Understanding the Way – ACEVS
I wrote about it before. I remember the term "Way" for quite a while,
the articles about "Way" are mystical and vague.
Introduction#
The character "引" suddenly struck me as resembling the posture of a left-handed person drawing a bow, specifically a compound bow. I glanced at the image, and the direction of the compound bow was incorrect.
Starting from the practice of mindfulness.
About ten years ago, I began studying the Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra.
Later, I attended a lecture by Nan Huai-Chin and started learning to meditate.
Initially, I thought meditation required sitting with five hearts facing up,
but Nan Huai-Chin mentioned that there are many sitting postures for meditation; just find one that you can sit in comfortably and start.
There’s no need to deliberately pursue the standard lotus position, commonly known as cross-legged sitting.
After practicing for a while, there was some kind of exam,
and I practiced the crane pose while reviewing.
As a result, I failed the subject that took the most time.
I passed the other subjects.
Once, on a train, I encountered a couple with a child,
in a sleeper compartment, chatting about everything under the sun.
Just before sleeping, his wife began to meditate, right on the lower bunk,
I initially didn’t want to disturb her,
but I was curious about how long she could maintain it and what the effects were.
She had been practicing for five or six years, which helped her manage her emotions,
and her sleep quality improved significantly; she felt it was beneficial, so she persisted.
She said it just takes a little time, no medication or injections, simple and easy to do.
For a while, I wanted to resume meditating,
but I was putting the cart before the horse, trying to fish for a tree.
I thought I should first get a meditation cushion, then get a set of traditional practice clothes, and I already had incense burners and other items.
I felt it was expensive and, more importantly, I felt I didn’t have the time.
Thus, my meditation practice was interrupted.
Meditation#
Meditation is very similar to sitting. There are many methods.
Note
Meditation methods include concentration meditation, open meditation, and movement meditation, etc. Here are introductions to these methods:
- Concentration Meditation
- Breath Meditation: Breath meditation is the most common form of meditation, requiring individuals to focus on their breathing process. By observing each inhalation and exhalation, it helps reduce distractions and achieve inner peace[^4^]. This method is suitable for beginners as it is simple and does not require any special tools or environment.
- Object Meditation: Object meditation typically involves focusing on a specific object, such as the flame of a candle or a mandala pattern. This type of meditation helps improve concentration and can guide practitioners into a deeper state of relaxation[^1^].
- Chanting Meditation: Chanting meditation is a method that helps focus the mind by repeating specific words or phrases (called mantras). These words can be any vocabulary with positive meanings, or even simple syllables like "one," "two," etc.[^1^].
- Open Meditation
- Mindfulness Meditation: Mindfulness meditation emphasizes experiencing each moment as it is, without judgment, whether good or bad. It encourages individuals to accept all feelings, emotions, and happenings around them, rather than trying to change them[^1^][^3^]. This method is very suitable for coping with stress and challenges in daily life.
- Movement Meditation: Movement meditation refers to maintaining a high state of awareness during daily activities, such as walking, running, or even eating. The core is to concentrate all attention on the action currently being performed, allowing the mind to rest[^1^].
- Other Types of Meditation
- Body Scan: Body scan is a method of gradually focusing on the sensations of different body parts, starting from the top of the head down to the toes. This practice can help relax tense body parts and reduce stress[^1^].
- Visualization Meditation: Visualization meditation requires participants to imagine a scene or image that makes them feel comfortable and safe, depicting every detail of that scene as vividly as possible. This method is particularly effective for improving sleep quality[^1^].
There are many meditation methods, akin to creating a flow state, during activities like walking, running, or eating, where mechanical movements occur while the brain is in a silent state. The main focus is to control consciousness, concentrating on one sensation, such as breathing, cutting off other sensations, allowing your awareness to focus on a single issue without needing to solve it. Gradually, other issues are blocked out.
Whether sitting or meditating, it’s essentially about controlling consciousness or attention. Over time, one may experience a state of enlightenment.
Enlightenment#
I read some articles by enlightened individuals. I was deeply inspired.
Superficially, I thought enlightenment was that simple. Later, I will share reference articles from enlightened individuals.
There’s a term called "integration."
I associate it with integrated circuits; understanding one type of circuit, like an amplifier board, is like gathering small achievements, and understanding all circuits is like achieving great integration.
This diagram is quite crucial.
wheel of awareness
The Wheel of Awakening should be from a book.
In "Game of Thrones," many characters can see through the eyes of birds and view the world from various animal perspectives.
It reminds me of Zhuangzi's "Free and Easy Wandering," which was written nearly 196 years before Siddhartha Gautama.
Zhuangzi's Free and Easy Wandering might represent a perspective of imagination, with myriad momentum; he and Laozi are often referred to together as Lao-Zhuang.
Remember this perspective or lens shift.
If you utilize the illustration, you will find that attention is focused on the interconnectedness of all things.
Note
Zhuangzi's Free and Easy Wandering
In the Northern Sea, there is a fish called Kun. The Kun is so large that its size is unknown, thousands of miles; it transforms into a bird called Peng. The Peng's back is also unknown in size, thousands of miles; when it flies in anger, its wings are like clouds hanging from the sky. This bird, when the sea currents move, will migrate to the Southern Sea. The Southern Sea is the Heavenly Pool. "Qi Xie" refers to those who record the strange. The words of "Xie" say: "When the Peng migrates to the Southern Sea, the water strikes three thousand miles, soaring up to ninety thousand miles, leaving with the breath of June." Wild horses, dust, the life of beings is blown by breath. The sky is vast, is its true color wrong? Is it far and has no limit? Its view downwards is also like this. Moreover, if the accumulation of water is not thick, it cannot support a large boat. Pouring a cup of water on a flat table, it becomes a boat; placing a cup there makes it stick, the water is shallow, and the boat is large. If the accumulation of wind is not thick, it cannot support a large wing. Therefore, at ninety thousand miles, the wind is beneath it, and only then can it cultivate the wind; bearing the blue sky, and none can hinder it, only then can it aim for the south.
At that time, there was no VR virtual reality technology; Zhuangzi read many books and encountered many strange records.
I cannot assert that Zhuangzi did not experience the feeling of flying in the sky like a bird, as the sensitivity of brain waves varies; some people can indeed receive signals from other species and understand some, like dolphins.
Enlightenment as a Virtual Experience#
The ancients had the opportunity to experience it by reading extensively.
Or they might have experienced it, such as through diving, swimming, or other sports.
It’s the same today. Watching videos or playing VR games can also provide experiences.
However, this is still different from enlightenment.
Enlightenment is using one's consciousness, in a completely unaware state, to create a holographic immersive simulation of a world.
Just like PVE and other virtual machine systems, simulating various operating systems. Creating a virtual operating system to continue installing a virtual machine, isn’t it like a dream within a dream in "Inception"?
The perspective can be broad enough to overlook the entire universe or small enough to act like a red blood cell transporting oxygen, as seen in the anime "Cells at Work." It can also be smaller, down to particles.
The scale expands, and details become refined. It’s indescribable; one might feel a tingling sensation.
Reading extensively (mainly constructing a universe with imagination)
Or having many experiences through videos (various modeling software making things more intuitive) will gradually produce this feeling.
For example, when the water droplet attacks the Earth Alliance fleet in "The Three-Body Problem," the images you conjure up will definitely differ from others.
The creator, to make their video or image look more stunning and realistic, will input a lot of data for simulation; it’s not just randomly created. When you look at the details, you will also be amazed, just like seeing some carvings from a thousand years ago, complex and exquisite. Perhaps that was another person's life work, and you were fortunate enough to witness it.
Returning to the virtual machine, the interconnectedness of all things within the virtual machine is calculated through hardware like CPU, GPU, memory, etc., using binary 0101. The virtual interconnectedness within is expected.
The virtual machine in your mind operates on the same principle.
"Foundation" and "Hyperion" can be understood as the authors' virtual universes or worlds. They are all enlightened; their virtual worlds operate at high complexity, recording everything everyone says, their expressions, and demeanor. Each person's character is also virtually established. No need to elaborate too much. Reading extensively means visiting the virtual world more often.
Then, the distance between you and the virtual world becomes closer. Once you are familiar with the virtual world, it’s quite possible to set up your own server and run a virtual machine.
Think of your consciousness as a character; sometimes it’s a plankton, sometimes a star, sometimes a Kunpeng, sometimes just a dark matter space next to a black hole, sometimes nothing at all, not even air, not even transparent. Sometimes it’s quite complex; your hand is an empire, your foot is a city-state, or it could be an unnamed galaxy cluster, just like some describe the universe as a giant corpse beginning to decay and dismember. All the stars are moving away from us, further and further.
What enlightenment sees and understands is what you have known and the unknown.
Why is there a relationship between virtual experience and reality?
Everyone has moments of great enlightenment, seeing and understanding differently; most people might not care at all.
Geometry is a virtual creation. You still need to frequently calculate shadow areas.
The discovery of the benzene ring in a dream felt like divine assistance, hypothesizing without a microscope or any high-end instruments, and it was correct.
Newton saw an apple fall.
A frog dissection experiment discovered that the legs of a dead frog twitched. This led to the discovery of the basic principles of batteries and electric currents.
Understanding the Way requires research and contemplation, often leading to an obsession when one is puzzled and forgets to eat and sleep.
I thought of this phrase.
Therefore, when heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on a person, it must first temper their mind and will, labor their muscles and bones, starve their bodies, and expose them to poverty, disrupt their actions, so as to stimulate their hearts and sharpen their natures, and increase what they cannot do.
Whether enlightenment occurs or not is no longer important.
Controlling consciousness is indeed very important.
Writing a small essay is a small process of construction, turning the sand you know into a brick or a building block; you may not know what this peculiar or ugly brick can do, but it must be useful. The moment of enlightenment might just be a collision of a brick, which is not impossible.
References
mp.weixin.qq.com/s/NoHAsOyh8RtJaENkxyjAxg
Awakening 01 Trigger Wheel of Enlightenment