Most of us are probably pretty familiar with the classic reductionist explanations/metaphors for dismantling our conventional sense of self and phenomena… and after so many years I just don’t feel like they work on me. They don’t have the effect they’re intended to. Maybe I’ve just heard them too many times, or maybe on some level they don’t quite hit the mark with my Western mind- growing up in a radically different culture than our good friends Nagarjuna et al. However, I have heard that some teacher(s) state that studying modern physics can be as effective as Madhyamaka in bringing us to a full experience of emptiness.
As some here may recall, I’m really into black holes (lol). I have definitely found reading about quantum physics, the relativity of space-time, and black holes to help break up my fixed beliefs/assumptions about appearances as I perceive them. They simply blow my mind, in the best possible way.
I wanted to offer another subject that has had a profound impact on my Dharma understanding- animal senses, and the complete lack of an inherent way of experiencing the world. Ed Yong’s incredible book “An Immense World” blew my mind and I’m writing this post to highly, highly recommend it. The traditional Buddhist way of talking about the sense faculties, sense consciousnesses etc. only holds relevance to those in human form or forms pretty similar to ours (ex: pretty sure it’s safe to say gorillas experience phenomena in roughly the same way we do). But many sentient beings possess sense faculties we do not, and which makes that aspect of their experience essentially beyond our comprehension. This drives home the point about the experience of self and phenomena as being completely relative, and lacking any inherence whatsoever. It also raises big questions for me about the experience we are likely to have in the bardos. We believe (assume?) that our experience in the bardos is basically like our dreams, and defined by the senses we currently relate to (visuals, sounds, sensations, and maybe taste and olfaction). But without a human body and human sense organs limiting/defining our experience, why would a bardo experience necessarily be like that? As a person nears a rebirth in a totally different form of body, might they experience bardo-reality in a way we cannot currently even conceive of. Or if one just spent a life in a different form- say a jellyfish- what would their bardo experience be? If this is confusing, I’m sure reading the book will bring this into sharp focus. 10/10 recommended for all us students of illusory form.
Link below to check it out.
Interesting thoughts.
What if - during the bardo - all that counts would be to not contract one’s consciousness into aversion, attachment or ignorance (three poisons)?
The animal book is on my shelf, waiting in line like its at the DMV. Which was your favorite chapter? Sounds like its time to let it skip the line the the front.
I also went through a phase a few years back of reading quantum physics books (at least popular presentations of quantum physics for the general reader - I don’t get all of the mathematics) and found it helpful. It’s mind blowing to realize that the particles that everything is made from, are also waves. and these waves are arising out of an immense ocean of potential energy in empty space.
The Heart Sutra tells us that “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” Quantum physics tells us that empty space is full of energy that is vibrating particle/waves into existence. Thus all material forms are arising out of this field of emptiness.
Years ago I had a Dharma friend who was a retired physics professor. He said that subatomic particles are- as best we know- “ripples in space-time”. That has always stuck with me.
It sounds like you’re talking about the ideal of what would happen in the bardo- the goal for us as practitioners. But I mean what is the experience of beings in general. Like a jellyfish for example… once they enter the bardo, what is their experience like compared to that of someone who just finished a life as a human. Maybe I am selling them short, but my anthropocentric mind doubts a being who just finished a life as a jellyfish will have the mental/cognitive agency to refrain from the habitual tendency to contract But if they did have the karma or mental agency to have a more enlightened experience , they are one of the rare fortunate ones!
Sorry I missed this question. I haven’t actually finished the book! - so it’s hard to say. Forwarning- I pretty much skipped the chapter on pain as it was largely a bunch of examples of studies in which researchers intentionally hurt sentient beings to see if they seemed to be in pain as a result (pretty upsetting). But the discussion on vision, hearing, smell, taste, and tactile sensation were fascinating, and I know later chapters get into senses we lack entirely (off the top of my head, I think some fish have a sense that enables them to detect magnetic waves). Or even echolocation- we do have hearing, but lack the experience of creating a “visual” map of our surroundings through sound. I think I will enjoy those upcoming chapters even more than the early ones.
During the first (and perhaps most impactful) of my ketamine experiences, I felt a real dissolution of self and phenomena and then as I came out of it got to see, moment by moment, the re-reification of form. I experienced this a bit as being like a “ripple in space time”- that there was simply space, and the from that expanse it somehow pinched and twisted and that is how form (or our concept of it anyways) was created. So I like the phrase not only from a physics perspective but a cognition/conceptual perspective.
Also- The author, Ed Yong, previously wrote another best seller called “I Contain Multitudes” (link below) about microorganisms and our (and other “higher order” beings’) relationship with them. That one is next on my reading list. I have long been inspired and amazed by what I’ve heard about how our gut microbiome impacts far-reaching aspects of our mental and physical health, and how even “parasites” like toxoplasmosis may very well impact human mental functions. (A lighter version of the absolute horror that exists for some insects whose nervous systems and behavior get hijacked by a fungal infection). And I’ve long heard that we have more bacterial cells in (and on) our body than human cells. I fully expect this book to poke some giant holes in the illusion of an independent self, and the illusion of autonomy, individual agency, and control. Can I relax my sense of “self” so that the boundaries soften, welcoming in the blurry edge where “I” meet trillions of microbes that affect “me” in ways I don’t even realize?
Again to reference traditional, old-school Buddhist teachings intended to guide us towards a realization of emptiness of self… reductionist prompts about looking for your “self” within your physical form and inevitably failing to find it… (is your self in your finger? is it in your foot? lol) which feels so tired and misses the mark for me. Immediately even vaguely considering our human/microbe relationship helps dissolve the idea that there is any independently existing “I”. Again, mind blown… to contemplate the possibility that “I”, Dominica, is not the individual, the proprio, the singular entity. But rather, “I” am a community, an ecosystem, the byproduct of a thousand interactions. The very definition of interdependent origination. It’s like waking up out of the Matrix or something.
@Parhelion I’ve had similar experiences with various psychedelic medicines where I experience the dissolving of my solid and independent form, and experience myself as a kind of vibratory rippling cloud arising out of the field of empty space, and then at times I become the empty space itself that everything, including my “physical self” is arising out of.
I can totally see the top meditators in the world being able to do this both going in and out of a deep meditation. AH says they actually see the world almost in a type of slow motion, where they are seeing more ‘movie’ frames per second than the average mind.
Incredible!:
Please share, I am dying to hear your wisdom on this topic, black holes are so fascinating to me, one might argue they are the second Greatest Mystery in this Universe
So beautifully stated, could not have said it better! And this comment adds icing on the cake:
Amen. This is a very powerful statement. And if space and time are just constructs, what does that say about the ‘ripples’?..:
well, one thing you can do is creating them in situations where there is a lot of emotional charge. It’s excellent for all the charge going into the back hole. In this way, you can hear the person’s message clear as water
Then you might ask “How to create them?” - through practice, with the power of your conscious inner creator. After it’s completed, always remember to erase it.
Let me know if you practice, and your results…
I work with this since 2011 and it’s high level magic
But if they did have the karma or mental agency to have a more enlightened experience , they are one of the rare fortunate ones!
