Reclusland

These systems of ideas are all just myths.  That’s all they are.  They are ways of aligning information so as to move through reality in a more complete manner.  When you get to higher level maps, the systems of aligning information with which you are playing are those that exist for whole societies.

But what must be kept foremost in mind is that all these things spring out of the void.  If you take any system as your foundation, instead of void, then you leave no room for growth and change.  You are always dependent on that system, and that grasping creates dukkha.

Void is primary, all else springs from void.  All dharmas are forms of emptiness.  The entire physical universe is the dharma.  Without seeing the root of everything as “void”, you allow yourself no way of uniting “self” and “other”, no way to realize “thou art that…”

We are all trying to create a system of thought that gets us in touch with our true nature as quickly as possible.  That’s all this is, with each of us as the first test subject of our own systems.  What we have to remember is that the system we create is NOT our self, and that it can (and should) always be able to be changed.  And we must rely on our gut instincts for this.  They are closer to the void than we could ever be.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have shown that the human brain—once thought to be a seriously flawed decision maker—is actually hard-wired to allow us to make the best decisions possible with the information we are given.

According to a team led by Professor Gerard Hodgkinson of the Centre for Organisational Strategy, Learning and Change at Leeds University Business School, intuition is the result of the way our brains store, process and retrieve information on a subconscious level and so is a real psychological phenomenon which needs further study to help us harness its potential.

In five separate studies, the researchers found that better judgments can often be made without deliberation. In the first study, participants rated Chinese ideograms for attractiveness. In a following study, participants were asked to judge paintings that were widely considered high- or low-quality. Subsequent groups of participants rated jellybeans and apartments. In all the studies, some participants were encouraged to deliberate and others to go with their gut. (I deeply dislike the conclusions they draw from this last one.  Let’s take it from them and use it for truth.)

(the good stuff is from about 6:30 to the end)

Case 38:
Goso said, “A bull goes out his pen’s gate. The head, the horns & four legs pass through. Why doesn’t the tail too?”

No gate.  No pen.  So never any bull at all.