The Human Problem

It is a terrible thing...to be seeking something in this life; yet it seems that I am always seeking something. Always looking to the future, waiting for the thing to come along that will change all of this. I see that I am upset more people do not see this is going on in their minds as well. I hate that humanity is so blinded by itself. It seems that we are all so consumed with attaining and becoming more. To be something more is an endless internal pursuit. It does not matter how much you attain, learn, change, grow, the pursuit is never over and the fight continues on. This is not a fight that we are comfortable with, yet we do not know anything different. The only thing that the mind can do is hope to gain enough knowledge to break itself out of this pattern, and yet it is the very pattern and movement of the acquisition of knowledge that creates the problem in the first place. One cannot strive and desire to be desirless since the very thought in itself is a desire.

What then is one to do? When every day is a fight, a struggle full of fear with only brief moments of contentment and peace. What is one to do when one sees that all "I" have are thoughts and the subsequent memories those thoughts have created and clung to as the ultimate truth. The longer one lives, the more thoughts and memories are accumulated and built up into the structure of the thing that is called "me". It seems that once a mind has accumulated enough knowledge, thought becomes constantly active trying to control the future based on the past memories it has accumulated. It is like a ball bouncing endlessly in a tiny enclosed room. In order to control ones future, thought is always projecting ideas of what could be and what should be. It seems to the bouncing ball in the tiny room that it needs to gain more knowledge to expand the boundary of the walls so that it will eventually expand large enough to encompass everything and will then finally be able to predict all outcomes of life. The ball will then be safe, secure, happy. The ball does not see that it itself has made the walls in which it is housed and that the dropping of those walls is something that it is unwilling to do. There is so much fear about what exists outside of those walls.

I cannot ignore this fundamental problem that exists within me and seemingly the rest of humanity. Most others around me seem content to go on living in this way while ignoring the symptoms. I feel like I have come to a point in the middle between ignorance and action. I cannot ignore this problem, nor am I willing to move past where I am as it seems it would ultimately mean my death. The death of my ideas, my thoughts -- all that I believe what makes me, "me". Thus I want to have my cake and eat it too...alas life does not work like this.

It is a terrible thing to be human, born into the slavery of a mind which appears fundamentally flawed from day one. I can see this is why I get such a sad and helpless feeling when looking at children sometimes. I see their future, I see what is happening right in front of my eyes yet I feel powerless to do anything about it. Afterall, I am more caught in the chaos of an enclosed mind than they are. Babies are innocent because they have no past and no future. For them, everything is now, but it does not take long before that changes and thought starts trying to control in an attempt to escape pain and sustain happiness.

Future Lies Desire

What is it that I run towards? What is it that I am looking for? The most difficult aspect of life is to be honest with one's self. If I know exactly what it is that I am seeking, then I can stop playing games with myself. I have hidden and buried the things that I am searching for and hope to get in future. Some part of me does not want to see that which it seeks. If I could see what I was trying to get, would I still seek it? If there was no tomorrow, no future, then the movement of seeking would end. What would this state of mind be like? How can a person who seeks a state of mind which is free of becoming something in the future ever be free of seeking? One must accept one's self in the moment no matter what they happen to be. Which means one must drop all ideas of how one should or shouldn't be. The here and the now is all that matters. Can I look at myself and see the whole thing, the whole movement completely without judgment which means without ideas born of past experience and knowledge? Can there be no comparison with even with the past knowledge? I see what I perceive to be and and I see that which I want to be. I assume that the becoming something different must take course over the space of time which then implies effort, will, force and desire. The one who desires to become desireless. Action born of desire only takes the desire into account; the rest of life is not considered. This disconnection from all but desire breeds inevitable conflict in all other aspects of life. Loneliness and desire walk hand in hand. Desire increases and the farther disconnected from life we become. Soon a desire to be connected and rooted in life is formed once one feels and sees the disconnection, then one desires to be connected and the very desire created the disconnection. When one is in the movement of desire, clouded becomes the exterior and the interior. The desire becomes all important. The desire is the answer and the problem at the same time.

Between the Lines

There seems to be moments in one's life when one could say that they have experienced something or thought about something in such a way that now one is changed. We might use the word insight to describe this change. I underwent a series of thoughts to try and understand what might be happening within myself when this insight occurs.

To know one's self is to know change. Like the river that moves but is still a river. I am a collection of cells that constantly move and change yet is still recognizable as a human. This human is moving and it is with all my might of thought that I may try and stop or change this movement. Thought itself is born of the movement. For movement to stop so must thought.

Can thought change the movement? I tend to have the assumption that if I think about a certain idea long or hard enough, I can bring about this insight. Can I have a thought which then translates into something different happening to the cells of the body? Thought cannot stop the movement for it is itself a movement, but can thought change the movement? Which is then asking fundamentally can the movement change itself? We can see change over generations. When DNA from two animals of likeness merge together you have something new and different, with luck, more able to adapt to life's challenges than the previous two. But, can thought, which is a product of the whole movement of the body and its parts produce a change within the body so that something else, something new is occurring?

Is thought a product of the change? One other possibility is that one has a thought because the function of the body has changed. New pathways in a person's mind have formed and this could possibly bring about a new and different way of thinking. This idea is contrary to me who operates under the pretense that I have thought, I control my thought and I have the power to change the world around me and change the world within as well.

Is it possible, however, that the thought and the process through which this thought can occur happens at the same time? We tend to believe that because we have thought that we are the thinkers. The ones who think and the ones who produce change. Though, our thoughts are limited because without the body, the thought does not exist which essentially means that the body and thought are one. When the thought moves so does the body and when the body moves so does thought. They are not separate, but one. They move together just as my foot does not move without the leg moving as well. Did the foot make the leg move or did the leg make the foot move? Obviously neither.

As I was thinking and speaking with Tvrtko about this, I saw an image in my mind. An image which represents a power unknowable by the conscious mind. The darkness is the thing that brought about the change of mind and body. I wanted to try and convey what I could visually depict in my mind - the above picture is what came out of me. I cannot help but see images in this drawing which represent many different thoughts I have had over the past few months.

One thing seems clear; there is a lot more to life than conscious thought can grasp.

The Machine of Thought

As part of a Yoga class I was asked to question and write about the relation of the mind body connection, if there is one at all. The following is what I came up with. I assume share it with you all as it quite well sums up what I have been doing here in Brockwood. Additionally, the school I am attending recently launched a revised website which you can view here http://brockwood.org.uk/home.html

It does seem true for me, when my body is dealing with something difficult, my mind suffers for it as well. When I ingest things that my body does not like or has a hard time dealing with, I find that I become irritable, irrational and at times angry. I can see quite clearly, especially in my most recent years of life, how important eating a "good" diet is for my mental health. It seems to follow logically for me then that having a body which is in good physical condition would help me to have a mind which is better adept at dealing with life.

Whether or not having a healthy body would then allow my mind to be more alert and awake, I have no idea. How does one determine this to be true? How do I even acquire any evidence to support such things? I am not sure there is any physical evidence one could gather which would support such a notion. I can only make assumptions as to how my mind would react to a particular situation if my body were in a state different from the present state under which the conditions apply. Having this been said, however, I do find myself answering in the affirmative to the stated questions. In general, I feel that if I have a responsive body which is capable of dealing with the hardships that it endures over time; a body that can quickly, and with little effort, assimilate the energy that it needs for proper functioning while simultaneously discarding and excreting the matter that it does not need or want, this would be a body with exponentially more energy to use for other processes. It is my assumption that this unused energy could be directed more inwardly towards ones own nature and how one reacts in the environment which it is presented. Having such energy may possibly mean that I could experience, notice and/or pay attention to things happening within and without me that otherwise may go unnoticed when the body and mind are using its energy for other things.

I do see one problem with everything that I have stated above though. The basis for these views and assumptions are precluded by the very first assumption that the body and the mind are two separate things. It seems we find it quite easy to assume what exactly the thing that I call "I" really is. The common view of what I is in the west assumes a separation between the machine, which is the body, and the thing that resides in the machine called "I". "I" am separate from the thing in which "I" am housed. Being separate we then can assume that actions taken on the machine have no effect on the "I". This line of thinking can be seen in many aspects of society and in the way that I personally view and treat my body. I have the basic view 'keep the machine well oiled with good fuel and the machine will take me far with little trouble'. It is certainly possible though that the thing which I call "I" is nothing more than the machine itself. Logically, this seems much more realistic and plausible to me. A machine which operates in conjunction with numerous other machines working together to give rise to that which we see, feel and observe around us. It may have been that once it was a machine that acted in harmony with others around it, at some point seemingly this machine recognized and became aware that it was functioning and could control things around it through a will in of its own. This state of self awareness has assumed itself to be an individual separate from that which it acts on and observes externally. Born out of this perceived process of 'will, action and consequence' were the seeds which gave rise to the conscious being which I call "I". A machine with the ability to make decisions for itself which have a perceivable and definable consequence which the I is able to observe. The I that acts on the things that it can see, but has no relation to. I have then taken this a step further and assumed the thing that is the machine which I call "I" is separate from the thing that I call my body. I can act on the body; I can change the body through thought and will. The assumption being that anything I can change through my will is not then connected to or a part of me. The thing that I call "I" is everything that I assume cannot be changed through thought and self-made will. And to change the content of the the immovable "I" would be to destroy the "I" altogether. Conscious will and action taken from the point of view of the "I" to change or otherwise alter the "I" would be in essence a sort of mental suicide. In essence, a thought to change the very thing called "I" which makes the thought is an assumed contradiction and is dismissed as soon as it is thought up.

So, long story a little bit longer: this machine believes that it may have the energy and the will to see through that which itself has created in thought if indeed this machine took better care of that which it calls its body.