“This beauty—and all the other beauty I’ve appreciated more deeply as a result of meditative practice—is something I don’t really understand. I mean, if meditation can give you a kind of distance from your feelings and lessen their hold on you, shouldn’t it in principle do that equally for good and bad feelings? Shouldn’t you wind up feeling more or less neutral—which is to say, feeling more or less nothing? Yet the way it seems to work is that some feelings actually get accentuated—first and foremost the sensation of beauty.”
Why Buddhism is True, Robert Wright, pg. 265
Life is beautiful, the very perception, the very act of seeing, is tremendous. It is incredible.
Perception, being in a vehicle, that is the body, for an experience of perceiving the world is beautiful.
The key is understanding and deeply internalizing the absurdity of it all. There is no ego, there is nothing to get attached to, but yet you are given a mechanism of perceiving the world.
However your perceptions are utilized, they show you something that you otherwise would not obtain. This is the greatest gift of them all. The ability to perceive is the greatest, most tremendous thing ever.
One afternoon in the middle of a train ride from Kyoto to Okayama in Japan, I wandered onto the local train. This was the same train that would transport and allow for the commute of working men, women, and school children. At around the 2nd hour of being on the train, the scenery noticeably changed from the city to the peaceful serenity of the Japanese countryside. Coming onboard then were the average commuting citizens. There no longer being tourists simply coming aboard to find the nearest attractions. As I saw schoolchildren wander in, presumably with school ending and going back home, I noticed how the flow of them coming in and coming out felt like seeing life with my very eyes pass by. Time as a construct, location as a construct, and everything seemed to dissolve. What was left was the pure awareness of the moment.
In moments like these, the visceral feeling is indescribably powerful. You are no longer sentenced by the crud, cloud, and mental fog that a clouded society puts upon an individual. You are away from the familiar, away from the illusions, and away from the structure. And in those moments when you are free, you are able to see the world in pure beauty, pure consciousness, and full attention. In these moments, the feeling is surreal, the very sky, the very train, the very sounds of the train, the sounds of the countryside, the sights of the farmlands, the sight of the children and their uniform, the melancholy driven goodbyes of children saying goodbye to their friend. Everything becomes surreal and simply an object deserving of a lifetime of awe. The sheer experience of being completely humbled to the point where you acknowledge your own existence as a mere observer is incredibly powerful.
To realize there is no self, and that any attempt of building an ego is fruitless. And to realize instead that you are only an observer; an observer of a beautiful, striking world, presents one with an incredible experience. This is an experience that I cannot find anyone else sympathizing with. In my travels I know of nobody who could talk about a similar experience of pure awe at the world. Instead tourists, travelers, and even locals are all focused on their immediate problems. To me it seems like they are not seeing the obvious; that they are not seeing the beauty of the world. As they are trapped in their own neverending worries and narrow vision, they are incapable of seeing how beautiful of a world we live in. As I talk to them, they seem to be distracted, to not be present, and to be worried about things that only seem irrational. For me, seeing these people, seeing them live in that way brings me great pain; it makes me feel sad for the world and wishful that there could be betterment.
I recount the story of a friend. In our encounters, I would always be confused by her demeanor—she seemed to always be frantic, anxious, and always worried about something. With knowledge of her recent traumatic experiences, I knew there could be a potential effect from that. But her struggles and issues seemed more profound than what that experience warranted. It confused me deeply why she would act like that, but I didn’t know better at that time. Looking back at it, I see the problem. I see that the suffering was a product of delusion, an inability to see one’s own emotions, life, and perspective from a clarified position. As I recount my memories of time with her, I grow somber, sad, and sympathetic. As we no longer remain in contact, I know I don’t have much I can do to help her, but yet her condition reveals a reality of the world that permeates my emotional dialogue at all times.
The first lesson of the meaning of life is presence, mindfulness, and giving the current moment everything.
Perception is the most important thing in the human condition.
In the non-deluded view, everything is empty, yet that does not entail nihilism but rather emits a deep awe of life. The world is absurd. Nothing has an inherent essence. But yet that is why seeing by itself, perceiving by itself is so beautiful. The very questions of “where did this all come from? What happens after death? Why am I alive?” No longer need answering. The ability to perceive emptiness, a world of perception is in itself beautiful.
It is important to understand and internalize this idea of emptiness before we can move on to explaining why mindfulness is important. I will argue that the very idea of perceiving is the most precious thing for the human condition. If this is so, then being mindful of the perception is also the most important thing. After all, why would we not be attentive to the most precious thing for the human condition?
This means we have to be mindful at all times. This extends to everything we do. Eating, talking, walking, showering, etc. There is some leeway in some things, like talking to someone else while eating makes you not mindful of eating. However the general premise is you want to give your attention to life. If you are not giving your attention to life, then you are not being mindful.
You also must be mindful of your body because this is the vehicle that allows you to perceive. If again the most important and special thing about human life is the very act of perceiving, then you must take care of how you even have the ability to perceive. Take care of everything health orientated, and be mindful about it. Sleep, eat, exercise.
It is important now to go over the argument of emptiness and what is the point of life. The common argument is that if everything is empty, devoid of essence, what is the point of living? The same emptiness argued in Buddhism often gets misconceived for nihilism, but the reality is far off. In a world devoid of essence, the very act of perception is incredible. It doesn’t matter that there is no essence, there is no solid answer to what everything is, or what the point of perceiving it is in the first place. None of these questions matter anymore. These questions only matter because we tried to prove permanence with the delusion of the self. This is critically important to understand. Without the delusion of the self there is no reason whatsoever to question what the point of absurdness is, what the point of emptiness is. Instead, just perceiving is adequate. Everything is perfect as is, and being an observer of perfection is tremendous.
This is why I will keep on reiterating this theme of perception being incredible. There is no questioning in anything, everything is accepted, and everything is beautiful.
In this state of observing, we must become mindful of our physical make-up. We must not deny our animal bodies and minds. In clarity, we accept that we are an animal, the same plane as every other animal. We must take great heed to respecting and worshipping this body. There are certain things that it likes and certain things that it doesn’t. This can be split into two arbitrary categories: physical and mental.
Physically speaking, we must obey our bodies from what they physically want. Keeping it healthy, exercising, good hygiene, etc. Mentally speaking we want to keep ourselves in positive mental states conducive for good mental health. As we start mentioning the vague, undefined terminology of “good,” it becomes important to operationalize what “good” means.
I argued that there is no inherent in anything. So then where is this “good” coming from? Our bodies, somehow, have made up a scheme of what is good and what is not. For example, eating food is good, not eating food is bad. Pooping when you feel like pooping is good, not pooping is bad. In more complex examples, socializing and being around people is good, not socializing and being isolated is bad. Having a sense of purpose is good, not having a sense of purpose is bad. Morals can also apply to this framework—our bodies know that doing compassionate acts towards people is good, stealing is bad, and other ethical ideas. In all the examples of inherent “goodness” from what our bodies are telling us, these are the things we must listen to in order to live what I will argue as the “perfect life,” which will be explained more later. However the problem with all deluded humans is that delusion will prevent them from being in touch with their bodies’ most fundamental, and deepest understandings. An easy example of this is the delusion of greed will cause us to grasp and desire money even if it means putting our bodies at great strain and risking our own death. In many other aspects, we are deluded from being in touch with what we know to be right, and this deviation and ignorance of our bodies deepest yearnings will also add suffering in a misaligned life.
It becomes critical then to practice mindfulness of the body. It becomes critical to see past the delusions of the self and see the authentic desires of the body. If one can accomplish this, one can live a “perfect life.”
All other constituents of a perfect life will revolve around this one idea—being mindful of what your body wants. Therefore, it becomes critical to internalize this lesson first.
Meditating is a good way to practice this. I would recommend Buddhist samatha and vipassanā meditations. The basic idea is calming your mind so you can identify and separate the delusions between what your body really wants. You should be very mindful of what your body is asking.
The Perfect Life
What is your idea of a perfect life?
Let’s redefine perfect—it is not heaven.
It is not getting everything you want.
It is not satisfying all your desires constantly.
The perfect life is following your body’s calls/desires. Releasing the self, and being humble to your body. Almost surrendering to your body in some way. This is acknowledging our bodies know best, they know what is best for us. If we can live according to the body, we can live a perfect life.
The perfect life has nothing to do with the environment around us. So long as we listen to what we know we should be doing, there is no non-perfect environment.