Reflections

Its total presence was my total absence, body and soul. Lighter than air, clearer than glass, altogether released from myself, I was nowhere around. ~ Douglas Harding, On Having No Head Without egotism, the mind is as large as the universe. ~ Helen Keller, The world I live in No eyes, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind: no color, sound, taste, touch or what the mind takes hold of. ~ The Heart Sutra Where am I, the locus of my mind, where the ego arises in consciousness? When I am awake and close my eyes, it feels like I am hovering vaguely behind them in the darkness, still peeking out at the world through the mind’s aperture. But what if I were blind? Would “I” be more likely to be found spiraling along the dark and noiseless maze of the inner ear waiting for sound? And if I were both deaf and blind? Maybe “I” would have completely migrated from my head into the palm of my hand that “binds me to the world” anticipating touch (Helen Keller)? And if sense deprivation complete...

Aflame with the fire of passion, the fire of aversion, the fire of delusion. Aflame, I tell you, with birth, aging & death, with sorrows, lamentations, pains, distresses, & despairs. ~ Adittapariyaya Sutta (The Fire Sermon) We used to define addiction as a disease resulting from dependency on an addictive substance. Then the list was extended to include dependency on the objects of normal appetites such as food and sex when pursued in excess. Now we acknowledge that people can also get addicted to computer and television, or to relationships, as in so-called codependent personality disorders. The state of mind sought by the addict is not necessarily the high of a drug-induced bliss but is more commonly a sort of mindlessness or “zoning out” intended to extinguish the flame of unfulfillment. Moreover, this unfulfillment is not created by a force exerted on me by things outside of myself, but by my own belief that I am lacking something I need. As TS Eliot says “We think of ...