The Wave
Imagine a conscious ocean wave. The wave sees itself as separate from other waves. The wave realizes that one day it will cease to be, an event it calls beach. The thought of beach prompts the wave to question itself. What am I, really? What happens after beach?
I am part, thinks the wave, of a vast, ancient ocean. I am not ocean but ocean is me. Yet, I feel separate and vulnerable and afraid of beach. What can I do to consciously realize my identity with ocean? To physically merge with ocean, I would have to cease to be. Which would be the death of me. But I can go halfway. Now and then, I can sit and meditate on my identity with ocean. Sitting in meditation, Ill try to cultivate a still peaceful mental state. In mentally giving up thoughts, emotions, and physical movement, I abstract myself from my own limited personal identity and try to feel myself as ocean, vast and unlimited.
Some say that at beach we merge with ocean. I suppose Ill have to wait and see. But If I merge, I wont be there to see. Hm. Que sera, sera.
I am part, thinks the wave, of a vast, ancient ocean. I am not ocean but ocean is me. Yet, I feel separate and vulnerable and afraid of beach. What can I do to consciously realize my identity with ocean? To physically merge with ocean, I would have to cease to be. Which would be the death of me. But I can go halfway. Now and then, I can sit and meditate on my identity with ocean. Sitting in meditation, Ill try to cultivate a still peaceful mental state. In mentally giving up thoughts, emotions, and physical movement, I abstract myself from my own limited personal identity and try to feel myself as ocean, vast and unlimited.
Some say that at beach we merge with ocean. I suppose Ill have to wait and see. But If I merge, I wont be there to see. Hm. Que sera, sera.
Comments (10)
Hence the technical instruction "Imagine ..." It's a brain exercise achievable only by the fleet of mind.
Unfortunately, humans can think, and because they make an identification of themselves as individual beings, they find themselves with the prospect of dying. This gives rise to anxiety and suffering. Fortunately it is only the imagined self that dies.
Or, perhaps it is the imagining self that dies. And with this prospect some look to charm away their fears and anxiety with stories of not dying.
A poetic and well written OP. :chin:
The imagining self is the imaginary self. That's what it means to imagine oneself.
If it did then it could alter course assuming it can do that otherwise the movement is one directional and this inevitable.
:fire:
Watching the breakers slide back into the eternally recurring surf I have no doubt what ultimately happens to ocean waves.
:death: :flower:
This ontological metaphor really haunts me ...
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
Quoting 180 Proof
NB: IIRC, while sitting on the beach in Oceanside (California) beside the pier on a bright breezy spring day, some months shy of my twenty-first, oceanic thoughts like those above (especially the OP) first struck me as the blue rhythms of that shimmering surf mesmerized me. That day I forgot all about my old heartbreak for the first time in almost two years, bemusing with that new 'insight'. Study of Schopenhauer, Bergson, Whitehead, Spinoza, Nietzsche (again), Epicurus-Lucretius (again) & Laozi (again) was yet to come to help me reflect further and search patiently for a suitable vocabulary for this 'ecstatic' condition. Ever since then, and living far from any coastline, I still watch the clouds above dreamed of by the waves below.
I just finished watching "The Good Place" while on the stationary bike. The Buddhist story of the wave was told.
It sounds like feeling oneself as vast and unlimited is the very epitome of utilizing thought and emotion. Perhaps it not the presence or absence of thought-emotion that is of importance, but how applies thought and feeling; they is, how interconnected one is able to construe ones relation to others as well as to oneself.