Vocabulary Reference on Bottom1
Last lecture we brought up the perfect life and how it is related to bodily desires, but we also brought in other terms like delusional desires and observers. In this lecture we will make sense of this framework.
Let’s build from the ground up: we are animals. Our closest relatives are the chimpanzees. Chimpanzees have what we defined as simple consciousness. They are only aware; they are not aware of being aware. Humans are 98-99% similar to chimpanzees. We are almost entirely similar except for a few things. One of which is minor, but has enormous effects—self-consciousness. We can assume somewhere along the line, humans shifted from simple consciousness to self-consciousness. From being simply aware to being aware of being aware.
Chimpanzees, animals, and every form of life down to a cell acts in an almost deterministic way—a neuron fires so that behavior emerges, these patterns of neurons emerge so the animal lunges away from a predator, and so forth. We will call these bodily desires, or desires that stem without conscious intervention.
Humans are the same. Certain things fire within our bodies and we will do such actions. The Libet experiment highlights this as the neurons for certain actions fire before we are conscious of it. An example of this is flinching when someone begins to slap us. This example is easy to understand because it can be seen as instinctual and reactive. However, I will take this argument further to say that we have bodily desires for every behavior we can exhibit.
Theoretically, the undefiled observer, or awareness of awareness without the illusion of the self should be very simple—we are only an un-intervening observer of our bodily desires. In this state, one recognizes that they can only be aware of bodily desires. They understand that everything is perfect as is, and they are incapable of changing their bodily desires.
It is somewhat analogous to someone watching a movie. Someone is only aware of the movie occurring. They do not know where the movie came from, why it’s there, but they know that it is playing, and that they can observe it. This observer cannot incite change upon the movie. The observer recognizes that the movie is perfect as is.
The undefiled observer is at peace because they are aware they cannot change their bodily desires. There is no desire to cling or to hope for a change to be satisfied. They recognize that everything is absurd and that is the beauty of it all. They still feel emotions, but they are not suffocated by them like undefiled observers are.
In this absurd world, everything is causally connected. Everything changes, therefore everything is impermanent. The continuity of the universe is determined by physics or something else we don’t understand. The continuity is on a mass scale and nothing, at least that we know of, can disrupt it. We will call this the universe stream, or the stream of the universe. Understanding the unwavering and unchangeable nature of the universe stream is critical to later understanding how delusional desires cause us suffering.
We have no reason to believe that life is not another continuation of this causal connectedness. Plants and animals are no less in the universe stream than rocks that collided into one another.
The baffling logical conclusion is that our lives and all our decisions must then also fall into the universe stream. Bodily desires are all continuations of the universe stream.
The undefiled observer understands the universe stream perfectly. This is because they acknowledge that they have no control over their bodily desires. The bodily does as it wants and they can only watch. Animals, too, will also always be following the universe stream; the only difference is that they are not aware of what is happening.
In my last lecture, I defined a perfect life. It is now important to clarify that my interpretation of perfect is alignment with the universe stream. I say this because there is no other reality that we know exists, and to be in this universe means to surrender yourself to that reality.
That means that perfection is finding out how we can align ourselves to the universe stream.
So if bodily desires are perfect because they follow the universe stream, then the perfect life is one in which we follow our bodily desires.
This is why the undefiled observer will live the perfect life. Because they only follow their bodily desires without intervention.
Some people may argue, “what about the undefiled observer itself? Is that our selves? Is that what we can call me?”
It is then important to point out that the undefiled observer itself which is aware of being aware is also empty.
The universe stream implies causal continuity which as we noted implies an impermanent nature of things which implies emptiness. Everything is empty because anything that is susceptible to the change of the universe stream cannot possess a persistent essence. If everything is empty, then the undefiled observer itself is also empty.
Everything that I have illustrated above becomes messy when the illusion of the self comes into the picture. We call a self-conscious individual who has the illusion of the self a defiled observer.
The unfortunate reality of self-consciousness is that we can act against our bodily desires.2
With the self, we believe we have control over our lives, we believe the world operates in a different way, we perceive the world in a different way, and we believe we desire things which we truly may not desire. These are called the delusional desires.
Not all delusional desires are bad for us. Delusional desires only become bad when they deviate from the bodily desires. Since the bodily desires follow the universe stream, anything that goes against bodily desires will also go against the universe stream. Therefore, delusional desires that are not aligned with bodily desires will bring us suffering. It is important to understand that delusional desires come from delusion—beliefs that we hold that can be contrary to reality. Therefore delusional desires do not necessarily have to all be bad. To pose an analogy, a person with schizophrenia sees the world in an illusion: they believe hallucinations to be real that are not. Even in their condition, sometimes their behaviors may be healthy, but more likely, the behaviors will be unhealthy. The same is with delusional desires. A defiled observer is perceiving the world wrong, and so many of their desires will also be against the bodily desires. But there is still a chance that their behaviors may be aligned with bodily desires. I bring this up because the likelihood of delusional desires aligning with bodily desires depends vastly on the environment and other factors. This will be a key topic for future lectures.
It is very difficult for the defiled observer to differentiate between delusional desires and bodily desires. They mesh together and it becomes a conundrum trying to understand what one really wants. Very often, people will be overpowered by the seductive delusional desires.
The very sad reality of all of this is that one cannot tell when their deluded desires are misaligned with their bodily desires. This is because their entire view of the world is deluded. If they believe the world to represent something, through the delusion that they believe, their desires will reflect as such. But if their deluded view is misaligned with how the world truly is, how their bodily truly is, then they will suffer. This is sad because I believe deep down people’s bodily desires are metaphorically screaming, crying, and weeping in pain and neglect, but because of ignorance and delusion, people will not tend to their bodily desires. Ultimately straying against their bodily desires and the universe stream. The unfortunate, sad repercussions are incredibly obvious on the resulting person’s life.
The elderly population in Chinatown is an example that comes to mind. If you look them in the eyes, you can see the underlying question of “what was the point of all that rush, greed, and ambition?” As they sit alone, forgotten and abandoned by the world, you see a deep contemplative voice in their heads as they have spent their years chasing money, stressing, and aspiring for power and fame. Even as they enter into their more peaceful years, they find themselves alone, devoid of company, and devoid of a reason or meaning of everything they had just done. The reality they now face is the uncanny mystery of it all. As they get up and go about their way, they fall back into the same patterns they are familiar with. Going about their solitude lives and habituated routines, all the while knowing deep down that they long for something that they cannot express. They long for connection, love, community, meaning, presence, gratitudefulness, mindfulness, and a roaring passion for simply living life. Their inability to understand that their actions have led them against their bodily desires brings them suffering even into old age, loneliness, and very soon, death.
In my perception, this is incredibly sad, and the thought of it and writing it brings me a very deep pain as I acknowledge that this issue is not only present in this one population, but the rest of the world. Everyone is suffering; they are just in different phases of it. The Chinatown elders are unique in that they have already burned through many of the delusional desires for money, fame, and power. In that state, there is a juxtaposition between the reflectiveness of why they did everything they have done and the inability to confront the illusion. Younger people are yet to reach that contemplation. Most people I know are in the delusional desire phase chasing money, fame, status, and power as if that is what they truly want. In my eyes, they are chasing their delusional desires, bound to reach the similar conclusions of those elderly people.
As we explained above, following the universe stream is critically important. Delusional desires may go against the bodily desires, which will also go against the universe stream. And going against the universal stream will undoubtedly bring us suffering as we unnecessarily struggle against the overpowering force of the universe stream. One who tries to act against it is like an animal grabbing at bushes, sticks, and weeds on the riverbed as they are swept downstream by a strong current. One who cannot embrace and follow the universe stream will never live the perfect life.
Final Summary
We are self conscious—aware of being aware. The perfect life is an undefiled observer observing the bodily desires.
We suffer because we have the illusion of a self, which creates delusional desires which lead us to behave in ways that are not aligned with the bodily desires.
Behavior misaligned with the bodily desires will cause us suffering because we are deviating away from the immovable, fixed, overpowering universe stream.
To live perfectly, then, is to be an undefiled observer, recognizing that they have no control and can only perceive and observe the awe-invoking wondrous human condition and bodily desires.
- Simple consciousness: Simply aware of surroundings. Not aware of being aware. Examples are animals.
Self-consciousness: Aware of being aware. Comes with the illusion of the self. Examples are humans.
Cosmic consciousness: Aware of being aware without the illusion of the self or seeing essence in anything. This is what I interpret “awakened” people in Buddhism to have, although the tradition may argue elsewise.
Self: The illusion of the “person” that you believe persists after death. Anything challenging the self, ego, or the identity will be met with fierce internal opposition
Ego: A product of the self that internally determines self-worth in a comparative and hierarchical way
Identity: A product of the self where someone builds a framework of belief they cling onto believing that is representative of who they are.
Delusional Suffering: Suffering that is caused by the self
Bodily Suffering: Suffering/pain from the body and not caused from delusion
Body: The human, animal body, distinct from the illusion of the self.
Essence: A persisting concept attributed to objects (“the table is a table”, “I have a self”)
Emptiness: Similar to Buddhist “emptiness.” A term that describes lack of essence (“When one perceives the world to be in a state of emptiness…”)
Awareness: Perceiving phenomena
Observer: General term; awareness of the body and, if defiled, the illusion of the self; not a persisting entity and distinct to the self.
Defiled Observer: Awareness of the body and the illusion of the self; Not a persisting entity and distinct to the self.
Undefiled Observer: Same as observer except does not have the illusion of the self. Only has awareness of the body.
Mindfulness: Being fully present and aware of your thoughts, feelings, body sensations, and surroundings without judgment. Mindfulness is very hard as a defiled observer. Defiled observers must meditate or have other experiences to have these states.
Lucid Awareness: Awareness undefiled by any delusions from yourself and others. A state of surreal and ineffable perception. Lucid awareness implies mindfulness, but not the other way around.
Deluded desires: Desires stemming from the illusion of the self. May or may not go against the universe stream. Separate framework to bodily desires.
Bodily desires: The desires that follow the universe stream. Untainted and completely separate to deluded desires.
Universe Stream or Stream of the Universe: The fixed sequence in which the universe will unfold ↩︎ - This is outstanding because it implies we are the very thing in the universe that can act against the universe stream. Of course even the delusional desires of ours are still a product of the universe stream, but we are not obeying our bodies desire to follow the universe stream. ↩︎