The Origins Of Wonder

I was just cycling home a few minutes ago, my mind racing as I pedalled, not so much in tune with the motion but rather with the fact that I'll be leaving in a few days for my yearly retreat and, as always, there's a lot of stuff that I want to do before I go.
Actually, one of the big advantages of doing a yearly retreat is that, at least once a year, you have to get your life in order. From living space to head space.
And this, in conjunction with the film I saw last night, Elegy, the Manga I want to read for Mondays discussion and considerations about people I know, prompted this wonder musing in my mind.

And this is why we're here, right?

As I found myself thinking about all the different Manga series I was carrying I started wondering if I'd actually enjoy any of them (in the sense, would I like to read more of the series or not?), if I could actually relate to the stories and themes revolving around pre-teens, most likely set in contemporary Japan... it seemed a bit far fetched as I cycled but, I thought, even if I don't relate, it's definitely something I'm curious on doing, something I think I will benefit, be more in touch with the cultural here and now so to speak.
And, if I was lucky, perhaps I would feel that sense of wonder that I experienced so many times as kid. That's what it means to me to be a kid. To be imbued of that sense of all pervasive wonder which we tend to equate with intense happiness.

In doing some research today for covers for the Jack Of Tales comics series, I ended up bumping into an Alan Moore interview on a comics website and there he talked about League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and how Philip José Farmer had had such a massive influence on the title. He mentioned one of Philip's books: Tarzan Lives! to exemplify the mutability of his writing. Alan said something like "as if it had been written by two Burroughs". Meaning Edgar Rice Burroughs (the creator of Tarzan) and William S. Burroughs (a writer that explore writing through drug induced states and whose life was one big, dangerous experiment).
I've read them both and, for different and similar reasons, I've enjoyed them both immensely. Tarzan was obviously a childhood hero, with plenty of righteous fights and nature and damsels in distress. William Burroughs was the first person to safely take me into the realms of the deeply altered human mind. He was using his own hallucinations and surrealism to bring us one step closer to reality. A bit like observing a madman will give you insight into the true nature of madness and thus broaden your perception of yourself and the humanity at the same time.
All this to say that I could feel through Alan's words his own sense of teen wonder when he too read those authors.

And this took me to muse on how that sense of wonder had developed in me? Why does it surface at all?

"We think in absolutes"

I believe this was the sentence that simply popped into my mind. Meaning, we experience in absolutes, rather than thinking. I knew what I meant even though my mind tends towards words I use only too often...

The idea here is that when we experience something, at the root of our senses, there is no comparing of that experience with anything else. Things just are. Each and every single experience is complete. And every single one feels like the first time. Each is unique. Each is complete.
To me, this is the physiological root of wonder.
We have it all the time. At each passing moment. But, because our degree of integration with ourselves, with our body and senses is frail, we rarely perceive this completeness.
We only experience what comes after.
Which is the comparison between this experience and many others that have happened before.

I felt very happy and alive (as I always do) when this happened.
My mind was racing now in order to observe more of this perception. I found myself traveling back in time in my own memories trying to see where the perception of that feeling had started and had grown into a more conceptual form.
The thing I came up with were some very old animation series from the late seventies, early eighties. Namely Future Boy Conan and The Mysterious Cities Of Gold.
This was where fantasy, wonder and spirituality started to become connected the way they have been since.

For years I had an image in my head: there's a young kid staring at the horizon, perhaps on top of a hill and, suddenly, the ground beneath his feet starts to shake, everything begins to collapse and a huge ship, as big as a city but in the shape of a manta ray, lifts from under the ground and hovers high above him, amidst all the destruction.
That image was so powerful that it stayed with me for years and years. It's still here. I had forgotten the name of the series to such an extent that in my early teens I had started to doubt the actual existence of such a series. I'd asked around but no one seemed to remember.
It was only in my mid twenties that I found out that it belonged to the animation series called Future Boy Conan. As soon as I saw some images I realized it was that boy on the screen that I had seen in that image many many years ago.
I still haven't seen the series again but one day I will and, when I do, I'm sure that image, or something close to it (after all memory does change with time) will be there waiting for me.

The other thing that I realised was that even though these series had such an incredible sense of fantasy and wonder in them because they were being shown on television, because schedules kept changing (television was quite irregular when I was a little kid, shows would be announced simply on the day, not be aired at all, delayed for an hour, anything was possible in those, still early, days) I'd often miss good chunks of series altogether.
I remember watching a re-run of The Mysterious Cities Of Gold when I was about sixteen or seventeen. And even with a regular schedule, I'd often miss an episode here or there.
And, because of this haphazard nature of television, we were not presented with a continuous, smooth flow of plot and story development. No. We were presented with parts of the story. Some episodes you'd see many times. Some you never did watch.
I think this had a curious effect on my mind.
I had to fill in the gaps.
So even though watching television is a pretty passive activity, the way you watch it can also truly engage with your imagination.
Besides the obvious daydreaming about your favourite series...

This somehow took me to think about the main theme of the film I saw yesterday (Elegy): ageing and the realisation of life.

Why does something so obvious and omni-present as growing old surprise us so much? This in the sense of the film, more clearly expressed in Tolstoy's immortal words:
"A man's greatest surprise is age."
Why is it such a life changing realisation? Why is it so painful? Shouldn't we slowly grow accustomed to it?
I'm not talking about rational, logical explanations here. I'm talking about the emotional side of it, so seemingly uncontrollable.

Here's perhaps the glimpse of an answer.
I think the basis for this confusion stems from our good old, root perception versus conceptual perception.
At a sensory level perception is always complete and immutable. One's perception of heat surely depends on the amount of heat sensors one has in the skin but, however many, however accurate, the information they provide is always complete. Remember, there is no comparison at this level. That touch consciousness is always perfect from an internal perspective.
This means that, at every moment of awareness, on a root level we are always complete, full and fully present.
But then the mind starts to decipher all this information.
It starts separating it, trying to make "sense" out of it. Fitting it in boxes so it can create based on it, so it can more easily create a bridge between this moment of awareness and the next.
This is when the "problems" start...

That splitting up of information in many different possibilities (and/or meanings) creates waves of neuronal comparison. The sensory stimulus interacts with the brain, expanding the original inflow of information with the one that the brain is creating through its interaction with it.
Memory is naturally engaged with this. And by memory I don't mean necessarily experiences we remember. Actually, I believe that most of this mnemonic engagement is with forms (I have no better word to try and define these structures) we don't even know we have as part of our mind space.
So, this second stage is all about creating a different state. Of, apparently, noticing the differences. Therefore, and because this is usually the state we begin to pay attention to (the sole state where we are "awakened") this means we only consider this one side of the equation. We see the distance rather than what's there.
This is the origin between the still "being young inside" (the raw sensory information reaching us spontaneously at every moment) and the "feeling old" when one looks at the mirror or observes how much more difficult it is now to move or have energy or whatever (but this is the comparative state given by the mind, observing the differences).

Obviously, because we haven't integrated these two seemingly opposing perceptions into a single experience (non-dual, constant, continuous, etc), we tend only to focus (somewhat unconsciously) on the difference between what was and what is.
And this causes us pain.
But, as always, this pain is mainly present because of our ignorance about our own conditions. Because we aren't truly awake. Ie, we cannot contemplate and be aware of the simultaneity of both perceptions. One non-dual in nature (raw sensory data) and the other wholly dualistic (our mind comparison mechanisms based on sensory and brain data).

In sum, we feel the pain of being old because we aren't truly in touch with ourselves within the moment.
When we are our age has no pain, regret, loss or whatever negative feeling attached to it. Because we are in touch with the raw sensory data streaming in. We are in touch with the feeling of completeness it entails. With its timeless quality (time only exists by comparison, ie, this moment is different from that one. Within the moment, there is only the moment, there is nothing else).
We are neither young or old.
We are timeless.
We are closer to our truth and to its all pervasive qualities.
We are fully awake in being.

Peace.

Nietzsche and Buddha continued II

Even just reading the intro to this book there's already so much richness.

Let us examine the following paragraph:
"It does seem to be true, for example, that most people, when they find something has gone wrong, do look for someone to blame quite as soon as they look for a way of putting it right. Equally, people who lack the advantages that others have form intense resentments against the 'privileged', claiming that they (the non-privileged) are being denied their 'rights'. Such movements of the soul are, it would seem, 'natural'; Nietzsche is not in the least disposed to deny that. What he loathes is the way in which such attitudes of vengefulness and ressentiment are used as the linchpins of moral systems."

The main idea contained in these words may be well known to us but the fact remains that Nietzsche was one of the first to put it out there and, by doing this, to go against what was deemed established in his day. It's this kind of philosophical sabotage (of the best kind because it reveals deeper layers of awareness) that bought Nietzsche his ticket into oblivion.

Many things crossed my mind while I was reading the two or three pages surrounding this affirmation.
One of the things is this feeling of fearlessness that Nietzsche exudes so intensely from his work. But I do not think that Nietzsche was fearless by nature. He was much too careful, much to adamant to prove his point time and time again. He was much too insistent of facing the terrible for this thing to have been easy for him. I think he was in fact the opposite. I think he believed himself to have a lot of weakness inside of him and this is another of the reasons why he felt he had to struggle so much against the world, which is another way of saying, against himself.

Even though he has died more than one hundred years ago, Nietzsche is still incredibly contemporary. And the reason for this is that he touched something very deep in our humanity. And he was able to communicate this with words for all of those willing to listen.
Also, things seem not to have changed that much in the intervening one hundred years. Perhaps because these things are difficult to change. Which should mean we should be even more aware of them. Which in turn makes Nietzsche even more relevant.

I love this idea that a reactive social system is not good enough.
It sure seems to be the case still today. Things are ignored until they go wrong. And it ranges from the leaving a dirty tea cup in the sink (until someone complains about it) to not bothering to check a bridge's structure (until it collapses).
Clearly Nietzsche did not approve of this type of behaviour. He would probably call it moral irresponsibility or something like it.
I think in this way he is quite close to Buddhism and the noble eightfold path.
For in Buddhism the noble eightfold path (a title that may seem pompous to some but that, in my opinion, is far, very far from such misconceptions) does not come as a moral reaction to what we see around us. That plays a part, sure enough, but the realisation of the path (ie, we only achieve its deepest, most subtle and most perfect reality) only occurs when we are able to transcend the reactive, survivalist instinct in us. Perhaps more plainly, the noble eightfold path only becomes completely true in connection with the experience of enlightenment.

In fact, the lord Buddha, gave this noble path to us only after he had reached his full enlightenment. Which means that he was no longer bound by all these innate survival reaction games we play.

The difference between the Buddha (one of the many) and Nietzsche is that whilst one was completely released from these human games, the other was still incredibly bound by them and, even with all his clarity, understanding and insight, he could not help but continue to play the "opposition" game.

The image that came to me was that of two men pushing one another. As they battle continues their points of contact with the soil become strengthened. As if pillars grew around their legs, allowing them to push even harder against one another, more and more solidified in their place. This gives them an incredible sense of security. This gives them a feeling of power. This gives them a sense of direction, of righteousness.
But it also traps them.
Even if they've forgotten all about where they stand for such is the focus on the ensuing battle (and they cannot afford to lose a moment of concentration, in fear the other might win).
With the enlightened being the game is a completely different one.
There are no roots to the ground. There is no support apart from freedom itself.
The enlightened being does not have the binding strength of delusion. He or she will see the game for what it is and every effort put into it will be in full knowledge of the conditions. There is no righteous anger to use. There is no drama. There is simply a situation and a personal set of tools that may or may not be suitable for the task at hand.

In any case this was what the Buddha proposed to do and did. To establish a set of guidelines to help humanity reach its fullest potential. Even though one could see this as a set of dogmas (religious, philosophical, psychological, etc), in fact these come into being through the transcendence of dogma itself. More, these are offered to us, never imposed. In this way the Buddha also avoided the dangers of a dominant set of values. Perhaps because he had realised so well that, despite our fundamental common nature, there would always be conceptual divergence among humans.
The problem with Nietzsche is simply that he never did arrive at such a full realisation of our shared being. He certainly came to know it conceptually but he never did reach those same conclusions in a non-conceptual, non-dualistic way. That is the crux. That's where the real transformation occurs. That's where, to use the wise words of a noble buddhist master, "one tastes the chocolate".
Obviously, because Nietzsche never experienced this awakening, he could easily dismiss it. Funnily enough, in doing this, he was having precisely the same attitude that he criticized in his detractors...
But, in this, he is not alone. It's always easier to dismiss (or to fear) what we do not know. Especially, when these things don't seem as easy to obtain as words on paper, or catching a train or watch a film or whatever.
I think most of us, in the west at least (where such concepts of "awakening" are still somewhat alien - and alienating), are somewhat dismissive of these states of being still. Especially because they're so hard to understand and seem to contradict themselves so much.
But, the fact that we still see contradiction where in fact what exists is unity, simply reinstates our ignorance.
And this is something that we should all do well in understand.

Peace

Nietzsche and Buddha continued I

I was just reading a bit more of the introduction to Twilight Of The Idols and The Anti-Christ.
This was the sentence that attracted my attention:

"Never scrupulous, let alone 'scholarly', in his portrayal of individuals, he reaches new heights of recklessness in these works, with the exception of his treatment of Christ, as we shall see."

To me this means what I was delving upon in the previous post.
Nietzsche's intensity must be acknowledged from the onset as being one of the dominant traits of his whole philosophy.
Nietzsche was more interested in getting his ideas pinned down than in the specifics of others philosophies. He was using his intensity to get to his inner most core of ideas and perception. Other philosophers, in fact, everything around him (including himself to a great extent) were merely tools, vehicles that would allow him to do this, points where he could fine tune and exert his concentration. The outer world helped him define more clearly the obstacles he felt within, each philosopher or idea bringing him closer to his own barriers, using then his angry intolerance to reach unto them, destroy those boundaries and reach a more human philosophy.

To me this type of attitude combined with its almost more than human resilience can only be the signal of a very particular brain chemistry. One that had probably had always been there, at least since puberty or since he started devoting himself to philosophy.
This imbalance can help explain the birth of his philosophy. As a means to regain that balance he had lost. As an unconscious means of extracting something positive from his condition (much like Dostoievsky also did).
If philosophy was an unconscious means of coping with his condition, at the same time it became a release valve, it began creating the need to the imbalance as soon as so much release could be achieved. It became an addiction.

Having his childhood so fully immersed in Christianity and, later on in life realising that so much of it was false, Nietzsche could not but make of it an eternal enemy.
But, obviously, this only brought him closer to what he wanted to avoid. His hate kept Christianity so close at bay. He needed to destroy it. He needed to destroy it as thoroughly, as deeply as possible. and, for that, he needed to immerse himself in it.
And find a way out.
Over and over again.
Nietzsche needed to come to terms with his past, with the acceptance that he was not Christ, that he could never have the christian characteristics.
Thus he needed to find an alternative. An alternative even greater, even more profound than the one that had been imbued in him.

Most people would desist of such pursuits very early on - the few that would be so inclined.
But not Nietzsche, and this must've been surely because of his own special inner chemistry. Displayed to the world as an overwhelming intensity.

To my mind this was his greatest triumph and failure.
To the best of his ability he used it to get as deep, as far and wide as he could (and all the while dooming himself...) but, at the same time, it was this searing hot quality of his discourse that we now appreciate so much in its brilliant clarity that drove him away from his contemporaries.
It's sad to think that the characteristics that we now appreciate him for so much were the very things that prevented him to gain some recognition. I think that more than afraid of this ideas, his contemporaries were afraid of his tone. It was something they could not cope with. His tone was of a madman.
Worse, that of a man that believed to the utmost limits of his being, of his soul, what he affirmed.
and he was willing to fight for it.
That much was clear.
This was the problem.
There was no road map on how to deal with Nietzsche. So, the best strategy was simply to ignore him.

I'm sure that Nietzsche must've known this. And, even so, he still remained.
In fact he had only two choices. Either deny his life work and become accepted. To betray himself in the hope of acceptance or... remain as he was.

Peace

Nietzsche and Buddha

As always, whenever I start another project things quickly begin to overlap. In fact, if there's anything that I've observed more and more is the natural relationship between things.
Undoubtedly this has to do with the nature of observation itself - and to the mind that supports it so much.

During November I spent a good deal of my time contemplating on two different writing projects. One of them (The Lost Years - more info on my sequential scripts blog) focused on the 17 missing years of Jesus' life.
This was an idea that I had had on my first retreat at Panditarama Forest Monastery in Myanmar. The idea surfaced after a few "inner wanderings" about the social role of the Buddha in his day and age and, the spontaneous realisation that Jesus had had a quite similar role even if, in my opinion, a somewhat different scope. Not only because times were different (the Buddha's legacy had lived on for over 5 centuries by then) but also because, despite the many similarities, Jesus was a different man from the Buddha. He had been born in different times and in a different culture. And that, surely, must've influenced his journey.
This was what I was trying to clarify for myself as well as others throughout the writing of this book. The similarities and the differences between Buddhism and Jesus' teachings framed within that time and place.
It wasn't meant to be a study but rather more of a semi-intuitive fictionalised story, very much in the spirit of how the whole thing began to happen in my mind. The known pieces of the puzzle falling together in a configuration I had yet not seen.

Throughout that month things evolved rapidly and in unexpected directions.
As to be expected.
In searching and listening for connections, I started to remember the roots of this insight. In doing some research the name of Friederich Nietzsche came up once and once again, more out of a personal flavour than by the demands of the work itself.

I remembered the Anti-Christ of course. I read it many years ago. Barely out of my teens (quite possibly, i forget such things...) it made an incredible impression on me because it felt more true and honest than all that I had come across about Christianity before.
Christianity after all, had always been for me my father's lifelong hatred and my mother's superficial beliefs (share by most of my family, in fact, by most of the culture where I grew for the first 18 years of my life). A curiosity with too many holes for me to even bother to scrutinise it.
But life has it's ways and I've always been a sucker for curiosity.
So, here I was, aged 33 and looking left, right and centre, imbued with this firlm belief that Jesus was in fact a noble figure that should be set to rights.
Naive. Sure. And why not?
In the sense of child like innocence that is much of the Anti-Christ (that, from the German can also be translated as the Anti-Christian), I agree with both Nietzsche, Jesus and Buddha. It is something worthwhile pursuing and preserving.

In any case, i began to feel myself obsessed by Nietzsche once more and wanting to read his books more than knowing them relevant to this book of mine.

One of the chapters that was most difficult to write was the one about Zoroaster and his spiritual theory of opposites. And it was when I did some research that I found that Zoroaster could also be spelled as Zarathustra.
And thus came Nietzsche into my mind once again.

Eventually i decided to stop thinking about the relevance or irrelevance of Nietzsche to a book about Jesus, did some research on the various editions of his books and bought a copy of Zarathustra and The Anti-Christ (along with Twilight of the Idols, two in one edition).

Today I decided to read the intro to this double book.

As always I find the introductions more difficult than the actual books. Even though this one was an easier one, I still find that the second guessing of someone's words by people that have spent a great part of their lives over and over the same things to be hard to follow. There are too many connections and not always it is easier to communicate from within that huge mass of knowledge.
(and yes, you can say that I'm doing the same... and perhaps I am, I'm just hoping that I will be clear - because that is my intention, in parallel with the rest, rather than subject to it)

Anyway, amidst my meanderings through the introduction to the double book I not only became imbued of that love I had felt for Nietzsche but it also became apparent his own misunderstandings, as a reflection of his time.
The same way Jesus would easily oppose what has been done with his teachings, so Nietzsche would oppose much of what he said if he had been born in our day an age.
It is clear to see that at least part of all his intensity stems from a great rage at the world (the society) he saw around him. It is clear that writing and soul searching was his way to try and come to terms with it in a rational way. But it is also clear that the more he searched, the more he knew and saw, the more irrational it all seemed. The clearer the solution, the clearer the answers presented themselves, less hope there was to him.
I think Nietzsche was trying to change the world on a very fundamental level. And he genuinely believed that, through sheer clarity, that if the truth was told then people would be forced to listen and to recognise it. If it was crystal clear then how could anyone miss it?

But I think that seeing through transparencies is what we do the most. We spend all of our lives escaping the truth - because we believe we cannot deal with it - that ignoring Nietzsche's words was not only easy but also natural.

From where I sit, it feels as if Nietzsche's madness was much of a curse as a blessing. He wanted a way out. And he more or less exhausted every possibility (as framed by his indomitable, all or nothing spirit) before madness overtook him.

The author of the intro mentions repeatedly that Nietzsche often contradicts himself throughout the text and that this might be already a symptom of his "impending doom" But, credit be given to him, he also says that this was also something that Nietzsche always had for trying to explore in every direction so intensely.

I agree with these two things but I would venture something more which I believe is as much what Nieztsche was looking for and failed to recognise as well as the reason why often introductions bore me rather than enlighten me.

If one reads a handful of spiritual texts from enlightened masters it becomes very clear that contradiction is a sign and a symptom of a mind that has managed to transcend itself.
Perhaps Nietzsche was trying to become child like. The same way he saw Jesus, with such clarity and intensity, this was perhaps something he wished for himself. So much so because he knew how different he was, and how utterly impossible it would be for him to reach that state of being.
Perhaps Nietzsche's mind was indeed collapsing. But I think it is no coincidence that he also wrote such powerful books and had planned the summation of his thought. He could see the goal. But, undoubtedly by then he had also realised how little it had changed things in his day and age. And, surely, this consumed him. This had been one of his major objectives after all.

In any case, that failure to reach non-duality (or at least, reaching it with a sane mind as a backup or with a mind that still cared to communicate it to the world in an intelligible way...) is from my perspective, one of the missing core ideas from his ideas. And something I would like to put to rights.

While reading this short intro and undoubtedly inspired by the Nietzsche's searing capabilities I had within me the grand wish to read all of his books and write a long letter to him telling him how that simple idea tied together many of the things that said.

Thus the title.
Nietzsche and Buddha.

Perhaps, when I read Twilight of The Idols, The Anti-Christ and Thus Spoke Zarathustra I will comment on them as well. It might prove a ongoing useful tool for The Lost Years.
Besides the objective of so many blogs is to make available much of the writing and thinking that will otherwise be kept private. Perhaps a greater sense of immediacy will be best.

For this reason, and for the sake of a better framing of the moment, I've been doing all of this thinking and writing while listening to Blonde Redhead, Sun Kil Moon and now The Cure (the early stuff). And there's something I like about this. Discussing Nietzsche to the sound of The Cure has something utterly romantic but also incredibly appropriate to it...

I shall now re-read that intro and make some further comments.

On Contradiction
How can "a relaxation, a sunspot, an escapade into the idle hours of a psychologist" be a "grand declaration of war"?
I think it's fair to affirm that the clarity of insight that Nietzsche must have experienced not only blurred but also defined the boundaries of language and the self. Like all philosophers, Nietzsche is very aware of the meaning of words. But, contrary to many philosophers, he uses them equally in their meaning and as effect. He is rational but also poetic, romantic.
By saying these two apparently opposing affirmations, Nietzsche is quite consciously bringing us closer to the nature of his being. Where the utmost repulse against the world we humans have built around us, stems from states of great inner peace and contemplation.
(not always surely, but it must've happened often and, perhaps, increasingly so in those days where the Anti-Christ was already forming in his heart and mind)
Also, from the vantage point of non-duality, both peaceful states and intensity are not necessarily opposed but merely expressions. Human complexity is such that one can feel opposing forces working simultaneously inside oneself. I believe that Nietzsche must have felt this many times. It is actually easy to experience. All one has to do is to pay attention. To pay an attention with such care and dedication that there is enough room inside ourselves to all the possibilities to manifest themselves and not just one or two.
The problem is that getting into these states without some sort of background (which was what Nietzsche did) can be conducive to insanity. This is why Buddhism is practiced for the most part with the support of a community around us. It helps stabilize what is known to be a difficult process.

To a certain extent one can say that it was Nietzsche's bigger than life desire to give to others what he felt the world needed the most that doomed him.
In my experience there has to be a point where one realises that, in order to take another step and to realise and recognise what one has felt, intuit and somehow known, one has to be able to let go of the words, of the thoughts, of every form in relation to that.
It's not an act of sacrifice (even though it is). It is simply the recognition that in order to experience reality in a different way one has to let go of the tools that have taken us to that threshold. There is no other way. That is our nature. And that is why it is difficult but also crucial to do so.
Now Nietzsche had been on this mindful threshold for many years. Growing closer with the passing of time, getting more desperate and more intense but perhaps unwilling or unknowing of how to take that final step. Perhaps he was afraid he would never come back. Perhaps he was afraid that even if he found it he could never communicate it.
Perhaps he couldn't let go of his desire to communicate. And was trying to strike an impossible balance between two very different states of being.

This is all speculation of course but, when one looks at various influential figures throughout human history we see that they all struggled with similar ideas and aspirations.

I'm far from being an accomplished buddhist, but even the little that I have seen has shown me so much, clarified so many of the doubts and questions I had had. But this only happened when I was able - even if for only a few seconds at a time - to let go of that burning desire to know.
It is no surprise that the masters keep mentioning this "desire" over and over again. It is not a negative thing per se. What is sad is that, even without our knowledge, we always fall prey to it.

Nietzsche and Music
This was something that really caught my eye when I was reading the introduction. I had already forgotten all about Nietzsche's passion for music.
It took me to that natural exploration of the senses that one does whilst doing Vipassana meditation and their connection to our mind and to our world interpretative skills.
What follows is pure speculation but I'll say it anyway for it has surfaced many times before for me to dismiss it as pointless. Perhaps because I too have a passion for music. Because it is easy to recognise how important the role of music and sound plays in all of our lives. The Ipod being the most current summit.
Just consider how easy it was adopted on the market. How the image of people in the tube carrying thin white wires into their ears became. How powerful a symbol it is to the idea that you can be amidst everybody else and still be in your own world?

To me this is no coincidence.
I think this is why it is so important to observe this kind of details, they hint on things much much deeper.

As soon as I read those lines about Nietzsche and music the thoughts that entered my mind were about music as an expression of intensity, the most physical thing we can have with minimal body operation. In the sense that so little of the body is used for such an impact that it can have in us.
Then the age old idea of vibration and mantra.
Then the idea that perhaps hearing is naturally (and more directly? with less filters?) rigged to a more primitive area of our brain. perhaps an area not easily accessible in other ways but that through sound we can find some access to.

It is known that smell (and taste) are the older senses.
But we can also consider the following situation.
We are sleeping. A noise is heard. He wake up, instantly alert.
This tells me that, even though smell and taste are interfaced deeper with our brain, the sense of sound as long been recognised as being much more useful in survival terms. Therefore is it intimately connected to awareness. As such is becomes an vehicle and an expression of such. And, coming back to what was said in the previous paragraph, in rational and in more romantic and poetic ways.

Many people argue that sounds can be used to prompt certain brain states, or at the very least, to help us reach them. This is the key idea behind mantra. every sense is a doorway. and, as such, they can be used to allow us to reach deeper and more inside ourselves.

Undoubtedly music was also one of Nietzsche's few means of escape from the internal pressures of his own mind. I think it was a vehicle that he recognised and that he used, though probably one that disintegrated as well as soon as he realised his own addiction to it and the failures of wagner and such like. By realising the inadequacy of humanity, Nietzsche deprived and destroyed to him the things that he prized the most.

And it was clear that something like this would be the case. Everything must be destroyed in order for one to emerge with a new mind.
The problem was that Nietzsche perhaps intuited this rather literally.
yes, everything must be abandoned in order for us to reach that ultimate experience.
But we always return. The mind disappears. The mind dies.
But that's just how it feels from within the heart of that experience (though, in fact, the core of that experience is the absence of experience).

It's just like sleep. Our consciousness simply switches off, let's go, releases the unconscious.
And yet we go to sleep every night and we don't worry about our consciousness returning the next day.
We simply know that this is what will happen.
The same thing is with the experience of enlightenment. We plunge into non-duality whole-heartedly without worrying of consequences because, for better or for worse, our sense of self will return in due time.

The problem with Nietzsche was that he prized and valued his mind, his ideas too much. But I think he knew that even that had to be destroyed. With the building pressures and tensions generated by a life of intense searching, his mind collapsed under its own fires. An event of such magnitude and sheer exhaustion must've been impossible to recover from. So much so that the paralysis was both physical and mental.
(I'm assuming that the mental paralysis means that he stopped communicating, responding or reacting to external stimuli in a conscious and coherent way)

Anyway, I shall stop here for now. Nietzsche is a vast and incredibly interesting philosopher but my stomach presently commands other aspirations.

Peace