Tag: impermanence

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.

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?

Dreams and Fate

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

One of the underlying postulates behind my interaction with both my passive nocturnal fully lucid dreams and my interpretation of waking dreaming symbols / omens is that there is such a thing as fate and that dreaming may help one to evolve that fate.

I suspect that this approach is very uncommon amongst those with my scientific training and background in research / higher education. I’ll hazard a guess that I may be perceived as a whacko, a few cards short of a deck and missing a few marbles.

Unlike many who might seek the credibility of scientific experiment and orthodoxy I am unconcerned by this. Several people have called me a mystic. I live a life aside humanity as a married hermit. We don’t get off the compound all that much, only for shopping, medical appointments and the odd walk by the sea or in the countryside. I personally do not think that fMRI will answer questions of Soul. To look for something like that in big ring of magnets with rf probably won’t work.

I know that I can still speak “science”. I was even awarded a quantum optics UK patent fairly recently.

One could comment that I threw it all away. Someone with my privilege should not be living as I do. I might have contributed a whole lot more to UK plc. Maybe I should have done. In the context of fate, maybe it was always my fate to jack it all in. Or maybe I was forced out. Perhaps I was fated to do a series of renunciations in order to learn that what most people cling to, does not need clinging to. I was fated to attain impermanence.

Perhaps I genuinely am a deluded nutcase.

At the moment we have one chronic problem to solve. How can I generate a very small income stream to help pay for a gardener instead of eating into cash reserves? The housing market is constipated here, one solution is to downsize to a manageable plot.

I do not want to work for more than 1 day a week. That work needs to be sedentary and preferably using my bonce. I don’t think that the kind of work I am looking for exists here. I am handicapped by language.

There is an ancillary question.

Am I basically done in this life time or is there anything of significance left for me to do?

Is there any significant fate / karma left?

I have an inkling of some of the things on the cards, these are internal on the compound things.

I am 99.9% sure that I will be unable to manage extended 5 day a week close contact in a working environment. I just won’t be able to hack it.

I had a dream recently suggesting that I need to “get off the bus” and change direction. It seems to be referring to my “outward” LinkedIn journey.

The other themes in my dreams are “somebody else’s mess / cock up” and that “I will not be believed or listened to.”

In a sense if it is my fate not to be believed or listened to, there is little to no point in trying. It is fated thus.

I can’t work off other people’s karmic mess for them. If I am entangled in that karma all I can do is sit tight and not make any more karmic entanglement.

What I could do is try to dream up some more quantum intellectual property. I have doubts as to whether there is a purpose or point to this. It would take a couple of years to grant and several months to read up, research and write. I doubt there is a buck in it for me, as things stand.

I am going to be having a spell as carer soon and perhaps in autumn.

Another recent dream says that the tantra in the Kālacakra has rotated a quarter turn., something has changed.The wheel of time has part turned. I have been putting off delving perhaps the time is now right, this is a change of direction away from the “bus” of social conditioning. The problem with Vajrayana is that things can get weird quickly.

Maybe I need to take a turn around the pond…