What’s the Point?
A month or so ago, a mood passed through my evening. It wasn’t a terrible one. As I’ve grown, meditated, and kept my eye open, I’ve moved quite a ways from the depression and that was common in youth. Yet, every now and again, my contemplations can turn a bit hopeless, however, interesting things happen when that occurs now. There is a presence that responds to that passing memory of past mental habits, with an answer.
During that evening, I laid down to sleep, and internalized my attention. I looked around my internal landscape, and was paying attention to all the beliefs that I held from other people, in regards to having “achieved” something in life. And I thought to my self, “really is this all there is?”
After several minutes of believing other peoples ideas about money, fame, perfection, I became acutely aware of my body. I became aware of the trillions of processes, and interactions that were occurring, all in harmony, just so I could have the opportunity to experience life. Down to the minutest detail of what kind of organization and intelligence it takes, just to animate a human body so consciousness can experience every day, completely obliterated any moodiness. I also then felt and realized that this was not even revealing the complexities just to enable one single human mind to function sensibly, and there over 7 billion minds on the planet, and seemingly infinite varieties of bodies (animal, plant, human and other) all existing beyond mental comprehension! And here I was asking, “Is this all there is!?”
I felt a smile cross my face and a warmth in my chest, and the next thought was, “what else does there need to be!”
The following video, further illustrates this point, in a way, that my words cannot…
Thanks for sharing this Ryan. What a profound and useful thought! I’m inclined to believe that thankfulness and gratitude are natural human dispositions for relating to the world that get easily blinded by our expectations and desires. When we just focus on what is, rather than what we want, we can let ourselves be filled with awe and wonder. And having a sequence of thoughts to call up like the ones you describe will be a great tool for recovering that attitude when I find myself in a cynical or nihilistic mood.
usually for me, when that kind of thought comes up, I’m identifing with a certain kind of American, male ego and the conditioning that “i have to be somebody”. in recent years it takes the form of looking at Alan Wallace’s resume (weekly talks and meditation workshops around the world; conferences with world renowned scientists, the 20th or 30th book published with rave reviews from scientific and spiritual luminaries,) followed by “what in the world have I done with my life” particularly since in my early 20s I was contemplating a life course much like Alan Wallace’s. (wallace was a tibetan buddhist monk in north india for 17 yeasr, came back to hte US in the late 1980s, got an undergraduate degree in physics, masters in philosophy of mind and doctorate in world religions and not only has a teaching post at UC santa barbara but is running “the institute for consciousness studies” and is a world renowned expert both in buddhism and in the interplay between buddhism and science). Then jan asks me, “Do you really want to have done those things”, and it becomes clear that no, I didn’t want to do those things, and I’m happy to have done what I’ve done and what I’m doing, but my ego was wanting the recognition of having done those things. Then she clinches it by saying, “the world doesn’t need two alan wallaces, but it does need one don salmon” and I’m not doing too bad if i’m alert enough not to let my ego get caught up in making a big deal out of the idea that the world might actually need a don salmon.