Meditation, The Mind and The Operating System

Meditation is, at its core, the process of figuring out the fundamental building block that the operating system of the mind is built upon. 

Your self is but a virtual machine running on a more fundamental OS. Your brain as a virtual machine has been optimised for life in a tribal environment and has adapted in such a way. The act of meditating is the act of reconfiguring your OS so that it can adopt more virtual machines than just the one that you’re used to.

I can’t tell you what the fundamentals of the OS you’re running on are as they’re something you will have to discover for yourself. The art of meditation is an experimental process of observing, experiencing, improving and reflecting on the world around you.

Observing as it is the epistemological foundation that you gain information by doing.

Experience as observation transformed into its more fundamental cousin.

Improving to expand the field of awareness to allow you to experience more.

Reflecting on what this tells you about reality.

Seeing freely can only be done by the person who can open their eyes. Going through the motions of science without understanding bayesian evidence handicaps you as you can’t understand the usefulness of real-world examples and thought experiments. 

The same is true for the meditator who believes that they need a complex route of cultivating focus to reach enlightenment. Cut the root of the vine, and all shall fall out; it is the simplicity of meditation that makes it complex. Let your experience guide you; after all, it is your only connection to reality.

Relax, let go of the goal.

Relax, let go of the frame.

What would happen if you just stopped?

What if everything just stopped for one moment, no effort, no goal. 

From basic learning rules, a complex system can arise in reinforcement learning, three bodies moving around each other are fundamentally unpredictable. Something simple becomes the most profane and complex thing in the world.

The same is true for meditation; you’re equivalent to what you’re experiencing. If you fully understand this and experience the illusion of your virtual machine, all you have to do is remember, and you’re enlightened. Yet, if you believe that you’re enlightened, then you’re in the illusion of your virtual machine. 

Zen wants you to realise this by providing many frames of looking at the same simple concept. It tries to give your brain evidence of the simplicity of the world, and it maximises the evidence through many examples of pointing towards the concept of oneness.

Parts of running your fundamental OS are the clear seeing of vipassana or clear-seeing and the awareness of rigpa or oneness. You may never reach there, but you can continuously approach it by changing your virtual machine to see clearer whilst experiencing rigpa. This is what I’ve experienced so far, which might change in the future as it is a discovery process.

Experiencing rigpa or oneness is a state transition, a complete shift in your perspective, whilst cultivating clear-seeing or vipassana is a continuous explorative process. Metta is somewhere in between.

From my current experience, I recommend the waking up app for understanding rigpa and the book The Mind Illuminated for cultivating clear-seeing or vipassana.

May you find peace.