Author: quantumdreamer

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Impermanence and Complacency

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have had eight decent length dreams in October so far this year. I haven’t published them because recognisable individuals are in them. These are out of the blue as I haven’t spoken to/with them for well over a decade. I don’t really know what to make of them. They may be pointing at something going on in the “real” world.

In the Toltec tradition the “place” of dreams is the South. I spent quite a bit of my early life in the Southern Hemisphere and can get on well with Kiwis, Aussies and South Africans. I was a part of the itinerant barman subculture in London for a number of years. In the Toltec tradition people have a predilection for stalking of dreaming. I am the latter. Dreams can re-present possibilities in the web of life, a kind of aperture in space-time where events might manifest. These apertures do not stay open forever. They close and what once might have been possible ceases to be. Failure to act on the appropriate time scale makes things no longer possible.

I’ll make a statement, there is a tendency for arrogant people to be complacent and get caught napping.

One could argue we have seen this take place recently in the middle east, at 9/11 and Pearl Harbour. People who think themselves invulnerable, important and powerful can get surprises.

Impermanence as a concept is logical, nothing lasts forever. But people do not get it. To truly attain impermanence is to understand the eternal now. Impermanence lessens the manacles of clinging and attachment; it exemplifies the preciousness of time. Many imagine they have all the time in the world and are slow to get around to things which they prefer not to do. Timely action delayed reduces likelihood of positive outcome. Impermanence teaches appreciation and the fact we only borrow things for at most a lifetime.

People who work in universities need to be seen and heard in order to get promoted. They need to have measures of esteem; they need a web presence and various public metrics. They have a semi-permanent web footprint. Several ex-students of mine have commented to me that I am now hard to find on the internet. I was on Research Gate. They won’t give me an account now. I was on LinkedIn. I have no need to be seen, to be present. So, I can build up a profile, write a blog and then bin it. They are impermanent things. I do not cling; I have back-ups of text on the off chance I might need it again. People can imagine that one will want to remain in touch and contactable. They may be complacent about this. The nature of academia is that it is a large heavy slow moving object with momentum, it is not fluid nor are research funding mechanisms, the turn around time is quarterly at best. There are institutional and annual rhythms. If one is institutionalised life dances {slowly} to that beat. There is assumed a quasi-permanence.

It is perhaps non-standard to suggest that attainment of impermanence gives one a sense of urgency at the same time as detachment from outcome, specifically desired outcome. The land of “there is always tomorrow” runs out. The world of mañana means possibility and opportunity lost.

Carpe diem is interred in a mausoleum.

There is a saying attributed to Buddha; “The trouble is you think you have time.”

People spend their time unwisely and there is a lot of wasted time, escapism and avoidance.  Complacency about time is brought about by the illusion of permanence. “It will always be there tomorrow.”

There is vast global complacency about climate change because of the illusion of permanence. People do not get that our mode of living is subject to change and over the next decade it will become obvious. Instead of cooperating to reduce consumption the mantra of economic growth underpins jaded economic dogma. People indulge in petty vengeance games where hundreds of thousands of tonnes of high explosive munitions are detonated to get revenge by obliteration. How much energy and carbon dioxide has been released in Gaza, in Ukraine?

Has that cooled the climate?

I suspect that humanity could well be on its way to being shaken violently out of its complacency as the weather patterns get ever more extreme and chaotic. Humanity, especially in the rapacious West, has taken so very much for granted and for a long time.

Pride often comes before a fall.

Before long the aperture in space-time in which to meaningfully act on climate change will close. It has already started.

Karmic Snakes and Ladders

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In Buddhism we have the notion of stream enterer which if entered leads to, in the fullness of time, liberation or nirvana. This does not mean that the subsequent lives of a sotāpanna are easy rather ultimate “success” is assured. The challenges scale with the capability of the being.

One can think of the lives leading up to a possibility of stream entrance as a game of snakes and ladders. In some lives great karmic progress is made, a ladder. In other lives normal steady progress is made, the roll of the dice. Then there are lives in which arrogance and poor choices loads on extra karma. These lives are the snakes where one starts off again in a worse position. There is a snake on square 99 {97 here}. Just when success looks possible the chance is squandered. The problem is that progress and illumination can often stimulate arrogance and poor attitude. By accumulating personal power, one might get wealth, greed and clinging. What looks shiny could be retrograde.

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As one gets close to the fleeting moment of chance for stream entry the challenges get ever larger and sometimes way more subtle.

Imagine if you encountered Siddartha and failed to learn from him. Your “omniscience” somehow got in the way. That fleeting moment of chance which led you to the presence of a Buddha was missed. That is one massive Burmese python or anaconda of a snake! A Buddha could be the key to stream entry.

You missed a huge possibility for progress and were sent way back to learn all over again. A potential fate was forfeited.

Because of dependent origination or dependent arising, no fate is 100% fixed. But the general trends of karma and fate hold true. You have to cooperate with your fate in order to progress smoothly. If you are sulky and “do I have to” you won’t get ladders you will get snakes. If you are stubborn and pig-headed you will get many snakes. If you are light and easy, you will get ladders and people who help you on your way.

Some people really make bad choices, and in my experience, this is to do with them being glamoured in one way or another, by things or people. Those fond of short cuts, can find that they are anything but.

Become a Teacher or a Preacher!

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There is a notion that the reincarnating dreamer chooses his or her own parents for birth which provides a cultural context and a genetic make-up. My maternal birth line reached back to the copper mines of Sygun near Beddgelert, the slate mines of Blaenau Ffestiniog and the coal pits of the Rhondda. My paternal grandfather was a docker in Cardiff, helping to shift the coal from the valleys and the steel from the steel works. My parents met at the Guest Keen steel works in Cardiff, a very Welsh story. I have often joked that my physical make up is suited to shifting heavy things in confined spaces, I am genetically qualified to mine a two foot coal seam.

Folklore has it that in valleys where most of the men went down the pit there were only two ways out. You had to become either a teacher or a preacher. There were a lot of teacher exports from Wales who came to educate the English. I belonged to London Welsh rugby club for a while, the exiles, and our pack was made up of Ph.Ds., lawyers and financial traders. Education was a big thing in South Wales. Our pack was very qualified.

It could be argued that solely by mantra I found myself at UCL, The Royal Institution and Imperial College.  In the so-called research golden triangle and at the heart of UK science in the capital city. So, for a while I was indeed a teacher. Though my father was not so impressed his mantra was “those that can do, those that can’t teach”.  Even when I co-founded a laser company, he found it hard to praise and easy to find fault. My family were all extroverts and so often I wished they would shut the F up and I had to flee for quiet time. When you surpass you no longer belong not that I ever really did. The film Educating Rita speaks some truths.

And now it seems I am a tad surplus to requirements, the world has little or no use for me. I will fade away in quiet obscurity on a meagre pension. I have seen and experienced much and there does not seem to be all that much that I want to do. I don’t have a bucket list. I travelled to far flung places as a child. Wherever there was a lead or steel smelter we went, kind of. It makes one difficult to impress. I saw the Sistine chapel at 12 and the Victoria Falls at 11. My childhood taught me impermanence with seven schools across three continents. We also nearly went to Brazil! I had 150,000 air miles by the age of 13 in 1978, when travel was far less common!

I have read quite extensively on various “religious” things, both exoteric and esoteric. I meditated for two decades, daily.

The difficulty is that once I get the gist of how something works. I tend to lose interest. I am not a fan of refinement and repetition. I don’t get hung up on minutiae.

I had some mildly grandiose ideas when a young man, some visions. I am a dreamer after all.

I have a pet theory/hypothesis. Culminating lives do not end with a bang or fireworks. They simply fizzle out. There is no lust for. There is little desire or ambition. One simply pops one’s clogs never to return. One explores and explores until there is not much left which one has any kind of urge for. If I want to find out something about say Myeloma, I can read up on it and assimilate the gist quickly. I know the method and background knowledge helps the understanding.

I am probably not a common phenomenon, given my scientific background and my interest in Buddhism and raja Yogas. This makes me a slightly unusual animal. To me it is no big deal but it stands out as being a bit odd, an anomaly even.

I am probably mostly done. But the universe has a bag of spanners and is fond of the odd curve ball or two. So, who knows? I am sure that I understand the likelihoods moving on but weird shit can and does happen…

If my understanding based on dreams is correct the mantra in the title has been active across lifetimes for me. When I used to talk to university students, I had a fair idea about which ones would go into teaching, I was nearly ~90% accurate.

So maybe I did choose my circumstances of birth after all.

Yes, I think I am probably done now.

How Many Fully Enlightened People Are There?

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If you type various versions of this question into Google you see that there are people discussing it on line. I have even seen articles on Buddhism which states that the goal is to achieve nirvāṇa. Buddhism does not have KPIs and personal development planning, nor does your line manager tear you off a strip if you don’t achieve your goals.

I’ll speculate whoever considers nirvāṇa a goal is a long way indeed from said goal. He is in a gaol of Western thinking.

In various school of thought nirvāṇa is when the causal vehicle {Soul or reincarnating Jiva} has been blown off. This means there is no requirement to reincarnate, a strictly human thing. Humans are “bound” to the wheel of rebirth. Someone, some being, who has done that, nirvāṇa, is strictly speaking no longer human. In the context at death the being who has attained nirvāṇa achieves the state of parinirvāṇa at the dissolution of the meaty incarnate form. Thereafter “they” remain formless.

We could get into the gender debate about pronouns. What pronouns do you use for some entity which has no body, no observable physical plane presence? What is the correct pronoun for a fully enlightened Buddha? It?

The problem I have with enlightenment as a concept is that is enlightenment an absolute or a relative term? It might be said that someone got enlightenment, does that mean that they are a fully enlightened Buddha or does it mean that they are little less heavy than before. They have attained a quantum of enlightenment, a bit, one step further up the ladder. They are lighter, less dark and thereby enlightened. To progress one gains enlightenment in a stepwise fashion, realisation by realisation. At nirvāṇa the being is lighter because it no longer has a causal vehicle or personality, notions of self have dissolved. It is enlightened, unburdened.

There is the concept of returning high attainment Bodhisattvas, who on death put off the attainment of parinirvāṇa and come back of their own free will to teach. Because they have no causal vehicle, they create a nirmāṇakāya emanation for such a purpose. If I understand it correctly there may be many of these in the Tulku tradition. Arhats can be seen as selfish because they do not come back. But that is a transference of human personality onto someone who has no self. I have seen it prejudiced that Bodhisattvas are good, and Arhats not so. Human folly, methinks.

In esoteric thinking the end of the causal vehicle comes at the fourth initiation. If one cross references, this is nirvāṇa or blowing off. If I understand it correctly this phenomenon is associated often with physical plane death {but not always}. One gets nirvāṇa and sharpish thereafter parinirvāṇa. In that school of thinking there are a few more stages of development, the other initiations, after doing what Siddartha did in getting planetary nirvāṇa.

One might rephrase the question, “how many fully enlightened beings are there?”

In the esoteric school of thought the fourth degree initiate goes on to take the fifth and become what some call masters. This happens, according to my reading, relatively soon.

I think most people would struggle to envision or envisage a “living” awareness or consciousness in the absence of a physical plane body. So, people invent worlds and dimensions or abodes where they might picture some enveloping form even if that be nebulous. The inventions are inspired by life on earth. Being superstitious people like signs and miracles as circumstantial evidence or proof of nirvāṇa or parinirvāṇa. There must be a rainbow or a comet. If it is a wholly natural part of evolution why would this happen? It is kind of no big deal. There is a desire for sanctity and holiness where they may just be a natural evolutionary process.

The question itself seeks to quantify and scale because people like to compare, to play top trumps.

“My God is better and more real than yours”, being a root of many wars.

Going a step further “are” implies existence or being. Can something exist if there is no form, no measurable lump of meat. If something is formless, is it?

Instead of quantifying we may now rephrase.  “Are there enlightened beings?” “Do they exist?”

“It’s life Jim, but not as we know it!”

Astrobiology and astrochemistry are looking for life in a chemical-biological entity with a physical existence measurable by modern instrumentation. The assumption being that life can only exist in some kind of form, or particularly a corporeal form no matter how small. Science requires a form {and perhaps reproductive urge} as a basic component of life and its definition.

A formless Buddha after paranirvāṇa would not technically be alive according to human definition.

So maybe according to science enlightened beings do not exist.

The answer is therefore zero and not 42….

Which poses the ancillary question does, zero exist or not?

Karmic Conundrums

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In the context of karma, if you don’t {yet} believe in karma then it is your current karma so to do and be. It does not alter the fact of karma but your denial and disbelief thereof is karmic. Eventually karma will teach you about karma and cause & effect. In the context of karma there is an inevitability.

Do you believe in karma?

Answering this simple question has karmic consequences which may be wide ranging.

If, however, there is no such thing as karma the answer is a facile no.

To plump for an agnostic maybe suggests that karma exists, sometimes and in some circumstances. You might cherry pick the circumstances in which you give a nod to karma. Picking and choosing thus implies you want life on your own terms. You are selective.

To answer yes, implies that you acknowledge at least some responsibility for your actions.

To fully believe in karma at first might cause you to freeze and say, think and do nothing. You may not wish to cause anything.

A belief in karma has scaling to it. I have looked into its applicability and the concept of karma is for me sound and can be observed in many situations and events.

There are numerous social media, and YouTube videos entitled “instant karma”. There is a song by Lennon and Ono. People enjoy watching comeuppance. As a loose concept karma is held by many. But it is not as simple as prompt and obvious payback.  Enjoying people getting comeuppance is not in itself wise or pleasant.

It is my observation that karma can be very subtle and by way of a complex conundrum which is difficult to solve.

An obvious hurdle or bar to solving some karmic “problems” is the notion of face. People might want to resolve a situation but the only way to do that is to maybe apologise and lose some “face”. Thus, the problem never gets solved and it acts like a burr under the skin. It does not go away. Prompt action eases situations quickly, putting things off makes them worse. Boris Johnson struggled to admit he was wrong in Partygate because his sense of entitlement had it that rules did not apply to him the world king, they were for little people. Truss still refuses to accept she caused the markets to plummet. “Face” can exact a high price. And that price may come in the twilight of a life. Payment is due and with interest. Her political relevance wanes.

It is my thesis that much karma ripens and bears fruit near end of days. Challenges put off due to inconvenience re-appear just when one no longer has as much faculty to solve or face them.

In my experience karma has a lot to with attitude. Hoity toity and arrogant people can be knelt by the universe, taught a lesson of humility. To suggest to an arrogant person that this might happen is a thankless task and unlikely to succeed at first, it might sow a seed, however.

Those who believe they are able to act with impunity are the most likely not to believe in karma nor accept that they are responsible for the consequences of their actions. An example in case is the migrations from Iraq and Afghanistan. We caused this by invasion and destruction yet are unwilling to accept the consequence of immigration. We moan and complain and demand that it stops. We fail to acknowledge the lesson and are likely to repeat the same folly as a result.

 Karma can take many cycles to teach.

A typical karmic conundrum may involve wanting to resolve a situation but being unwilling to take the necessary risks or appropriate steps. In some cases, those steps which once were possible and facile have become very difficult. The longer resolution has been delayed the harder it becomes. The “problem” has grown, spread or bifurcated.

The poor attitude has acted as a growth factor for the problem. What was once simple has become highly complex and entangled. Escapism, avoidance and denial have fertilized the karma.

The saying, “what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive”, is a statement of karma. With an inevitability one lie requires more to prop it up. An early stage fess-up prevents a massive web of lies, metastasising.

If is the word which most stops karmic resolution. People want to put conditions on their actions and keep apparent control. By trying to control a situation and not resolve it one can make it a lot worse. This seldom occurs to some. They can be very adamant and stubborn.

“If I do that what is in it for me?”

Is a mindset which negates the law of karma.  

Accepting responsibility for one’s actions and how they ripple out into the trajectories of the wider world is not something that most people do. Being me or egocentric they fail to appreciate the wider connectivity.

Karma ultimately teaches that we are all connected in the same world.  We are a part and not as separate as we might insist or imagine.

At the moment global karma is being initiated in the middle east violence. What will the longer term effects be? Will they be widespread or localised?

Do you believe in karma?

Place your bets…spin the wheel…

Language – 800 years ago.

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

The spoken language around here in Brittany would be evolving back then. The founding saints, purportedly mostly Welsh, and from near Llantwit Major in Glamorgan would have spoken Welsh.  There was St Illtud’s “academy”. They moved here around 500 AD as Welsh was changing from the other Brittonic languages such as Cornish or old Cornish Kernewek Koth. In around 500 Welsh would have been more similar to Kernewek.  There was migration from all the west coast of Britain. Cornish resembles Breton well.

There would be residual Latin which was slowly morphing into medieval French. So far, I have found out that there are few texts in rakkrennvrezhoneg or pre-medieval Breton. There are plenty of Welsh texts.

There are old texts from Brittany in Latin. I am guessing that the clergy and those with money were versed in Latin and it was used to “translate” a sort of universal.

So, if I was incarnate around 800 years ago as a “priest” or member of a religious order I would have had to speak Latin and if on crusade medieval French. I would have spoken rakkrennvrezhoneg with the locals

One can see that the shape of word in Medieval French is closer to Breton than modern French

The word order in The Song of Roland is different but I can interpolate some meaning using French and my rusty “O” level Latin.

Looks like I have a new thing to invetsigate on the rainy days.

Quotations from English French and Breton Wikipedia

Medieval Welsh literature is the literature written in the Welsh language during the Middle Ages. This includes material starting from the 5th century AD, when Welsh was in the process of becoming distinct from Common Brittonic and continuing to the works of the 16th century.

The Welsh language became distinct from other dialects of Old British sometime between AD 400 and 700; the earliest surviving literature in Welsh is poetry dating from this period. The poetic tradition represented in the work of Y Cynfeirdd (“The Early Poets”), as they are known, then survives for over a thousand years to the work of the Poets of the Nobility in the 16th century.

The core tradition was praise poetry; and the poet Taliesin was regarded as the first in the line. The other aspect of the tradition was the professionalism of the poets and their reliance on patronage from kings, princes and nobles for their living, similar to the way Irish bards and Norse skalds were patronized for the production of complex, often highly alliterative forms of verse. The fall of the Kingdom of Gwynedd and the loss of Welsh independence in any form in 1282 proved a crisis in the tradition, but one that was eventually overcome. It led to the innovation of the development of the cywydd meter, a looser definition of praise, and a reliance on the nobility for patronage.

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Le moyen breton (krennvrezhoneg en breton moderne) est le nom que l’on donne à la langue brittonique parlé en Bretagne de la fin du XIe siècle à la première partie du XVIIe siècle. On place généralement la date de fin en 1659 lors de la sortie du dictionnaire du père Julien Maunoir. Il a été précédé par le vieux breton et suivi par le breton moderne.

Elle a fourni une littérature, une poésie, mais surtout un théâtre, d’inspiration religieuse.

Chronologie du moyen breton

On distingue plusieurs périodes :

  • 1100 – 1450 : pré moyen breton
  • 1450 – 1600 : moyen breton classique
  • 1600 – 1659 : moyen breton tardif

Caractéristiques du moyen breton

Les emprunts au français deviennent très nombreux. Le français est alors la langue la plus influente de l’Europe et influence également l’anglais. D’une manière étonnante quand un mot breton ressemble à de l’anglais, il provient généralement du moyen français. Ex. : to strive; strivañ : s’efforcer de

  • Le -ff traduit un v nasalisé. Cependant, à la fin du moyen breton le v disparaîtra complètement, à l’exception du dialecte guérandais ou du Goélo (prononcé f),
  • Le son dh est marqué par z (menez, scoaz…),
  • Le son th est transcrit par z, tz ou zz (scuiz, bartz, hennez, harzaff),
  • Le son ts, qui vient la plupart du temps de nom français est transcrit par ç, cc, cz,
  • Le son [oe] évolue en oa (sauf en vannetais-guérandais et Haute-Cornouaille où il reste oe. Il reste oe également au Pays de galles),
  • Le son eu venant des débuts de l’ancien breton.

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krennvrezhoneg

Ar c’hrennvrezhoneg eo ar stumm eus ar brezhoneg a veze komzet ha skrivet etre dibenn an XIvet kantved ha kreiz ar XVIIvet kantved.

Mareadoù ar C’hrennvrezhoneg

  • 1100 – 1450 : rakkrennvrezhoneg
  • 1450 – 1600 : krennvrezhoneg klasel
  • 1600 – 1659 : krennvrezhoneg diwezhat

Ar rakkrennvrezhoneg

Eus ar rakkrennvrezhoneg ne vez anavezet nemet spisc’herioù, anvioù-tud hag anvioù-lec’h.

Ivonet Omnes en deus skrivet ur varzhoneg war marzh an dornskrid e oa o sevel dre eilskrivañ war-dro ar bloavezhioù 1350 ; setu amañ ar varzhoneg hag he reizhiad klotennoù :

An guen heguen am laouenas,

An hegarat an lacat glas,

Mar ham guorant va karantic,

Da vout in nos o he kostic.

Vam garet, nep pret.

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Catholicon, geriadur brezhoneg-galleg-latin Jehan Lagadeuc, skrivet e 1464 ha moullet e 1499

Catholicon eo anv ar geriadur kentañ e brezhoneg, a oa bet skrivet e teir yezh, brezhoneg, galleg ha latin : ennañ e vez kavet an droidigezh c’hallek eus ar gerioù brezhonek kement hag o c’hevatal e latin.

Ar c’hentañ geriadur galleg an hini eo ivez enta ha war an dro ar c’hentañ geriadur teiryezhek er bed.

Savet e voe, pe beurechuet da vihanañ, e 1464 (d’ar 16 a viz Eost hervez) gant Jehan Lagadeuc, person e Plougonven, ha moullet e voe evit ar wech kentañ d’ar 5 a viz Du 1499 e Landreger gant Jehan Calvez (Euzen Roperz e lizherennour). O soñjal e kloareged yaouank Breizh o vont war o studi e oa bet savet an oberenn-mañ evit o skoazellañ da zeskiñ latin evel ma vez diskouezet splann amañ dindan (bet treuzskrivet e brezhoneg a-vremañ) :

    Me, Yann Lagadeg, eus parrez Plougonven, en eskopti Treger, Bachelour war an arzoù hag an dekredoù, goude ma n’on ket dellezek d’en ober, savet am eus al levr bihan-mañ evit talvezout da gloer vihan baour Breizh peotramant d’ar re zo dizesk war al latin.

Anvet e oa bet Catholicon (geriadur hollel), pa ne oa ket bet roet an anv-se gant an oberour, moarvat diwar anv ur geriadur all, ar geriadur latin brudet a oa anvet Catholicon ivez (Summa grammaticalis quae vocatur Catholicon), savet gant an Dominikan Giovanni Balbi (Johannes Januensis de Balbis), eus Genova, hag echuet d’ar 7 a viz Meurzh 1286.

—-

La Chanson de Roland

Visions or Visual Hallucinations?

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If I understand it correctly the phenomena of visions plays a role in many religions. Things can be revealed by beings such as angels. Those prone to visions have been prone contextually to dreaming too.  

My general understanding is that angels are rare and play only a very important pivotal role in the religious context. They do not appear to common or garden people despite what many a new age book suggests. Helping you find the man of your dreams is probably not high on their to do list.

{I am generalising widely}.

Yet seeing something that others do not is classed as a hallucination, which can be a symptom of psychosis. Many of the figures in religious history might be diagnosed as having an episode of psychosis today.  They could be locked up and given anti-psychotic medicine.

In indigenous cultures going on a “Vision Quest” might be seen as a rite of passage. Isolated from the day to day and the tribe an individual seeks a vision of the future and his purpose. Visions can be had in caves, on high mountains. Usually, one has to step away from the mundane noise of life, maybe ease off the food.

I have participated in shamanic drumming and gone on a mini-vision quest. I can also use £250,000 femtosecond pulsed optical parametric amplifiers. It is possible that I am unique in this, there may be others. In non-linear optics world it is probably best not to talk about shamanic vision quests it could have a detrimental impact on promotion and employment prospects. So, many may have kept schtum like me.

It could be argued that I have relatively pure Welsh indigenous blood from the matrilinear line based in deepest darkest Snowdonia. As an indigenous it is not so weird for me to do indigenous things.

Anyway, I have had a number of visions over the years including when I lived in Brixton and was an academic. Needless to say, I told no colleagues nor a GP. This primarily because I always knew that I was having a vision/hallucination and was aware of my physical plane surroundings in day-to-day world at the same time. They did not overly impinge, nor were any of them frightening. If you speak to a medic about this kind of thing you could be opening a Pandora’s box and be exposed to pet theories and the latest pharma sponsored medication.

My working hypothesis concerning many of these visions is that most fall in the category of past-life recall. Some might think me whacko or that I have delusions of grandeur. People can have very closed minds.

Back in the mid seventies I used to travel by airplane from Zambia to school in Gloucestershire. There were six flights a year and by the age of 13, in the 1970s, I had 150,000 air miles. I am guilty about my childhood carbon footprint 😉. On occasion there would be a fuel stop at Malta. Each time I landed there I had a massive déjà-vu. Without knowing why, I knew that I had been there before.

This morning around 6 AM I was not sleeping so I started to do a meditation. For whatever reason, I was having difficulty and I started to have a relaxed enjoyable vision of myself in a cowled cloak and chain mail. The setting of the vision was around 800 years ago. I was aware of the vision and the bedroom. I could hear the wife breathing.

Why this is happening now I don’t know. It did point me back to a vision I had in 2003.

The vision last night may refer to “the knights of Malta”, a term used in Brittany for both Templars and the Hospitaliers, Ordre de Saint-Jean de Jérusalem.

I have had many visions associated with this putative life, a French one.

Nearby there is a hospitalier commanderie whose records do not go back past 1313 when the goods of the Templars were ceded to them.

There was also relatively nearby a Templar commanderie and the relics of a small church. The look of which is not far from one I saw in another vision.

What would you do?

Would you tell your general practice GP doctor?

Would you tell your line manager at work?

Would you imagine yourself off your trolley?

Or would you think that the sanest hypothesis was past life recall?

I am quite looking forward to seeing what may or may not happen over the next day or so…

Removal of the Ten Buddhist Fetters and Psychology

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Removal of the Ten Buddhist Fetters and Psychology

I have always thought that Buddhism is pretty radical. If one removes all ten fetters one no longer reincarnates, so the theory goes.  In the context of Abhidhamma Pitaka the vast majority of humans have no experience beyond the first couple of fetters. Discussion therefore is based on scripture and not personal experience; it is by way of speculation.

The first fetter of self can be thought of as the business of psychology, one is encouraged therein to have a notion of self, an identity. If you lack many of the emotions in the second enumeration you might get a diagnosis of Aspergers’ or clinical depression. You certainly would not have a starring role in Dallas or East Enders.

The teachings of Buddha if applied take one way beyond psychology and the socio-political framing of mundane human experience. It, the fetter, could be called the limitation of and by social conditioning, complying with societal ideas and trying to fit therein. Making an image to attempt to convey to others. If you think in terms of social media Abhidhamma Pitaka’s list of ten fetters are perhaps the guidebook to social popularity, the more you express the more likes and followers you get. Does Trump exhibit any of these fetters?

I find some of the available Buddhist interpretations a bit absolutist. Complete removal of reproductive urge is probably not possible. Porn hub reinforces the first fetter kāma-rāga.   

Getting things in perspective and balanced is probably a healthier way. After all the Diamond sutra admonishes against seeking the absolute. A classic sign of depression is loss of libido. Psychologists may contest the teachings of Siddhartha.

What are the ten fetters in Buddhist tradition?

 This by Andrei Palskoi on Quora

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-ten-fetters-in-Buddhist-tradition

The fetters are attachments to illusory ideas about how reality is built and operates. They are the rules that you believe are solid and unbreakable, whereas in fact they are nothing more than ephemeral mental contracts.

Each of them can be seen as a counterweight applied to balance the scales after they’ve been originally tipped off by the 10th fetter, culminating with the 1st fetter like a cork sealing the jinn’s bottle. They are intended to create and/or restore the illusion of stability, and the price for having that illusion is the lack of freedom – that’s why they called “fetters”. They feel important to abide by, even when they result in suffering.

There are many different interpretations of their meaning. Below is mine – by no means accurate or even orthodox, but it’s one of those things where you cannot rely on dogmas (see fetter #3).

  1. Person – thinking that there is an actual object with fixed properties called “a person”, or “self”. Once the imaginary description of “who you are” is formed, there is a strong feeling of being obligated to act in accordance with how that “you” would act. Essentially, in this fetter you are bound by the mental model of yourself. The fear of violating this fetter is that for your reputation in your own or someone else’s eyes. Also, many other stories and beliefs are predicated on the idea of “you” as an actor playing a crucial role in them.
  2. Doubt – traditionally by this it is meant doubt in Buddha’s teachings. Effectively, it is doubt that there is indeed a way back out of your existential conundrum. It binds you into arguing about everything, rather than putting sincere whole-hearted effort into looking at the facts and be willing to honestly admit what they show, even if it goes against your preconceived beliefs.

{often very specifically about the teachings of Buddha and the Dharma my addition}.

  1. Rites and rituals – this includes dogmas, habits and any other kind of mind automation. It binds you into thinking that if “things were this way before”, they are expected to continue the same way. This fetter is an inertia of mind, i.e. repeating what it was accustomed to doing. It is also a belief in magic that merely by doing some rituals that you don’t understand you can control the experiences and prevent unwanted ones from happening. Basically, relying on stale old recipes and ignoring the new realities of the moment.
  2. Desire, or lust – belief that you can want a form and when you do, you must run after it. Effectively, it is imagining some experience and feeling irresistible draw to falling into it, as well as aversion to the idea of not getting what’s desired. Together the 4th and 5th fetters are manifestations of the false belief that by mastering the art of pulling in pleasant experiences and pushing out unpleasant ones it is possible to achieve ever-lasting comfort.
  3. Aversion, or ill will – when something goes against your expectations (which is inevitable), you feel in your guts some invisible force that is presumably pushing you towards resistance in all its forms (hatred, fear, suppression, avoidance, etc.). Rather than an attachment to experiencing pleasant experiences, it is an attachment to reacting to unpleasant ones. This is where the suffering is born out of refusal to accept that ultimately there is no control of what happens.
  4. Forms – belief that reality consists of fixed objects with properties and feeling of being bound by those forms and their importance. Subject-object separation.
  5. Attachment to formless ideas – belief that apart from the pure “being”, there are other fundamental qualities of experience such as time and space, and there is witnessing of these qualities through perception. This is where the idea of “independent reality” is born.
  6. Conceit – belief that the mental idea of what is going on is more important than the actual experience. This is a belief that the experience must “make sense”, which begins with the simplest sense of pure “being” – the first fixed mental construct, the first attempt to fabricate an illusion of something reliable, predictable and lasting, something that can be grasped at.
  7. Restlessness – the outcome of the original ignorance, chaotic flow of ever-changing experiences with no fixed structure whatsoever. The first anxiety of having nothing to grasp at. The other 8 fetters are essentially failed attempts to hide this anxiety, which can be felt again at any time when they don’t work.
  8. Ignorance – The beginning of the “flame” – falling for the false appearance of experiences and ignoring the true knowledge that there can be no experience that has any substance, permanence, satisfactoriness. A “big bang” manifestation of experiential reality, i.e. samsara. Conscious emptiness that accidentally confused itself into dreaming up the realm of experiences and cannot awaken back from its dream.

This from Wikipedia:

Abhidhamma Pitaka’s list of ten fetters

The Abhidhamma Pitaka’s Dhamma Sangani (Dhs. 1113-34) provides an alternate list of ten fetters, also found in the Khuddaka Nikaya’s Culla Niddesa (Nd2 656, 1463) and in post-canonical commentaries. This enumeration is:

  1. sensual lust (Pali: kāma-rāga)
  2. anger (paṭigha)
  3. conceit (māna)
  4. views (diṭṭhi) {opinions my addition}
  5. doubt (vicikicchā)
  6. attachment to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa)
  7. lust for existence (bhava-rāga)
  8. jealousy (issā)
  9. greed (macchariya)
  10. ignorance (avijjā).

The commentary mentions that views, doubt, attachment to rites and rituals, jealousy and greed are thrown off at the first stage of Awakening (sotāpatti); gross sensual lust and anger by the second stage (sakadāgāmitā) and even subtle forms of the same by the third stage (anāgāmitā); and conceit, lust for existence and ignorance by the fourth and final stage (arahatta).

The Wolf of Wall Street is not close to enlightenment, “greed is good!”

If you encountered someone who had overcome to a great extent these ten fetters how would you interact?

The notion of transactional “you scratch my back…” interaction would not work. They would not have the same emotional soap-opera buttons. They may even seem very boring and dead-pan.

Are they still alive? Are they completely overcome with anhedonia?

We are seeing the first fetter of “person” or “self” as a battleground for the so-called gender “debate” or slinging match. Self-image plays a role in anorexia and bulimia. Social media has created a zombie army of influencers, self-obsessed. People forget that image is imaginary and not real.  Yet they devote a lot of time and effort to image.

Removal of the Abhidhamma Pitaka’s fetters might imply a saintly person, an impossible thing. But there again human idealisation and absolutism comes in. The passage above suggests a sequential list based removal, a tick box approach. Done that, got the t-shirt. Isn’t it more likely that one would be working at removing the dramas/fetters all at the same time? Tick box thinking is not a high level overview. Goals achieved can cause conceit and ambition.

Twitter is full of aversion, or ill will. It fills our news programmes in Israel and Gaza, in the US presidential elections.

I’ll speculate that a psychologist / psychiatrist might have trouble framing and understanding a being largely free from these fetters. Maybe they would invent a new syndrome to categorize them…

Or they could lock them up in a loony bin, especially if they were not an ordained monk or priest in robes.

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Belief and Proof

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll speculate that many believe things, ideologies and religions for which there in no possibility of proof. Half of the UK “believed” that Brexit was a good idea, many were adamant even though the outcome was unknown. They professed with absolute certainty about something which had not yet happened. Some Americans chant the MAGA mantra. Exactly when was America ever a great and equal place? Bad stuff has always gone on there to some extent.

People will believe whatever it is they want to believe. The strength of belief may vary. The war in Vietnam seemed like a good idea at first. Someone thought agent orange was good.

The church had a vested interest in making people God-fearing. Bums on seats meant coins on collection plates and salaries for clergy. The gold held by the churches and all that chavvy stuff goes against my interpretation of New Testament Christianity which differs from Old Testament Torah. Yet many who name themselves Christian believe in an eye for an eye instead of turning a cheek. I personally cannot envisage any deity in human or anthropomorphic form. {With the exception of Ganesh} I was made to draw God as a white bearded white geezer at the convent school in Zambia.

People born with penises believe that they can be “women” after a few hormones and a change of clothes, a new frock.

Some of the conspiracy theories floating about are to my eyes far-fetched, yet they have their devotees. I do believe that the world is controlled loosely by rich people. The extent to which they conspire is moot. It is all about profit and the best way to get that is by being good at business and ensuring calm by means of pecuniary compliance. There is no need to do weird far-out stuff. 

Yep, some get corrupted by power and this can be expressed by abuse, sexual abuse and coercion. There are a number of ring-like groups that take advantage of those who are corruptible by promise of an easy ticket. Sometimes the cost of association to/with a powerful figure is high. Savile, Epstein, Al-Fayed. There are mini-mes of these scattered through the population, the degree of unpleasantness varies.

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Between belief and proof, we might have working hypothesis. In which one tries out a framework or context to see how well it works, what the generality is like. There are “proofs” which are more circumstantial than direct.  There are things which suggest or point at an idea.

I believe in the concept of karma, there is sufficient observable causality for me to trust it as a concept, a working hypothesis. However, the subject is vast. I once did a whole blog exploring karma. The cornerstone of karma is evolution. One needs to learn from mistakes. Evolution and karma are of the same process. There is a cost associated with some actions which “the universe” wants paid. Karma not worked at in a timely fashion and with willing mood accrues karmic debt, much like a bank loan. One learns the effect of a causal action or behaviour. Sometimes people are slow learners.

The coypu no longer trouble our lotuses. Electric shock training with 0.25 Joule pulses at kilovolts works. We have a low electric fence which I installed. Cause and effect. Coypu karma.

I have had sufficient circumstantial evidence via visions and dreaming to believe in reincarnation. There is no way, on this planet, that I could ever prove reincarnation to the satisfaction of my scientific training. I could not put data into a spreadsheet and plot a graph with a fitted equation and a statistical quality of fit metric. I share the belief in reincarnation with millions. I probably believe it more strongly than most.

Karma and reincarnation as concepts are internally consistent. Karma spans lifetimes so that we can evolve. Karma is a teacher of sorts, in my world.  It takes lifetime after lifetime to learn somethings.

Is it significant that I who once was a pukka scientist at a pukka institution can remember three lives as a Buddhist monastic?

Depends upon what you think is significant. To your average common or garden UK football supporter it means nothing.  To someone who is a committed Buddhist it would not be a huge surprise, it might be tad interesting. Why not a scholar scientist and a scholar monk? It is not so different. Both have cerebral elements. To a bunch of scientists, it might be a red flag which needs disproved.

Have you noticed how science has a negation bias?

I’ll speculate that most people have a host of things which they believe which cannot be proven and moreover they do not question their beliefs or the provenance of the source from which they were obtained / picked up. Gossip and tittle tattle being a common currency which can become Gospel or God’s honest truth. “They” know and say an awful lot, do they not?

People can be very adamant about things which they have not checked or researched themselves. There is heavy reliance on hearsay. There are a lot of soap box orators both in real life and on-line. Hearsay has it that the spread of disinformation is huge and increasing.  This is consistent with what I see on Twitter. 

If you watch BBC, Sky, France 24 and Al-Jazeera the reporting on Gaza is very different. The British news is very sanitized and biased. People trust the BBC but it is reporting on a very different “war” to Al-Jazeera. Chalk and cheese. The UK right think the BBC is luvvie-socialist oriented.

People will believe whatever they want to believe. Convenience is a major factor in belief. They will believe what is the most convenient for them to believe. Inconvenient truths are generally not preferred. Coming round to an inconvenient belief takes time and is resisted, exemplified by the three individuals mention previously.  So far nobody has said a great deal about the Princess Diana – Al-Fayed relationship. That narrative is altered by recent news. Did King Charles have her bumped off? Is he still the villain or are there other factors now?

Belief is also mutable…

What you believe today is impermanent…I can’t prove it to you…I can offer it as a working hypothesis which you might see to be applicable.

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How many of your beliefs are convenient?

Why did you prefer them?

Life Divergences and the Wrong End of the Stick

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have recently had a several months stint on LinkedIn. Because I am an “old fart” I went to university way back when it was much less common in the UK. My class size was of the order of 30. It was hard to get in. There was an in-department tea / snack room which served buttered toast. After a 9 AM chemistry lecture you could get coffee and toast and marmalade. We knew each other quite well and there was a lot of fraternisation between staff and students. Back then there was a lot of booze. It would be frowned upon today, Jurassic behaviours.

It is safe to conclude that when taking the integral of life time earnings of most of my university peer group, based on their LinkedIn profiles, I am at the bottom of the earnings table and I am not going to earn any more. I was the baby of the class being born end of August, but somehow also a social lynch pin. 4 out of 30 came from my school. Most of my peers have been successful whereas my “career” ended in 2007. I did some small “A” level science tutoring for a number of years. I retired around five years ago. Often it is the years 40-65 when people earn the most. I did not.

It could be said that I am a failure and that I failed.

I worked for over a decade as an academic at a top London university. Many of that peer group and people whom I once taught have had and are having way more success than me. There are big cheeses.

There are a number of possible explanations for why I quit at the age of 42. They include burn out, the so-called INFJ door slam, some mental health problems, or the renunciation of a way of life. I was very unhappy that my colleagues were talking about getting rid of people to improve the REF rating. Nice! I figured I could handle going better than others. The decision was quick and nobody anticipated it. I don’t recall having any discussions. I did not have a leaving party because I hate that kind of thing. I handed over my responsibilities and just left. Not many, very few, said goodbye. I thought at the time that it was handled poorly. British people can be awkward and scientists are not renowned for their interpersonal skills. I don’t believe anyone from there addressed the subject with me, certainly not meaningfully.

I was not anticipating what was to unfold in terms of meditations and chanting. My life certainly diverged from where it had been heading. There were consequences which I had not anticipated in terms of my employability.

If you meditate at least once daily for two decades you are likely to differ markedly in terms of psyche and mind from those who do not. If you don’t see someone for over a decade they may try to shoehorn their perception of you into their old version. They may be unable to conceive of what you are like now. They will not know “the point before mind”.

I have no ambition, no drive, no goals, no targets. I am not overly fussed about what happens to me. I am not interested in kudos. There is no driver for me to invent. I doubt that anything I might write is sellable, certainly not profitable. So, there is no point in me trying to publish for money. In one sense I am waiting until my time is up. The likelihood is that my time will be used gardening, doing DIY, strolling and a bit of blogging here and there. I will be a carer from time to time.

I am out of touch with the modern way of life. I have not made a social ‘phone call in near a decade. I have near zero social email use. Just as I am out of touch with modern life, the outer world is out of touch with me.  Only a few people know any of my email addresses and only one person has my ‘phone number. The hospital has it too.

Life is uncomplicated by connectivity.

When you watch the news, it is often a loner who is not popular who turns out to be the perpetrator of some killing or other. People are prejudiced about people like me. They may even pity me and feel sad. That is getting the wrong end of the stick by a country mile. People transfer their obsession with social contact onto me. I am quite happy not to have any. I can go days without speaking to anyone.

I certainly did not add a great deal to UK plc. I once co-founded a company which put dinner on the table for about fifty households. In principle I could have done more. But I did not.

It could be said that I was perhaps fated to do a “Reggie Perrin” only I never came back to work.

I do not know what fate has in store for me, if anything. It is very unlikely to have a wider impact or significance. This could be argued to be a waste. Or simply it is what it is.

Being a four cancer couple already sets us apart statistically. Colon cancer and basal cell carcinomas for me, myeloma and breast for her. She start posts operative radiotherapy next week. I get a “chimney sweep” colonoscopy next year. I am on prostate cancer watch because of slightly elevated PSA. No signs of any lesions in the MRI.

It is pretty clear what the next month is about. The important bit, that is.

I speculate that were I to meet any of the people from my peer groupings it would take quite a while for the penny to drop concerning just how far my life and beingness has diverged from theirs. And they would almost certainly get entirely the wrong end of the stick in any attempt at communication beyond the basic CV style “life fact” exchange. I’ll wager I could understand their lives better than they could understand mine. I came from “there”. I do not think that they could get it nor do I believe that I could convey. They would have to experience over a fair time interval to even begin.

I could be wrong…

I am divergent…