sea of uncertainty.

[everyday exploration of entropy and enlightenment]

awareness. entropy. mindfulness. nothingness. pondering. time.

  • everywhere.

    Hanging from the rigging with the nonchalance of somebody who has spend a lifetime at sea, his focus was buried in the bow wake as dolphins played frivolously in the froth. Then, just outside his vision, he noticed flecks of white. Squinting harder to investigate further, it became apparent it was a huge swarm of moon jellyfish, a bloom uncharacteristically large this far from the coast, and at such high latitudes. It amused him to ponder their thoughts—or, given their lack of thoughts, more probably ponder their sensations—as they criss-crossed the oceanic expanse at the whims of wind and wave. The dolphins—and the ship—carved through the jellyfish with ease, every now one of the cetaceans casting one into the grey skies above, only for it to splat down several moments later; no doubt in a state of bewilderment. Or at least he speculated so.

    Thirty years later.

    Dangling his feet off the starboard side, he relished the experience of being drenched by the waves, as the catamaran pitched back and forth, criss-crossing the swell. Arms draped over the wire railing, he stared down into the dark depths—as he had done countless times before over decades past—and then he spotted it; the familiar specks of white. A metre or so below the surface they bobbed, hundreds or maybe thousands of moon jellyfish, another bloom; this time equatorial, not polar. Immediately, he was reunited with the train of thought from 30 years ago—what were they thinking, what was it like to float around aimlessly? And then a new one: were these the same individuals he had previously witnessed? He wasn’t sure what the life expectancy of a jellyfish was, though he recognised that as a human concern—surely these denizens, more be-ing than think-ing, were deeply involved and invested in the present, only the here-and-now. For all intents and porpoises, they lived forever, never pondering the past nor fretting the future. In their effortless bobbing on the ocean currents, they existed in a moment-to-moment cycle of birth and rebirth.

  • lethe.

    Most celebrate joy and wealth

    though for pain and death,

    will wade into the Lethe.

    The depth and breadth of experience

    is breath by breath,

    not to hope against the inevitability

    of decay and heat death.

  • ger.

    Condors and cinereous vultures circled overhead, surely an auspicious omen he thought to himself. The walk had taken two, trying days, though this valley was where his people had found wisdom since time immemorial—an axis mundi of the world, centre of all. As he stood on a ridge overlooking the glacier-scarred topography, he spied a good campsite, spotlighted by a sunbeam.

    After another two hours of walking, he reached where the sun’s wise rays touched down and began to unload the camel that had been just half-a-step behind since he left. As it began to sink beyond the mountains framing the valley, the sun recalled its light and warmth. Just in time, the ger was up. The circular tent was constructed from warm felt, with an opening in the centre of the roof to let smoke out. This one was much smaller than those usually seen in the area—this was a shamanic ger, utilised for isolation, deprivation, and vision quests; all the reasons he found himself in this particular spot at this particular time.

    He unfurled the flap entrance then sealed it. It would not open again for another week.

    In silence and darkness he sat; solely being, not doing. As the days meandered, merged with the one prior, his stomach sang out for sustenance; the only thing having passed his lips being water from the water buffalo skin bladder lying next to him. Boundaries dissolved as his thoughts slowed and the sensations from within the body—and the deep informational base of awareness—became more prominent; though he recognised it was probably always there, the acknowledgement of it was, apparently, not. His mind’s eye constructed (or revealed?) an immense column that stretched from his forehead to the godhead—constructed of symbols, sigils, and signs which he now recognised as nothing but different sides of the same coin. All that was, was information. I within I, 0 > 1. Time, merely emergent from consciousness, revealed its ruse to him. From his belly, he felt a cool sensation spreading to his limbs, before passing out.

    He awoke—minutes or months later, he was unsure. Though he was sure that this part of the journey was over, and gathered himself and his thoughts. After a quiet morning of meditation, he began packing up the ger—all was deathly still, apart from the occasional squawk of a vulture or bellow of a camel.

  • bodhisattv-her.

    She knows.

    See the way she ebbs and flows,

    through the now // osmose

    awareness deathblows.

    Circled by crows,

    the corpse of tomorrows.

    And though she chose

    the austerities it bestows,

    it’s the path to dispose

    of the scarecrows in the meadows

    of delusion, which ego does impose.

  • witness.

    As it had done ceaselessly for the last 4 billion years, the sun crept above the horizon. Turning the indigo sky shades of orange and yellow—along with a river of bright white darting out across the ocean’s surface—the golden orb signalled the dawn of a new day.

    Bats turned in and birds awoke, beginning an ornithological orchestra that fell on deaf ears. A breeze arrived, whipping up the sand whimsically before mindlessly dumping it and moving on. A mother oystercatcher admonished her chick—high-pitched life lessons screeched squawked up and down the beach. Dark clouds in the distance, initially a churning of greys, dissolved, defeated by the arrival of a stern southerly. No one was around to record or reminisce, these repeated scenes unseen by human sentience, a morning left to unfurl without perspective nor preconceptions.

    Yet—and yet—as eyes pass over these words, experience itself cannot escape the morning breeze.

  • cumulus.

    A rabbit. A whale. A teapot.

    She lay in the long grass, watching the clouds condense, coalesce, and collapse—to take forms before dissolving again. The verdant lushness enveloped her and time drifted away, like a cloud across a crisp blue sky. She pondered to herself how different were cloud rabbits from actual rabbits, really—both just a mental construct, a collection of concepts tied together by consensus, yet neither free from the constraints of the mind.

    A gentle sea breeze caressed her face, carrying with it the scent of salt. At the smell of the sea, she closed her eyes and found a deep state of presence.

    Inhale. Exhale. Her belly rose, then fell.

    It dawned on her that the fluffy cloud beings floating above—like the herself—weren’t becoming rabbits or whales or teapots, but rather, were always as they had been. Like moon which is always whole; perception is what reshapes her—the waxing and waning just smoke and mirrors. The cloud animals equally existed in perception.

    The summer sun soaring above warmed her, and having given up understanding via division, she slipped into an afternoon nap.

  • moulting.

    Cats moult, snakes shed their skin, even the most rigid of Nature’s creatures—the crab—loses its shell to allow further growth. Why are we humans so averse to shedding our own baggage? Identity, belongings, expectations; all of which arguably cause more harm than good in living a full life.

  • breath.

    Prayer flags fluttered in the breeze, from wooden roof to rock cairn to mountainous ridge. Stretched taut, they sung; carrying their message on the wind. He stood atop the stone walls of the monastery, surveying the valley below—once a path for a glacier, the valley had been hewn from the monotonous motion of the river of ice.

    Despite never having left the confines of the valley’s metamorphic crenellations, he felt he had no need to. With the sharpness of a yanyuedao and the serenity of a reclining moon, he stepped through life one step at a time—his waraji straw sandals anchored in the past, present, and future, all at once. Experience only exists in the now; lamentations of the past and anxieties of the future are mere experiences of the present.

    Inhale—past, present, future.

    Exhale—past, present, future.

    Breath, like the prayer flags, carries its message on the breeze too. Awareness born upon the exhale, sentience sent to the far corners of the horizon.

    Careening down from the mountaintops, the frigid air cut into his exposed skin as daggers. His long hair, unkempt and uncouth, was caught by the breath of the mountains too. Everything seemed to breath, to heave in existence, a universal inhale in acknowledgement of awareness.

  • inversion.

    The mind upended,

    by real reality wended.

    Experience as intended,

    with awareness extended—only presence to contend with.

    Ought to be nought thought.

    Information creation

    via division of attention.

    Perspective-plagued pelham,

    cerebellum para bellum.

  • sit.

    The night sky. As comforting as it is confronting. Tonight it would be her zendo, her meditation hall, as she sought to blend the inner and the outer, the finite and the abyss, the now and the forever.

    She had hiked the high glacial valley walls during the bright daylight hours, and with the day coming to a close she found herself on a rocky, exposed ridgeline—exactly where she wanted to be. The words of her guru refracted around her skull; it was he who had told her the kind of space—not only physically, but spiritually—to seek out, and this spot seemed perfect. From her bag she pulled her zafu, the round meditation cushion she carried with her almost everywhere; worn, tattered and well-travelled. And several moments later, a rolled-up royal blue rug—the threads of luscious lapis lazuli reminiscent of the descending dusk—emerged from the bag as well, which she unfurled with a snap. Right leg folded under left as she made her way into lotus pose.

    Pulling the cowl of her robes back, she felt the ever-so-fair night breeze on her shaven scalp. She tilted her head upwards, mesmerised by the Milky Way, now furled like her rug, in all of it’s ancient glory. The astral arch—omnipresent and omniscient—held the memories of every sunrise, every breath, every death, that has ever taken place. A river of stars, it meandered towards its mouth, before dissolving into the sea; the ocean of her awareness. Of the awareness. All awarenesses. The memory of origin, of what was; though, also, what has always been. The night sky, now black as pitch, dark as the abyss of self-delusion. A finite Universe containing infinite multitudes, bound by a timeless time, a deathless death. Enclosed entropy, a swirling churning maelstrom of birth, death, and rebirth, where everything stays the same.