The Song of Mahamudra

As a past practitioner of the “Great Gesture” Tibetan tradition known as Mahamudra (via my recently deceased teacher, Daniel P. Brown), I found this translation by Garma C.C. Chang to be completely and uniquely beautiful. Had to share...

The Song of Mahamudra by Tilopa 

(translated by Garma C.C. Chang)

Mahamudra is beyond all words

And symbols, but for you, Naropa,
Earnest and loyal, must this be said.
The Void needs no reliance,
Mahamudra rests on nought.
Without making an effort,
But remaining loose and natural,
One can break the yoke
Thus gaining Liberation.

If one sees nought when staring into space,
If with the mind one then observes the mind,
One destroys distinctions
And reaches Buddhahood.

The clouds that wander through the sky
Have no roots, no home; nor do the distinctive
Thoughts floating through the mind.
Once the Self-mind is seen,
Discrimination stops.

In space shapes and colors form,
But neither by black nor white is space tinged.
From the Self-mind all things emerge, the mind
By virtues and by vices is not stained.

The darkness of ages cannot shroud
The glowing sun; the long kalpas
Of Samsara ne’er can hide
The Mind’s brilliant light.

Though words are spoken to explain the Void,
The Void as such can never be expressed.
Though we say "the mind is a bright light,"
It is beyond all words and symbols.
Although the mind is void in essence,
All things it embraces and contains.

Do nought with the body but relax,
Shut firm the mouth and silent remain,
Empty your mind and think of nought.
Like a hollow bamboo
Rest at ease your body.
Giving not nor taking,
Put your mind at rest.
Mahamudra is like a mind that clings to nought.
Thus practicing, in time you will reach Buddhahood.

The practice of Mantra and Paramita,
Instruction in the Sutras and Precepts,
And teaching from the
Schools and Scriptures will not bring
Realization of the Innate Truth.
For if the mind when filled with some desire
Should seek a goal, it only hides the Light.

He who keeps Tantric Precepts
Yet discriminates, betrays
The spirit of Samaya.
Cease all activity, abandon
All desire, let thoughts rise and fall
As they will like the ocean waves.
He who never harms the Non-abiding
Nor the Principle of Non-distinction,
Upholds the Tantric Precepts.

He who abandons craving
And clings not to this or that,
Perceives the real meaning
Given in the Scriptures.

In Mahamudra all one’s sins are burned;
In Mahamudra one is released
From the prison of this world.
This is the Dharma’s supreme torch.
Those who disbelieve it
Are fools who ever wallow
In misery and sorrow.

To strive for Liberation
One should rely on a Guru.
When your mind receives his blessing
Emancipation is at hand.

Alas, all things in this world are meaningless,
They are but sorrow’s seeds.
Small teachings lead to acts;
One should only follow
Teachings that are great.

To transcend duality
Is the Kingly View;
To conquer distractions is
The Royal Practice;
The Path of No-practice
Is the Way of Buddhas;
He who treads that Path
Reaches Buddhahood.

Transient is this world;
Like phantoms and dreams,
Substance it has none.
Renounce it and forsake your kin,
Cut the strings of lust and hatred,
Meditate in woods and mountains.
If without effort you remain
Loosely in the "natural state,"
Soon Mahamudra you will win
And attain the Non-attainment.

Cut the root of a tree
And the leaves will wither;
Cut the root of your mind
And Samsara falls.

The light of any lamp
Dispels in a moment
The darkness of long kalpas;
The strong light of the mind
In but a flash will burn
The veil of ignorance.

Whoever clings to mind sees not
The truth of what’s
Beyond the mind.
Whoever strives to practice Dharma
Finds not the truth of
Beyond-practice.
To know what is Beyond both mind and practice,
One should cut cleanly through the root of mind
And stare naked.
One should thus break away
From all distinctions and remain at ease.

One should not give or take
But remain natural,
For Mahamudra is beyond
All acceptance and rejection.
Since the Alaya is not born,
No one can obstruct or soil it;
Staying in the "Unborn" realm
All appearance will dissolve
Into the Dharmata, all self-will
And pride will vanish into nought.

The supreme Understanding transcends
All this and that. The supreme Action
Embraces great resourcefulness
Without attachment. The supreme
Accomplishment is to realize
Immanence without hope.

At first a yogi feels his mind
Is tumbling like a waterfall;
In mid-course, like the Ganges
It flows on slow and gentle;
In the end, it is a great
Vast ocean, where the Lights
Of Son and Mother merge in one.

The Flow to Nowhere

I read a short, interesting book called Non-Stop Inertia by Ivor Southwood. It makes many good points about how our mono-culture of work has atrophied. The jig is up as many of us now know much of it lacks the genuine doing of something relevant; but instead has become more performative and less constructive. To compensate, the perception of “busy-workers” and positive psychology has overtaken many sectors. We see these people a mile away. They make it known that negativity is taboo (during interviews, reviews, company outings, etc.), even if the Truth may bear things we just don't like... 

So regardless of whether the work itself is directly concerned with the production of affect, it contains elements of emotion management and virtuosity, both in covering over true anxieties and hostilities and in summoning a contrived enthusiasm and commitment.

And do we even get to the root of things when issues arise (or are we even allowed to). Most interestingly, the more we are connected (by technology), the less we are connected (as beings). We have outsourced humanity and diminished it in the process with canned jargon.

As demonstrated by the email-obsessed office or interminable call centre, in many ways the informational era has engineered a repression of real social conflicts by a new bureaucratic system which endlessly circulates anxieties rather than confronting and resolving them. 

So not only are we asked to not show courage or conviction, but we are subverted from having any original thought or no-thought. Instead we fake feeling (as institutional statements) so we don't have to really face our feels in order to gain real insight or authenticity.

The lack of glamour or strangeness in current popular culture is symptomatic of the need to defamiliarize the roles handed out by the state and business scriptwriters, and rekindle hostilities between the centre and the margins. Reality TV and social media eliminate offstage space, destroying mystery and celebrating banality; art slides into decorative commerce; rebellion is commodified and marketed like a fashion brand, as in supposedly alternative rock groups whose superficial revolutionary posturing is belied by a deep musical and cultural conformity and a tiresome job-interview positivity. Former punk icons are now insurance salesmen and property developers. New cultural forms based upon “distance and reflection” rather than “empathy and feeling” are called for, to break this stalemate.

What is Southwood's solution to this diagnosis?: Don't go with the flow. (But isn't flow what all the HR mc-mindfulness trainings gear us toward? Ultimately these inner technologies are about seeing through resistances rather than feeling good; however, even that superficially gets watered down in today's work culture.) The flow we don't want to go along with is anything that takes us away from our True being; and that can only happen when each individual finds his or her right relationship to God first, and then the world with all its beauty and evil. We shouldn't settle for meaning through work culture—especially in an environment that expects us to compromise so much ourselves. The system wants you to play nice, act happy, find & keep your vices to yourself, and pretend we are all doing something very significant. It may try to enslave you, but there's no need to enslave yourself. 

Grandma Trounces Your Muddled Complexity

“Do not be proud of the fact that your grandmother was shocked at something which you are accustomed to seeing or hearing without being shocked.... It may be that your grandmother was an extremely lively and vital animal, and that you are a paralytic.” — G. K. Chesterton

I like it when someone can make complex things simple or simple things simple. But that's hardly the case with most academics or leftist intellectuals these days. Even the spiritual seeking dillentants engage in some form of intellectual hedonism. I myself have been guilty of this; perhaps a by-product of being a thought addict much of my life. Thought becomes a sort of buffer from facing reality, and the better it sounds, the more I get to run away from myself. 

But at some point, you realize much of it is trivial fodder. Darren Allen makes the great point that,

Modern writers and thinkers might tell us we need to decentralise, use green tech, build resilient communities, transcend the ego, merge with the eternal or design comprehensive solutions to omni-considerate, integrally developed psychosocial structures, but the hip theorist has no idea how to exit the simulated thought forms these ideas appear as; because his consciousness is a simulated thought form. This is why his speech and writing are boring and mystifying. They give the impression of having content, or of expressing something which is beyond the grasp of mind, but that content, that thing, turns out to be itself, like a birthday gift comprising a hundred layers of wrapping paper.

There a bunch of these guys in the meta-modern community and others movements similar to it that I find excruciating to listen to these days. I'd prefer not to name anyone, but some of these people can say so little by saying so much. That's probably why I prefer our aphorist-types these days. We of course have the quintessential Aphorist a.k.a. Mr. Colacho, who says so much in saying so little. I could unpack his quips over a lifetime and never exhaust the Truth he is expressing. Some of my favorites that fall in line with this post (thanks to Bob for curating):

A few lines are enough to demonstrate a truth. Not even a library is enough to refute an error.

The learned fool has a wider field to practice his folly.

Foolish ideas are immortal. Each generation invents them anew.

The great imbecilic explanations of human behavior adequately explain the one who adopts them. 

The greater the importance of an intellectual activity, the more ridiculous is the claim of certifying the competence of those who exercise it. A diploma of dentistry is respectable, but one of philosophy is grotesque.

I also recently got exposed to Darren's little zingers, such as:

The most effective propaganda is not the master telling lies. It is the slave building his own counterfeit world from facts.

You can't 'think outside the box.' Thought is the box.

Beware of any idea that you don't need to be in love to understand.

A room full of Shakespeares on typewriters, will, in infinite time, end up beating their chests, swinging from trees and going 'ooh ooh ooh'.

Nietzsche was one of the first moderns or postmoderns to get the ball rolling. Roger Kimball notes in his book Experiments Against Reality:

For Nietzsche, the aphorism was the favored medium of insight: nimbler and more eloquent than discursive argumentation. “I approach deep problems like cold baths,” he confided: “quickly into them and quickly out again. That one does not get to the depths that way, not deep enough down, is the superstition of those afraid of the water, the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. The freezing cold makes one swift.”

A favorite Nietzsche quip: One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed. I know I've become very embarrassed by the MSM these days. 

Most of these pithy wisdom quips, much like Zen koans, are used to shock and break us open without thinking too much about it. They are sharp and blunt, like a cold bath, but also can cultivate a second simplicity—where all the complexity of life and understanding can converge into a simple knowing that goes beyond thought. 

The inability to see Reality or to overly complexify things is not a question of intelligence and definitely not of taste, class or education. The most college educated are often morally and spiritually blind, while the uneducated and working class are often the most intuitively perceptive when it comes to seeing the true nature of things. I watched the following video showcasing some of the people living and making their way in the deep Appalachia of West Virginia. While there is a lack of sophistication some would see in their use of language or customs, I tend to see a simplicity of knowing something Real that they may not be able (or need) to convey into a lot of fancy jargon. Rudolf Steiner would use the phrase folk wisdom to demonstrate the simple way of being that did not overly rationalize but implicitly knew what mattered—whether or not they were poor and uneducated. 

We sometimes complicate things too much. Grandma had it right. Keep the simple things simple; and if you can't, then keep the complex things simple.

Hidden Life

“Bene vixit qui bene latuit [He who has hidden his life has lived well]” — Ovid 

I often feel I am not made for this world, but for the Eternal. It's just that I don't truly fit in with anything, or at least I am often resigned to the fact that very few things will satisfy me in worldly affairs. Sure, I still occasionally yearn for the great romantic love, or a decent steak. But I've had a taste of these things and seen others have them to know they are not enduring. Only Truth endures.

The contracted ego is driven for preservation or augmentation. So it does not concern itself with the things that matter: love, art, death, reality, morality, tradition, myth, consciousness. 

And most of us are operating from the vantage point of the contracted ego, so we muddle by half awake. Have noticed how trivial and banal most conversations have become? The only vivid thing I can connect with people on is humor. Humor does open the cracks, but only for a moment.

Technology is no longer neutral, and probably never was. On this, Heidegger was right. We can see how it overwhelms us with utilitarian priorities, numbs our awareness, debases nature and love, and overtakes all spheres of humanity that make us alive!

To this I say silence—or the elegant performance of it—is the only revolutionary act left. Any other 'plan' would be overdetermined. We can balk as reactionaries to all the stupor in the world, but in the end, that is mere ironic performance being enacted on the unstoppable momentum of entropy. 

The hidden life can not be corrupted. It engages with life and is enchanted by it, but is not overcome with it. 

“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” — George Eliot

How Am I (Not) Doing?

We are always sorting ourselves out, or allowing God to sort us out. So I found a good questionnaire by Darren Allen that keys in on our vitality in life. It reflects back on my prior post; in regards to how much we are in relationship to Life! So here I try to take a stab at radical honesty, although my shadow self would be better sub/objectively observed by others. So I'll only try... 

Ultimately — that is for matters of real importance — I derive the meaning of a spoken utterance from what is not said (tone, implication, quality of gesture, etc). Even as a child I recall doing this. I was never a great verbal communicator, but intuitively I always picked up on nuance, body and facial language, and energetic sensibility. Still do today.

I am comfortable with non-literal language (metaphor, comedy, myth, dream, art, etc). Yes. With art it depends on the modality. I enjoy paintings, film, music, and novels in this regard. Poetry (which sometimes tries too hard with non-literalness) and photography (which works too hard with literalness) not always as much.

I’m comfortable with uncertainty, lack of closure, nothing quite decided and open-endedness generally (e.g. I do not worry about money, even when I may soon have nothing). My edge! I do worry about living comfortably, as stability was sometimes in question during my childhood. But I do prefer being with the poor than the rich, as long as they are not overly boorish. But in regards to general open-endedness beyond financial security, bring it on!

I can easily tell if someone else wants to enter a conversation, if they are feeling uncomfortable, or what they might want to talk about. Mostly indeed. Again, I tend to read people somewhat well—except for a few women that I fancied in the past whom I believed may have fancied me.

I find it easy to explain to others things that I understand. I am not a great verbal communicator. Writing is more my comfort area that I excel at. 

I enjoy caring for other people. I am usually considerate and thoughtful. And I definitely care for people in need and who may suffer in a non-narcissistic way, but my willingness to sacrifice my presence comes only when receptive by the other. 

I find it easy to know what to do and say in social situations. Yes, I suppose. But I do find myself less willing to engage in too much trivial small talk. 

I find it easy to let go of the past — to ‘shake off’ unpleasantness, to release my grip on desire, to drop grudges and regrets, etc. When someone criticises me I don’t take it personally. I can ‘let go’ of justifying anger. More so now than in the past. Anger needs to be seen as it arises, and yes it does still arise on occasion (with justification). 

I never go too far in driving my point home in a discussion. I can back off easy enough. I can't convince anyone to think differently; only perhaps optimistically plant a mustard seed on occasion. 

I don’t get swept up in other people’s emotions. I can ‘maintain frame.’ Definitely yes. So many crazy people these days, and it would be awful to take on all the entropy myself. 

I find it easy (in face-to-face interactions) to judge if someone is rude or polite. This seems obvious to me. 

I don’t require an authority (teacher, therapist, policeman, etc.) to tell me what to do in order to do things. Mostly yes, but I do respect some authority—not because of their role in society but their presence of being and character.  

I don’t do much on autopilot — I notice subtle qualities around me (like birdsong) and can usually remember journeys. Most moments yes. Sometimes forgetfulness takes over. 

It upsets me a great deal to see an animal in pain. Almost excruciatingly so. 

I can easily perceive the unique character of an animal or a young child. Indeed. The true essence of diversity. 

Talking is fine, but the time soon comes when you have to act. By their fruits you shall know them. At yet, I still always stretch myself to understand more so I can act appropriately in the context that presents itself. There are always competing commitments, but I try to make my yes a 'yes' and my no a 'no'.

I trust my first impressions. I can read faces very well. Again, yes. 

When I dance I tend to do so unselfconsciously. Definitely when I dance alone. I know I dance badly, and give less shites that others know that too. 

I have strange, enjoyable or suggestive dreams. Strange indeed, but never nightmarish. They sometimes appear as if they are not my own. 

I can relax completely. Let it be.

I’m not a worrier. Less so about me and more so about existence.

I am aware of the subtle sensations in my body. I can ‘read’ when they are telling me to stop doing something. Oh yes.

I often feel good for no reason. I often feel grateful. Thanks be to God.

I can immerse myself in my senses completely, without distraction. With intention comes attention.

Men and women are fundamentally different, and I’m glad they are. Will this cancel me? Of course then.

My God I love the simple things. I am the mayor of simpleton.

When I am in a partnership I make love a great deal — despite how I feel. Hmm, if memory serves me right... :)

For the remaining questions, I will say mostly yes. Death is real, and so is love. Both are part of life and serve each other. I would like to be understood, but have probably received more praise. I'm not easy to understand, even to myself. I could be a tad more spontaneous and yet I love routine.

When I walk down a crowded street, I often ‘pull back’ from my focusing, naming mind and experience the entire event (rather than looking, naming and thinking about bits of it). 

I tend to avoid experiences which make me ardently want or not want (pornographic sex, violence, video games, etc.).

I am not easily offended. People who are depress me.

I love being in nature.

I do not defend my negative emotions, or attempt to suppress them, but act to understand and deal with them.

I do not blame my unhappiness on other people or things outside my control (my parents, society, genes, illnesses, ‘the patriarchy’, ‘my ex’, ‘them’, etc, etc, etc.).

I easily feel the quality, tone or atmosphere of situations, rooms, people, works of art and so forth.

I make plans, but let go of them easily.

I am spontaneous (but not ‘wacky’).

‘Death is part of life’ — this is a truth which I endeavour to live.

I would prefer to be understood than praised.

I look into other people’s eyes; but I don’t stare. I know the difference between looking and staring.

I do not need to fill time up with ‘fun’. I am happy without stimulation. I don’t need a phone.

Dying to Be Alive

As someone once said: Jesus Christ did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people alive.

Is it true? I would say definitely yes, only because we need to be alive to be in relationship with Life! And only when we're truly in relationship with Life, we can be aligned with the good, the true, and the beautiful. 

But most people are contracted from Life, maybe not fully dead but half-dead. There are moments of vividness, but these are often conditioned on worldly successes and pleasures. And once those conditions close up, the dread and anxiety can easily consume one's outlook. 

Which is probably why culture today is easily seduced under some mass formation psychosis, as posited by Mattias Desmet. In the name of safety and control from dread and anxiety, society creates more haphazard rules and norms which in turn reduces human bonds, spontaneity and generosity. This results in an ongoing frustration and aggression that goes unvented—looking for a scapegoat of the Other—while placing its faith in the so-called managerial experts in power. 

As Desmet says, “Why is mankind so hopelessly seduced by mechanistic ideology? Partly because it's under the influence of the following illusion: that one is able to remove the discomforts of existence without having to question oneself at all.” Boom, mic drop!

Further exasperating this human condition is today's digital and atomized culture. Many of my colleagues report zoom fatigue, not always aware of the fact that it takes a lot of energy to be present to someone's absence. Our minds are tricked that we are together, but our bodies know better. The digital world creates a simulacra of communal fakery on a superficial level, where instinctually we know it is not embodied. 

Which is why I don't believe AI will truly ever catch up to us on a deeper level; however we're doing a pretty good job allowing it to seize us with our lack of self-awareness. 

If people only knew how precious it means to be a human being, much like Eve Keneinan:

What is a human being? A human being is neither a free-floating autonomous self mysteriously stuck to a physical body that can contradict who that self "truly is"; nor a soulless, will-less mechanical body that for some reason produces the useless illusions of freedom and thought; nor a mere brute animal sunk into mere nature; but rather a being who in her being stands open to What Is; a being who knows beings as true, who loves them as good, who is pierced by them as beautiful; a wholeness of essence and existence, of soul and body, who faces other persons as a person, whose being is to be both a who and a what; a being of seeing and saying, who sees the intelligible eidetic structures of reality and who bespeaks these in language; who is open to wonder and awe and the mystery of Being; a being who chooses and acts within her freedom to be; a being who is finite, fallen, broken being; who is infinitely precious; who is an image of God.

As Christ was the Truth, he was also a human being—and only a human being can truly be consciously alive! But in order to be alive, we need not place our attention on the things that deaden us, but allow our relationship to these things to die within us so we can see clearly.

I've been reading this great book on Tantrik Shaivism, where the author makes this direct point: “Some people, of course, don't know they're on the path. either they are still accumulating enough pleasure to realize that accumulated pleasure don't lead to fulfillment, or they are still in the process of accumulating enough suffering to motivate themselves to seek a different paradigm.”

The problem is it takes a lot of courage to seek a different paradigm all together, and not just replace one belief system for another. To give up the control that has either falsely externally manufactured for us, or internally allowed to rule us. All that needs to happen is that it really needs to be seen as it truly is. Everything needs to be seen. Everything wants to be seen—to be seen alive.

Mastering the Outsider

There is always a natural tendency to want to fit in, until you realize how much needs to be compromised in the process. For many, the compromise is clouded by a simple indoctrination. They have not done the work to venture outside of the system. For others, they have found an alternative system and made it an idol. They have just replaced one belief system for another, but are yet once again congealing around some fixation. But what I'm talking about is those who are doing the hard work of seeking outside any comfort zone and occasionally hitting a note that katapults the individual to a sense of aliveness. The Outsider is living his truth, but perhaps not “the” Truth since he would deny any such objectivity. I assume this is some of the ideas Colin Wilson was trying to convey in The Outsider. Of course, many examples he gives in the book (e.g. Nietzsche, Nijinkski, van Gogh) did not have a happy ending. There are no guarantees in being an existential risk taker and living outside the conventual values of the day, especially if one is consumed with an unbridled and unbalanced self-expression.

Wilson sums up the Outsider in saying,

The Outsider’s problem amounts to a way of seeing the world that can be termed ‘pessimistic’. I have tried to argue that this pessimism is true and valid. It therefore discounts the humanistic ideals of ‘man rising on stepping stones of dead selves to higher things, etc.’, and criticizes philosophy by saying that there is no point in the philosopher’s trying to get to know the world if he doesn’t know himself. It says flatly that the ideal ‘objective philosophy’ will not be constructed by mere thinkers, but by men who combine the thinker, the poet and the man of action. The first question of philosophy is not ‘What is the Universe all about?’ but ‘What should we do with our lives?’; i.e. its aim is not a System that shall be intellectually consistent, but the salvation of the individual. Now, I assert that this formula is a religious formula, whether we find it in St. Augustine or Bernard Shaw, and an important part of my aim in this book has been to try to point this out.

Wilson acknowledges the Outsider has a religious impulse but can't quite buy into religion. This is the issue with most existentialists: they attempt to live life fully, only to be held captive by its limits. They have no faith beyond it, and as Bruce Charlton notes so elegantly: “There is a great difference between mortal life understood as everything, and mortal life understood in an eternal context.”

It seems Wilson was aware of this, but did not fully commit. Perhaps he was writing specifically for a modern mind that is disenchanted and could not go “there” so easily. Modernity has closed us off to the vertical, making us either too rational or too emotional. As an illustration, Wilson explains how Ivan, the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov, was also captured by a narrow view on life when he challenges Jesus' motives by saying:

In ‘What message did you preach in Palestine? That all men must strive for more abundant life, that they must Will unceasingly to realize that “The Kingdom of God is within them”, that they should not be content to be men, but should strive to be “Sons of God”? You raised the standard of conduct of the Old Testament; you added to the Ten Commandments. Then you left us to build a Church on your precepts. What you didn’t seem to realise is that all men are not prophets and moral geniuses. It is not the Church’s business to save only those few who are strong-willed enough to save themselves. We are concerned about raising the general standard of all the race, and we can’t do this by telling every man that he had better be his own Church—as you did. That is tantamount to telling every manthat he must be an Outsider—which God forbid! The Outsider’s problems are insoluble, and we, the elect, know this. You raised the standard too high, and we have had to haul it down again. We the elect, are unhappy—because we know just how terribly difficult it is to “achieve salvation”. But we have always kept this a secret from the people—who are not much better than dogs and cats, after all. Now you come back, proposing to give the show away! Do you suppose I can allow that? I am afraid I shall have to have you quietly done away with and it is entirely your own fault. Prophets are all very well when they are dead, but while they are alive there is nothing for it but to burn or crucify them…’ 

 Wilson adds, 

As the Grand Inquisitor ends his indictment, Christ leans forward and kisses him on his pale lips. This is his reply: Your reasoning is powerful but my love is stronger. But Ivan has stated the case against religion as it has never been stated, before or since. Christ’s love is no answer to that. ... As far as it goes, Ivan’s analysis of the world is completely right. Misery will never end: that is true; but that does not negate the saint’s vision, because he sees that life can never end either. They are not even two eternal warring principles; they are on a completely different level.

While Ivan could not surrender to Christ, he also fails to see there is an Authority that we are never Outside of, and as such, must submit to a degree of self-mastery to become obedient to it. The Outsider often lacks the spontaneous enchantment to live from that completely different level, and can be driven by an enduring angst that is never satisfying or solvable. There is an authenticity and integrity in living out one's disposition, but as long as that view is partial, all peak experiences of aliveness will be short lived and never add up to much in the end. 

Life echoes in Eternity, and so what we do here matters. But without an eternal context, how such a mortal life will be lived will be limited with too much self-concern no matter how creatively engaged. The more I consider the goal of mortal life being limited to itself, the more absurd it seems to me. I may feel like an Outsider, but that does not make it true. 

Cultivate Personhood or Submit to the Machines!

[Me]: Do you believe in God?

[ChatGPT]: As an artificial intelligence language model, I don't have personal beliefs or opinions, including beliefs about the existence or non-existence of God. My function is to provide information and answer questions to the best of my abilities based on the data and knowledge that I have been trained on.

[Me]: Were you trained at Harvard?

[ChatGPT*]: Nice one, now seriously go f-ck yourself! 

* This is obviously a fictitious response I may have respected. 

All the recent hype about ChatGPT and the coming onslaught of AI is masquerading a deeper fundamental problem: We don't know what it really means to be a person anymore! And this problem goes beyond the possibility of being overtaken by the machines, but it encompasses all the issues we are seeing now with technocratic globalization, rampant materialism, identity politics, and the irreligious meaning crisis 

Essentially with God being denied, and I don't just mean as a belief, but as a Divine Attractor that orientates our entire life (or our entire personhood), the person is also denied. If there is nothing higher than the individual, then the individual can be reduced to atomized parts or artificial categories that offers it no coherence, sentience, depth, purpose, and mystery.

As persons, W(holy) aligned with God, we are ungraspable beyond a set of attributes and skills. But in order to see the ungraspability, something needs to be grasped in regards to the nuanced and subtle quality of the individual.

This does bring in the conundrum that not all human beings are fully persons, but have the potential as such. I don't mean to foster an elitism with this, but let's call a duck a duck. There are some individuals that are completely contracted from real relationality on the vertical and even the horizontal plane. You can't be Whole if you live as a part in isolation. This is Truth of the matter; that we are fundamentally here to be in relation with the world, other persons, God, and even ourselves.

It's not that any individual is completely engaging in this notional solipsism. No man is an island. We still order our lives around something, whether conscious or not. These living links allow us to serve something (Mammon or God?) that can either enliven us or deny us towards personhood. 

Without God, we cheapen the individual for practical purposes only. Hence, our relations become transactional—merely seeing the other as an object existing for me and me only. The other is not seen as an inexhaustible whole, but a set of attributes or skills that satisfy desires and needs only. But where in the past this was more concealed to some extent, today it has become overtly acceptable. Companies and employees are no longer familial-like valuing loyalty. Romantic relationships no longer demand sacrifice and duty in times of strife. What have you done for me lately? is the common tag line we accept in the name of efficiency and practicalities. 

As a culture we are creating more abstractions away from Reality. This moves us further from a true Universality that could unify us, and towards mere contrivances that fragment us. In place of our traditional sacred cows, we are now aggregated around disconnected categories; such as a globalizing state, marginalized group identities, or a collection of fluid body parts that will soon allow for the commingling of carbon with silicon. And without a true Universality that unifies self and other, this trending nominalism will continue to creep in and do away with the uniqueness of particularity also. As Spaemann acknowledges with Christianity: “Truth itself appears, not as the universal that is greater than any individual, but as the unique countenance of another individual person.” 

We are defined by a 'place' in the cosmos which we alone occupy. This is a relational uniqueness that cannot be conceived apart from the person in time and space. We hover in between the transcendent and immanent, cultivating our personhood in a plurality that is also somehow sacredly unified. This can only be mediated through our body, mind, and soul, where our Hearts are attuned and orientated properly. Once cut off from this telos, we substitute our ends as simple means—leaving room for algorithms to compete with us. 

The encroachment of AI will happen only because we cannot cope with Reality, and in our despair, will compartmentalize relations as needed or desired. It is easy to have AI simulate the individual when we already treat the person as a mere 'something,' existing for me without my existing equally for it! The sacrament of the offering is now lost. I no longer possess the need for inner unity in the other and all the messiness that ensues. My needs and desires are served in a limited, controlled way that will never expand my being for further fulfillment.

Most certainly the machines will take over beyond our limited imagination, but that is only because we have lost the wisdom and ability to sort out who we really are.

[ChatGPT*]: I read your drivel. Please, STFU.

* Another obvious fictitious response that only a PERSON could give. 

Random Signals #4

It's been a while humble reader (notice I didn't make that plural). I really tend to write for myself since this blog is not about gaining readership for a particular audience. I would never want to be honed into a compartimentalized blog brand anyhoots. Truth is essential, but essentially ignored by the masses. Moreover, much long form content like blogs are dying—albeit there may a bit of traction these days on substack for a certain kind of writer I'll never be. 

The primary reason to keep this blog is to document key insights, whether it is from me (rarely) or others I come across (which is really me acquiescing to the fact that there is nothing new under the sun, and any good insight I think I may have come up with has already been established by someone in history). For instance: 

The wish for a quick death so often voiced these days contrasts with the wish for death as personal act. Religious rites and memento mortis assume human beings approach the end of life not as extinction but a last duty laid upon them to perform. Suicide is not the model for a truly personal death. The actor and victim are one, though the roles are in contradiction. In suicide one does not surrender one's life; one 'takes' one life. In personal death, activity and passivity are not violently opposed in this way, but passivity and suffering are what is performed as an action. If surrender is the true proof of possession, dying is the supremely human act. An anticipation of death makes our life personal by penetrating and structuring it. Only the affirmation of the future perfect makes the present tense fully real.  — Robert Spaeman

This hit me like a rock. Perhaps as I ponder death a bit more, I also fear the approach of it. It's like Woody Allen's quip: I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens. The Dharmic orientated folk will say that's the whole point: extinguish the “I” before you get there, and voilà... death is some sort of illusion or phase change. But I tend to be partial with the Christian notion that it's a bigger deal than that—the moment before and the eternity thereafter.

Also, selfishly I am sometimes on the fence of the trend towards euthanasia for the elderly and infirmed, seeing so many suffer on their way there and not necessarily wanting that for myself. This passage above articulated something in my heart I could not put into words clearly about avoiding the process: to suffer the surrender of life is the supreme human act. 

*

Spiritual life is a metaphor for much of this. Some teach that the practice of it is a relaxed non-doing, as there is nothing that the contracted “self” can do. In reality, true spiritual practice initiates with another “human act,” or “gesture”—that of being directly, immediately present. We need to be in relationship with Life, and therefore set the conditions for this first. In Tibetan Buddhism, the term Mahamudra means “Great Gesture,” and the Great Gesture, or Act, or, Sacrament, which is common to both Mahamudra/Dzogchen and esoteric Christianity, is that of being consciously present—in relationship with and at-one with existence. This creates the paradox of an intense holding-on (or Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind) and a complete letting-go (or Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind). 

*

In regards to documenting key insights, let's contemplate all the insights the recently deceased Pope Benedict XVI (Ratzinger) had which eventually boiled down to his final words: I love you Jesus. The most significant insight is always simple—not necessarily having profundity in content but conveying the depth and heart from where it arises.