FTHR DIZZY CRSS CLOUD

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We cannot ignore this life, especially the painful, embarrassing, and frustrating parts of it. But through practice, we can transform these experiences into fuel for awakening—and not an awakening somewhere else beyond the rough edges of modern human life—but right here in the middle of it.

River Shannon, “My Foxy Body”

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The present is all we have

 

My friend’s death gives a very strong message that every one of us, without exception, is subject to the phenomenon of eventually leaving this world. In fact, there’s nothing depressing about it.

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It’s good that things come and go. Otherwise there wouldn’t be room left for everything new, and it would be terrible for all of us.

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Quantum mechanics suggests that particles can be in a state of superposition - in two states at the same time - until a measurement take place. Only then does the wavefunction describing the particle collapses into one of the two states. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the collapse of the wave function takes place when a conscious observer is involved. But according to Roger Penrose, it’s the other way around. Instead of consciousness causing the collapse, Penrose suggested that wavefunctions collapse spontaneously and in the process give rise to consciousness. Despite the strangeness of this hypothesis, recent experimental results suggest that such a process takes place within microtubules in the brain. This could mean that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, arising first in primitive bio-structures, in individual neurons, cascading upwards to networks of neurons, argues Roger Penrose collaborator Stuart Hameroff.  

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The future has no order in how it will come and the past is already past. In terms of how our future passing will come about, it often comes with no signals.

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Consciousness defines our existence. It is, in a sense, all we really have, all we really are,

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Just a few days ago I read in the news about a husband who grieved that his wife, the mother of four children, passed away in her sleep. He actually saw her last breath.

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Consciousness is, some say, all-encompassing, comprising reality itself, the material world a mere illusion. Others say consciousness is the illusion, without any real sense of phenomenal experience, or conscious control. According to this view we are, as TH Huxley bleakly said, ‘merely helpless spectators, along for the ride’. Then, there are those who see the brain as a computer. Brain functions have historically been compared to contemporary information technologies, from the ancient Greek idea of memory as a ‘seal ring’ in wax, to telegraph switching circuits, holograms and computers. Neuroscientists, philosophers, and artificial intelligence (AI) proponents liken the brain to a complex computer of simple algorithmic neurons, connected by variable strength synapses. These processes may be suitable for non-conscious ‘auto-pilot’ functions, but can’t account for consciousness.

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Finally there are those who take consciousness as fundamental, as connected somehow to the fine scale structure and physics of the universe. This includes, for example Roger Penrose’s view that consciousness is linked to the Objective Reduction process - the ‘collapse of the quantum wavefunction’ – an activity on the edge between quantum and classical realms. Some see such connections to fundamental physics as spiritual, as a connection to others, and to the universe, others see it as proof that consciousness is a fundamental feature of reality, one that developed long before life itself.

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Death could come this way. And it’s not just something that happens “out there.” That’s usually what we think. “Oh, this happened. Ok. That’s for them, not for me. Not for me. Not now.” But that’s not how things work.

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Penrose turned the conscious observer around. Instead of consciousness causing collapse, wavefunctions collapsed spontaneously, causing a moment – a ‘quantum – of consciousness.

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So we need to be very practical and very clear about this—that death could come at any time, and that this is not something depressing or stressful. Rather, one should rise up to this fact

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Consciousness was somewhat like music in the structure of spacetime.   

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The fact that death is yet to come is a sign that you are still living, and how you live is in your own hands. Let’s commit to living "Dharma-fully," "Buddha-fully," in a genuine human way.

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