I haven’t written on this website for about a month. I have been doing a lot of reading (non fiction mostly) and writing (trying fiction mostly) while keeping up my practices (medical/scientific and Zen). Very invigorating.
Three themes kept reappearing this month.
First, it is fun to have fun, and to share my enthusiasm, which I often have in abundance, but ego, praise and blame, and the need to “do” sneak in so easily. I set myself up for that!
Second, be careful about the stories you tell, they tend to come true in ways that may be unexpected or in ways that are not literal, but true nonetheless.
Third, when looking at how science describes the way reality functions, whether by studying biology and neuroscience, peeking into into the standard model of particle physics, quantum mechanics, string theory (metaphysics or physics? I am in the camp of those who think the former, but that is for another post), the cosmos as information or hologram, multiverses, multiple layered realities, computer metaphors, or whatever big picture cutting edge science and the various interpretations of science (metaphysics) can offer, it seems to come down to:
Is mind an epiphenomenon arising from evolved brain tissue, itself congealed energy, and that’s as far as it goes, or is Mind primary?
Does Mind arise from energy or is Mind the field in which energy and the organization of energy flows?
Does Mind need another field to maintain it, like a quantum field, or the vacuum with it’s teeming sea of virtual particles and energy without beginning or end, or is Mind a name for the ultimate field that, while still dualistic in a way, is an appropriate term to use because it reflects our experience, that is, is our mind, as we live it?
Is what we can measure and perceive primary or is consciousness primary?
Do we really describe Reality with the tools of the intellect, the mathematics we invent, the changes in energy we perceive with our senses, or do these tools of the mind just provide a great quantitative look at one layer that our monkey brains can handle, at the scale we evolved to live in, even if we push that out very far with very clever instruments and experiments, with the underlying energy and principles arising from Mind rather than the other way around?
Even that is of course a story, a concept, but I think when talking about science and practice, about how it is, that is where the rubber meets the road.
It isn’t whether I think I can prove Mind is primary. That’s exactly my point. It has been said that it is like a fish trying to prove water.
That’s why as busy as I get, and as interesting as I am to myself (I amuse myself greatly though it gets a bit much even for me sometimes), I keep up my practice.
I’m kind of curious.