Grinding Against the Gears of Existence
Spring – Wk 4: Macaques Really Do Have Souls | Chipped Monkey Brains | Bullshit Advice for the New Age | The Beauty of the Bhavachakra
Macaques Really Do Have Souls
One of the coolest places I've ever visited is the Sacred Monkey Forest. It's located in the city of Ubud on the Hindu island of Bali in Indonesia. It's a densely forested public park situated near the city center, inhabited by almost a thousand macaques.
These monkeys group themselves into seven tribes, each with its distinct cultural flavor. Defection from one tribe to another is pretty common, as are skirmishes between them.
All things considered, it's not a bad life being a monkey. I watched them chase each other through the tropical trees, shrieking with glee. They fought over hunks of fruit, and groomed each other tenderly.
Watching their gestures and facial expressions, you can see how their experiences mirror our own. It would take an icy sociopath to deny they have souls.
A visit to the Monkey Forest reveals our place in the hierarchy of sentient beings. The monkeys are like us. We are like the monkeys. In a Hindu context, the monkeys are also like gods, as are all sentient beings. Therefore the gods are like monkeys, and it shows.
As with most places in Bali, the Monkey Forest is dotted with various Hindu shrines and temples. Their frescoes depict primates fighting lions, or humans, or each other. More than a few are of Hanuman, the monkey god. In this image, he smashes a mountain. In that one, he leaps over the sea. In another, he kneels in prayer to Vishnu incarnate. For centuries, Hindu priests have kept incense burning before these idols.
One detailed statue, prominently placed in a paved square, depicts a goofy monkey stroking his massive dong with a wide grin on his face. Definitely a crowd-pleaser. For the Hindu artists who created these images, animal behavior serves as a window into human nature, just as it does for anyone with eyes to see.
These crazy macaques do the damnedest things. Every now and then, one would sneak up and steal a snack from some lady's purse. At one point, a male and a female started fucking on a bridge railing as pedestrians passed by.
The little bastards can be mean as all hell, too. A few had nasty scars and crippled limbs. One afternoon I saw two males play tug-of-war with a baby monkey who screeched in fear and pain. When the larger male finally won, he simply discarded the baby, who ran to his mother and buried his tiny face in her bosom.
The most fascinating behavior was the macaques' primitive grasp of tools. They exhibited their skills for us multiple times.
For instance, there was a sprinkler system in one part of the park. An older male was screwing around and accidentally flipped the lever, sending up a cold spray. You could tell it freaked him out.
He knew that he did it, too, and apparently felt the need to fix it. The little fellow brought various objects over—leaves, a piece of wood, a stone—and pressed them onto the blasting nozzle, trying to repair what he'd broken. The look on his face was a mix of intense concentration and confusion.
Hindus believe that monkeys are holy for good reasons. We would do well to draw insight from their example. Both of them, I mean.
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Chipped Monkey Brains
As of April 8, the most famous cyborg in the world is a primate named Pager. This nine year-old macaque can play video games using a Neuralink chip in his brain.
In preparation for this brain-machine interface, Pager trained on the games using a joystick. A metal tube squirted banana smoothie between his lips as a reward for each correct move. All the while, over a thousand electrodes implanted in Pager’s brain monitored his motor cortex.
Once scientists had established the relationship between the monkey's neurological patterns and resultant cursor movements onscreen, they unplugged the joystick. To everyone's delight, the cursor kept moving. Pager was controlling the machine with nothing but his brain.
Unfortunately, given the nature of this MindPong system, the poor creature is destined to become the most technologically advanced couch potato on the planet. He should be nice and plump, though, if Elon Musk's insatiable curiosity ever gets the best of him.
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Bullshit Advice for the New Age
The big questions in life can drive you crazy. Who am I? Where am I going? What am I doing here? Whenever I hit a dead end—with no person to turn to for answers—I consult the New Age Bullshit Generator.
The program's creator, Seb Pearce, simply "cobbled together a list of New Age buzzwords and cliché sentence patterns" into a stew of quantum gobbledygook. Every time you hit the REIONIZE ELECTRONS button, the software spits out a new batch of retarded proverbs and incoherent prophecies. It's like having an opinionated acid casualty who lives in your smartphone.
Here are a few recent gems that illuminated my path:
“Growth is the birth of karma, and of us.”
“The future will be an ethereal blossoming of self-actualization.”
“It is in deepening that we are reborn. The Goddess will give us access to ancient freedom. Soon there will be a flowering of guidance the likes of which the totality has never seen.”
“To navigate the path is to become one with it. We exist as chaos-driven reactions.”
Check out the New Age Bullshit Generator for yourself HERE.
Light some incense. Sit in silence. Breathe deeply. Follow the rhythm of the Universe. Then smash the REIONIZE ELECTRONS button to your heart's content.
Like an airhead guru pissing in the wind, the Machine's wisdom is overflowing.
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THE BEAUTY OF THE BHAVACHAKRA
Of all the novel worldviews to emerge during the Axial Age (800-200 BC), Buddhism is the most depressing. Even so, its iconography is among the most beautiful. The Wheel of Becoming is especially gorgeous.
Most Tibetan temples display some version of the bhavachakra. Taken as a whole, its interconnected elements represent both personal consciousness and a map of the cosmos. The Wheel of Becoming also functions as an object of meditation and an aid to memory.
The framework is an ancient technological device—the Wheel, or chakra. The bhavachakra symbolizes the enduring cycle of death and rebirth—a wild procession of gods, titans, humans, animals, hungry ghosts, and demons who journey between the heavens, the earth, and the hells.
The Wheel of Becoming is turned by Lord Yama. This bestial deity wears a crown of skulls and judges the dead according to their karma. All beings are subject to his machinations. Even the gods will fall from the heavens once their karma runs out.
Nature is cruel and Time is a wheel of constant sorrows.
Like a physician, the Buddha diagnosed the cause of this suffering. He also prescribed a therapy to cure it. His central formula is the Four Noble Truths (catvāri āryasatyāni):
1 – All is suffering.
2 – Suffering is caused by desire.
3 – To cease desiring is to end suffering.
4 – To end desire, follow the Eightfold Path.
The Buddha’s teaching is known as the Dharma—the higher order—symbolized by the Dharmachakra. This opposing wheel rolls across human communities, liberating “souls” from samsara—the endless cycle of becoming, death, and rebirth.
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INNER HUB: Suffering is Caused by the Three Poisons
The Buddha identified Three Poisons at the heart of samsara. These are Ignorance, Desire, and Aversion. They’re pictured as a pig, a peacock, and a snake in the bhavachakra’s whirling hub, each one biting another.
All sentient beings are attracted to what is pleasurable, just as the peacock scratches the dirt for insects to devour.
We are also repulsed by pain, like the coiled snake who strikes at the first sign of threat.
Desire and Aversion cannot give lasting satisfaction, the Buddha teaches, but most know no other way. The delusion that we can find happiness by chasing pleasure and avoiding pain—like the bumbling pig—leaves us in perpetual Ignorance.
The karmic cycle is represented just outside the hub. One half is white, the other black. Higher beings draw aspirants upwards. Demons pull them back down. Up they go to the heavens, and then down again to the hells, over and over.
That is, until a Buddha—an “Awakened One”—brings Enlightenment.
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OUTER RIM: The Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising
The Buddha taught that no phenomenon is permanent. Everything is in flux. Everything is becoming.
Seemingly stable entities—such as the human soul—are actually aggregates of constantly shifting components. The condition of each component is dependent upon the others. These form the Twelve Links of Interdependent Co-Arising (pratītya-samutpāda):
1 → IGNORANCE → Death and rebirth are shrouded by ignorance and illusion.
2 → VOLITION → In ignorance, mental constructs form, and personal will pursues the objects of desire.
3 → CONSCIOUSNESS → Self-centered volition gives rise to a deluded consciousness.
4 → NAME & BODY → Consciousness takes form in the womb, where it develops a body and is given a name.
5 → SIX SENSES → This vehicle, now possessing name and body, opens to the world by way of the six senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and mind).
6 → PERCEPTION → When the six senses make contact with the world, we have perception.
7 → FEELINGS → Perception of the world, coupled with deluded consciousness, yields thought and emotion.
8 → DESIRE → Feelings of attraction and revulsion, hope and mourning, feed the flames of desire.
9 → CLINGING → Chasing pleasure and avoiding pain, sentient beings cling to false beliefs about how to attain happiness.
10 → BECOMING → Clinging to desire causes torturous becoming.
11 → BIRTH → That which becomes must be born.
12 → OLD AGE & DEATH → That which is born must grow old and die, and be reborn to ignorance.
The Twelve Links are represented in the bhavachakra's outer rim. Going clockwise, we see a blind man with a stick (ignorance). The second segment features a potter working at his wheel (volition). The third is a crazed monkey swinging from limb to limb (consciousness).
Continuing clockwise, the fourth segment shows a full boat with one man steering (name and body). The fifth is an empty building with windows opened out onto the world (six senses). At the bottom is a man romancing a woman; it represents the senses making contact with the world (perception).
In the seventh segment, a guy has an arrow stuck in his eye (feelings). The next is the most important link—the cause of suffering. This is symbolized by a man accepting a drink from a woman (desire). Moving leftward up the wheel, the ninth segment shows a person grasping for fruit in the trees, similar to a monkey (clinging).
As the cycle progresses upward, and desire comes to fruition, we see a man and woman making love under a tent (becoming). This leads to a woman having a baby—doggy-style in this particular painting (birth). In the twelfth and final segment, a man carries a corpse to a tomb (old age and death).
Time passes and karmic waves carry this whirlwind of fluctuating components—otherwise known as the “soul”—through a vast emptiness.
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MIDMOST CIRCLE: The Higher and Lower Realms of Rebirth
Buddhists describe six worlds that a “soul” may be born into. These are the realms of the devas (gods), the asuras (jealous titans), human beings, hungry ghosts, animals, and hellish beings. In every realm, there is a different haloed bodhisattva—a sort of Buddhist saint—guiding the inhabitants toward the path to Enlightenment.
The order varies from one version to the next, but in this painting, the left-hand section shows the kingdom of the asuras. These jealous demigods are trying to steel the Tree of Wish Fulfillment from the sublime devas above. A war rages at the border between their worlds—hence the arrows flying back and forth.
The lofty realm of the devas, or higher gods, is reached by accumulating good karma. Aside from warring with asuras—and always winning—the devas enjoy the bliss of music, delicious food, eager lovers, and an untroubled mind. Eventually their good karma will be depleted, though, and their “souls” will descend to the lower realms.
To the upper right, the human realm is a mess of glory and tragedy, with long spells of crushing boredom. This life offers unique opportunities for liberation, though. It was in a human form that the Buddha won insight, and it's in human society that his monastic Dharma Wheel turns against natural tragedy.
Continuing clockwise into the lower realms, we see hungry ghosts wracked by unquenchable thirst. Haunted by desires unfulfilled, their mouths are as tiny as needle holes. Try as they may, they can barely get a drop down. Besides, flames block the river's edge.
The hells below are that much worse. People who murdered, stole, lied—or abused Buddhist monks—are tortured until their bad karma is spent. For millennia, the monks have collected detailed catalogs of these deserved torments. Some burn in pits of fire, others freeze in blocks of ice. Some are boiled alive by gleeful demons.
Moving left, we come to the animal realm. Here, the primal elements of hunger, territory, and mating define the rules of the game. You'll note that, as in the hells and all other realms, there is a bodhisattva urging the lion and the lamb toward a higher path.
Enlightenment is always possible—if not in this life, then perhaps the next. Until then, sentient beings are trapped in the wheels of a senseless cosmic machine.
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DHARMACHAKRA: The Buddha’s Wheel of the Law
In the upper right-hand corner, beyond the bhavachakra, we find a haloed monk in ocre robes holding nothing but an alms bowl. He gestures toward the moon. This sphere represents the Buddha's teachings—the countervailing Wheel of Dharma—turning on benevolent ethics, proper meditation, and a pure mind.
The Buddha taught that all existence is suffering, caused by desire. This burning desire passes from body to body—from one realm to the next—as a candle flame passes from wick to wick. By calming the senses and purifying the mind, the Buddha promises, that searing flame can be snuffed out. This, he called nirvana—the end of suffering.
His elaborate worldview is expressed beautifully in the Tibetan bhavachakra.
Honestly, I'm trying so hard to be an adult. With three sons 15mos apart, we were outside a lot. Mum told me, for sanity sake, get outdoors and keep them there until they wear each other out. Their sister simply had to keep up. Point being, 25yrs of nature trails not politics, cartoons not current events, etc. has established a lens through which all 'mots' material must pass. Thus your observations are absorbed, yet images hovering in fog soup radar include;
Rio 1 and 2 (crazy monkeys effectively steal 2nd film from the birds)
The Rundown (2003) jungle adventure thriller with Johnson, Scott, Dawson, Walken
Aztec artistry of Cline/Branagh in The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Lara Croft 1 and 2 (2003) Cradle of Life with Gerard Butler alongside Jolie
Sahara with Penelope Cruz and Matthew McC. Pinocchio. Rolie Polie Olie. Dragon Tales. Bednobs+Broomsticks. Not to mention Aesops Fables et al. Lots of -30deg snow days...
With this bevy of 'ECE' books/films/tv mayhem infused into my memory marrow, my maturity level may never rebound! Travel once was my career, and it taught plenty about connection.