ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 11

Matrix - 3

Now I’ll dwell on what it means that some complex systems must be broken from within to achieve a more advanced state -- especially when it comes to the development of consciousness and hence, understanding. I’ll also look at what viewing these problems through the lens of Zen can offer us, and why adopting this Zen perspective really means something revolutionary.

Creative destruction

The idea that some complex systems must be broken from within to reach a higher level of advancement isn’t new. I asked ChatGPT and DeepSeek what they knew about it, and here’s their list:

1. Hegelian Dialectics (Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis)
In this sense, the old system is “destroyed” or transcended to reach a more advanced state.

2. Creative Destruction (Schumpeterian Economics)
Joseph Schumpeter argued that capitalism advances through “creative destruction”, where outdated industries and systems collapse to make way for innovation.

3. Revolutionary Theory (Marxism, Anarchism, etc.)
Revolutionary ideologies often argue that stagnant or oppressive systems (feudalism, capitalism, and so on) can’t be reformed and must be overthrown from within by the exploited classes. The collapse of the old order is seen as necessary for a more just one to emerge.

4. Systems Theory & Complexity Science
Some theorists say breakdowns (financial crises, ecosystem collapses, etc.) are necessary for systems to reorganise at a higher level of complexity.

5. Mythological & Psychological Perspectives (Phoenix, Nietzsche, Jung)
The phoenix myth symbolises rebirth through destruction. Nietzsche’s idea of “eternal recurrence” and Jung’s “individuation” also involve breaking down old structures (ego, social norms) to reach higher consciousness or authenticity

One simple principle for how consciousness develops

What interests me most is that this is exactly how consciousness develops. To reach a higher level of consciousness -- deeper self-awareness, wider perception, greater clarity of mind -- it can only happen from within. It's always got to be your own effort, although you can be inspired by someone else's example, of course. (Otherwise we could just use hypnosis to get the best results, but it doesn’t work like that.*)

It's easy to see why this is so: becauise the very nature of understanding -- it's something one can only achieve on one's own. Everything we call “development of consciousness” is simply another name for understanding. And as we’ve already seen, understanding can sometimes be a form of destruction from within.

This is also how psychoanalysis works: you don’t need to create a new, more advanced self -- it's already there potentially. All you need to do is remove the roadblocks in your way.

It’s now becoming common awareness that this simple principle lies at the heart of personal growth. As brain coach Jim Kwik put it: “When an egg is broken from the outside, life ends. When an egg is broken from within, life begins. Great things always begin from the inside.”

Dynamic systems

Actually, we can get some intuitive idea of why destruction can sometimes bring such surprising results if we think in terms of dynamic systems: as potentialities -- some might call them energy, or even chaos -- turning into actualities.

This transformation can be imagined as a flow of potentialities that’s guided, shaped, and constrained by an attractor. I call such attractors Matrices** -- they’re like straitjackets, restricting potentialities and turning them into actualities. (This image may at least show why it’s so important to implement reforms in a timely manner if you don't want to trigger a revolution.)

And for some unknown reason, when these potentialities, by their own natural pressure, disrupt or even destroy their confines from within, the system evolves to a higher level of complexity.

What does Zen have to offer?

This is where Zen can give us some insight. The idea of potentialities transforming into actualities is how the Zen mind perspectives the world: when time flows for you from the future to the past. In other words, in this state of mind, you experience a reversed arrow of time, which particularly means that your present state is determined not by past states, but by the future -- that's how one can become free from one's karma, one's past in other words.

There are two theories that are, on the one hand, closely related and, on the other, study completely different phenomena: Chaos Theory and Complexity Theory. The former looks at cases like the butterfly effect, where small changes can have huge impacts on a system and plunge it into chaos. The latter focuses on situations where order spontaneously emerges from chaos.

We can say these are two perspectives from two different arrows of time. The oppositely directed one suggests the existence of anti-entropy, so that when potentialities destroy their attractor from within, a new one -- a new Matrix -- emerges spontaneously, forming an even more complex structure for the same reason that in the quantum world, the formation of new hierarchies means an increase in entropy.

Of course, this is speculation. But, firstly, I completely agree that speculations and guesses should always be tested empirically -- so that the two arrows of time can match in their wholeness. And secondly, you can only really understand how something works when you look at it from the right perspective. But this new perspective -- this new model or theory -- can't be worked out empirically in principle.

A unique perspective

And Zen offers us a unique perspective -- one of an entirely unentangled, free entity -- the perspective from the oppositely directed arrow of time. Only from here can you really understand how the mind works (and the Universe in general).

Seeing the world from this perspective -- or being in this state of mind -- lets you:
Firstly, anticipate the future -- what I call Zen intuition.
Secondly, grasp a situation or subject as a whole, and this is what understanding actually is -- if you really understand something, you can do it -- so let's define understanding this way.
And thirdly, derive a general rule based on just a few clues -- one of the few areas where humans are certain to keep an advantage over AI. In fact, this ability is intrinsic to the process of thinking.

How do we actually think?

The majority simply don't realise how they think. They believe that thinking is their internal dialogue. But in fact, when they start to reflect on some matter, they're just saying to themselves what they already know, or let's say potentially know -- in other words, what they've already managed to grasp as a whole, to understand  -- and this potential knowledge is a real mystery.

Note: when we talk to ourselves, we drain ourselves. And to re-charge, we need to interrupt our train of thoughts -- by sleeping, doing zazen, concentrating on reality etc -- that's when the real magic happens.

Also note that in this case you reach the next level of understanding as if without needing to destroy your prejudices and complexes, but simply by quietly getting around them -- sometimes it works this way.

To summarise what understanding is

So, let's summarise what we can learn about understanding from Zen perspective.

Understanding, as we've defined it, is the ability to perceive things as a whole. But you can experience it in slightly different ways.

You can experience it as a result of destruction of your previous delusions, the Matrices, that restrict you.You experience the result of this destruction as Nothingness -- I've no idea what it means in physical sense -- and as your true self and pure understanding. I'd say you feel that Nothingness is the ultimate negation or denial of everything. What Zen calls kensho is exactly this kind of experience -- when you suddenly feel like a bomb is about to go off in your tanden. This experience could be quite profound so that you may conclude that if there is anything that can be considered as God or Truth, it's the process of destruction on Matrices (from within).

Sometimes you can reach the next level of understanding without needing to destroy your delusions, but simply by getting around them. And then from there, from the standpoint of your new more advanced self, you can look at your previous delusions (and maybe destroy them).

But in either case, to destroy your delusions, you must already have outgrown them -- that is, already potentially be at that higher level.

And when you're like a wave-function, unentangled and not restricted by anything, you can experience understanding as pure negation -- that is, you deny really and by this you understand it. Negation in this sense is another word for true self -- it's like Nothingness, but usually not that deep.

The conclusion that begs

If we want to get anywhere close to understanding how the Universe -- and the mind in particular -- actually works, we've got to consider a phenomenon that has remained elusive to scientific methods so far. This is because it may be empirically undetectable in principle: the reverse arrow of time. And Zen -- the correct version of Zen, mind you -- is precisely the practice of viewing the world from the perspective of this time's arrow.

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* In fact, any external influence or suggestion can only bring a person to the level of average tribal thinking. Suggestion is, by its very nature, a tribal thing -- religion is a prime example of this.

** For example, in this view, the personal unconscious is a personal Matrix for each individual, while the collective unconscious and collective knowledge might be something like Rupert Sheldrake's morphogenetic fields: a Matrix that's one for many:

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 10

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS – 10

Matrix – 2

I suspect that the process of understanding, in all its forms, works by breaking down established concepts and ideas. I call the set of all such concepts in all their forms Matrix. Put simply: understanding is the process of destroying Matrix from within. In this post, I’ll try to show you why I think it works this way.

In my previous post, we saw how this works in relation to the personal unconscious (in Jungian terms); but if this is truly a general pattern, it must also apply to the collective unconscious and, as I call it, the collective knowledge or experience.

The Collective Knowledge

By the collective knowledge or collective experience, I mean all the knowledge and experience passed down from generation to generation through teaching and learning.* In a social context, the term Matrix is used in exactly this sense: as a complex network of social rules, norms, traditions (including language), and structures that hold society together -- a framework within which individuals and groups interact and function.

So, when I claim that every time we have a lightbulb moment we destroy our established concepts and ideas, it actually means we somehow destroy our previous knowledge -- even the rules of maths and the laws of physics as we understand them.

How can this work? Understanding is indeed akin to destruction, as it is essentially a process of compressing information so that, instead of a multitude of facts, you perceive only a few fundamental rules. Good students know that understanding spares you from memorising too much. As Einstein put it: education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.

In essence, by discovering new facts and rules empirically, you multiply their number; by generalising, you reduce it.** Think of Matrix as boundaries; when you break them, you expand your Possible, pushing those boundaries further.

Of course, not every destruction of Matrix leads to such a result: it should be destroyed from within -- what I mean by this I’ll explain later. I don’t believe that consciously imagining the destruction of known concepts and ideas is a feasible way of generating new ones, but I have tried a simple experiment: I concentrate on -- say, a tissue (paper handkerchief) -- trying to feel the texture of its fabric, and then tear this impression, this feeling, apart.

And indeed, sometimes it leads to suddenly jumping to another level: either feeling the texture more deeply, imagining what it’s like even at the molecular level; or more broadly, comprehending all its connections to the rest of the world.

I’m not sure this trick will work for everyone -- sometimes I find myself thinking that I’ve lost track of how the “normal mind” works. The thing is, my Zen practice has completely changed how I come up with new ideas, specifically the nature of my moments of insight. If being creative once meant diving into past experiences and associations, now new ideas seem to emerge from the future, as if from nowhere -- and sometimes the easiest way to get there is to destroy my own default view.

The Collective Unconscious

According to Jung, the collective unconscious is a universal, inherited part of the psyche shared by all humans. It contains archetypes: primordial images and patterns that serve as blueprints for human thoughts, emotions and behaviour, and express themselves through symbols. Jung, by the way, called archetypes a matrix of our species.

At first glance, the collective knowledge and the collective unconscious are different things. The former is consciously learned and shared by people, while the latter is innate. But upon closer inspection, it turns out they were once the same thing. Indeed, the collective knowledge isn’t exclusive to humans -- it extends to other species as well. For example, a lion must be taught how to hunt. In this regard, zoo lions can’t be considered fully fledged -- they miss out on the learned behaviour part.

At some early evolutionary stage, Mother Nature decided that instead of overloading DNA, it would be easier to pass new information down through teaching and learning -- as life evolved, there was such a shift. Animals rely on both: their instincts -- their collective unconscious -- and their collective knowledge, in the same way as humans do, although not to the same extent.

Thus, if the collective unconscious and collective knowledge are so closely related -- like two sides of the same coin -- we can also expect them to behave in the same way when interacting with the conscious mind. With the collective unconscious, we see the same pattern as with collective knowledge: bringing symbols (the content of the former) into the conscious mind leads to their actual destruction -- it deprives the symbols of their emotional charge and energy, making them powerless, so they no longer affect you. This, in turn, leads to a better and deeper understanding of reality.

The process of the development of consciousness -- in both senses: as the general evolution of consciousness across different species, and in the case of personal development -- is essentially a process of desymbolisation. I’ve forgotten who said that Zen is a way of desymbolising the world.

In 2011, there was a discussion on NPR’s blog 13.7: Cosmos and Culture, and one of the contributors (she was a biologist, if I’m not wrong) began to ponder how symbolic language had evolved in humans. Her idea was that it had emerged only in humans and then grown increasingly sophisticated. I couldn’t help showing how clever I was -- there was a forum at the time where everyone could leave comments -- and I pointed out that it had most likely been the other way around: symbolic language was the first way in which living beings began to perceive the world. Otherwise, a primitive being wouldn’t have known what around them was edible and what was dangerous.***

And then, as the brain evolved, symbolic language evolved towards its own disappearance. Indeed, what we see in humans is that the more primitive, archaic the mind is, the more symbolic it is -- that’s why we say the development of consciousness is the process of desymbolisation.

I’d say this evolution is akin to a pixelated picture appearing on a screen: at first, the pixels are visible, making the image blocky and fuzzy -- like symbols at a very primitive stage -- but as they evolve and become finer, the picture becomes smoother.

Conclusion

To sum up, the collective unconscious and collective knowledge make up what I call Matrix. It determines how humans understand and interact with the world, and I suspect that, in a physical sense, it is made of pure quantum entanglements. It’s very similar to Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphogenetic fields, which proposes that patterns of behaviour, memory, and form are not confined to individual brains but are part of a shared, non-local field that can influence organisms across time and space. According to this idea, once something is learned or happens in one place, it becomes easier for the same to occur elsewhere, as if information is stored in a collective field rather than just in the brain.

Though not widely accepted in mainstream science, the theory has been used to explore phenomena like intuition, telepathy, and the sudden spread of ideas that seem to arise before any direct communication.

However, don’t make the mistake, as some do, of endowing Matrix with creative power. In all its forms, it is lifeless and of the past, and it is the individual who breathes life into it by destroying it from within. Only at this level does real magic happen.

It is only the individual perspective that really matters because, paradoxically, there is no other objective one in the entire Universe. Therefore, we must also add the personal unconscious -- while the former two may be shared by many, this Matrix is only yours. The three of them together make up what you’re destined to deal with.

To be continued.
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* I even thought about calling it a collective consciousness, by analogy with Jung's collective unconscious.

** Indeed, the evolution of human understanding of the world seems to follow a pattern: first, you realise there are relatively simple rules that govern the Universe, so you can collapse its diversity into fewer, simpler models, making it much easier to deal with. Then facts start to accumulate that don't fit this theory, so you have to work out what lies behind these independent facts. You go from some clues to a new theory. It comes from the Possible, from the future, from nowhere -- not the past, playing with old ideas. The old theory, or theories, don't disappear, but becomes a special case of the new one.

*** In this regard, the design of slot machines is quite talented: the designer drew inspiration from very archaic levels of the psyche, reducing the perception of reality to just a few scrolling symbols -- cherries, lemons, bars, etc. Also, symbols extracted by artists can be even more attractive than the real objects they represent. For example, anime girls are still very sexy even when they're depicted as half-cyborgs. The symbol itself actually has very little to do with real women, but they feel how they should look to be sexy and try to fit in. The same way, I suspect artificial fishing baits can be more attractive to fish than their real food.

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 9

Matrix - 1

As a Zen practitioner, I discovered an astounding fact that I've been trying to explain to myself ever since. Freeing yourself from your mental problems doesn't work the way Freud and other pillars of psychoanalysis think it does; in fact, it works in the exact opposite way. You break the bonds, and this gives you the understanding of what's been hidden behind them. Not the other way round, as psychoanalysis claims.

Let me remind you that, according to psychoanalysis, you're supposed to bring your fears and complexes from the unconscious into the conscious mind, more precisely, to recall what initially triggered and gave life to these issues, so that you realise what's been hidden behind them. In theory, this should dissolve the associations -- or ties, or bonds, as I prefer to call them -- that have caused the neurotic reactions. (And let me also remind you that complexes are just clusters of emotionally charged associations.) Sounds plausible.

But I found that it works exactly the opposite way: you mentally destroy, for example, your idea of a person you wish to work out what is hidden behind their exterior and why they make you feel uneasy, and this leads to the understanding of their true intentions and why they've evoked this feeling within you. Since our ideas, internal representations of objects are just clusters of associations, or bonds, one can put it this way: severing bonds is the cause of the understanding of what's been behind them. (I prefer to think of states of mind in terms of being either unentangled or entangled in the quantum sense, that is, as free or bound by bonds.)

Mind you, this is not far from what psychoanalysis itself claims: destroy the roadblocks, and your new self will unfold naturally -- it already potentially exists. The only difference is that psychoanalysts don't dare to assume that new knowledge can arise as if out of nowhere. I suspect they simply don't understand why their methods actually work sometimes.*

The Technique

The technique in question is simple at first glance, but I can't recommend it to everyone. You must already be a more or less advanced Zen practitioner; to perform it correctly, you must be impartial, i.e., unentangled. In a nutshell: if you want to know what a person hides behind their exterior, their hidden intentions,** or why they evoke certain feelings within you, you need to imagine this person as a woman (regardless of whether they're a man or a woman), that is, imagine the female part of their personality and then tear this image apart. (I suppose I'll need to write a separate post explaining why I'm not a misogynist, and I'll also explain further why it must always be only your idea of a person that you destroy, not the real person.) By destroying it, you'll realise what's been hidden behind their exterior and even what Nothingness is.

(Actually, to understand reality, sometimes it's enough to simply deny it -- that's why the practice of zazen as complete denial is so important -- but if you already have bonds with the object of your interest, you'll need to break them.)

By 'the female part of the personality' I mean that part which tends to merge (i.e., to become entangled), to gain something; in other words, the pure form of what we usually mean by the ego. I don't know why, but I usually get the best results by imagining it as a woman -- hence the terminology.

At the same time, you yourself must remain impartial, that is, unentangled. Impartiality in this situation is the result of you either trying to remain independent (unentangled), or trying to break the bonds that have already been formed -- you're not proving to yourself that your ego is stronger, but simply studying what this person really is from the point of view that we humbly called the perspective from the centre of the Universe. Also, bear in mind that this technique won't work if applied to your loved ones due to the force of merging that you need to overcome.

This way, you can explore your unconscious further in much the same way as psychoanalysis does. In one of the following posts, I'll describe this technique in more detail: there's a simple rule that can help anyone get rid of their mental problems easily.

Moreover, this isn't the whole story. I then began to suspect that this is how understanding works in general: by destroying established concepts and ideas. We just usually don't notice it.

This is one of the reasons I brought quantum mechanics into this blog: I reckon that what I've found can't be explained without assuming that Possibles are real in the sense that they don't simply exist in our minds. Fundamentally, through Zen practice you realise that the Universe works not as we usually think.

So, what do we destroy every time we have a light bulb moment? Can you say it in one word?

To be continued.

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*I suppose the historical reason for that is Freud's early adherence to determinism, which was a trap for him; indeed, if neuroses are attractors that channel energy and thoughts in a certain way, then you'll achieve nothing by simply following the flow of cause-and-effect interactions. You have to break the very vicious circle to change things.

**Or perhaps the intentions they aren't even aware of themselves: their Shadow, in Jungian terms.

For Me, This is One of the Most Useful Koans

To be a Zen practitioner, or as some say, to be on a transformative journey of self-discovery and self-understanding, you need a compass because it's very easy to stray from the right path. There are lots of controversial ideas around; and sometimes you yourself will come up with some guesses as to how the psyche and the Universe work, which could turn out to be mistaken. But there's a koan, I call it a koan, that can immediately dispel the bulk of all delusions and ensure that, despite all possible doubts, you'll generally stay on the right path. Here it is: ALL AUTHORITY COMES FROM WITHIN.

Indeed, your main enemy is the superego, which is responsible for most suffering. If it isn't properly integrated into your psyche, it will produce a conflict between the individual and the collective, creating the impression, or illustration, that there is some sort of superpower above you.

It's often said that through Zen practice we tame the ego, but in more specific Freudian terms, it's the superego that we should focus on, since it's the main source of all delusions and causes us the greatest problems that we are destined to solve (these problems usually reveal themselves as some forms of mental disorder).

To be precise, during practice, we first of all try to tame the id in order to be able to put the superego in its place. Without the later, you'll never understand who you really are and achieve enlightenment; and this koan is, in fact, about the superego.

This makes the correct practice of Zen even more radical than atheism: atheism simply states the fact that there is no such thing as God, while Zen emphasises that the very idea of any authority outside of you is the main obstacle to truth, freedom, and enlightenment -- in other words, to realising WHO YOU REALLY ARE (I write this in capital letters because this is a koan too).

Some of you might have thought, when reading my posts, such as those on Zen intuition, that this was something akin to religious practice; but in fact, it's exactly the opposite. The correct Zen practice can be rather described as anti-religious: it comes from within and denies any authority from outside. I'm aware there were attempts to merge Zen with christianity, but this was the most foolish thing that a real Zen practitioner could imagine, since it's impossible to reconcile these two.

So, check yourself: ALL AUTHORITY COMES FROM WITHIN.

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 8

In my last post, I mentioned hierarchies but didn't mention that in the quantum world, the formation of hierarchies as a result of entanglement is actually an increase in entropy.

Also, since I brought up a problem there and even called it 'the main problem,' some may say that I should've pointed out the solution. I'll return to this topic again, of course, but my readers already know that I see my walking zazen method as the solution. The thing is, while practising just sitting zazen, you can stray from the right path very easily, but if you learn how to do zazen correctly while moving, everything becomes obvious

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS -- 7

THE NATURE OF THE POSSIBLE. WHAT QUANTUM MECHANICS CAN GAIN FROM ZEN?

So, we've found that the goal of correct Zen practice is to become unentangled, like a wave function, because in this state, you're free from your past (your karma), you have a choice (free will), and you have an anticipation of the future (intuition), which in particular gives you an insight into what you should do in the long run to maintain this state of mind. In other words, this is a way of realising your potential or, as some call it, your true self. Indeed, as it's known, to realise your true self, you don't need to invent anything: it already exists, and all you should do is just eliminate the roadblocks.

In other words, I'm sure Possibles are real in a sense they don't exist simply in our minds. And although I said that only unentangled individuals can fully enjoy the benefits of being truly independent, just as entangled particles can retain some of their wave functions' properties, we can still think in terms of Possibles even when considering partially entangled entities like organisations, companies, or groups of people bound by common goals and beliefs.

Consider Google and Apple in their early stages: surely they had a lot of very lucrative offers to merge with bigger companies. Were Google and Apple being irrational in turning them down? Everyone can see what they would've lost in the long run.

In this post, I'm going to explore the NATURE of the Possible, and I'll start doing this (since no-one's invented anything better) in a very subjective way: by exploiting how we can FEEL it. Since our individual potentials/true selves are part of it, this should be quite a valid approach. And then, I'll look into what our findings could actually imply.

So, how can one feel their true self? IF ONE'S DOING ZAZEN CORRECTLY, they feel it as denial, or negation. I don't know what this means in terms of physics, but I suspect this is where quantum mechanics can gain insight from Zen.

THE MAIN PROBLEM

Remember, I started this series of posts* -- Zen from the Perspective of Quantum Mechanics -- so you could better understand what correct Zen practice should be, because there are at least two different ways of performing zazen among Zen practitioners. Sometimes you can trace this division as the difference between Rinzai and Soto Zen. As a result, they achieve two different states of mind, but no one seems to care, but for me, this is the most crucial question Zen must answer today.

In a nutshell, if you, for example, compare how Katsuki Sekida describes zazen in his Zen Training with how most Zen practitioners do it, you'll find two different techniques.

Here's how Katsuki Sekida describes it:
'However, if you really attain this state you will find it to be a remarkable thing. At the extremity of having denied all and having nothing left to deny, we reach a state in which absolute silence and stillness reign, bathed in a pure, serene light' (Ch.1).

Moreover, according to him, this denial (or tension in the tanden as one perceives it) is the source of mental power which allows us to control wandering thoughts (Ch.3). As you can see, even the technique of stopping thoughts differs from what the majority of Zen and mindfulness practitioners use. For them, there's no trace of denial in their zazen practice; it's more about merging with everything. Here's how Shunryu Suzuki describes it in his Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: 'We say "inner world" or "outer world," but actually there is just one whole world. In this limitless world, our throat is like a swinging door. The air comes in and goes out like someone passing through a swinging door.' (PART I: RIGH T PRACTICE: Breathing 29)

I'll delve into this more in future posts; for now, let's summarise.

On the one hand, we have absolute denial, which means getting unentangled with the environment. With practice, this approach gives you the UNDERSTANDING of what's going on, the situation, which for some may look like a real mystery. So we can say that denial is the correct way of perceiving reality. In this case, everything falls into place: denial is just another term for detachment, or non-attachment, creating no gap between your sitting zazen practice and everyday life, which becomes just a natural extension of the former.

On the other hand, as the majority of Zen and mindfulness practitioners perform zazen, we actually have merging with everything. I suspect that at the core of this sort of practice is the wrong idea of non-duality; while the real experience of non-duality is the result of absolute denial pushed to its limit, not merging. Consequently, there's a loose connection between their zazen practice and what they experience in their everyday lives, especially if they usually do something that engages mainly the rational left hemisphere. They often come out with wisdom like 'we're all interconnected,' which isn't a great deal to spot and experience. For me, to realise that you're free -- and how this can be possible! -- is much more of an achievement.

In other words, we can identify two sorts of energies: denial (negation) and merging. Keep in mind, denial isn't aggression but something opposite to merging: it's the force that nudges us to break free and set boundaries.

HIERARCHY

Say you run your own business, then decide it's more lucrative to work for a company you previously competed against. How do your relationships with former rivals, now colleagues, change? A team inside a company generally works as one unit, not as competitors -- at least that's how it's presumed to be. Indeed, your relationships change in some real sense, and I'm sure it can even be described by Game Theory. You're not supposed to deny them anymore; it's a form of merging.

Since an individual is a more complex entity than a particle, entanglement for you may mean something more complex. For example, there may be different rules for different players -- some may be allowed to deny, while others aren't -- that's how hierarchies emerge. Hierarchies can be seen as merging on unequal terms, where some use the energy, i.e, potentials, of others. You should know what you lose when you start working on someone else: they use your potential for their own project. The good news is that you don't even need to invent your own one: simply trying to remain unentangled can be your personal project.

Then one might ask: is being unentangled a greater achievement than being at the top of a hierarchy? The answer is yes, because only when unentangled can you act as your true self requires and fully realise your potential. One might also wonder if such individuals are destined to remain alone forever. The answer is no. They can unite on an equal, non-hierarchical basis. Relationships based on denial -- have you ever heard of a civilisation like this?

I'm currently editing that series of posts I've called ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS. It dawned on me that I hadn't made it clear why I started writing it in the first place, so here's how it begins now:What can a Zen practioner gain from Quantum Mechanics? Quite a lot, I think, because it can help you get a grasp of how the mind works and therefore better understand what the correct Zen practice should be, which to me is perhaps the most important question Zen needs to answer nowadays since there're at least two different ways of doing zazen among Zen practioners; as a result, they achieve two different states of mind, but no one seems to care. Now you can see why I called this series of posts ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS, not vice versa, although my own interpretation of Quantum Mechanics -- QM from my perspective -- comes first of course. In a word, I've found a perspective from which, in my view, (almost) everything falls into place and from which it's easy for me to explain what I mean.

HE THINGS THAT THE FUTURE BELONGS TO ZEN AND EXPLAINS WHY

Mechanized minds: AI's hidden impact on human thought - Big Think
https://bigthink.com/thinking/the-mechanized-mind-ais-hidden-impact-on-human-thought/

Wow, a wonderful technique

I'd never been interested in Stoicism, but I recently came across this:

If you're fond of a jug, say, 'This is a jug that I'm fond of,' an then, if it gets broken, you won't be upset. If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that it is a human being that you're kissing; and then, if one of them should die, you won't be upsetting.
                                   Epictetus

And it seems to work even when it comes to kissing yourself. 

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 6

ONE THING I WANT TO WARN YOU ABOUT


I now dwell on our entanglement with environment and what it takes to be unentangled; and for that I start with the most banal kind of it: our entanglement with material things. In fact, very often it's the main obstacle to enlightenment since for many material things are not only the main source of their self-worth but even part of their identity. (In this regard, the walking meditation described in this blog* can really help: when you move the earth with your legs, everything on it comes and goes except you.)

Then the question you have to answer is this: how can you make sure that your possessions will always remain just a tool, not an emotional entity?

To answer this, we have a new perspective: the idea that freedom means being unentangled. It's not an abstraction; it's your practice and way of living; it's freedom from and freedom to at the same time. You may not even realise how unusual this perspective is for the majority (at least these days, people in either the East or the West simply can't afford the luxury of having such a lifestyle). Exploring it, you enter uncharted territory so don't be surprised if you find something that defies common sense and would never occur to a 'normal' person. For example, does wealth always make us free? (Note that once we start to analyse our relationship with wealth, it's not only about things but also people since wealth is a social phenomenon.)


One of the reasons why I bring up this topic is because I want to worn you that if you make decisions based on Zen intuition as I describe it,** you'll wind up in a wonderful but unstable state (the state is really wonderful: I'm almost 60, but I still feel free and happy like a teenager skipping school).


As far as I'm concerned, following this path, I did quite well in an unstable and even chaotic environment -- in Bulgaria in the 1990s -- at least much better than the majority that would stick to their permanent jobs; for them, it was a disaster. There was absolutely no security, but on the flipside, there were a lot of opportunities. I was pretty good at spotting and taking advantage of opportunities but bad at the next stage that many believe busyness is abot: creating a permanent state of codependency with clients -- a sort of symbiosis -- creating bonds, in a world. The former and the later are of absolutely different nature and require completely different skills. And then when I came to Europe (Bulgaria wasn't in the EU at the time), I found a completely different environment: that they'd traded opportunities for security and didn't realise that the former is always at the expense of the later.


And perhaps one of the most surprising things I've discovered is the fact that if you think of freedom as being unentangled, then wealth makes you free only to a certain point, but then the richer you get, the more you get entangled with others if only because you need to protect your possessions -- it's up to you to prove me wrong -- although investing money into realising your ideas can be a solution, of course.

In this view, it's okay to be a hunter and go hunting every day, but for some reason it always tends to end up in some stable state of codependency. Psychologists even say that codependency is a sign of maturity, but I doubt that 'maturity' is the right term here. (I once read a Zen master describing his teaching experience; he says that enlightenment is hardest to achieve for emotional women and psychologists -- perhaps because they can't imagine what it's like to be unentangled.) Stuart Kauffman, I already mentioned him,*** in his At Home In the Universe: the Search for the Laws of Self- Organisation and Completely claims that complex systems, including living organisms, naturally tend to evolve to thrive right on the edge of chaos -- the ordered state is too rigid, the chaotic, well, too chaotic -- one must add if they're independent players of course.

.

And of course the question arises: can such unentangled individuals unite together to cary out projects, especially long-term ones, to defend themselves, to cooperate in a word? I bet they can, which for many may be quite revolutionary: Freud, for instance, believed that the only force that could unite us into society was Eros; I mean his division of human instincts into Eros and Thanatos is wrong. Because there're indeed two tendencies, but they're: a tendency to merge and a tendency to detach. Once you start thinking in these terms, everything falls into place.

To be continued

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* https://0zen1.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-main-trick-walking-zazen_22.html
** https://0zen1.blogspot.com/search/label/intuition
*** https://0zen1.blogspot.com/2024/06/zen-from-perspective-of-quantum.html

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 5

Free Will - 2

So, I see free will as the ability to make choices that aren't determined by past events. I reckon it's real, and I explained how it works in my previous post. However, there's no way for me to prove that I'm right. The reason I can't prove it is that being in this state of mind -- where time flows from the future to the past, i.e., seeing the world from the perspective of the centre of the Universe* -- is inherently a subjective experience since you're on your own in this state.

Now, recall Waugh's model:** there are two distinct frames of reference/viewpoints: the centre of the Universe viewpoint and the viewpoint of humans from an awkward position in the Universe. Relativity reflects our viewpoint, while quantum mechanics reflects Nature's viewpoint from the centre of the Universe. The Universe, and time in particular, is perceived differently from each viewpoint, and it's precisely this difference that allows the reconciliation between general relativity and quantum mechanics.

I'm not sure if his model is correct, but I do agree that there are two perspectives: from one, time flows from the past to the future; from the other, when you're the centre of the Universe, it flows from the future to the past, and it's precisely this duality which makes free will possible.

So, I can also add, the reason I can't prove that it's sometimes possible to make decisions undetermined by the past -- actually, it's an even more general problem, for example, many feel that Determinism is wrong, but they just can't prove it -- is because general relativity doesn't emerge from quantum mechanics. Instead, they both emerge from something more fundamental (it sounds strange that we're considering the emergence of Possibilities, which, by definition, exist in the future). The Crystallizing Block Universe theory*** makes this clearer: there are two realms that overlap in the present.

In other words, there are things in the Universe which, by definition, cannot be proven empirically and will always remain part of our individual subjective experiences and, as a result, beliefs. I think it's no coincidence that many physicists today are interested in Buddhism and Zen in particular.

To be continued.

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*The Walking Zen - Zen without a Teacher: ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 1
https://0zen1.blogspot.com/2024/06/zen-from-perspective-of-quantum.html

**RRCAT Physicist claims that physics and cosmology are both in crisis because of writing model of universe
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rrcat-physicist-claims-physics-cosmology-033021388.html

***What is time? An astronomer explains the search to find its origin
https://www.astronomy.com/science/what-is-time-an-astronomer-explains-the-search-to-find-its-origins/

***The Crystallising Universe
https://plus.maths.org/content/crystallising-universe

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 4

 Free Will - 1

As is known, determinism leaves no room for free will since, in a completely deterministic world, only one outcome is possible. However, some reckon, including myself, that free will can emerge from the nature of the quantum world. Yet, trying to explain free will by probabilistic outcomes of wave function collapse may not be the solution if only because these outcomes are always random, and we can't control or influence them. In the long term, we can't claim responsibility for our actions in either case: whether our decisions are completely predetermined or a matter of random quantum chance.

Instead, let's remember that wave functions exist in the realm of Possible* -- you already know which interpretations of quantum mechanics I adhere to** -- which means that their present state is not determined by the past. Possibles exist in the future and from there, affect the present -- this is what I mean by the oppositely directed arrow of time in this blog.*** As I read in one forum, 'We humans live embedded in the constraints of space and time, but wave functions don't.'

When you are in a state like a wave function (unentangled or, in other words, independent), you're free from your past (your karma) and guided by your intuition (an anticipation of the future), which tells you what you should do in the long run to maintain this state of mind. There's nothing mystical about it; it's simply a natural result of being independent -- what I call Zen intuition.****

Then the choice you face is always a binary one: whether to remain independent and enjoy the benefits of being like a wave function, such as continuing to be able to make a choice, or to merge with something and become part of it.

To make it clear, if, for example, you start to ponder what is the best thing to trade your independence for, then it's no longer a matter of free will since you've already made your choice. Free will is relevant to those who are unentangled, and from their perspective, the choice is always between merging and not merging. The only exception might be if you are entangled and decide to break those bonds.

On top of that, some physicists believe that entanglement could be the reason for the existence of the arrow of time. What, then, does it mean to be unentangled? In any case, in this state, you're absolutely free and independent to such an extent that you're on your own.

To be continued.

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*A Hypothesis: Res Potentia and Res Extensa Linked By Merriment
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2011/01/03/132607500/an-hypothesis-res-potentia-and-res-extensa-linked-by-measurement

*Is The Possible Ontologically Real?
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/09/144899020/is-the-possible-ontologically-real

** The Walking Zen - Zen without a Teacher: ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 1
https://0zen1.blogspot.com/2024/06/zen-from-perspective-of-quantum.html

*** https://0zen1.blogspot.com/search/label/time

**** The Walking Zen - Zen without a Teacher: intuition
https://0zen1.blogspot.com/search/label/intuition

To be continued 

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 3

As mentioned, there are two perspectives from which you can see the world. From one, the reference point is outside of you, and you're on the periphery. From the other, the reference point is you, and you are the centre of the Universe.

So, what happens during zazen, for example, when you lose the centre and a thought comes into your mind? You become entangled, in a quantum sense, with someone or something. This process always drains your energy, and you may even feel as if you've lost something. A manipulator can make you doubt your plans and ambitions, causing the sensation that a part of you has been taken away. In reality, you've lost nothing but only gained, and all you have to do is cut off these new bonds to become disentangled, i.e. independent, again -- this is a well-known Zen wisdom, and now you can see why it works.

What I'm suggesting is that a part of your potential has transformed into these new bonds. These are the same bonds responsible for Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance'; the process is quite reversible, with no loss of information in this case.

To be continued.

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 2

So, what happens when you've finally become unentangled (during zazen, for example, if you're doing it correctly, of course)? Firstly, you begin to feel that you're the centre of the Universe. That is, it's no longer you moving along the road, but the road moving relative to you.* # (Actually, it's the correct perception of really indeed since physicists claim that the geometry of the Universe is a such that 'every point in space, every observer can be lay equal claim to being at the very centre themselves.')

Once you reach this state, you can be fully aware of your body and the external world at the same time, and you start to be able to intuitively grasp reality instantly as a whole.

Secondly, you begin to feel that time flows from the future to the past** -- that's how time flows when you're the centre, the reference point. It's the same as the previous point, but now it's about your perception of time: it's not you're moving from the past to the future, but the future is moving towards you. Indeed, we always say that the future turns into the past, not the other way around.

I reckon this means that in this state, your present is determined by the future, not the past, so you have a choice (I'll dwell on free will in some upcoming posts). At this point, you begin to anticipate the future -- this is what I call Zen intuition -- but surprisingly, it's all about how you have to act in the long run to maintain this state of mind.

Some may say that all we see is the past, but it actually isn't. It takes for the brain about 0.1 seconds to process visual information, so to correct our perception, the brain models the future and anticipates what's going to happen. Otherwise, if we, for instance, walked at a speed of 1 metre per second, the error, the lag, would be 0.1 metres.

What I've learnt from my Zen practice is that there're two perspectives. From one perspective, as the majority see the world, you're part of something -- a group, tribe, etc -- it's a realm of hierarchy; you share opinions and ideologies with others; your present is entirely determined by the past; you explore the world empirically.

From the other perspective, you're the centre; you're alone: the whole universe is just you. You perceive it instantly as a whole, and in this way you understand it; you see and evaluate the world from your own standpoint; you're free: your present is not determined by the past, so you have a choice.

To be continued.


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* https://0zen1.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-main-trick-walking-zazen_22.html

** https://0zen1.blogspot.com/search/label/time

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 1

ZEN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF QUANTUM MECHANICS - 1

What can a Zen practitioner gain from quantum mechanics? Quite a lot, I think, because it can help you get a grasp of how the mind works and therefore better understand what the correct Zen practice should be. To me, this is perhaps the most important question Zen needs to answer now since currently, there are at least two different ways of doing zazen among Zen practitioners --  sometimes you can trace this division as the difference between Rinzai and Soto Zen -- as a result, they achieve two different states of mind, but no one seems to care.

Now you can see why I called this series 'Zen from the Perspective of Quantum Mechanics,' not the other way around, although my own interpretation of quantum mechanics — QM from my perspective -- comes first, of course. In a nutshell, I've found a perspective from which, in my view, (almost) everything falls into place, and from which it's easy for me to explain what I mean.

Quantum mechanics has a reputation for being 'strange' or 'weird,' but is it really? I reckon the reason why some find it 'strange' is because they've got hold of the wrong idea of time.

Let me make it clear: I'm by no means a physicist, but through my Zen practice, I've started to suspect that consciousness has a quantum nature and that Einstein's idea of time (that the world is predetermined; now is just an illusion, and there's no place for free will) is wrong.

So, what makes quantum mechanics 'weird'? Several things:

1. Wave-Particle Duality:

Particles exhibit both particle-like and wave-like properties. For example, in the double-slit experiment, we send a single photon through two thin slits in a plate, and the photon behaves not like a single particle but a cloud of probabilities  -- a fuzzy cloud of all possible states in which it exists simultaneously -- so this cloud goes through both slits at the same time (by the way, that part of the cloud that hit the partition between the two slits bounces back) and then interferes with itself like a wave (a single photon marks a dot at the detector screen behind the plate, as expected, but if we continue doing this for many photons, we can see an interference pattern built up from individual dots -- just as waves interfere in water, canceling out where a crest meets a trough).

This cloud of all possible states is called the wave function of the photon; i.e., a wave function describes the probability distribution of finding a particle in various states. So you can say that it's the wave function of the photon is going simultaneously through the slits.

2. Quantum Superposition:

Quantum particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously. A particle in a superposition state doesn't have a specific position, energy, or any other physical property until it' measured. Schrödinger's cat thought experiment illustrates how bizarre this would be in our macroscopic world. (Otherwise, if quantum mechanics applied to a cat, it would be described as a "wave function' in a superposition of 'alive' and 'dead.")

3. Uncertainty Principle: It's impossible to know both the exact position and momentum of a particle simultaneously. The more precisely you measure one, the less precise the other becomes.

4. Quantum Entanglement:

Particles can be entangled, meaning the state of one particle instantly influences the state of another regardless of the distance separating them -- Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance'. Thus, when you measure something about one particle in an entangled pair, you immediately know something about the other particle—you can deduce its quantum state. (Funny enough, we can find something like this in folklore: she keeps his knife while he is away, and when the knife suddenly rusts, she knows something has happened to him.)

5. Quantum State Collapse:

When a particle in quantum state is measured (i.e., when it becomes entangled with the external world, the measurement equipment, for example), its wave function collapses from a superposition of states (sum of states) into a single state. As mentioned, entangled particles can retain some wave function's properties -- like Einstein's spooky action at a distance  -- but when a particle undergoes a more complex entanglement with its environment, its wave function collapses to a single possibility. This is why quantum phenomena are absent in our macroscopic world: under normal circumstances, a quantum system would undergo rapid entanglement with many other particles that make up the environment. 

So, what's wrong with Einstein's idea of time?

Quantum mechanics will seem strange to you if you stick to Einstein's idea of time -- Block Universe: the Universe is predetermined from the very beginning, and there's no difference between the past, the president and the future; all three of them simultaneously coexist (and it’s just the peculiarities of your consciousness that allow you to experience only the present moment).

I'm sure you've heard of the many-worlds interpretation; it's really weird, but it's just an attempt to reconcile indeterminacy of quantum mechanics with Einstein's deterministic idea of time -- all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in some Universe.

Meanwhile, there are other ideas of time:

In 2011, there was a discussion on NPR's blog 13.7: Cosmos And Culture, and Stuart Kauffman came up with some interesting ideas*: 'reality consists of two Realms, the Possible and the Actual linked by quantum measurement 'process': The quantum world lies in the Possible, the classical world, in Actual; 'measurement' in his view is becoming.

Thus, Possibles are ontologically real (another way of saying real), and at the same time they don't obey Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle: 'A' or 'Not A' -- and there's nothing in the middle or 'A' and 'Not A' either. So in the double slit experiment 'the photon possibly does pass through the left slit and simultaneously possibly does not pass through the left slit; AND phone does pass through the right slit and simultaneously does not pass through the right slit.'

It's quite apparent that Kauffman rejects Einstein's idea of time although without mentioning this  -- he seems to share the same view as George Ellis and Tony Rothmam (see below). For him, the Possible refers to the future, and the Actual, to the past. 

The Crystallising Block Universe** 

George Ellis and Tony Rothman came up with interesting new ideas that restore the view that 'now' is special and free will exists. They called it the Crystallising Block Universe: the future of the current moment is a cloud of probabilities and is determined by the laws of quantum mechanics; the past, is fixed and stored as a set of information resembling a hologram, and what we call the present is the boundary between these two regiments, where the indeterminacy of the future is crystallising into the certainty of the past. 

Thus, instead of the (may be infinite) divergence of the many-world interpretation, we have a convergence of all possible states into a single frozen state. Note also that, in this case, time flows from the future to the past: the Possible turns into the Actual.

Waugh's model***

Waugh's model implies the existence of two different frames of reference/viewpoints: the centre of the Universe viewpoint and the viewpoint of humans from an awkward position in the Universe. Relativity is our viewpoint, while quantum mechanics is nature's viewpoint from the centre of the Universe. The Universe, and time in particular, is perceived differently from each viewpoint, and it's precisely this that allows the reconciliation between general relativity and quantum mechanics. From the centre of the Universe viewpoint, simultaneity is absolute, and there's indeed absolute universal time (as demanded by quantum mechanics) because the time passed since the Big Bang is simply a function of the radius of the Universe. From our viewpoint, locality is absolute, i.e., the velocity c is the upper limit and remains constant for every observer.

Now I'll give you an idea of what I'm going to explore in the following posts. It's quite apparent to me that human relationships are of the same nature as quantum entanglement, but to notice this simple fact one must be unentangled. And it's exactly from this perspective, being like a wave function, that you start to understand the true meaning of non-attachment, freedom, and, therefore, what the correct Zen practice should be.

Living beings tend to manipulate each other, establishing hierarchies — sexual intercourse, for example, is just a type of manipulation —and all this happens at a very archaic level. What we call telepathy, at least at an emotional level, does exist. Some people are quite aware of this; others, not so much — perhaps because they're too much entangled, whereas the phenomenon in question is, I guess, a type of entanglement. 

To be continued.

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*A Hypothesis: Res Potentia and Res Extensa Linked By Merriment
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2011/01/03/132607500/an-hypothesis 

Is the Possible Ontologically Real? 
https://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2012/01/09/144899020/is-the-possible-ontologically-real

**What is time? An astronomer explains the search to find its origin: https://www.astronomy.com/science/what-is-time-an-astronomer-explains-the-search-to-find-its-origins/
** The Crystallising Universe https://plus.maths.org/content/crystallising-universe
*** RRCAT physicist claims that physics and cosmology are both in crisis because of the writing model of the universe. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rrcat-physicist-claims-physics-cosmology-033021388.html

 

SOME OF THE THOUGHTS THAT CAME TO ME WHILE READING FREUD'S CIVILIZATION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

It is surprising that Freud failed to recognize that apart from the tendency to merge, Eros, there is a tendency to separate, which would make the matter much easy to understand.

Have you ever found your practice being boring?

Don't think that haven't written anything in my blog recently because I've run out of topics and ideas - not at all. The matter is that I'm going to make some changes in my life, and I won't write anything serious until things got sorted (hopefully it won't take long). Even so, one exception I'll probably make: I want to comment on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents.

All the same, for now, to keep the ball rolling and to cheer you up I'm going to give you practical advice. Have you ever found your practice being boring: that sometimes it was boring for you to concentrate on the present? I bet you have, and that was because you did it wrong. If you practise correctly (ie as I recommend 😉👍), you'll never get bored, even when you're staring at a wall!

The trick is that focusing on something, you have to anticipate the future. It's this anticipation that makes your practice interesting, intriguing, and spiritual. Spiritual, because eventually you start to feel that there's some hidden mystery behind all this you're watching that you must solve.

An interesting book I found. Of course, you cannot call an enlightened one who tries to walk through walls, to bend metal with their minds, or to kill an animal just by staring at it (by the way, martial arts masters love to make an impression - this is part of their tactics - so you shouldn’t easily take for granted everything they say).
But on the other hand, with the right state of mind, and there's an understanding that it means concentration, you can really achieve a lot: Everything regarding reading people's intentions; the ability to act and make decisions alone, which, in other words, means the ability of each ordinary member to be not only a tactician but also a strategist; and, most interestingly, the ability to coordinate with others without contacting with them - all this, I'm quite certai, is quite achievable. In a word, I have some ideas on this topic, but unfortunately, now I'm in the process of moving to another location, and I don't have much time for the blog.

Now I would just like to point out that if you set such ambitious goals as described in First Earth Battalion Manual, you have to be consistent, and so first of all to ask yourself: 'What are the main obstacles that stand in this way?' It's no accident at all that in the Pentagon in the way of these ideas stood a devoted christian. You should also be very careful when dealing with love; it can serve as a perfect tool to demoralize the enemy, but it as well can return to you like a boomerang.

About One Feature of Our Time

Have you ever noticed that journalists and bloggers tend to post their content on certain days? Indeed, there're days favorable for publication on certain topics, and there're days that are not, and astrology has nothing to do with this. It's the media every day affect and change the public mood so journalists just catch the moment when the mood of their potential readers is most favorable for accepting their ideas, which in turn enhances the effect in question further.

Buddhism actually claims that the present moment is the only thing that really exists - what would Einstein say? - that is, it's not just a property of our consciousness that we can experience only it. Past and future exist in some coded form, but three-dimensional space, as we know it, exists only one moment in present. Perhaps this is the easiest way to understand what is like to be a Buddhist: every moment we come from nowhere and go nowhere like real ghosts.