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