Thoughts Arise

A question I look at the tree at arm’s length. I see my body below. Both impenetrable beyond the surface. I identify with one but not the other. From familiarity? From the range of sensation? The hand I raise to touch the tree has gone through so much change. Tanned, vascular, fine hair at the back of the fingers; this hand suddenly seems unfamiliar. The leaves of the conifer have a distinct texture; pliable yet with the firmness of geometric shape. The intimacy of touch only adds to the riddle; where do I draw the line between myself and the world? A clue It’s soon after sunrise on a cloudy day. There hasn’t been any rain, which makes the rainbow seem even more magical. I know it to be illusory, and that somehow makes its beauty more profound. As my eyes follow the rainbow's arc into the clouds I wonder if they are any less of an illusion? The clouds have form and texture I posit. Yet the form is nothing like this solid appearance, and the textures are the play of light and shadow...

Amidst the calm of meditation, thoughts emerge and subside. What is the origin of these reveries? If I am in control of my thoughts, why can’t I stop thinking? "I am the thinker,” says a voice. But the voice is recognised as just another thought. The "I" is self-referential. “I, the thought, am the thinker,” admits the voice. The thought and thinker cannot be truly separate! They arise entangled, in mutual dependence, neither possible as independent entities. In between thoughts, there is no thinker. And the thinker of one thought can seem quite different from another. “You are neither the thought, nor the thinker,” concludes the final revelation. What is left unsaid appears wordlessly; I am that in which the thought/thinker appears. So vast, such potential! And yet even this space of knowing needs a known. Could it really exist on its own?   Photo created by anake – www.freepik.com  

In the quiet darkness the cavern feels boundless. A low note reverberates through the space giving rise to thousands of mesmerising shapes. Coloured in hues of turquoise and emerald, they are breathtaking as they dance to the symphony. The shapes are music, and I am the cavern. Where does music live? In the instrument that generates it, the sound waves that carry it to my ears, or in the signals being deciphered by the brain? In this moment I know the answer is none of those. The music only exists in the space of consciousness. I am the place where music lives. The next day I feel compelled to run in the rain with this phrase echoing through my mind. The wetness across my face, that pitter patter sound, the smell of rain, the howl of the wind and its force against my chest. I am the place where rain falls. The glistening leaves and grass, waving in the wind. I am the awareness of green and the exuberance of life. My feet against the ground, the sensations of my breath and heart. I am t...

“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...