Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Mental Vomit: becoming aware of cycles (birth,death,rebirth)
tmottes
Veteran
I recently read the book Flatland, by Edwin A. Abbott (Here is the wiki, you can download the book for free from a number of sources at the bottom of the page). I would highly recommend it.
Anyway, it got me thinking a lot about my perception of dimensions. I wanted to try and perceive a fourth dimension. So, for a period of time I messed around with my perception of the 3rd dimension. I would close just one of my eyes and things would revert to two dimensions, then I would quickly open my closed eye and the third dimension would appear. This "space" would just pop out during this exercise. I would then open and close one eye very rapidly to see if I could pin down what this dimension is/was so that I could possibly translate it to understanding the 4th. This got me to thinking about something he said in the book. The two-dimensional square noted that although he could only move through two dimensions, he had an implied 3rd dimension that was subtly known to him. From his perspective he could move through depth (forward and backward) and width (left and right), and yet although he couldn't move or specifically point to a height dimension, he was subtly aware of it. From his perspective, without height, the world would be invisible but he could perceive things, so height must exist.
Back to our reality. If we extrapolate his findings to our world, it seems to suggest that although we operate in three dimensions, we can be subtly aware of fourth dimension. It seems to make the most sense if I posit that time is the fourth dimension. I am subtly aware of time, I perceive movement through this fourth dimension, but I don't explicitly "see" it. In fact, I would be willing to bet that even the two dimensional square from the story subtly perceives the fourth dimension of time as well. This seems to imply that everything could exist in all dimensions, whether there is awareness of them or not.
Why do I bring all this up? It started back when I read about the tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. For those of you not familiar, this is an alien race that can see things in four dimensions. For example if they saw an apple, they would see the see, the sapling, the tree, the blossom, the green apple, the ripe apple, the rotting apple, etc. At the time, I thought to myself how could it be possible to see something in four dimensions? When does one thing end, and another begin? I would literally have to see everything all at once to see an apple in the fourth dimension, since that apple was a culmination of quite literally everything up to that point (although it continues on after that too). I left this train of thought open ended for years, until I learned more about dependent origination. Then things started to fall into place.
Recently, this realization has been rearing its head more and more. I have begun to see everything (physical objects, thoughts, creatures ,etc) in my reality as a cyclical processes that interact with and consist of other cyclical processes (AKA fractals). Anywhere and at any magnification level I look in life, I can see a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Things on large scales cycle (even if it takes generations of humans to record it). Things on small scales cycle (even if it takes vipassana to realize it). To fully realize this, I must start with a cycle I am VERY familiar with: my breathing. As I practice becoming aware of the rising and falling of my breath, I am able to discern faster and faster cycles. In this way I am able "catch up" with time and see these cycles as I see the cycle of my breathing. To fully/unbiasedly perceive things in reference to time, is to realize their impermanence (as it is all the table at this point).
I will leave it here for now. Thoughts, comments, corrections are appreciated.
Anyway, it got me thinking a lot about my perception of dimensions. I wanted to try and perceive a fourth dimension. So, for a period of time I messed around with my perception of the 3rd dimension. I would close just one of my eyes and things would revert to two dimensions, then I would quickly open my closed eye and the third dimension would appear. This "space" would just pop out during this exercise. I would then open and close one eye very rapidly to see if I could pin down what this dimension is/was so that I could possibly translate it to understanding the 4th. This got me to thinking about something he said in the book. The two-dimensional square noted that although he could only move through two dimensions, he had an implied 3rd dimension that was subtly known to him. From his perspective he could move through depth (forward and backward) and width (left and right), and yet although he couldn't move or specifically point to a height dimension, he was subtly aware of it. From his perspective, without height, the world would be invisible but he could perceive things, so height must exist.
Back to our reality. If we extrapolate his findings to our world, it seems to suggest that although we operate in three dimensions, we can be subtly aware of fourth dimension. It seems to make the most sense if I posit that time is the fourth dimension. I am subtly aware of time, I perceive movement through this fourth dimension, but I don't explicitly "see" it. In fact, I would be willing to bet that even the two dimensional square from the story subtly perceives the fourth dimension of time as well. This seems to imply that everything could exist in all dimensions, whether there is awareness of them or not.
Why do I bring all this up? It started back when I read about the tralfamadorians from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. For those of you not familiar, this is an alien race that can see things in four dimensions. For example if they saw an apple, they would see the see, the sapling, the tree, the blossom, the green apple, the ripe apple, the rotting apple, etc. At the time, I thought to myself how could it be possible to see something in four dimensions? When does one thing end, and another begin? I would literally have to see everything all at once to see an apple in the fourth dimension, since that apple was a culmination of quite literally everything up to that point (although it continues on after that too). I left this train of thought open ended for years, until I learned more about dependent origination. Then things started to fall into place.
Recently, this realization has been rearing its head more and more. I have begun to see everything (physical objects, thoughts, creatures ,etc) in my reality as a cyclical processes that interact with and consist of other cyclical processes (AKA fractals). Anywhere and at any magnification level I look in life, I can see a cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Things on large scales cycle (even if it takes generations of humans to record it). Things on small scales cycle (even if it takes vipassana to realize it). To fully realize this, I must start with a cycle I am VERY familiar with: my breathing. As I practice becoming aware of the rising and falling of my breath, I am able to discern faster and faster cycles. In this way I am able "catch up" with time and see these cycles as I see the cycle of my breathing. To fully/unbiasedly perceive things in reference to time, is to realize their impermanence (as it is all the table at this point).
I will leave it here for now. Thoughts, comments, corrections are appreciated.
0
Comments
Here it is