I started to post this as a note, but then I thought I should put it in the comments tooβ¦
This essay is wildly ambitious, and there is a lot to unpack, but the insights on the composition and decomposition (my terms) of our perceived environment are helpful if this is an arena youβre aware youβre invested in. Any meditator instructed to pay attention to their breath will find this illuminating more than a little helpful or at least intriguing.
Much of this is touching on questions Iβm wrestling with right now on whether we truly know our loved ones. I see that the people I love most in the world, whose actions I can predict, and whose moods Iβm locked into - are also unknown or not known satisfactorily.
I think this sense of incomplete knowing I have of my dearest loved ones is very, very, very much related to whatβs under the microscope here. I have a composed wife and son and daughter, but I sense it is incomplete. The model I create for βthemβ is deficient.
In Buddhist terms there is suffering exactly at that spot. My loved ones are no more reliably known to me than my breath. Other than the live moment-to-moment interaction with them, they are it truly knowable in a possessed way.
The illustrations were intensely nostalgic for me. Reading _Zen and the Art of the Macintosh_ was, weirdly, what gave me my first significant insight into emptiness-and-form; both conceptually and experientially.
Wow, that's a remarkable connection! I believe I'm a click or so below you generationally β my childhood was spent in MacPaint (and I became a designer professionally), so coming across this book later as an adult came with a special poignancy.
I'm glad you enjoyed the essay, I felt sheepish posting it and would welcome any push back or criticisms! I'm far enough into this material to appreciate how much I still have yet to experience/grasp.
Your work here reminds me of something. I am grateful for your efforts.
If I could get a fig before the birds did, I was a happy boy. The concrete brick ring around the base of the tree was a place to sit in the shade during part of the day. That fig tree was a bit of heaven in our back yard. The more reliable shade of the apricot tree was compromised by the dirt underneath. I spent a lot of time there too.
The secret garden of my childhood exists only in my mind. The place itself has bowed to the modern world and the other living minds that would keep it are gone.
THIS fucking rules! It reminds me of discussions I have semi-frequently with interested non-meditators /non-buddhists who say "how can you merge the idea of an authentic self with the observation of no self?" and it's like, dude, there's an authentic ARISING that happens inside the body/heart/mind, it's real, it's just not typically coalescing into a stable and fixed conceptual orderliness, which is what most people mean by "a self".
"I need you clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle."
"Nah man, your attachments will only contribute to dukkha."
I started to post this as a note, but then I thought I should put it in the comments tooβ¦
This essay is wildly ambitious, and there is a lot to unpack, but the insights on the composition and decomposition (my terms) of our perceived environment are helpful if this is an arena youβre aware youβre invested in. Any meditator instructed to pay attention to their breath will find this illuminating more than a little helpful or at least intriguing.
Much of this is touching on questions Iβm wrestling with right now on whether we truly know our loved ones. I see that the people I love most in the world, whose actions I can predict, and whose moods Iβm locked into - are also unknown or not known satisfactorily.
I think this sense of incomplete knowing I have of my dearest loved ones is very, very, very much related to whatβs under the microscope here. I have a composed wife and son and daughter, but I sense it is incomplete. The model I create for βthemβ is deficient.
In Buddhist terms there is suffering exactly at that spot. My loved ones are no more reliably known to me than my breath. Other than the live moment-to-moment interaction with them, they are it truly knowable in a possessed way.
Itβs an aside but βendless monologuing about a subject Iβm interested inβ is how I should start pitching my substack
Really enjoyed your essay!
The illustrations were intensely nostalgic for me. Reading _Zen and the Art of the Macintosh_ was, weirdly, what gave me my first significant insight into emptiness-and-form; both conceptually and experientially.
Wow, that's a remarkable connection! I believe I'm a click or so below you generationally β my childhood was spent in MacPaint (and I became a designer professionally), so coming across this book later as an adult came with a special poignancy.
I'm glad you enjoyed the essay, I felt sheepish posting it and would welcome any push back or criticisms! I'm far enough into this material to appreciate how much I still have yet to experience/grasp.
Your work here reminds me of something. I am grateful for your efforts.
If I could get a fig before the birds did, I was a happy boy. The concrete brick ring around the base of the tree was a place to sit in the shade during part of the day. That fig tree was a bit of heaven in our back yard. The more reliable shade of the apricot tree was compromised by the dirt underneath. I spent a lot of time there too.
The secret garden of my childhood exists only in my mind. The place itself has bowed to the modern world and the other living minds that would keep it are gone.
I can still sit there.
THIS fucking rules! It reminds me of discussions I have semi-frequently with interested non-meditators /non-buddhists who say "how can you merge the idea of an authentic self with the observation of no self?" and it's like, dude, there's an authentic ARISING that happens inside the body/heart/mind, it's real, it's just not typically coalescing into a stable and fixed conceptual orderliness, which is what most people mean by "a self".