sea of uncertainty.

[everyday exploration of entropy and enlightenment]

awareness. entropy. impermanence. mindfulness. nothingness. time.

Tag: mindfulness.

  • thread.

    With a seasoned snap of her wrist, more yarn slackened from the ball, and by loop and by hook, the thread was pulled; incorporated into a larger whole. Slowly the bear took shape—a head with cute little ears, then arms, followed by a torso. Yarn was becoming bear.

    Don’t pull on the thread.

    Over the space of several days, the crocheted bear—golden yellow like the sun—became more and more ursine-like. She was sure the young recipient would be thrilled with it. Over and over again the same motion—wrist snap, thread pull, loop, hook. She didn’t feel the repetition though; she was focused on the outcome.

    Don’t pull on the thread.

    With one bear sole remaining, the stuffing was added, and then the last loop and hook to seal the paw. One button, two buttons; one eye, two eyes. The bear was complete. She held it up to the light, admiring her creation, being particularly enamored with his cheerful expression. A name immediately popped into her head, though she determined that honour should belong to the new owner.

    Don’t pull on the thread.

    Pulling on a ball of yarn, and then through repetition and reinforcement of movement, created a crochet bear. The same is true of thoughts. Thoughts are mere loose threads appearing from the vacuum beyond our consciousness; and nothing becomes of them if we don’t pull on them. However, yanking on the yarn of our thinking brain creates concepts, ideas, separation of self from other; and over time, repeated, these take shape, solidifying into perspectives, prejudices, unshakeable beliefs, formed from essentially a loose thread. Instead of using the thread to craft something, we can let it be—allow it to hang loose, remaining ensnared in the ball.

    Don’t pull on the thread.

  • welcome.

    He paused briefly at the door, the sight of a banana sapling to his left bringing a smile to his old wizened face. Originally a gift from a recently deceased loved one, the plant was relishing the rains and thick humidity—with this new growth, his loved one continued to live on, even if in another form. After soaking up a vision of her face in his mind’s eye, he pushed on the heavy wooden door, the loud creaking signalling his arrival to the no-one inside.

    The cabin was Spartan, the utmost utilitarian—more of a hut than a home. He himself had felled the trees that formed the shiplap walls, now pale and silvered after decades of exposure to the elements. Save a well-worn rug of faded teals and turquoises, its tassels hoping against hope in the battle against decay, and a black circular meditation cushion sitting squarely in the centre of said rug, the single room was empty. To each of the three large windows we shuffled and pushed them open—though initially they resisted his efforts; the swollen window frames gripped more firmly in the damper months.

    Slowly he lowered himself down onto the cushion, assuming the lotus pose—a shape his body knew intimately, one his knees, hips, and spine knew by rote.

    A single thought: “Welcome.”

    Every thought, every feeling, every visitor was welcome. After all, it was not he who summoned them nor was it his place to banish them. Arising unannounced from the void, from the pristine pre-thought vacuum, he would accept them as they came, for they are nothing more than wind blowing through the trees.

    A thunderclap announced itself as a harbinger of a distant storm ruminating in the humidity. Another smile appeared on his face.

    *(The above is inspired by an Ajahn Chah quote.)

  • freedom.

    Staring out of the window, she watched the backyard orchards of tropical fruit—bananas, guavas, lemons—speed by in a blur. She entertained herself by trying to focus on not focusing on the trees whizzing by, as the train climbed higher and higher into the volcanic moonscape of the mountains. While the out-of-focus landscape was a strain on the eyes, the open carriage windows delighted the nose as tropical scents were sucked aboard the rattling train; a sweetness of fragrance that left no doubt as to the lushness of the surroundings. As it zig-zagged rather indirectly up the mountain, the train made it slowly but surely up the igneous incline, click-clacking repetitively. To the outside observer, the train was dedicated to the tracks, destined to go wherever the line dictated. The higher they climbed, the signs of human habitation—and the fruit trees—thinned out, giving way to large, denser vegetation; the kind that thirsts for the higher rainfall found up in the cloud forests. On its journey, the train had few decisions to make; follow the tracks, and occasionally, just occasionally, decide left or right at a junction.

    Pulling out from port, the young skipper eyed the horizon—heavy dark clouds weighed ominously over the ocean. The old salty sea dogs gathering around the dock had been whispering behind her back, mumbles about how she would be unable to handle the stress and strain of the incoming storm. She, however, trusted herself and her tīpuna—her ancestors—and her (and their) time upon the ocean from which the wisdom was hard-earned. As she deftly dodged the sandbar, she tacked south—this way she could skirt the storm; plus, she had heard from friends that the whales had begun their migration and she wished to bear witness to such a special cetacean tradition. Her choice turned out to be the right one—the storm continued east and made landfall; she had successfully dodged the worst of the winds; and her radio was abuzz with chatter from other skippers who had spotted the whales over the last couple of hours. For the boat, infinite decisions are made upon the sea—straight or tack; port or starboard, each with infinite degrees of directionality. Any harbour is open to be a safe haven.

    The train and boat can act as analogies for the mind states of ‘thought’ and ‘awareness,’ respectively. A thought has no degrees of freedom—it is what it is until another thought arrives (or not); a train trundling along until a junction in the tracks. By contrast, awareness has uncountable degrees of freedom, a superposition of potentials afloat in deep; it is unencumbered by past or future, has no allegiance to perspective or preference. Everything is permissible.

    Freedom is found in the infinite possibilities of the (metaphorical) boat, a course as-yet uncharted.

  • deathless.

    The desert sun was unrelenting. Though he didn’t find it oppressive or unbearable—this was his home after all—each successive footfall felt more leaden that the last, the hunger and thirst sapping what was left of his strength. As if to spite his chapped lips, his mouth salivated as he conjured up his last meal from his memory; succulent meat with some dried fruits, all washed down with some local firewater, followed by a palette cleanse of crisp clear water plucked from the nearby stream.

    The meal was a deliberate choice—a favourite, just one last time—and though tears were shed for his upcoming departure, there were also many bouts of laughter, brought on by fond memories and the exaggerations of elaborate storytelling. Before dawn the following morning, he slipped out the door. He had no need for any possessions other than the clothes on his back where he was going. These last couple of years, old age had seemed to weigh heavier on him—his eyesight had worsened, his body more frail, climbing hills he had previously strode up easily now sucked the breath from his lungs. His time was near, and he knew it was time to go.

    Despite now three days of non-stop walking, if there was one thing he still had in abundance, it was endurance. The scorching sands warmed his soles. At this time of the year, he would usually travel at night to avoid the worst of the heat, though now he so desired to experience the sun, witness the azure sky, the wisps of clouds languid overhead. Hour after hour he kept a steady pace, pausing only every now and then to admire the pristine desert landscape—its crimson and ochre otherworldly rock formations, coarse beige sand, clusters of straggly and spiky bushes, blue sky so vast it resembled an inverted ocean. With moonrise, he lay down to rest; he was in awe at both the beauty and the boundlessness of the night sky.

    Several days later, he crested the ridge. It was much like he remembered, though with maybe a few more straggly and spiky bushes, and as he slowly raised his gaze, he saw it—the infinite ocean. Stretching all the way to where it meets the setting sun. This was the perfect spot; he longed to hear the waves rush up on the beach, washing away his thoughts, drowning him in mindfulness. Just him, and the waves, and the moment. Or perhaps, just the moment.

    Navigating a narrow track, he wound his way down from the ridge to the shore. The sun was slung low in the late afternoon, casting long shadows on the arid hills. Folding his legs up he sat quietly on the sand, just out of reach of the waves that crashed in, propelled by energies harnessed far out to sea. He let his mind wander. It invariably turned to what dim memories still remained. He pondered how moments of his life—both the profound and the mundane—might have been different if he went left instead of right, said yes instead of no. He concluded it didn’t matter anyway; these ‘what ifs’ were like sea mist on the hills, no more solid that the memories triggering the thoughts in the first place. And besides, there were many threads of these potential lives of his—all the ‘maybes’—that were cut short much before the age he was now. He was in no position—no one was—to evaluate what is better or worse over the length of a lifetime, the infinite strands of cause and effect much too interwoven for the human mind to unravel.

    It was in this moment he realised that time can only exist through change—without change, there is no time. Without thought, there is no cognitive compulsion to measure; without measurement, there is no change to mark time. Mindfulness is timelessness, a deathless death itself. It seemed to him that a sliver of awareness between thoughts could live the lifetimes of the stars above.

    His eyes grew heavy, both with physical exhaustion and hunger-induced fatigue. As his eyelids flickered—reminiscent of the flickering stars above—he smiled in a moment of contentment, suspended in the deathless death. And then his eyes closed for the last time.

    The sound of waves charging up on the steep beach echoed in the evening air.

  • solution.

    “Have you tried…ahhh…exhaling about it?”

  • settle.

    Using an old chipped glass that no one would notice if it got broken, she hunched down and scooped some water out of the pond. The reeds and raupō, algae, water lilies and lotuses had created a thriving aquatic ecosystem. Given the frequency and volume of croaks she had been hearing in the evening, she was sure she’d find a tadpole in the glass of scooped-up water. Back in the kitchen, with two small hands she gently placed the glass on the bench of well-worn hand-hewn oak, and stared intently. The water was murky—brown, silty, and too dirty to see if there were any tadpoles within—but she waited. Throughout the afternoon, in between chasing butterflies among the wildflowers and watching the sparrows search for worms, she returned eagerly to the glass, to see what, if any, secrets it had given up. As the sun sank lower and lower, she discovered the water began to become clearer and clearer as the sediments began to sink, overcome slowly by gravity.

    Let the silt settle.

    And the glass became less opaque, less secretive, revealing the mysteries of the brackish water, it became evidently clear that there was no tadpole contained within. A frown, followed by a pout, overtook her usually inquisitive face. Certainty—in our beliefs, in our interpretations, in our actions, in the interpretation of others’ actions—is an illusion, a mirage of inference and a desire for safety; as the uncertain, the unknown, hides potential danger. Thinking we understand a situation fully, that we know through our murky thoughts, is at best naive while at worst hubristic.

    Let the silt settle.

    In the same way that dirty water can become clear if the particulates are left to settle, so too the mind can gain clarity if we can just observe in presence; there is no imperative to pull on the thread of a thought, to do anything with it. Allow the unknowable void—the infinite potentiate of mushin—to percolate thoughts without agitating the silt.

    Let the silt settle.

  • voyage.


    CRACK. Sails snap in the wind and taut ropes try to maintain order. Creaking boards can be heard flexing with the motion of the sea beneath. The ship speeds down steep waves, only to rise up again at the next crest. Yet, this is like no vessel recorded in any anthology, travelogue, or memoir—it is a ship of consciousness, and it voyages on the wave-like probabilities of as-yet-realised thoughts. Doubt, anxiety, fear—conceived as real as any trade wind—fill the sails, urging the ship on; to somewhere, to nowhere in particular, for nothing haunts us quite like stagnation in the doldrums of inaction. Behest by perspectives, expectation, assumptions, and dogma, we continue to chart courses forward. If only we would pause—for the pause is crucial—and look up; for what we seek lies above—a peace, a mercurial bliss, forms a firmament, a refuge beyond concepts, beyond the self-constructed self-delusion of the thinking mind.

  • vessel.

    Old frail fingers raise a tea cup to the weak light of the morning—a bony tripod, fingertips tenderly rotating the vessel; all the better to admire the colours, cracks, patina. The worn and wabi sabi in all of its perfect, imperfect beauty. Chips and cracks call to mind memories and stories, while patches of buffed glaze highlight preferences, familiar spots of fingers and palms. Black lacquer a mirror to the morning light, slicing as it was through the crisp air. It could be said that many things define the tea cup—both this one, and all cups. Material, colour, shape, texture… Consider for a moment, however, what it is not. It is not solid. Arguably, a feature of all vessels is their hollowness, their utility tied to their ability to be filled, to hold myriad liquids or trinkets, materials or miscellanea. Similarly, one measure of a mind is its ability to hold things; ideas and intricacies, patterns and possibilities. And of all of Nature’s vessels, the mind has the ability to hold the greatest variety of things—the number and scope of which are limited only by imagination.

    The grassy notes of green tea fill the air, a laminar flow of hot tea connects teapot to tea cup. After the cup is completely filled—not one drop more able to be balanced on top—the worn hands set the teapot down, gently and with reverence. A vessel that is not empty is no longer a vessel—it has become a storage apparatus. Unable to be filled, it has abandoned its function. A full mind is like a full tea cup—unable to hold anything more, unable to function as a vessel, unable to function as a mind. A vessel must be emptied, as is its purpose.

    After taking one long sip, downing the hot fragrant tea in one mouthful, the lacquered cup was set down gently on a heavy wooden table. An empty vessel is also the epitome of potential, of almost countless possibilities, being able to hold whatever is found across the breadth of time and space. Potential in its emptiness. So, too, an empty mind—the shimmering radiance of the Sun reflecting around in an old ceramic glaze.

  • maybe.

    The Sun—a warm shade of tangerine—hangs low in the sky. Sunset is not far away. It’s at dusk, dawn, and the distance between, that the atoll seems most isolated; like a black hole, nothing can be seen beyond the dark barrier, a marine event horizon, lowered by the night. Warm Pacific waves lapped at the shore as a father—himself wise, wizened, and well-worn by the waves in times past—awaits his son on the beach. Several other villagers appear, waiting to help unload the canoe-full of fish expected to be brought a shore by the son.

    As a lone waka ama, an outrigger canoe, came into view, the son was evident, his bulky frame cut an identifying silhouette against the setting Sun. Those on the shore could tell something was off; the waka ama sat higher in the water than one would expect of a canoe loaded with fish; and as the bow carved a crisp channel through the sand up onto the beach, it was confirmed. The waka ama was empty.

    The son’s head sank into his hands, and he recounted how as he was pulling a loaded fishing net up from the depths, an octopus had different ideas. Combined with the weight of the fish stranded in the net, the interference by the octopus was enough to cause a split in the net. All the fish broke free and returned to the watery blue.

    “Oh no, that’s terrible!” the villagers who had gathered exclaimed.

    “Maybe,” the father replied, an air of ambivalence about him.

    The next day, the son took to the water again. Without a net this time, which was still undergoing repairs, he was putting his faith in his favourite fish hook—a treasure gifted by his grandfather carved from a whale jawbone. After picking an auspicious spot, where the baitfish seemed to make the water boil, he had barely thrown his line in when it was struck by a massive ‘ahi, a yellowfin tuna! After an hour-long battle that tested the mettle of both fisherman and fish, the son hoisted the gargantuan leviathan into the waka ama, before turning for home.

    Again the father was waiting on the beach, and as the canoe came over the horizon a large tuna-shaped hump was visible. Others gathered around to help unload the ‘ahi, others sharpened knives to begin carving up the Goliath.

    “Oh wow, that’s fortunate!” the others commented.

    “Maybe,” the father responded again.

    Buoyant from his battle yesterday, the son eagerly pushed his waka ama once more into the infinite azure sea. Again he found where the baitfish were churning—a telltale sign there were larger fish in the area. And once again, he came armed with his whalebone hook. Though today not yesterday, today was another day…

    As was his way, the father once more waited on the beach. Though his heart sunk when he saw a larger vessel—a double-hulled voyaging canoe, a waka hourua—sail over the horizon. He recognised the sail pattern from a neighbouring island, and they would only be approaching the atoll, this far from home at evening, for a good reason. Both hulls rode up on the sand, and a familiar face hopped down onto the beach. The father pre-empted the news, and hung his head. The familiar face assured the father that he and the other crew tried as hard as they could to save his son, though despite their efforts he was dragged below the waves. His fish hook had snagged a large shark, which as it dove dragged his son under, the son’s leg accidentally coiled in the fishing line.

    “Oh no, that’s terrible!” the villagers exclaimed.

    The father was silent for a long moment, before murmuring “Maybe…”

    A week passed. Mourning rituals, laid out generations ago, were followed strictly. Wailing and lamentations spread out from the atoll, like ripples of a stone dropped in a pond, only to dissipate, unheard, into the vast ocean. A second week passed. Life continued, as it seems it must, though with heavy hearts for all; though none heavier than the father.

    In the third week, another double-hulled canoe sped towards the island, sails filled with a stiff breeze. Several villagers gathered on the beach—the waka hourua attracting a crowd, as it was unfamiliar to anyone on the atoll. And as nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, before long the father was, too, drawn to the shore.

    The waka hourua ran up on the beach, and some of the villages grabbed ropes to secure it. A stocky man, sporting somewhat recognisable yet altogether different tattoos of royalty, strode purposely up the sand towards the father. Standing before the father, the stocky man bowed deeply while at the same time his son, along with an unknown woman, appeared from below deck on the waka hourua. Bewilderment appeared on the father’s face, followed by a deluge of tears. The stocky stranger went on to elaborate—in a tongue that, like his tattoos, where both familiar and foreign—that the son had washed up on an atoll of a distant powerful thalassocracy a week’s sail away. The son was rescue by local fishermen, and brought before the chief. The son and chief’s daughter—now both standing behind the stocky stranger—were betrothed, the upcoming marriage would ensure the bonds between the two remote island groups evermore.

    “Oh wow, that’s fortunate!” the villagers rejoiced.

    “Maybe.”


    *(The above is inspired by parable of ‘The Chinese Farmer.’)

  • possibilities.

    Nothingness; the source, pure potential of all that has been, all that could become. Nothingness is available to every sentient mind; mindfulness and presence pull back the veil of our conceptual mind, revealing that thought, time, the separation of I and other, and myriad assumptions and opinions, are nothing but fallacies.

    That nothingness, the great time—the infinite moment in time before the machination of neurons concoct another thought—is the abode of awareness, beyond the prisons of past and future, as these can only live in memory and imagination; tools of the conceptual mind. Nothingness, or awareness, or mushin, is a state of possibilities, a state still yet to settle on a decision, to forge information; every thought, every categorisation, every memory, every imagined point in the future, still in limbo. Not until the wavefunction of thought collapses do we see a decision—something discernible, information—the emergence of ephemeral entities like ideas, memories, and time.

    To be mindful, present, in sadhana, is to sit in an experience of the superposition—all possibilities—of thoughts, an experience of the primordial nothingness before the dawn of time, a precursor to a Big Bang of thoughts. And like the cosmological Big Bang, which pried open existence, so, too, this wavefunction collapse to a single thought, a single decision, creates existence—the moment-to-moment existence of concepts and ideas. And yet, these concepts and ideas are annihilated at the next moment of mindfulness. Information is created, destined to be lost to the Universe.

    The dichotomy of thought is that at once it is the wellspring of all concepts, all ideas, and yet also the death knell of the thing we humans prize above all else, peace. What is and what is not; what could be and what is not; division of self and other; categorisation of good, bad, and otherwise; so desperate to be true and correct, until shown to be temporary, annihilated at the next point of mindfulness.

    And for peace to once again return, in the ceasing of information and concepts; the great time.