Would you like proof that the cosmos is alive?
Well, we are alive, and we are the cosmos, therefore the cosmos is alive at least through us and any other sentient beings scattered among the stars. I know for a fact that the universe is "conscious" simply by the fact that you and I are conscious, and you and I are the universe:
Therefore the universe is conscious … at least to the degree of stupid, little earth-bound us.
Furthermore, if “intelligence” can be defined as an ability to self-organize, create, solve problems, be inventive, develop, act and react (as well as to become conscious, at least to the degree of stupid little us), then the universe is “intelligent.” It is, at minimum, intelligent in the way that a forest or ant colony demonstrates the intelligence of an organized physical or biological system (or structure of systems within systems) that creates and reacts. Likewise, our brains are highly organized systems that create and react, with the additional aspect of having become self-aware along the way. Thus, we might say that the universe is, at the very least, a self-organizing system so intelligent that it managed to come up with, as well as to have become conscious and self-aware as, us. Assuming that there are creatures vastly more intelligent than us somewhere across the galaxies of space, the universe has been intelligent enough to come up with and be them too.
In addition, the question remains open as to whether our universe, or whatever is the creative source of our universe, possesses further degrees of intelligence that might include some form of intentional forethought, desire in selecting among alternative possible actions, goal orientation, planning, engineering or other equivalent abilities to structure physics, chemistry and the outcomes of processes, all of which anticipated, designed or guided events in certain directions as would have been required to allow life, conscious life, thinking lives like ours, if not our lives in particular as a sought for or necessary result arising on the heels of billions of years of stage setting preliminary happenings and conditions. That higher intelligence (“higher” in the sense of being far beyond our current abilities) could be something like a deity (when its abilities are compared to stupid little us), or an advanced engineer employing scientific understanding, or even a naturally arising biological process (perhaps itself conscious in some way, or perhaps unthinking, unfeeling and blind), or perhaps some combination of all of those, or something quite distinct but exhibiting intelligence nonetheless. The strongest evidence for such abilities may be our own existence, not to mention the existence of any intelligent life at all in this universe, which seems to be either the extremely lucky outcome of a most incredible and implausible string of events in physics, chemistry, celestial and planetary development and biological evolution stretching back at least 13.7 billion years from the Big Bang to our own present pondering of these questions, through countless needed but seemingly unlikely twists and turns along the way, or else the result of some hidden thumb pressing on the scales, if not building the scales themselves.
Zen folks, traditionally, have not been overly concerned with the answer to such riddles, being content to live this life well, with these bodies and minds with which we find ourselves, whether planned or unplanned or however arising. Nevertheless, there is some evidence (which I discuss in greater detail later in this book) that the conditions of this universe, and the happening of our having been born in it, are all too convenient to have been happenstance or blind processes alone. The special place of those who been born as sentient human beings is a fact celebrated throughout traditional Buddhism. While the early Buddhists generally, as well as the later Zen Masters, did not spell out any theories on where the universe came from, or how it got to be so, they did posit a universe with a special structure of birth, death and advance toward improvement (enlightenment) with human life right at its center.
In any case, the universe is alive and as small as we are together with every ant, and we are as vast as the whole thing.
Developing such perspectives merely begins to scratch the surface, for reality is boundless; it is a wholeness without bottom or top. If so, we are boundless too, without bottom or top. A common experience in Zen meditation is to feel the sense of separation, the hard borders (that normally feel like they separate our “me-ness” from all the “not me-ness” that is the rest of the universe) begin to soften or fully drop away. The experience can be so profound that there is truly no end or beginning or measure to time, no top or bottom or middle to the reaches of wholeness. The whole world is felt to flow in and out of all things and moments within it, including you and me. The whole world just flows in and out of the whole world. We realize the experience of our self as the whole world vibrantly flowering as our self in a particular moment and place. That does not mean that “you,” dear reader, are not here, but only that “you” are so much more than you usually think “you” are (and so much less too, because even the smallest ant or atom or instant is not omitted from the whole that is “you,” and that is also all things. You are the ants, each ant, you are each atom of an ant, as each and all are the flowers and birds, Grand Canyon and rivers, and those distant space creatures.
But don’t get a swelled head thinking that “this whole universe is me,” because every worm and rusty tin can could make like claim.
The above redefinition of self as including the world beyond our individual body, and our witnessing and experiencing the vast interconnection and inter-identity of the entirety and everything in it as a great flowing wholeness (the suchness when all names, measures, judgements, and divisions are dropped completely from mind), is a perfectly defensible way to redefine all phenomena, including in modern scientific terms. Further, it is a verifiable experience when the parts of the brain responsible for drawing the borders and definitions regarding where our self begins and ends are shut off or reshuffled. Suddenly, we are this, that, and all other things, and they are us. We are not just “inside” the skin, because “inside” is just outside flowing in, and “outside” is always inside flowing out, beyond “we or it or they” or “inside vs. outside” too.
And what goes for space goes for time equally: Whatever happened during the Big Bang, or before the Big Bang, or will happen at the end of time, or after the end of time, or 5 minutes from now or 5 billion year ago, is beyond all ideas of “before” or “during” or “after” or “time” altogether. The end of time is also “you” and “me” and the ants and everything else, even if none of us will still be around then to witness it.
(to be continued)
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