buddha nature
just woke up from a nap, with more thoughts about that crazy psilocybin dextromethorphan trip i had the other night. seems my brain is still trying to process it on some level, and just maybe, there was more to it than just writhing around on the floor consumed by anxiety ridden delusions.
i was thinking a lot about times in my past, seeing it as versions of myself that were long gone. dead and buried. i felt an intense sort of loss, when these visions of past experiences came to me so vividly, knowing i would never be that person again. that there was never any way to hold onto the person that i am, that it's like a constant cycle of death and rebirth, until you get old an die in a more literal sense - but maybe that sort of death isn't really so different than the death we experience over the years, losing our lives to the constant tides of time. past lives, the lives we lived before we came to wherever we are now. the now that will be gone before we know it.
and all that craziness about wanting to evolve, i wonder, was i thinking about the sort of enlightenment buddhists talk about, escaping the cycles of samsara, the everchurning wheel of life? not to escape into death, but into ascending out of the whole mess, somehow. like the four noble truths, except it's that third one i doubt in particular - that there's ever really a way out of it. i tend to think this is just life, that the only way to deal is to try not to think about it.
but, as i've been saying, especially when in mad hatter mode, not thinking about it isn't a real way to deal with anything. so, this suggests that deep down, i may be wracked with the sort of anxiety that surfaced when i got so high. i just try not to face it, my head as thoroughly buried in the sand as i've managed to get it. maybe i do need to figure out another approach. and maybe that sense of urgency wasn't about figuring it out before i came down, but even more scary, before i reach the end of my life. sometimes all of life feels like a sort of crazy trip, and that would be the worst comedown of all.
i don't know what to make of these parallels, if it's just some deep-seated influence from reading about buddhism, or my own realizations coming into line with aspects of it i've never quite gotten, but there's another parallel. what seemed to be the craziest aspect of my delusion, in this light, suddenly holding another sort of meaning. that this wasn't just about me, but about saving everyone. how ridiculously grandiose, and yet...
that is what they say enlightenment is really about - that fundamental to rising above samsara is not the desire to save oneself, for that sense of self is illusory, as are the selfish cravings that go with it - but an innate impulse of sorts to save all living things. it's also said that it's not really so grandiose at all, for it's really what's known as 'buddha nature,' something which is supposedly innate to all of us, and it's all about realizing it.
whatever the hell that means.
i was thinking a lot about times in my past, seeing it as versions of myself that were long gone. dead and buried. i felt an intense sort of loss, when these visions of past experiences came to me so vividly, knowing i would never be that person again. that there was never any way to hold onto the person that i am, that it's like a constant cycle of death and rebirth, until you get old an die in a more literal sense - but maybe that sort of death isn't really so different than the death we experience over the years, losing our lives to the constant tides of time. past lives, the lives we lived before we came to wherever we are now. the now that will be gone before we know it.
and all that craziness about wanting to evolve, i wonder, was i thinking about the sort of enlightenment buddhists talk about, escaping the cycles of samsara, the everchurning wheel of life? not to escape into death, but into ascending out of the whole mess, somehow. like the four noble truths, except it's that third one i doubt in particular - that there's ever really a way out of it. i tend to think this is just life, that the only way to deal is to try not to think about it.
but, as i've been saying, especially when in mad hatter mode, not thinking about it isn't a real way to deal with anything. so, this suggests that deep down, i may be wracked with the sort of anxiety that surfaced when i got so high. i just try not to face it, my head as thoroughly buried in the sand as i've managed to get it. maybe i do need to figure out another approach. and maybe that sense of urgency wasn't about figuring it out before i came down, but even more scary, before i reach the end of my life. sometimes all of life feels like a sort of crazy trip, and that would be the worst comedown of all.
i don't know what to make of these parallels, if it's just some deep-seated influence from reading about buddhism, or my own realizations coming into line with aspects of it i've never quite gotten, but there's another parallel. what seemed to be the craziest aspect of my delusion, in this light, suddenly holding another sort of meaning. that this wasn't just about me, but about saving everyone. how ridiculously grandiose, and yet...
that is what they say enlightenment is really about - that fundamental to rising above samsara is not the desire to save oneself, for that sense of self is illusory, as are the selfish cravings that go with it - but an innate impulse of sorts to save all living things. it's also said that it's not really so grandiose at all, for it's really what's known as 'buddha nature,' something which is supposedly innate to all of us, and it's all about realizing it.
whatever the hell that means.