"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
This is one of Carl Sagan's most repeated quotations, and it has all the genius his fans came to prize in him: brief, direct, plain-spoken, trenchant. Less noted is the pure Zen that Carl – a convinced, though deeply respectful, atheist – also encoded here. It's a complete and concise summary of dependent co-arising. Easily recalled and memorised. The only part I might gently dispute is "from scratch".
Making a pie – any pie – requires all of Creation.
Carl was referring to the fact that every atom in the ingredients, and all the physics required to produce, process, and bake them, and all the energy all that takes, from generating the materials to heating the oven to your own mental and physical effort, has to proceed from somewhere. As do we, down the eons-deep path back to the Big Bang. Every day and each step of which has engineered, in excruciating detail, not just your dessert recipe, but indeed, the mind that ponders it.
Contemplating this truth helps me to think like a grown-up. To understand that circumstances have a long tail of origination – and that's after you've determined what those circumstances really are – a step people tend to drop. And that until you've delved as profoundly and as honestly as possible into both questions, you've no right to an opinion.
And that's just for scientific matters. (AKA the kindergarten of the intellect.) Make it a human issue, and it's back to GO.
Zen has that peculiarity of all religions, that it hawks an esoteric, unknowable Dharma, then metes out a drumline of simplistic rituals that followers are told is "Zen". Despite the obvious irony, there's a certain logic to this, but the problem is, that as in all binary systems, we tend to judge the superficial wing "fundamental" and dismiss the other as pretty but impractical.
Because given the choice, humans will cleave to observable, assessable behaviours while suppressing the justification for them.
Which is why our rules never work.
So today I'm sitting with Carl Sagan-roshi's teaching:
If you wish to avoid half-baked practice, you must first create the universe.
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
"The entire evolution of science would suggest that the best grammar for thinking about the world is that of change, not of permanence. Not of being, but of becoming.
"We can think of the world as made up of things. Of substances. Of entities. Of something that is. Or we can think of it as made up of events. Of happenings. Of processes. Of something that occurs. Something that does not last, and that undergoes continual transformation, that is not permanent in time.
[…]
"Thinking of the world as a collection of events, of processes, is the way that allows us to better grasp, comprehend, and describe it. […] The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events.
[…]
"A stone is a prototypical 'thing': we can ask ourselves where it will be tomorrow. Conversely, a kiss is an 'event.' It makes no sense to ask where the kiss will be tomorrow. The world is made up of networks of kisses, not of stones.
"The basic units in terms of which we comprehend the world are not located in some specific point in space. […] They are spatially but also temporally delimited: they are events."
Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time
What Dr. Rovelli, internationally noted theoretical physicist and philosopher of science, is saying here, is that a rock isn't an object; it's an event. Which is true of literally every "thing"; they're phenomena, not matter. They only exist for a specific time, their natures changing from moment to moment. So time is the only thing objectively present in that space.
We think objects are solid and exist because we can't grasp the temporary (the word means "subject to time") nature of matter and energy – which are the components of "stuff".
But stuff is an illusion. (More accurately, it's a hasty conclusion, leading to a practical fiction.)
So the good doctor has at long last caught science up with Zen, of which this notion of an "empty" universe, where things don't really exist, but are instead an ever-changing stream of dependent co-arising (scientists call it "attraction") that never attains stasis, is a fundamental teaching.
Which is why every "thing" in the universe – you and me and rocks and trees and amœbas and planets and galaxies and Labrador retrievers – aren't objects or things at all, or even matter, but events.
Literal products of time, having a beginning and end, because the agglomeration of attractions that make us all up never settles on a permanent relationship, and eventually dissipates entirely, its components running off to join other processes, in the manner of a wave or a cloud.
(By the way, Dr. Rovelli also turns out to be a professor emeritus of L'Université Aix-Marseille Luminy, where I spent a year in the late 80s. An observation à propos of nothing but my startled satisfaction.)
In this short meditation, Rusty Ring favourite Peter Mayer sums up the lesson we all should have learned long ago, but that many – perhaps the majority – of us are still sulking over.
Candid elaboration on the Zen notion of dependent co-arising, as applied to the human condition (a subordinate form I prefer to call co-dependent arising), the whole track consists of little more than Peter's own voice and guitar, enhanced here and there with a ghostly violin at the edges. It all adds up to power that commands attention, and a sedate simplicity our sort esteem.
Another cut from Peter's excellent album Heaven Below.
I've got this on frequent rotation these days, as I absorb demands to take arms against successive waves of faceless, vaguely defined offenders. Give it a click; see if it doesn't help to keep you on-task as well.
NOBODY ASKS
by Peter Mayer
Nobody asks to be born
They just show up one day at life’s door
Saying here I am world
I’m a boy, I’m a girl
I'm rich, I am sick, I am poor
Nobody asks to be born
No one is given a say
They’re just thrown straight into the fray
The bell rings at ringside
And someone yells fight
Some just end up on the floor
Nobody asks to be born
And no one’s assured
Of a grade on the curve
Or a friend they can trust
Or a house where they’re loved
And no life includes
A book of how-to
Because nobody has lived it before
So to all the living be kind
Bless the saint and the sinner alike
And when babies arrive
With their unholy cries
Don’t be surprised by their scorn
'Way back in 1973, Paul Simon released a song called One Man's Ceiling Is Another Man's Floor. The lyrics are classic Paul: a Dylanesque flow of images that makes sense on an intuitive level.
But as a many-time flat dweller, it's the title refrain that means most to me. For like the best of Sufic teachings, its significance changes as you turn it in the light.
At base, it seems to mean "walk mindfully, because your tromping will be amplified in other rooms."
Or it could be a social justice message about the people you – wittingly or un- – exploit for your own comfort and well-being.
Conversely, it may be telling us that those limits we allow to confine us, a more visionary person could use to launch him- or herself to the stars.
Or maybe it just refers to the fact that we all live within a vast complex of shared boundaries, where freedom, if it exists, is more a matter of accord than licence.
Whatever the case (bit of a deep-dive Zen pun, there), I like to sit with Paul's one-sentence koan from time to time; see where it lands in that moment.
(Photo courtesy of Rawpixel.com and a generous photographer.)
Insight from a sangha-mate on Mastodon (appropriately enough):
One of the most important ideas to sit with – amid the convulsion of climate change – is that Earth was not made for us.
That idea flies against many religions, but also appears in secular settings, with even activists thinking of Earth as a sort of organic machine, a spaceship, a system that’s carefully balanced in absolute ways.
Those metaphors have power, but they’re ultimately unhelpful. Our place here is precarious because we don’t 'belong' in any cosmic sense.
We’re just here.
(Photo of a well-worn dinosaur path in Colorado courtesy of James St. John and Wikimedia Commons.)
One day Nasrudin was walking down a country road when he saw a group of horsemen riding toward him at great speed. Fearing bandits, he quickly jumped over a nearby wall and found himself in a graveyard.
"Where to hide?" he cried. Looking desperately about, he spied an open grave.
Meanwhile, having seen his troubled behaviour, the riders dismounted and followed Nasrudin into the cemetery. At length they found him trembling with fear at the bottom of the hole.
"Ho, fellow traveller!" they called down. "We were riding this way and saw you flee something. Do you need any help? Why are you in this grave?"
"Well," said Nasrudin, "as to that, simple questions often have complex answers.
"About all I can tell you is, I am here because you are, and you are here because I am."
(Photo of Adolph Schreyer painting courtesy of Sotheby's and Wikimedia Commons.)
(I was sitting at the table one late afternoon when I spied what looked like a wisp of smoke rising in the living room. Upon inspection I found that the low summer sun was beaming through the lenses of a magnifying headband on a nearby table and cutting two deep grooves in this chair. By a freak convergence of coïncidences, on this particular day it had dropped into the precise position necessary to pass through the precisely-positioned headband and burn the chair, which was itself precisely-positioned at exactly the distance required to receive a pinpoint of white-hot radiation.
As you can see, there are actually two pairs of scratches; this had also happened before. [Likely the previous day.])
Part of me would like to go back and face some of those challenges and circumstances again, except... not be a jerk this time. Think it might help?
"Not making a bad situation worse." Right up there with "being grateful for your blessings", and "cherishing other people just because they're in the boat with you."
Lessons it took me longer than most to learn.
(Photo courtesy of Jonny Keicher and Unsplash.com.)
Cracked.com's Jason Pargin (aka David Wong) uploaded a particularly cogent article this week. His general topic is why the level of trust in the US has dropped to all-time lows, particularly among the young. Along the way he delves into such issues as who has the right to judge others, by what right, and what responsibilities that right implies.
The entire article is very good – no surprise to Jason/David's regular readers – but I found the following passage particularly compelling, given that it expresses an ancient Zen teaching on where things come from and what they are once they've come. (Otherwise known as dependent co-arising.)
Jason calls this "The World's Most Unsettling Question". And it just might be.
Think of the worst person you know of, past or present. Hopefully someone who you know quite a bit about. Now ask yourself:
If you were in their situation, would you have done the same things they did?
You're going to say no, because obviously you're not a serial killer or Nazi torturer or Alex Jones or whoever you picked. But when I say "in their situation," I mean the whole thing. You'd have their physical impulses, including any illnesses or personality disorders. You'd have their upbringing, their genes, any childhood trauma. You'd have all of the information that they absorbed over the course of their life – and only that information – and you would only be capable of processing it in the same way they do.
"Well, that's different," you'll say. "You asked what I'd do in their situation, you didn't say I'd actually become them."
But... what's the difference?
See the entire article here. It's well worth the click.
(Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and a generous photographer.)
Some years ago I heard a story from the Bhagavad-Gita, in which a great warrior is called to battle, only to find himself facing his mother, his father, his best friend, his kindergarten teacher… in fact, everyone he ever knew.
It's one of the most fundamental koans in scripture, drilling into the heart of striving, dependent co-arising, enlightenment practice, and just plain existence.
But today I'm not contemplating the teaching itself. What's rendered me thoughtful for the moment is the reaction I often get when I share it with others:
"So what do you suggest we do, Mr. Sensitive Zen Hippie Guy?"
Such interlocutors are offended I've brought up the fact that everything we have was taken from someone else, and therefore living itself entails constant karmic consequences. Their reflexive response is to shut down discussion of this troubling, muddling scientific principle, before it jeopardises comfortable assumptions.
I often want to respond, "Well, Mr. Jutting Jaw, I've already got my hands full just dealing with my own karma. Suppose you get off your lazy arse and find your own answers."
And I sometimes do.
Because truth be told, jaws jut everywhere. In fact, the entire conservative impulse is nothing but jut. (I'm not just talking about political conservatism, although that is nothing but hammer-headed denial repackaged as ideology. But Conservatives aren't the only conservatives. We all angrily protect our sloth and cowardice.)
The Jutting Jaw has no truck with challenges. It has no time for uncontrolled variables or human complexity, which is why it hasn't either any relationship with logic, justice, or ethics.
The Jutting Jaw doesn't wait for facts or elaboration. Its motto is, "Bitch first, and if anybody asks questions, bitch louder."
It is a convicted advocate of Lynch's Law.
The Jutting Jaw is in you, and it's in me. It flounces out whenever I hear something I don't like, stomps in every time I'm accused of insufficiency or insensitivity or an ulterior motive I don't actually have. (And sometimes one I do.)
The Jutting Jaw generally signals itself with a distinct nervous tic: it begins most sentences with "Well" or "So". "Well, if that's the way you feel about it...", "Well, then, why don't you just...", "So, I guess you'd rather...". When you hear that, lay a quick wager. 'Cos jaws gonna jut.
It's the sarcasm that tells you your opponent isn't actually talking to you, or that you're not talking to her, or both. Because the argument – such as it is – addresses a point that hasn't been made.
So you're arguing with someone who's not there.
Which'll get you arrested on any street corner.
Insofar as this chip-on-the-shoulder brittleness opposes clear-seeing – and for that matter reason, morality, and sanity – I move we each weave dejutification into our practice. Let's engage to make reasoned, nonreactionary arguments, when we make any at all. Further, let us take a precept not to put words in others' mouths.
It's unsanitary.
(Photo of Gustav Vigeland's Sinnataggen courtesy of Lisabeth Wasp and Wikimedia Commons.)
In it, Mitchell abstracts recent research suggesting that human denial has no effect on external phenomena, and that insisting it does might be an ineffective strategy for meeting challenges.
I know. You could have knocked me over with a feather. And it only took 70 years to confirm this basic principle of physics.
In fact, according to Actual Researchers, who were probably wearing lab coats at the time, not only are things that are outside of you, uh… outside of you, but systematic denial of same can harm your mind. And on an authentically positive note, contemplating dependent co-arising can improve outcomes.
Says Mitchell:
"The study [...] concluded that when people acknowledge and address negative emotions [...] it helps them adjust their behaviour and have more appropriate responses."
Gosh. Do you think that would work in offices, too? Or countries?
The scientists in question imply that forcing people to pretend everything is heavenly is an act of violence. Mitchell's article also sidles up to what that means on a societal level, but sadly doesn't mention that power routinely wields Positive Mental Attitude as a straight-up weapon, to beat underlings into silence or even deprive them of their livelihoods.
But its central thesis – that accepting unpleasant mind-states and ferreting out their external stimuli is healthy, and may lead to greater satisfaction for everyone concerned – is, to borrow Brad Warner's catchphrase, hardcore Zen.
Zen also teaches that suffering arises in the mind, but our prescription for it is diametrically opposed to PMA's: we say, "I am miserable." Then we explore every aspect of that misery. In fact, we analyse that mofo – the causes of the effects of the causes of the effects – till our mind is sorry it ever brought it up.
This is called "looking deeply".
Years ago I read another study that further implied individual human beings have personalities. (I know! You could have knocked me over again, with another feather!) It said cheery people tend to be cheery. If something makes them un-cheery, they tend to recover quickly and return to being cheery. By the same token, dour people are dour, and no matter how much good fortune they enjoy, they eventually return to their dour baseline.
As a student of human evolution I'm sensing a survival value in there, but I can't put my finger on it.
No wait; that was negative. Now I really can't put my finger on it, because I said I couldn't put my finger on it! Saying something makes it true!
Oh, no! By saying it to others I've prevented them from putting their fingers on it, too!
Oh, God! Now I've said nobody has their finger on it! I've made it impossible for my entire species to put its finger on it!
I broke the Internet! I'm worthless! WORTHLESS!!!
STOP ME BEFORE I UNFINGER AGAIN!!!
Yeah.
Let's keep our butts on the ground, brothers and sisters. That's the only place problems are solved.
(Photo of especially heavy feather courtesy of Pixabay.com and a generous photographer.)
As you get older, you call every change in your views and attitudes an improvement. But it only is if it is; change can be growth or decay. And "experience" is a lazy man's plea: "My experience has cultured and corrected me!"
Fact is, shallow logic is contagious. Chances are, if you're appealing to your past for justification, you caught some along the way.
So many of my friends from the day espouse facile extremism, now that we're old. Right wing, for the most part, though some went the other way.
What we all have in common is that none of us have lived long enough to pull that off.
(Photo of an Earthling pondering one tiny arm of our small, unremarkable galaxy courtesy of Zach Dischner and Wikimedia Commons.)
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