environment and thrust into the world. So what is this ideal by which we judge ourselves? Shunryu Suzuki posited that Zazen (sitting meditation) itself is a direct expression of our true nature. And the peace that regular practice has brought makes me see great wisdom in this teaching. When we meditate we are expressing something that cannot be articulated well with words. In mindfulness meditation we sit in an alert posture and attempt to observe the breath and anything that arises. Through that very intent we accept that control is an illusion. We acknowledge that thoughts, sensations and emotions arise spontaneously. This expresses an unravelling of the volitional se

I have wondered at times how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies to the reality of the macroscopic world. How does indeterminacy at a basic level lead to predictability at a larger scale? After today’s meditation the principle seems more familiar. I looked for my face and could not find it; I only become aware of it when it's observed. My own subjective experience seems analogous to the uncertainty of the quantum universe. Aspects of my personality only come forth when they are expected by another or triggered by an interaction with the world. Decisions seem to waver within a space of possibility before some series of events brings them to a close. The mind seems to be a wave function of possibilities, collapsing into experience based on its interaction with the physical world. Perhaps someday we will realise that the apparent paradoxes of quantum physics describe our own experience more closely than we thought.    Image from www.freepik.com

I focus on the breath and physical sensations. I notice that there is always a distance between sensations. A four dimensionality to experience that is not centred on any single point. Eventually the focus fades. Thoughts and opinions emerge attached to a self. But, upon investigation, the self in each instance seems to be a stick figure; a vastly abstracted and simplified representation of what I am. My awareness naturally shifts from the head to heart. The warmth in my chest comes with the feeling of expansiveness and the background hum of a gentle emotion. As I let go the illusion of control, an insight begins to form. A true representation of my identity includes the innumerable connections that bind me to this world. Every beat of my heart effortlessly brings the image of a person I have known. Each pulse strikes a chord in resonance with the imagined heartbeat of a remembered soul. Well wishes emanate from my heart and flow across this web of connections with a complete lack of r

Me; worried about tomorrow's burden. This; the heartfelt tenderness for a beloved voice. Me; separate from the world. This; deeply interconnected. Me; the one averse to beginnings and endings. This; where all that is known arises and fades. Me; weak-kneed in the shadow of death. This; without a familiar beginning or end. This is greater than me. Perhaps a platitude, but also a signpost to serenity. Photo from www.freepik.com

I have dreamt every night for at least a year. The dreams are vaguely recalled, rarely feel significant, and never seem worth the attempt to decipher meaning. But three nights ago I had a dream of a different nature. I waited to see if I would forget the experience, but it has left a deeper imprint. The dream had that noetic quality described by William James; I had the sense of bearing witness to a significant insight. And yet the ineffability of the experience, also described by James, makes it hard to put the vision into words. But I still feel compelled to try. I dreamt of a mandala. Fractal patterns of diamonds and flowers, intertwined in exquisite form, converging on a bright center. White against black. It seemed vast, but there was nothing to compare it to other than the immense darkness that seemed to surround it. I was there in first person; just a presence without a body. The centre of the circle was pulling me in with irresistible force. It felt like impending doom; my deat

"Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand?" Hakuin Ekaku Another enigmatic koan. It is like an impenetrable stone. I can only skip it across the water and observe the ripples left in its wake. No one else’s answer will do. I have to find my own. I meditated on it, and now I run with it. Towards the end of my route the trees and plants seem to urge me on. They extend their blessing of life. I feel like reaching out to touch them. At the very least, I lose the instinct to move away from their swaying arms. A leaf brushes against my forehead and reminds me of that part of my face. Where was my face without the leaf? Overgrown native grasses line the side of the track. A long spiky blade scratches my leg. “Stay away.”  Was that my voice? The refrain seems to repeat from both my leg and the prickly plants. How could it occur without either? I spot another person on the track. My identity comes vehemently to the fore; self-conscious and insecure. The quest

“What you are now looking out of isn’t two small and tightly fastened windows called eyes, but one immense and wide open window without any edges. In fact you are this frameless, glassless window.” “On Having No Head” by Douglas Harding. The word glassless had a profound effect on me. It triggered a palpable feeling that if this view was a window, there was no obvious barrier separating me from the world. Perhaps this was more noticeable because I usually wear glasses and had taken them off. Some invisible concept collapsed; very much like that feeling when you realise there is just empty space where you had assumed a transparent barrier. There is a chink in the armour of my concept of self.   Photo from www.freepik.com  

“Where am I?” Ask yourself the question as you run. Don’t expect the answer to be handed to you! Investigate your experience as you push your body to its limits. Where is the I? In the soles of your feet? The beating heart? Definitely not in the head. Can you even feel the shape of your head? Are you a single point in the grand vista of your vision? Or is vision also contained within the I? You may be looking meaningfully at the sky searching for an answer, and perhaps something mundane such as the traffic lights will draw your glance. That red, amber or green exists within you and not “outside” in the “real” world. In fact all colours; the blue of the sky, the green of the leaves, the grey of the tarmac, are your subjective experience. As are the abstract concepts of the sky, leaves and tarmac. And what about that sound you just heard? Does it originate over there and travel to you, as a matter of experience? Or does it simply appear and hint at the extent of your awareness? "Whe

The trees are aglow. Light dances off their boughs, In more directions than I can know. A few ripples enter my eyes, And resonate with the rhythm of life. In such awareness is the ego’s brief demise. I was looking at some trees in the distance, while walking home after a morning run. But then my sense of looking seemed to shift. Wasn't I simply receiving light reflected by the trees? And weren't the trees scattering light in all directions? The trees seemed to be basking in the glow of life. Imagine waves of light spreading out from those intricate branches. Imagine the vibrant leaves, their pattern of veins, the multitude of ways in which one could observe these monumental beings. A portion of that light reached my eyes, not directly seen, but translated by my mind into a vision of beauty. I could still feel my heart beating vigorously from the run. That rhythm and the glow of the trees seemed to superimpose; humming in resonance to evoke an overwhelming sense of being alive.

At the extremes of physical effort, one may find insight. My heart was thundering and my breath laboured, as I ran past a bag lying by the side of the road. The thought of checking the object arose spontaneously. The personality I think I am, could not possibly be interested in anything lying discarded by the pavement. So where did this urge come from? One can hold on to the ego and assume separate whisperers and demons. Or realise the incoherence of a known self. The demands of the body returned my attention outwards. But that moment of introspection continued to percolate into experience. When the urge to slow down came, I noticed it from a distance and knew it to be a passing thought. There was a certainty that soon the urge to quit would reach its peak and then recede. And it did. By the end of the run my awareness had spread out to the boundaries of vision. There was the sensation of my labouring body connected to the immense, moving bowl of the world. My arms, legs, and head wer

I saw a fleeting shadow on the floor near the window. A moment later I saw the blurred shape of a bird fly past the alfresco doors. But between these moments was a more surreal one where I doubted what I had seen. The blinds on the window were half drawn and the shadow was too fleeting, so I was unable to identify its cause. What happens if the mind stops labelling for a moment? What happens when automatic associations are relegated from the forefront of experience? I observe that a sense of mystery pervades the mind. Concepts collapse into a more singular experience and the sense of being alive becomes tangible. The passage of time resolves to a precise point; moving forward but with existence always a moment in the present. What is the utility of such mindfulness? Is it anything more than a moment of tranquility? Consider a sentient AI labelling objects in the world. Would it find it worthwhile to pause its classification and see the true nature of the world as a whole?   Photo from

Caught in a tussle between competing wants, my attention switched to the intake of breath. As I felt the air enter my body, I realised the spontaneous nature of the moment. And in the next exhalation the thoughts that had so consumed my attention faded away. It was the most serene moment of the day; standing holding the object of my desire, aware of the mental chatter as it dissipated, leaving only the faint ripple of amusement in its wake.   Photo from www.freepik.com  

Sometimes life has the quality of a dream. This realisation can appear in a moment of detachment from what is occurring around me. Or in a state of relaxation; a pause in ever present concerns and priorities. It can appear through a shift in the perception of time; when I feel submerged in some liquid of the most gentle viscosity. But what makes life feel most like a dream is when a particularly mundane observation suddenly feels significant. The lines on the back of my hand. A mote of dust in the sunlight. These moments are so similar to that instance of realisation upon waking from a dream. In dreams the mind perceives in the absence of senses. While awake the mind incorporates the senses and perceives with more clarity. And yet there are states where that clarity too becomes suspect. When reality seems an illusion; the limited perception of an infinite world.   Photo from www.freepik.com

I am in the warmth of the kettle. In the sound of water pouring into the cup. Yet also in the rhythm of water sloshing in the dishwasher. Now in the feeling of the cold floor under my bare feet. I am the thought of my future self writing this down. I am the actor forgetting the script, hesitating in the action started a moment ago. I am in a memory brought forth by an image; standing under gum trees embracing my daughter. I am back in the present, and yet earlier in the day. In the remembered sound of her tiny voice forming an unlikely word. I am in the laugh as it forms in my chest and escapes my lips.   Photo from www.freepik.com  

Imagine empty space. This emptiness is not static; there is an energy intrinsic to space itself. An energy that is causing our universe to expand over time. So imagine space expanding over eons. It doubles in size and then doubles again and again. Exponential growth driven by a constant energy density; new space emerging and expanding at the same rate. Time passes. All stars have died, their dust dissipated, black holes have evaporated. All that remains is an ever growing emptiness filled with a dark energy. Imagine a fluctuation in this field of energy. An infinitesimal part of space begins to expand faster. But this higher energy is unstable and the field decays. A tremendous pressure is released. Energy, matter, the start of a new universe. Or the birth of ours. Fundamental particles form, then atoms and the first elements. The expansion of space is now tamed by the matter that curves its shape. Clusters of matter emerge, and from them galaxies, stars and planets. Space continues to

I see my reflection in the mirror. The koan from last night’s meditation comes to mind. “Who am I?” “That’s me in the mirror,” comes the immediate response. But this answer seems hilariously insufficient. Does this face that I identify with so deeply, capture an iota of who I am? I have an internal world that is irreducible from me. The koan isn’t expected to invoke a rational response. But for an instant it shifts my perception. The sense of having a face and a body implies an external world. Yet this external world too must be experienced within consciousness. So where does the inner world end and the outer one begin? For a brief moment, the boundary between the two becomes permeable. It seems to be composed entirely of ephemeral sensations.   Photo from www.freepik.com

I am among the 35% of people in this world who live on more than 10 dollars a day. Among the lucky 6% who fit this criteria from my country of origin. I am one individual among the 7.5 billion who are alive today; 7% of the humans to have ever been born, living in an age of unprecedented peace and prosperity. But gratitude is an emotion that is seldom invoked by rational thought. When I believed in God, my thankfulness was directed at an entity. In awe of that towering ego, every moment of life could be felt as a blessing. And there was an intuitive grasp of the infinite that cannot be found in very large numbers. Does gratitude require a subject and an object? Or does it emerge from a momentary grasp of that concept we call infinity? When something vast eclipses our suffering. When we find release from the struggle of thought and taste the exuberant freedom of mind. Look up at the night sky. Let go of the limits you impose on your sense of self; let go of the idea that you have a head

 Last night, while walking to another room, I felt a sense of peace descend on me. It was a relief after a day tinged by troubling news from around the world. I paused in the corridor to let my mind rest in the present. I looked for my head, and finding nothing, my view became expansive. My two year old daughter was finishing a shower with her mum. Soon, she would dash out of the door looking for me. I felt a smile emerge out of the expectation. The warm sensation of it spread to my face; a pleasant tug around the cheeks, a fuzziness at the bottom of my eyes. I heard her squeals and the patter of feet. And then she appeared running at full speed, forming an arc that just about avoided a collision with the wall, and ran straight into my embrace. Her arms around my neck, the velvet of her cheek against mine, her giggles vocalizing our glee. A moment lived.   Photo from www.freepik.com  

This morning as I gazed out the window, I imagined seeing the sky with new eyes. Consider being prevented from seeing the sky, until its memory begins to fade. If you then saw the vibrant hues of a sunrise what would you feel? Perhaps, seeing such splendor, you would be struck with awe. Not just by the beauty, but because of the magnitude. I felt as if I could sense the virtually infinite volume between me and the visual ceiling of the sky. It seemed to press down on me. It was not an oppressive force, but it was an irresistible one. It pushed me down, shrinking the ego to a speck, yet filling my heart to the brim. Oh, such joy to see majesty in its undiminished form!   Photo from www.freepik.com  

All experience occurs in the present. We add a sense of continuity with our imperfect memories and the concept of time. Sometimes a new object or experience captivates us and immerses us fully in the now . But in a meditative state it can seem that this novel quality exists in every moment; a newness in everything that is noticed. Every moment of experience has the potential for new sensations, thoughts, and shifts in perception. All of these arise on their own, without any effort on our part. With an appreciation of the passing of time, and of experience arising within each moment, comes a sense of flow . The contents of our mind are noticed, transfix us for a while, and are pushed aside by the next thing to arise. This arising of experience, the flow of perception and thoughts, this space in which the world appears is the feeling of being. What I am trying to describe is a felt state, not just a conceptual one. When one can shift perspective to notice the world this way, e

In today’s meditation a poignant emotion took hold of me. I remembered friends that touched me deeply. Our lives have taken us far from each other, yet that old familiarity lingers. I felt nostalgia, but it took on a different hue as my awareness detached from the stream of memories. I realised that at some point in my life these cords of familiarity might pull me back. Or maybe they won't. The mood became less covetous and more joyous. Treasured moments come and go. If life continues, I will someday feel nostalgia for the present as well. Even our deepest connections are transient, and with anything of value comes the inevitability of loss. Our mind is in a state of flow on every scale of time. Pause for this moment and feel the rush of life that has led up to it from the last few seconds to decades past. We can’t stop or manage the flow. The only salve is to learn to let go.     Photo from gracecirocco.com  

I once believed in God. Surrounded by people who shared, affirmed, and enforced the belief, my faith became almost unquestionable. Religion gave me a glimpse of something. Not in the prescribed prayers, but in the moments spent searching my soul. Not through its practices, but by giving in to the magnificence of the world. Not through the words of scripture, but by contemplating infinity. I remember sitting at the edge of my bed, peering into the rain and becoming mesmerised by the spectacle. Emotion overwhelmed me, tears ran down my face, and I felt deeply connected to every raindrop falling from the sky, and every leaf that they touched.  I knew what caused rain, but my conceptual understanding of reality was swept away by the intricacy of subjective experience. I wept in awe and gratitude. It was one of the most profound moments in my life. I went through a phase where I searched for insights in holy scripture. But what I found there destroyed my faith. It was a myopic text,

Meditation Log April 18, 2020: I was on a run that hadn’t gone well. I wanted to attempt a personal best, but the wind was against me and I couldn’t keep up the pace. It felt like conscious effort at every step. I switched my watch from pace to distance, and on the last kilometer decided to let go. I dropped the goal, ignored the tug of discontentment, and let go of conscious effort. My feet kept moving and my breath joined the rhythm. The world pulled me onward and my chin lifted up. I consciously tried to move my sense of self down my body, towards the sensations of heart and breath. My vision seemed to shift lower too. Soon, the boundary of the top of my head disappeared. My vision became an extension of me; the observer. I was now running with the feeling of being shaped like an octahedron, the bottom starting around my cheekbones, expanding outwards, and shooting up into the sky. “Why an octahedron?” a thought asked. And the shape responded with change. It became a

Meditation Log March 29, 2020: The instruction to look inwards must frustrate every student of meditation. I think I've finally found a technique that works for me with some degree of repeatability. Look at a wall, letting any objects in the foreground dissolve into a haze. Try to keep the gaze dispersed, extending to the corners of your eyes. Treat sight as if it were sound. Accept the fact that you are not sending out rays from your eyes, but that vision is appearing to you without effort. As the light from the wall comes to you, let it observe you. Look at yourself from the perspective of the wall. Are you in your head? Do you fill the room? Or does the room fill  part of you? Let your sense of self expand to encompass the room and rest in that moment.     Photo from TheMindfulGrind  

Meditation Log March 14, 2020: I woke up from a dream last night in a state of disorientation. I was aware of darkness and a feeling of discomfort. This state fully occupied my mind, perhaps in-between sleep and being fully awake. I later realized the discomfort was from a sore back, but in that moment the thought of having a body did not enter my mind. I then heard a noise; a movement next to me. And a murmur; my one year old daughter. And in that moment my consciousness expanded to her, the knowledge of my wife next to her, my body and the room around us. This change in awareness brought an immense feeling of relief and gratitude. My existence was not as limited as it had been a few moments ago. An ordinary moment, taken for granted every night, became exquisitely cathartic through a shift in perception. In a few seconds the depth of emotion faded. My mind contracted again to its usual self. But now I know there is something worse. And something far more expansive that can

Meditation Log March 3, 2020:  Early morning run, on the return leg nearing home, I looked at the sky and my mind soared. I began to marvel at the reach of vision. In a vaguely vertiginous moment I felt the enormous volume of atmosphere above me. And then my gaze fell on two birds on a pole. There was a feeling of oneness. I perceived the creatures as similar to parts of my own body that I don’t notice until some sensation brings them to the fore of the mind. I started to notice my senses as fields of varying sizes. Sight, sound, smell and touch. The last of these is restricted to arms length, but the others can be far reaching indeed. And what they touch becomes closer; deeply associated with my identity in that moment. I recall that when I started to develop myopia in my teens, I felt a level of distress and anxiety that went deeper than the minor loss in ability itself. It blurred out details that I used to be able to perceive and left me feeling that my world had shrunk.

Where is the center of the universe? From the perspective of a human observer, it is here on earth. Where is the center of your universe? From our usual perspective, it is in our heads. Both points of view can be shifted. Consider the sensation of your heart beat. Does it feel at some distance from you? Is the sensation not part of you? Does it not arise within you? Your head is just the place where certain sensory apparatus is placed. It is not the center of your universe. Let that center that you think is in your head shift. Let it move down towards sensation. Perhaps imagine it centered around your heart and observe the difference. Do emotions become more palpable? Do the boundaries you imagined around your head start to recede?     Photo from peacekeeperproject.com  

Meditation Log February 17, 2020: Yesterday, while looking at myself in a mirror, I had the odd sensation of shifting into the reflection and then back into my physical body. I had the same feeling of disassociation after tonight's meditation as my index finger hovered over my phone and was reflected on the blackened screen. The finger existed and I was aware of it, but I did not feel a sense of it belonging to me. As my gaze remained fixed on the reflection, my finger moved. The movement seemed autonomous, without the feeling of me being its conscious agent.     Photo from edelements.com  

Meditation Log February 16, 2020: Today's session was uneventful except for the last moment, just as the guide was ending the meditation. As a somewhat contrived thought ended, I saw the silhouette of a bird dash through the darkness of my closed eyes. The image was spontaneous and surprising, yet did not disturb my calm. I noticed the bird's appearance as an illusion, and as it flew past and disappeared, it did not feel as if it had gone past my head. Rather that it had disappeared from the space from which it emerged; consciousness.     Photo from nzbirdsonline.org.nz  

Meditation Log February 9, 2020: I am trying to retain focus on the sensation of breathing. At times my attention centers on the movement of my chest, sometimes on the amplified sound of breathing through my earphones. But every few moments I find myself distracted by thought. Each thought easily grasps my attention and runs away with it before I realise the shift in focus. After a while I notice having less of those ‘first person’ thoughts; when I’m talking to myself in my head. Which is in itself a thought, but more subtle than a conversation with myself in my mind. The meditation guide draws my attention back to my breath. I try to do so, perhaps a bit too forcefully, and end up focusing on the blackness at the back of my eyelids. I peer into the blankness. After a while, during a calming pause in thoughts, I sense the desire to roll back my closed eyes to look upwards. This comes with a hint of trepidation and the feeling of something weighty bearing down on me. Imagine walking

Death is by definition the end of life as we know it. Losing the body, means losing the five senses. Close your eyes and try to imagine existence without sight. Now imagine it without sound. Then touch, smell, and taste. And the death of the brain means the loss of memory. Any hope we may have of our memories being saved somewhere outside our physical body, must be discarded in the face of reality. Damage to the brain is demonstrably associated with the loss of memory. And we have found no evidence of the brain being a receiver or transmitter of signals beyond our bodies. Similarly, the loss of language should be expected. This implies the loss of higher thought, especially rational and structured thought, which is really what separates human experience from every other known life form. Even further, brain damage and abnormalities are associated with loss of emotions like fear and empathy. So death means the end of familiar emotions as well. So what is left that could possib

More than a decade later, this blog still exists! I quickly looked through the posts to delete the most embarrassing ramblings of my youth. What could survive the wisdom of another decade? Finding love, becoming a father, having lived life more fully; I expected to delete everything and start fresh. But then I found this: January 27, 2009 I am a lake, many fathoms deep. My shores lie beyond what eyes can see. I am a man on a boat; its bow marking the extent of my world. I remember nothing of before, yet it is too cruel to imagine that this is all my existence has ever been. I yearn to escape my wooden boundaries. I am a lake, many fathoms deep. I lie placid, my surface untouched. I peer down into the waters on which I float. I see a man inside! No; it is my perturbed mind toying with me; it is but my own reflection. I try to reach out and touch his hand; the man shatters into ripples. Was he just an illusion or was he truly me; a shallow reflection on the surfac