Henry: One of my occupations is operating various motorized vehicles, and something I have been finding is that, especially because I live in a temperate rainforest, those vehicles have a habit of oxidizing over time, requiring various maintenance, weatherproofing, and repairs. While this is quite inconvenient regarding the continued function of those vehicles, I have been realizing that it is also reflective of the active (not passive!) nature of matter. The metals, plastics, and various other materials that these machines are made up of are constantly interacting with solar radiation, chemically interacting with water and oxygen gas, and warming and cooling (and radiating themselves!). They are never sitting doing ‘nothing’ like some kind of platonic solid.
Everywhere and always these subtle interactions are occurring.
So despite my efforts to make them last forever in a particular state that is to my liking, they continue to change, constantly vibrating and undergoing chemical changes to become something different than they were a moment ago. I can clearly see that this process is fundamental to the nature of the universe, so to be annoyed by it is to be forever annoyed. It’s quite funny to consider being annoyed by the fact that matter is not merely passive! (link)
Hi Henry,
This is a great observation and realisation and a veritable source of constant delight and appreciation. It is also a fundamental demarcation between materialism and actualism. As Richard said, “We do not live in an inert universe”.
It must be a pretty and pleasant area you live in, “a temperate rainforest”, which makes vehicles and other metals change their status quo faster than elsewhere.
Just one comment – those “metals, plastics, and various other materials”, i.e. the elements and compounds, which constitute all matter and all of which are as old as the universe, are not “constantly vibrating” (except when some power source vibrates them) –
Claudiu: Thus, when I felt something unpleasant in my body, or some persistent tension, the only recourse, meditatively, was to put my attention on it, and notice it as being ‘impermanent’ (that is, as according to MCTB, vibrating in real-time at a certain frequency), ‘not-self’ (that is, as according to MCTB, happening on its own without a ‘self’ involved), and ‘dukkha’ (that is, according to MCTB, unsatisfactory in some fundamental way). The affect itself is taken completely out of the picture. It is noticed, but it is noticed strictly as a physical sensation, and the solution is to do something about that physical sensation. Here is where entering altered states of consciousness helps as it made the psyche more readily able to do something with those sensations.
Richard: (…) In regards to continuing the meditative practise during activities, are chairs, desks, buildings, windows, sidewalks, bricks, rocks, trees, flowers, mountains, and so on, all independently (in and of themselves) vibrating in real-time at a certain frequency as well?
I only ask because I am sitting here, currently sipping from a glass of water in one hand whilst typing with the other, and I am unable to notice – via being this very tasting, touching, smelling, seeing and listening – either the glass or the water to be vibrating in real-time at all (let alone at a certain frequency).
Or is it, perchance, an intuitive noticing (meaning that only an identity has that capacity)? (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 18 Dec 2012).
But perhaps you meant something else when you said “constantly vibrating”?
To contemplate with fascinated attention that none of this matter is neither created nor destroyed, yet constantly changing, and that therefore one is observing – and living in – a ‘perpetuus mobilis’ is wonderful to behold.
Cheers Vineeto