Remaining with Robert Anton Wilson, another legacy was his borrowing of his friend Timothy Leary's expression - reality tunnel ... suggesting that each of us experiences reality uniquely through our filtering of incoming data through previous memories .... the creation of new memories being built on existing foundations, or fitted into existing patterns and itself a participatory exercise .... maybe ... maybe being another favourite of RAW, who wisely eschewed certainty after accepting the evidence of experiments in quantum mechanics ... he also proposed a new word "sombanall" made up from four words in current usage "some but not all" as a device to avoid over-generalisation ...
Consensus reality, sometimes called common sense, is just an agreement in any given culture and era of the key components of acceptable versions of what's going on ... which is why an open mind and a variety of life situations tends to lead to wider tunnels ... perhaps the ability to hold more than one tunnel as true at a time .... another name for this game is frame ... where our frame of reference may widen as we learn more, but at some stage the frame itself cannot contain the data ... hence the expression "reframing" reality ... psychologically necessary when old frames frustrate and cause brain pain ... leading to a question of what reality might look like without any tunnel or frame .... possibly impossible to cope with except for the most highly advanced practitioners ....
Alongside RAW, HHDL's book Advice on Dying provides a very broad perspective .... Tibetan Buddhism being a very big frame indeed ... HHDL himself, of course, is currently famous for his simple message of kindness across all faiths and none, making the depth of this book all the more compelling with its implicit acceptance of many lives .... making the cause and effect or karmic chains quite challenging, especially for those of us unable to remember all the events of this life, let alone all the others ...
...bringing us to the pressing question of how to lead a good life, given the cool, clear insight that this mainstream world is becoming crazier by the day allied with the heat of compassion for all those suffering and stuck in this round of existence ... Buddhism offers its eightfold path: Right Insight (understanding or view), Right Intent, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration ... leading the end of suffering and the need for rebirth .... for those spotting a cop-out there is the option to return enlightened and work in the suffering world until all beings are enlightened ...
Dear reader(s), please note that there is a lot more in Buddhism worth studying, but at this stage the topic goes off piste and enters the exciting realm of parallel universes and reality tunnels ... which may just possibly be the same thing ... in this hypothesis/delusion each of us has the potential to polish up our realities and align them into a lovely wide tunnel, which attracts folks away from the world they don't want (but energise nevertheless through their attention) and the new tunnel/frame or maybe holon subsumes the old and decrepit one ...
Moving along and still off piste, the question of an integrous and integral life seeks examination ... this time in the context of illness, sometimes contrasted with wellness and the strange interchangeability of the "I" and the "We" ... stranger still is the use of the word "complaint" to stand for ailment as well as criticism ... the switching of the i and the a to produce compliant may need further investigation .... but on with the story .... which is going downhill fast ... a proposition that failing to act upon a thought which felt right and when spoken aloud also felt right, may lead to mental and physical dis-ease ... that a consistent complaining attitude may lead to complaints ... and that human entities, seeking attention energy, may develop victim roles if nicer roles are denied, any kind of attention being better than none at at all ...
Fitting all this speculation into karma is dangerous ground ... karma so often being conflated with revenge ... ironically an action akin to shooting oneself in the foot ...
Meanwhile, the weather in Stanhope's early morning walks has ranged from clear and sunny, misty and mystical to today's sunshine and blustery showers, producing a wonderful rainbow ... though no photo to share ... sorry!
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