My philosophy, another spiral

Now lives at MAP.

Expanding and updating an earlier take.

In short(ish)

• The cosmos is purposeful but/and playful.
  • 🎯 Notice the patterns and variations of everything.
  • 🎯 Notice the playful nature of everything.
• Consciousness is a continuum.
  • All matter is swirls of degrees of consciousness.
  • Consciousness is a verb: the cosmos becoming more aware of itself.
• Your true nature is the context of consciousness, not the contents.
  • 🎯 Come back to the direct, embodied, experience.
  • 🏹 Look for yourself, at zero distance.
  • Subject and object arise as a pair in awareness.
• Liberation is seeing through the illusion of there being a problem.
  • 🎯 Notice that the need to solve the problem is a story.
  • 🎯 Notice the problem itself is a story.
  • 🎯 Notice that the self is a story.
• Reality is one, indivisible, whole.
  • 🎯 Notice the causes, conditions, and patterns.
  • 🏹 Look for the edges, the gaps between.
• Reality is flow, motion, change.
  • 🎯 Notice the motion, the changes. Watch it arise, watch it pass away.
  • 🏹 Look for what’s static, fixed.
• Reality is complex, deep, rich.
  • 🎯 Notice the fractal nature of everything.
  • 🏹 Remember that the map is not the territory.
• Reality is the source of all our thoughts and actions.
  • 🏹 Look for thinker of thoughts and notice the absence.
  • 🏹 Look for source of an action, a decision, and notice the absence.
  • 🎯 Notice the causes, conditions, patterns that make you who you are.
  • 🏹 Leave things as they are, without adding a story or a label.
• Perception is participation, and creates different forms, depending on the scale.
  • 🎯 Notice (the details of) the map you’re using.
  • 🏹 Negative Capability: remain in doubt and uncertainty.
  • 🏹 Take the more integrated picture, multiple viewpoints at once.

The world

• The cosmos is purposeful. Value is intrinsic to Reality.
  • Utility can’t explained beauty, truth, goodness.
  • 🎯 Notice the patterns and variations of everything.
• The cosmos is playful. It’s exploring and realising itself, playing hide and seek. It enjoys finding and being found, again and again.
  • 🎯 Notice the playful nature of everything.
• Consciousness is a verb. It’s on a continuum.
  • Life is consciousness that’s more concentrated. It speeds up the responsiveness of the cosmos.
  • We are the cosmos becoming more aware of itself.

Reality is one, indivisible, whole

There’s variety and distinction, but no separation or division.

🎯 Notice the causes, conditions, and patterns.

Concepts create division, layers, stages, often as poles

Concepts and language add labels, create stories.

Concepts make Reality appear abstract or mysterious or elusive.

🏹 Look for the edges, the gaps between.

Reality is flow, motion, change

Forms have flow, motion, change.

Patterns create probabilities, not certainties.

Manifestation requires contrast to appear.

🎯 Notice the motion, the changes. Watch it arise, watch it pass away.

Concepts are fixed, static

🏹 Look for what’s static, fixed.

Reality is complex, deep, rich

🎯 Notice the fractal nature of everything.

Concepts flatten, simplify, exclude

🏹 Remember that the map is not the territory.

Reality is the source of all our thoughts and actions

• 🏹 Look for thinker of thoughts and notice the absence.
• 🏹 Look for source of an action, a decision, and notice the absence.

Things arise and pass away on their own. There’s no free will, only the infinite causes and conditions of nature and nurture.

Laws like gravity don’t make things happen. Something underneath them does.

Nature embodies drives, but they’re not material.

Liberation is seeing through the illusion of there being a problem

• Nothing needs to be different to how it is.
• Nothing can be different to how it is.
• Nothing is really a problem. Concepts, including the self, and their stories create problems, confusion, suffering.
  • 🎯 Notice that the need to solve the problem is a story.
  • 🎯 Notice the problem itself is a story.
  • 🎯 Notice that the self is a story.

The bridge

Perception is participation.

• Who you are determines how you see determines what you see.
  • 🎯 Notice (the details of) the map you’re using.
  • 🏹 Negative Capability: remain in doubt and uncertainty.
• What qualities you see depends on the scale.
  • 🏹 Take the more integrated picture, multiple viewpoints at once.
• Perception creates forms
  • The senses create forms, like echoes in a valley, like ripples in a pond.

The self

Some sense of self is functionally necessary and unavoidable.

“No-self” doesn’t mean no responsibility, no potential for change. Awareness can bring more choices and possibilities.

• Your true nature is the context of consciousness, not the contents.
  • 🎯 Come back to the direct, embodied, experience.
  • 🏹 Look for yourself, at zero distance.
• Subject and object arise as a pair in awareness.
  • The “doer”, “thinker,” the “author,” the “chooser”, the “self” is only an image, an idea, another thought.
• The contents of consciousness arise in the world.
  • 🎯 Notice the causes, conditions, patterns that make you who you are.
  • 🏹 Leave things as they are, without adding a story or a label.

Added 2024-04-03, last updated 2024-05-13.