Fractals, Time, Circular Thought, Galactic Cosmos: An Exercise in Tantric Consciousness (November 2009)

Abstraction A: Fractals

This is a visual mapping of a fractal set. It is also clearly a mandala. Let us think about this. The seed syllable of the deity is the originating point of the essence of the mandala. If the seed syllable could be imagined as the starting point of the fractal, the endless repetition of the starting point becomes the emanation of the principle deity outward from the center. From this pattern of emanation arises the structure of the mandala palace, in which the deity abides. In this way, this image and the images of fractals below are visual representations of the mathematics of cosmic vibration, the cosmic ratios of space. This provides an argument in favor of Tantric metaphysics which argue that the mandala is inherent in the fabric of the cosmos, that paintings of mandalas are not created images, but revealed. It also supports the necessity of accurate proportions in the portrayal of mandalas. Fractals are not approximate, they are precise patterns based on exact calculations, as are mandalas.

Abstraction B: Circular Thought (Finding the Center)

Crop circles are geometrical patterns constructed in fields of crops. Their origin is mysterious. Some say they are made by extraterrestrials, or inter-dimensional beings, or they're fixed energy patterns known to the ancients but long forgotten, or that they're merely hoaxes, created by crafty human hands and nothing more. Where they come from, however, is not what's important. Rather, it is how the human mind attempts to make sense of mystery and symbol, and how human minds seek out and ascribe meaning to symbols.

How do we make the vastness of the universe tangible? By creating it in space, visually.

The universe is evolving in my mind. I seek to learn the language everyone understands. To cultivate the subtle sense faculties.

What would 17th century philosopher Benedict de Spinoza say about crop circles? That they are nothing more and nothing less than natural phenomena, the causes of which surpass our faculty of understanding. He completely refutes any possibility of miracles (which Hume borrowed without recognition in 'Of Miracles'). Spinoza's conception of nature is as all encompassing as and identical to God. God is Nature. It is a simple fact of reason. The power of God surpasses our conceptual faculties, therefore the power of Nature surpasses our conceptual faculties. That is why there are natural marvels of mysterious origin throughout the planet. Crop circles are only one example.

The fabric of the universe is a vibrating frequency of light which shifts in an out of different patterns, creating and undoing ceaselessly. Order into chaos. Order out of chaos. It is merely shifting patterns. Galaxies are nothing less than this. Their basic patterns are the elements, which give off a color, which is an energy frequency. These energy frequencies encounter each other and create change and balance. Change is, in fact, simply a constantly shifting system attempting to balance itself.

Crop circles are an encounter with the unexplained. When human beings encounter the unexplained, their minds, confronted with their own ignorance, instinctively attempt to explain it. That is the marvel of human intellect: to recognize the limits of one's consciousness, and have reason reveal that this is part of the pattern.

Every moment is an experiment in consciousness. Every experience is an experiment in emptiness. Every moment must count. Every moment is right now. Everything is always happening all at once. Without everything nothing could be. Everything is real, but nothing can be without everything else. One thing necessitates all things. From one, all. A circle is one, but it is infinitely expanding. A circle can always get bigger. The depth of human thought expands with our knowledge of the cosmos.

As I sit here I ponder a nebula. That nebula exists in the same universe as I do, as I sit here on this chair in this room on this floor in this building on this block in this city in this country on this continent on this circle... the circle we walk in everyday. No matter where we walk, we are always walking in a circle. From the moment we rise to our feet to the moment we rest on our backs, we never stop moving in a circle. Sure, it's not a perfect circle, but that's hardly the point. Our orbit around the Sun is an elliptical path, so it is like this: we are moving on a circular trajectory, the center of which is always being moved. The pattern is always being slightly offset by some force. It's being pushed, challenged. Despite the push, the pattern never falters. It is consistent. The zero-point of the continuum establishes balance with the ceaseless re-centering of this trajectory.

It is a fact that the conceptual mind experiences material reality in three dimensions. But within those three dimensions there are infinitely occurring interpenetrating dimensions. It's fractals, simply put.

This image of fractal patterning appears to me to be a range of buddha fields, all intersecting and merging, not unlike the collision of galaxies. The point is not where the circle is but the fact that the circle is always centered. Always.

The center does not exist externally from us, but in the mind. That is how visualization mediation produces realization. By creating an enlightened space the entire architecture of which is united with your mind, you become the center of the universe. you are the singular zero-point, the placeless center from which the universe is created in every moment. There are no dead ends.

Everyone deserves a beautiful life. And Buddha helped give it to others.

Sometimes I feel like a pratyeka buddha... like I have experience true, all encompassing enlightenment. I have experienced the depth of emptiness. I discovered a gem in indra's net on the platform of a subway in Brooklyn. It was a circle... an empty circle. On an earring. By gazing through it's center, I saw reflected all the dimensions of the underlying, interpenetrating cosmic reality. I recently lost a similar earring, to find it a month later sitting innocently atop a pile of dirt beneath a bench I sat on every day. A few days later I lost the other one. And another earring a few days after that... one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. one two one one. 5.

This is the reality of my conceptual process, which is circular. Time is not linear. The universe is not linear. Even light bends. My mind is made of light, so it bends with the light. Plants bend with the light. Crop circles possess their power as the center of bent light. That light is energy, and the pattern, whatever its source, even produced in a ritual manner by humans (hoax circles), is in that respect entirely analogous to a mandala. Mandalas are not defined by the image so much as its function. Certainly the pattern is important, but only with regard to how it coalesces the existing light in a visually approximate way. The ground is only the point of departure. There are dimensions radiating outward from every point in space. And there are infinite points in space. And every point is a center. Finding the center is a matter of knowing where a circle begins. And it begins at the center and moves outward in a circular motion. Like a fractal. Like some crop circles. Like mandalas. Like stupas. Like an orbit. Like a thought. The center is constantly moving and constantly remains the same.

Crop circles could be anywhere. They're hardly different from any other pattern found in nature. There are faces, figures, shapes, everything stamped on the surface of this planet. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean its not there. Guru Padmasambhava understood this. That is how he conquered the volatile natural forces of Tibet. Knowledge is limitlessly attainable in every moment. There is no good and there is no bad. Tantra allows all, because all is full of emptiness. With nothing there is the possibility of everything. In the empty space of a field appears a circle. It is mysterious, and we contemplate it. In the empty space of a piece of paper, words appear. We discover our own mysteries and we discover our own truths. Truth is freedom and mysteries free our minds from the confines of conventional thinking.

Abstraction C: Time Does Not Exist

Time is circular. A wall clock is round, a circle. Around and around it goes. The line from the center to the periphery is the present moment. Everything falls within its trajectory at the exact same moment. Time is infinite clocks all measuring the same infinite moment. And yet the mind is always happening in the moment, the eternal present, the perfect center. It is as the Dalai Lama said: we are all the center of the universe in our minds. But what does it mean to stand in the center of one's mind, the cosmic clock? Time does not exist linearly, but in circles, always moving around. Yet the measurement of time begins in the center. When you stand in the center of the clock, time exists only in the eternality of the moment where you stand in relation to it. In that way, you are the center of time, the determining factor in the experience of the moment.

Reflections on Traveling Alone and the Experience of Belonging

The first week after my return from Europe, I would awake every morning disoriented and confused. In the darkness of my room, which has no windows as is the case in a number of loft apartments, I would be shaken from sleep by the shrill announcement of my alarm, and have no idea where I was.

This is not unusual after returning from an extended stay abroad. However, I would argue that, considering the transient nature of my trip--never spending more than a few days in any particular location--it is a peculiar phenomenon. Not once after my first night in Europe did I experience that shock upon waking of thinking I was in one place and realizing I was in another. Not once.

And yet when I find myself finally back in familiar circumstances, sleeping every night in the same bed, my bed, the bed I've been sleeping in for the past three months... suddenly I don't know where I am anymore?

There is always a degree of culture shock when one returns from Away and has to readjust to Home. The customs, the currency, the language... one gets used to things being strange and different. One gets used to waking up to different sounds, different smells, and in a hostel, a constant rotation of different faces. So even when I returned to this city I have called Home for four years, and the sounds, the smells, all of the elements that make this place what it is and what I remember it being before I left are still there... and none of it seems welcoming. None of it seems refreshing.

I have said this to friends on occasion, I have written other essays about it, but I'm only beginning to investigate what it reveals about my personality. This ease with which I adapt to being transient, the excitement and freedom I experience when staying only briefly in one place. The first time I experienced it was my sophomore year of college, when I was living on campus at Hofstra University in central Long Island. A handful of my friends had graduated the year before and moved to Brooklyn, so I began to visit and stay with them some weekends, jumping around from couch to couch, carrying all I could possibly need in a bag on my back. Untethered, uninhibited, anonymous.

It didn't stop when I moved to New York as a transfer student the following year. Living in dorms and the sense of attachment you are prohibited from developing to your living space is in itself a form of transience, so I continued to stay occasionally with friends on weekends. Even once I moved into my own apartment, there would still be rare moments when I would just not go home for a couple days, wearing the same clothes, buying a toothbrush, borrowing face wash and deodorant, letting my phone battery die. Some of the best times I've had are those weekends when I would leave my apartment and spontaneously find myself sleeping on a couch here and a couch there until the weekend was over and I had to resume the charade of a moderately responsible full-time student.

I know that it looks selfish and irresponsible from the outside if I don't let my roommate or friends know where I am or who I am with, ignoring their calls and letting my phone die. But in this tangled-network of over-connectedness, obsessive updating, Four Square checking-in, sometimes the only modicum of control and freedom and independence I can exercise it just saying fuck it all, and going off on my own... out of touch, without direction, knowing that at any time I could just go home and crawl into my bed and be surrounded by the familiarity of my things... but lately I've found that the idea of home can be stranger and more anxiety-inducing than being on my own in a strange city where I don't even speak the language.

In fact, one of the most refreshing things about being abroad was not having to be subject to other people's mindless or petty conversations; not caring what other people think about you because when will you ever see them again? And I'm sure for many who might read this, it will sound like what I'm addicted to is running away from some problem or another, or that I'm running away from myself. But that is simply not true. Wherever I go, my past and my troubles are always with me. Rather, it is when I am between destinations that I can obtain a clearer perspective on what troubles me and why it does so. I can ponder my life without hesitation, because the dramas and insecurities of mundane experience can't touch me. All I have to concern myself with is survival and the issues that plague me when I am in the comfort of the familiar don't seem so important. And in all honesty, I feel more uncomfortable, more unstable and unsure of myself when all my creature comforts are provided.

Maybe I just haven't found the right place to set down roots yet, but experience and insight suggest that no matter where I am, who I love, whatever dramas ensue, I will always long for and actively pursue the luxury of being in-between.