POSTCARD#384: Bangkok: Nothing is what it seems to be, indeed there are times when everything is so much not what we think it is, there can’t be any assumptions, we need to step back and just let it get on with it, whatever. Language has a naming function, creating nouns everywhere, tending towards a ‘Self’, endowed with an apparent identity. Mostly they are enhanced adjectives exploring the quality of ‘things’, and others are becoming verbs where the ‘doing’ needs to take place.

There’s just so much I could write today, things unfolding before my eyes. I make a mental note of these words, and they’re replaced by more recent words and what I was trying to remember before the new words arrived is forgotten. It’s a bit hectic at times but there seems to be energy coming from somewhere that helps me find the forgotten words and see if they fit in this context as well as the upgraded set.

The ‘world’ passes through me, data processed by way of the sensory entry points; eye, ear, nose, skin, tongue, and the cognitive mind. I am a manifestation of awareness. It’s all registered, processed; memory updated, and happens so fast that trying to find words to say something about the system itself results in slo-mo action replays interrupting what’s going on in present time, and I have to catch up afterwards, because everything has meanwhile moved on.

Pause button; a small bell rings, ‘ting!’ Awareness aware of itself, the cognitive mind as a sensory organ, the Buddhist sixth sense. The process itself chooses the sound – or the sound chooses the framework provided by the process. There is only ‘ting!’ and no ‘me’ doing the choosing. Elsewhere, the words, the thought, the concept, all arise because it’s in their nature to do that – they’re systems. I don’t breathe the air, the air breathes me. I am not looking out through my eyes at the world, the world is looking in through my eyes at me (except there’s no ‘me’ in here). No subject, just the system, processes, and how things are done. The world is seen, sounds are heard, food is tasted, words are spoken, things are done but there is no do-er.

Note: I use personal pronouns because it’s convenient. Let’s see… I’m getting ahead of myself. The headache I live with and the pain meds to cope with it seem altogether more manageable than in the early days. Looking back on notes made 4-5 years ago, the thing that has changed is I haven’t been focusing on not having the pain. The mind seems to have given up the battle, and the pain of denial has vanished. It’s this part about the mind having ‘given up the battle’, and the allowing of it, rather than fighting against it… there’s some easing, some lessening around this contemplation.

I’m aware that there is a headache beginning but it doesn’t bother me now because I know that most of it is insulated thanks to the pain meds. The pain that gets through the insulation is bearable, acceptable at the moment. There’s something about this kind of pain management that I didn’t notice before, not until I started the 3 day diet and the discomfort of hunger pangs came along.

I wrote about this in an earlier post titled: bhavaṅga. It was easy for me to tolerate the aches and pains of being hungry because I’d been tolerating a level of pain from the headaches for years. Also managing the headache with pain meds helped insulate the hunger pangs. I found I was motivated to go on with it due to the novelty of tolerating the hunger pangs at the same time as tolerating the headaches… it was interesting, inspiring and more needs to be said about this.

Not right now however… that headache, earlier, I said I was insulated against thanks to the pain meds? Well I have to give it my full attention now; feed it with more pain meds and hopefully it’ll pass. These serious headaches sometimes can’t be held back, and it’s a whole day in a darkened room, no phone because it’s to bright. I have to stop writing now.