We study the lives of lost cultures by examining artifacts. Pot shards, arrowheads, figures modeled on the walls of caves: artifacts tell the story of consciousness meeting the physical and emotional needs of life. The lives of we moderns are no less revealed by the artifacts upon which we depend for sustenance and comfort.
A giant wheat harvesting contraption is an artifact. An atomic bomb is an artifact. Ideas of every stripe are artifacts of consciousness.
That our inner lives are filled with artifacts of consciousness is for the most part completely invisible to us. This observation does not in any way disparage the invented nature of our hopes, beliefs, and skills: but rather should encourage reverence and careful selection of those artifacts of consciousness with which we burden ourselves. Two concepts cannot occupy the same space, and we waste much precious psychic space on conceptual artifacts which have little value other than to provide an example of how desperate humanity is to dodge uncertainty in it's many permutations.
The existence of Emptiness as an artifact of consciousness is one of inestimable value. The contemplation of Emptiness will eventually lead to a spontaneous appreciation of Suchness: and without such an awareness, tyranny of the mind by the artifacts of one's own consciousness is inevitable.
A giant wheat harvesting contraption is an artifact. An atomic bomb is an artifact. Ideas of every stripe are artifacts of consciousness.
That our inner lives are filled with artifacts of consciousness is for the most part completely invisible to us. This observation does not in any way disparage the invented nature of our hopes, beliefs, and skills: but rather should encourage reverence and careful selection of those artifacts of consciousness with which we burden ourselves. Two concepts cannot occupy the same space, and we waste much precious psychic space on conceptual artifacts which have little value other than to provide an example of how desperate humanity is to dodge uncertainty in it's many permutations.
The existence of Emptiness as an artifact of consciousness is one of inestimable value. The contemplation of Emptiness will eventually lead to a spontaneous appreciation of Suchness: and without such an awareness, tyranny of the mind by the artifacts of one's own consciousness is inevitable.
