Transpersonal psychology envisions a radical shift in awareness for our generation. Perhaps the greatest contribution Buddhism has to offer our lives is one that physics is also arguing: As human beings, we are much more like flickering flames than like slabs of meat. And since it’s Hallow’s Eve, I thought it the perfect time to address and contest our ordinary, meaty view.
People: the objective, materialistic lens of science has distorted your self-perception. As researchers splice, dice, and cut open human bodies for study, we’ve come to paint a picture of ourselves as splicable, dicable, and only material too. In our culture, we view human bodies as hunks of meat, and live in fear of being butchered by our violent world, even while our subjective experience is telling us something radically different.
I am here to say that there is a more accurate, and even more scientifically accurate, vision of the human being, of your human life. Physics, which stands at the core of science, has actually proven that human beings are made of trillions of tiny atomic particles, each buzzing, “flickering” in and out of existence millions of times each second. As opposed to a steak dinner, your body is literally more like a play of lights, a dance of flames, a spacious mirage. Staying consistent with this blog’s theme, your body is as transient and ephemeral as dream.
This might sound bad on the surface, but I promise you this vision is not just truer to your experience, but helps make it more real. The apparent solidity of your hand, for example, is in actuality about 99.99% empty space. The vast distances between each atomic particle are connected only by an energetic field. So instead of a hunk of meat, you become a field of energy.
As such, transpersonal psychology begs the question: What if we thought of ourselves more like an energy field than a hunk of meat? How might that shift our self-identity and experience of the world?
As it turns out, this perspective facilitates a radical increase in aliveness, awareness, and lucidity. Shifting our self-identity from a spatially-conceived, appetite-based sense of self, to a temporally-conceived, breath-based sense of self brings us more fully into the present moment. After all, the present moment is the only moment there ever is. And by honestly acknowledging this transience, our transience, we feel more inspired, not less inspired, to live for today.
Suddenly, we’re not hunks of meat fearful of our doomed and bloody ending. Our lived perception is instead transformed and returned to these two eyes, from this one breath, in this one moment. Moving, dancing, flickering, evolving and unfolding, lucidly, in the present-tense now, and now, and…
So here’s a question: What would you rather be? A hunk of meat? Or a dance of energy?
Happy Halloween.
2 Comments
December 13, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Thanks for this post. Reminds me of the transcendent art of Alex Gray. Flickering, indeed.
December 16, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Your welcome. I’m a fan of Grey’s work as well. I subscribed to your newsletter and am enjoying this first copy (and your blog for that matter)–looking forward to more!