This is a blog post that’s kind of self-defeating.
Back in 2003, I bought a book. Its title was If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him! The title was philosophical, the content was intellectual … and I’m a sucker for such material.
Early in White Lotus: Season 3, we hear that identity can be a prison. Every step we achieve becomes the attachment we cling to and the next obstacle to cross.
Identification can be very subtle, very creepy. If I’m striving to understand things, I cannot cross and go to things that cannot be understood. Meanwhile, the endless seeking wears you out, the endless striving to understand, to get to the bottom of a bottomless pit.
Philosophy and spirituality can be their own trap. The concept space makes it seem as if you “get” it, hitting you with dopamine. “Chitta vritti”, “atman and brahman”, “prajnya”, blah, blah. But in this domain, you don’t “get” anything by reading, until you’ve experienced it. Intellectual understanding doesn’t count. Simulation in your mind doesn’t count. Piper couldn’t last one day in the monastery. Ego binds us to this trap.
The dissolution of ego does not come easily. Even writing this entry is sort of meaningless, because it is in thought-space as you’re reading it. Read it, then kill this Buddha, and continue to chop wood, carry water.