Hello, I’ve been dying—to write something for this thread, and I can’t stop myself anymore, can’t hold it back, can’t hold it in, so I’ll let go, blank as a fart in the wind.
What is the origin of the “White Flame Meditation?” Well, seems to me anyway, that it is simply the mere fact of existence; at least, existence when examined or reflected upon. Semantics? well yes of course. RAW? well that too. Buddhism? Yeah. Are you ready Jesus? Then let’s go!
What am I?
Who am I?
Good questions young wo/man, good questions…
If you are trying to describe all that you are to establish what it is you exist as, then you have already presupposed your existence in the act of describing. Not quite the cogito, but close, “I describe, therefore I am”; thus, there is the contradiction: if you are trying to describe what you are, what it is that you exist as, then you have already assumed you exist. If there is no “I am,” then there can be no description of what you are, and if there is a description of what you are, then what or who is it that does the describing?
A double infinite regress looms on the horizon, an eye or “I” of a hurricane cycling in the void.
Think for a moment: if we presuppose an “I” that can describe all of what “I am,” then is this a finite or infinite list? Intuition or imagination ought to lead you to infinite. As in the simple example of the chair, there is much that is left out of any finite list that might describe what “I am.” Did you remember to mention your relation to the grass in the park or you foot on the pavement? Or how about your relation to that little bit of dust that floated by your head as you sat daydreaming about mud pies in grade one? And did you even include those days in the mud, or crawling before walking? Can you even remember all the things that are part of the description that trace back to moments out of the womb or moments before, or back to when you were a part of your mother and father, and they, in turn were parts of their mothers and fathers, and off to…and before even that, pre-human? And it goes all the way back to star stuff, right? So, a description of “I am” appears to be infinite, and perhaps not merely infinite, but possibly an uncountable infinite, as in, even in the infinite list of what “I am” is (haha), there are elements that are left out, ignored, unrecoverable, and even if you could add them to your description, then there would still be more elements that are not present in the description. But of course, all this description of what or who “I am” presupposes that there is an “I” outside of this description, an “I” that precedes a description that not even Zeus could describe, and what or who is that, exactly?
Well, if it is the “I” that describes, then part of your description of what “I am” must include this “I that describes,” but here we have another difficulty similar to Russell’s paradox, but more in line with the idea of a set of all sets: if the “I” that describes the (uncountable) list of what “I am” must be included in the description of what “I am,” then there is a further “I” removed from that “I” who is describing the “I” that is describing the “I” that “I am.” Now, I (haha) am sure you (hehe) are well ahead of this now, and perhaps were at the start and have not even continued to read, but in case, then that further “I” that is describing the “I” who is describing the “I” that “I am,” must also be included in the description of what “I am,” and so, there is yet another “I” who must be presupposed to exist to describe that “I.” And now “I” hope “you” can see the double infinite regress that occurs as a result of trying to describe all that “you” are, and all that premised on a presupposition that there is an “I” that exists in the first place.
Thus, the “White Flame” meditation appears as not simply a defense against attacks on the identity, but perhaps appears as a defense against the notion of an identity at all—an akido move “you” use on “your” “self.” There cannot be an “I” to describe without a circle in presupposing the “I,” and once you step into that circle, it goes to infinity in both directions.
diZzying indeed.
Well, thanks for “your” time, if there can be any time in a self-contradictory existence, and “I” hope “I” haven’t ruined the “big surprise” of this meditation for anyone. If “the map is not the territory,” but all we have is the map, then maybe there is only the map, and perhaps, then, the map and the territory are the same damnable thing, which might be {nothing, everything} at all/none. But that way lies madness. |
