Tag Archives: Meditation

Have You Ever?

  By Travis |
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Have you ever woke up in the morning, aware but not of what or who you are?

Have you found yourself spontaneously wrestling with the compression of time at relativistic speeds, watching space-time map out in four dimensions that your mind can sort of grasp, but can’t translate into the daily run-of-the-mill mapping available to conventionally recognized senses?

Have you been thrashing with sharp bursts of energy from inside, like electrical shocks that are intense but not painful?

Have you watched your self-story fall screaming into oblivion, only to re-appear a moment later as it tries to gain purchase for the day?

Have you smiled as you acknowledged that the price of a body-brain system is a self-story, and even though it seems possible to work the system into a shape where such a story doesn’t appear to occur, it seems like that would be a lot less of a fun trip?

Have you watched the whole play from a place beyond the whole subject/object circus?

A place so bright that it burns everything seen into a dim vision by comparison?

Have you longed to share that vision with just one other person, but recognized that all you can ever do with words is talk about what you see, which is never that which is seen?

Have you ever… ?

Yeah, me too.

Successful Definitions

  By Travis |
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Self examination is a constant work of looking at the assumptions I hold and questioning their validity.

As far as I have found one of the richest fields for exploration in this way is language. The language we hold & use shapes the reality we experience. That then feeds back into how we carry ourselves through reality, which then affects our experience. It’s a vicious/virtuous feedback cycle that we all seem to spend most of our waking hours in.

One set of the scripts that runs on this operating system of language has to do with evaluating our current situation and projecting into the future what it may mean. Specifically I am thinking of the idea of “being a success.”

When I look at that phrase in my own system, what come forward is images of plentiful possessions, money, a cool car, and flights to exotic places. These images of what it means to “be a success” sit in the backdrop of my system and inform many of the decisions, judgments, and plans I make.

Bringing that set of images forward, I see how terribly deficient they are.

This view of success (which seems endemic to our Western cultural system) ties success to basically one thing – money.

Once I take a look at it, I see how limiting this view is, and how blatantly wrong it is.

An artist is not a success when they get paid for a piece. An artist is a success when someone is struck to the core by one of their works and opens to a different view than the one they are normally stuck in.

A poet is not a success when they receive a check for their work appearing in a magazine. A poet is a success when some person hears deeply the meaning between their words and shifts into dancing to a different tune.

A physician is not a success when they get appointed to the board of a major hospital, along with a huge raise. They are a success when the relieve someone of a life threatening disease.

Success is a measure relative to the effort being measured, the reasons for that effort, and the impact on the well being (not wealth being) of those affected.

Anything less is sloppy evaluation at best, and a disastrous diversion at worse.

Those are my thoughts on the matter anyways. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below!

Also, if you enjoyed this piece, if you found it successful, please spread some like/share love with the buttons to the left.

Cheers!

Different Games

  By Travis |
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So one of my passionate interests is awakening, waking up from the sleep induced by the cultural held and transmitted beliefs about what I am, to directly face experience and stand as I actually am. To proceed through life from that point, rather than from some assumed point based on the words of others.

This sort of consideration is usually called spiritual. So, my interest has lead me to explore the spiritual cultural landscape.

One of the seemingly widespread beliefs in the modern spiritual realm casts life and reality as a vast game with no actual players. The (not exclusively) Buddhist teachings of no self get conflated with Cartesian/mechanistic world views to produce this image of a vast game board with pieces moving according to set rules with no one directing the movement beyond the rules.

I can’t ascribe to that model. My long career as a gamer puts forth another image. I imagine it more like a table with players moving their pieces according to the rules, but that the players tend to be hyper-focused. Generally, they get so engrossed by the game and the apparent rules that they get stuck into the grooves of that system. They lose the capacity to try something new. Get up and stretch. Try a different game. Create their own house rules. Take a break for a moment. Go to the kitchen and grab a Mountain Dew.*

The other concept that comes along with this vision for me is a distinction that a co-worker taught me once. (Thanks, Dan!) It’s the difference between convergent and emergent games.

In a convergent game, you are headed to a known conclusion. Like solitaire. At some point, you win by getting all your cards stacked in neat suite piles. Or, you lose by getting stuck with no moves to make. There is a feeling of relief at the end of a convergent game, regardless of the outcome. The tension of playing the game is released by its conclusion. You may immediately decide to play again, but part of the tension created by playing the game is released.

In contrary, emergent games have no end. Playing leads to more playing. It’s an exercise that may have goals along the way, but has no real end in sight.

What’s interesting to me here is how convergent games can get morphed into emergent games quite easily. Take chess for example. For an individual game, there are three possible outcomes. One of the two players wins. The game comes to a draw. However, the game space of chess is mathematically nearly limitless. There are always new strategies and tactics to explore. Also, there are always new opponents to face. Tournaments to win. Rankings to achieve.

*NOTE: I don’t like Mountain Dew.  I would be more likely to grab a beer.  But, mentioning Mountain Dew was too good of an inside joke to pass up.  ;

What do you think? Do you have any models of gaming you apply to life? Did you like the post? Let me know in the comments below, and if you think your community would enjoy it, please spread the post around. Cheers!

Hat tip to Plato and his Cave. ;)