Transcript
Chapter seven
The tube of intellect In ‘The Final Frontier’, Frontier’, I have talked about about experience X, the not innocent perception and experience Y, the innocent perception. I have also confirmed to you that the innocent perception is the nature of the ultimate truth and the the final frontier. frontier. This chapter will talk about how experience X has led us into our tube of intellect, my description of mental activity having having a nature similar to digging digging endless rabbit holes. holes. This mental activity also causes us to be lost in our own mental jungle and prevents us from spotting the truth right under our nose. Experience X has everything to do with thoughts or the thinking faculty, which is highly regarded in the intellectual world. Many people tend to think that all greatness stems from thinki thinking ng – the more more one can can think, think, the the better one becomes becomes – without without recognising the dark side of thoughts. Too much thinking especially the negative negative thoughts can destroy individuals and and already has brought brought immense turmoil and suffering to global society. In fact, all crime crime scenes initially begin in people’s heads. Whether one wants to rob, revenge, kill or start a war, one has to think first. Two main groups of people
For easy understanding, I shall separate people into two main groups: the nonpractitioners of the four foundations of mindfulness who are the majority of people in the world and the practitioners practitioners of the four four foundations of of mindfulness who are the small minority.
The non-practitioners are the group of people who only engage in experience X; their perceptions are not innocent due to having no means and no access to experience Y. On the other hand, skilful mindfulness practitioners not only can engage in both experience X and Y, but can also reach experience Y on demand should one need to escape into the peaceful innocent world. It isn’t necessary to stay with experience Y all the time. It is impossible anyway because we, as social animals, need to use thoughts while interacting and communicating with people, not to mention solving problems of survival. However, not all mindfulness practitioners know exactly what
experience Y is, especially the beginners, but at least they have the skill of how to have access to experience Y. Provided that they keep up with the practice of the four th foundations of mindfulness, they will eventually reach the 4 home and know exactly what the innocent perception is. This is not the case for the non-practitioners who lack the necessary skills to access experience Y. Entering the tube of intellect
Let’s start with the non-practitioners first. For example, upon perception, if there is any thinking or mental talking involved, including labelling the perceived objects/experiences with names, giving attributes, analysing, planning, philosophizing, imagining, and so forth, it means that their mental selves have al ready entered the tube of intellect. This is just the beginning of digging the rabbit holes. To extend this metaphor for clearer understanding, suppose that this tube of intellect is 10 inches long. I will illustrate the levels of complex thinking by comparing it to the inch marks along this tube of intellect. Should you view a round object in front of you and simultaneously call that object ‘a th ball’, it means that you have already already come to stand at the the 4 inch mark in the tube. If you carry on analysing, thinking and talking about more issues relating to the ball, you may walk deeper into the tube depending how complex your thinking is and whether the ball perception is connected to gain and loss with consequences that may th send you up and down the emotional ladder. Nevertheless, the 4 inch mark is the average depth that most people walk into this tube of intellect as soon as naming perceptions starts. The link between thoughts, words and languages
Before I carry on with this tube of intellect, please allow me to sidetrack a bit. I want to explain to you first that your thoughts, words and languages are the same nature, but in different stages. Thoughts are the language you talk in your head before you vocalize them into spoken words. The same thoughts can be materialized into different languages. A round shaped object, called ‘a ball’ in English, can be named differently in more than a hundred languages. You may want to ask where those thoughts come from. The answer is initially from your perceptions: sights, sounds, smells, tastes and texture. (Please refer to chapter three of this book.) Because you see a round object, you, then, have the urge to name that object especially should you need to communicate with someone. So you think, ‘what should that round object be called?’, called?’, you engage in some some thinking, you use use the database from your memory box and then you mentally say or utter the sound, which represents the thought in your head. The moment you call that round object ‘a ball’, th you are already at the 4 inch mark in the tube. Intellect: our doomed vessel! th
Our tube of intellect indeed creates the conditions of blocking our 6 sense sense (menta (mentall eye) and also has more sinister and cunning characteristics, characteristics, yet is fundamentally fundamentally profound. Intellect or the whole of our thinking faculty is humankind’s fundamental tool for acquiring knowledge and building our civilisation. Let’s compare compare our
intellect as a vessel, in the hull of this vessel is an undetected hole. This vessel cannot go very far; sooner or later, it will sink! Having been used as the fundamental tool and having no other tool to rectify itself, the illusive quality of our intellect tricks us into believing that our mental proliferation is of a positive nature. We must not be fooled by our technological development because the end of our tube of intellect is nothing more than a cul-de-sac! We must admit that the advances of science along wi th our high-tech culture have offered us far more than we really need to live a decent life. Still, we are not content and happy, are we? Why? Ask…we must! The way that Einstein explored and trusted his mathematics, trying to come up with a unified unified theory, theory, was also his abandonm abandonment ent of ‘experience ‘experience Y’ – deserting deserting the truth truth or the absolute ruling point he passionately wanted to find find in the first place – by eagerly entering the tube of intellect. His mental pursuit is the equivalent to an author starting with the wrong sentence or being an unskilful jigsaw puzzle player. As he walked deeper into his tube of intellect, a dead end was all he found. th
Simple-minded people stand at the 4 inch mark th
The 4 inch mark represents the group of people who are very simple minded: for example, very young children, countryside people, farmers, tribal people, nomads. They are people who may never have been through any form of established education, they could be illiterate or live closely to the natural environment and do not have complex thinking. Upon perception, they will express themselves with simple language. When my middle son, Andrew, was about three years old, I bought five toothbrushes, one for each one of us in the family. My son was very excited when I took the toothbrushes out of the shopping bag. He took them away, laid them on the floor and used his cute little index finger pointing at each one of them. While he was point ing at each toothbrush, he also said: ‘toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush’. Such expression of language was the result of a very simple mind due to having a very limited memory. Whereas my five year-old boy who had gone to school for over a year would have said something like: ‘mummy bought five toothbrushes’ . The term ‘five toothbrushes’ is a bit more complex because it requires some thinking and adding. The number 5 represents the total quantity of the objects, which involves a bit more intricate thinking. You can see the difference between the expression of language between preschool and primary school children. The older you are, the more you learn and the more complex your mind will become. Tribal people who tend to live in jungles or deserts and don’t have much to do with the outside world also tend to have simpler languages due to their limited environments and the lack of formal education. Who stands where?
Please incorporate this heading with the number of twists I talked about in chapter five. They are in fact the same contents but talking from different angle. Let’s come th back to the tube of intellect again and suppose further that the 5 inch mark represents people who have gone through compulsory education up to the high school level. The
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6 inch mark represents students having a university degree. The 7 inch mark th represents post-graduate students doing masters degrees and PhDs. The 8 inch mark represents professionals in various careers who really have to do serious thinking every day of their lives. They cannot switch off their thoughts easily even though they are not working and are relaxing with their families, i.e. teachers, lawyers, judges, th police, scientists, doctors, business people, politicians and so on. The 9 inch mark represents highly intellectual people who do serious thinking all the time. Finally the th 10 inch mark represents people with the mind of a genius.
With this analogy, you can clearly see that the more intricately one can think, the deeper one walks into this tube of intellect and the further away one is from the point of zero (no twist twist between Tom and and Jerry) where the ultimate ultimate truth truth is as shown in the table above. Far from rigid
Please bear in mind that this is only a rough guide and generalisation to illustrate the challenges of complex thinking and to encourage reflection about where exactly you stand or what your mental status is in terms of simplicity and complexity. Of course th such a placement is far from rigid. Although I placed farmers and peasants on the 4 inch mark, I was thinking of poor farmers in Thailand more than western farmers who may have degrees in horticulture and whose farming is a multi-million pound th investment. Those intellectual farmers are more likely to stand in between the 7 and th th 9 inch mark instead of at the 4 inch mark as it is obvious that they have to engage in serious thinking to make their business profitable. The more you are conditioned by gain and loss, the the deeper you go into this tube tube of intellect too (and the more mental twists you will have). It is also common knowledge that some secondary or high school students may have the mind of a genius. Why we need the absolute ruling point
The reason why we need to know our mental status status – simple or or complex – is because we (as humanity) have no idea where we are standing; left, right or centre. We don’t know whether we are moving forward, backward, (coming or going) more to the left
or more to the right. This lack of understanding is the root cause of all the confusion, chaos, injustice, inequality, unhappiness, turmoil and suffering of mankind. We need to find a ruling point so we have some idea of where we stand. That ruling point cannot be a relative ruling point. It has to be the absolute ruling point in nature. In other words, we need to have an absolutely straight ruler to measure all things otherwise we’ll go round-the-bend like a hamster running round a wheel! That’s why we need to listen carefully to a real ‘knower’. ‘knower’. Following my eureka experience, I am absolutely certain that the ultimate ruling point is the innocent perception (experience Y). The innocent perception is that ‘straight ruler’ we need so that we can put the world to rights. The big picture
Based on my certainty that experience Y is the straight ruler, I therefore am able to use the illustration below to give you the ‘big picture’ of exactly where we stand in this gigantic cosmos.
With this illustration, imagining the box as a tube of intellect with ten at the bottom and zero at the very very top outside the box (the ultimate truth, the the innocent perception, perception, no twist), we now have an image of the total distance of our life journey, which allows us to know if we are in the centre, to the left, to the right, near, far, halfway or nearly reaching the final destination. The deeper you go into this tube of intellect, the further away you are from the ultimate truth. A different ball game
As far as attaining the ultimate truth is concerned, it is a totally different ball game if you want to reach reach the final certainty or the innocent perception. It means that those those th who stand on the 4 inch mark (simple minded people) will have a better chance to come out of the tube of intellect and witness experience Y than those who are at the th th th th 7 , 8 , 9 or 10 inch mark. The deeper you delve into your huge pile of intellectual knowledge (more twists), the more difficult it will be for you to find the real truth/the final frontier. A complex mind like that of Einstein could work out a lot of things, but certainly certainly not not the dead simple simple ultimate ultimate truth. truth. Being Being an intellectu intellectual al genius, genius, Einstein Einstein
could not stop thinking and working out the answer by means of mathematics; his mind was totally totally taken taken over by Jerry Jerry – too many twists! twists! Unfortun Unfortunately, ately, the the ultimate ultimate truth cannot be reached by tools such as mathematics and thinking; it has to be attained attained by the initial guided guided wisdom and the subsequen subsequentt means of having having a high level of self-awareness (BMSBH) only. Simpler minded people who do less thinking will have more chance to witness the ultimate truth than clever ones and therefore have fewer challenges in reaching rd experience Y. The mindfulness practitioners practitioners are groups of people who stand at the 3 inch mark and onward onward up to the zero point (no twist). They are equipped with the necessary tools to find the truth (BMSBH/the means to the end). There are technically rd the four levels of holy people identified by the Buddha. The 3 inch mark people are the committed mindfulness practitioners who have made made a U turn and begun begun the right th path to the ultimate truth. They can be anyone who previously stood from the 4 to th th the 10 inch mark. If a 10 inch mark individual found the path to the ultimate truth, that person could make a huge difference to this entire planet and peace on earth is very much possible. This could have happened had Albert Einstein made a U-turn and worked to somewhere between the three to zero inch marks. Digging the rabbit hole
Once we have located located the absolute absolute ruling ruling point, point, we are able to have a clear clear image of the entirety of knowledge. Comparatively speaking, if one knows a straight ruler, one will certainly and easily recognise a bent ruler. Without my eureka experience, there is no way I could come up with this huge and most challenging notion I am presenting in this book. Indeed, I know for certain that the entire intellectual knowledge is a matter of delving into the details of all things from the particles smaller than an atom to the biggest scale of the entire universe, with a mammoth pile of details in between. Delving into the small small details is the nature of ‘digging ‘digging rabbit holes’ which quite often is for the sake of digging without any clear purpose for that particular knowledge. This is the very activity that also sends us deeper into space with a delusional hope that we may find the truth truth or the final frontier frontier out there. Consequently, we have a mammoth pile of knowledge as big as a mountain and of a size that can crush every single person and every animal on earth in one go. Yet those precious mountains of knowledge knowledge haven’ haven’tt made an iota of differ difference ence when when individual individualss come face to face face with worries, worries, pain, greed, greed, discontentme discontentment, nt, anger, anger, envy, disappoin disappointment tment,, sorrow and fear. Mental turmoil and suffering still pinch and stab into peoples’ heads and hearts and our egos are still easily bruised and dented, all of which further perpetuates global problems. Rowing a boat in a huge pond
Should I compare intellectual knowledge knowledge to a prison, the research and investigating of our worldly knowledge is nothing more than stating, explaining and elaborating the scenery of a prison cell while the researchers are totally totally oblivious of their imprisoned imprisoned predicamen predicamentt – knowing knowing nothing nothing of the ultimate ultimate freedom freedom of life! life! Similarly Similarly,, it can be compared to rowing a boat in a huge lake. All our intellectual skills and particulars are similar to being trained to row different shapes and sizes of boats. As soon as we get to a boat, we jump on it and row as best and as far as we can without realising that we
are rowing our boat in a huge pond. Consequently we have transformed global society into what we are now: capitalism, communism, high technology, materialism, poverty, crimes, drugs, wars, and destruction of the natural environment contributing to global warming and climate change and so forth. We may think we have come a long way in terms of development but we must not be fooled by smart phones, Internet, GPS, IVF, stem cell technology, robots and space travel as real signs of advancement; they are merely tools for convenience and comfort while living in an undetected prison. Sadly, we know nothing about the true freedom outside this prison. It is extremely difficult when you don’t know what you don’t know, because you don’t even know what and how to ask the right question. The difficulty of this whole predicament is its sheer magnitude; it is so massive and profound that we cannot possibly understand it by ourselves without accepting help from a Knower. That’s why the Buddha Buddha said that ‘kalayanamitta’ – a good friend friend leading one to a real Knower – is the most important important factor in attaining ultimate enlightenment. For this reason, I feel compelled to come forward and tell you directly of this wisdom. Adoring details
I hope you now can see clearly that all the popular intellectual programs on (British) television that are highly rated and adored by millions: e.g. University Challenge, Challenge, Krypton Factor, Master Mind, including tools like mind mapping, are nothing more than enhancing our thinking faculty, exercising our memorisation and widening the memory box! In other words, we train our rabbits to dig better (widening the hole) and faster. That’s all there is to it. Hence, we use all these details to measure our intelligent quotients (I.Q). (I.Q). There is no real substance and wisdom there in terms of leaving this gigantic life prison and finding true freedom and world peace, is there? Our intellectual knowledge, e.g. medicine, scientific discovery, technology and so on simply offers us a more pain-free and a comfortable life in the prison cell, that’s all. Einstein hated details
Due to being ignorant ignorant towards our imprisoned-like imprisoned-like predicament, predicament, no matter how correct and accurate the body of worldly knowledge is, it is merely composed of innumerable small details. ‘Details’ is what Einstein could not stand; he viewed them with contempt. That’s why he abandoned his quantum mechanics and went off to pursue his quest for the unified theory, but to no avail. Rather, he wanted to find out ‘the mind of God’, why the Almighty created the universe like it is. In other words, Einstein wanted to understand the ‘big picture’ of life in relation to the universe. This is what the absolute ruling point and the unified theory are all about – wanting to understand the ‘big picture’ and not ‘details’. This genius was absolutely absolutely right; had he found the absolute absolute ruling point in nature/the final certainty, this extraordinary finding would have definitely been a life-changing discovery discovery for for us all – leading leading us toward toward peace peace on earth!
