Chapter six The final frontier“Space…the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, its continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.” If you were a Star Trek fan, you would know that was the theme of this famous science fiction series. I’ve been a fan of Star Trek since the beginning. Just like many others who are drawn into science fiction with the same reason: the mysteries and the intrigues of space and the universe. The fascination of space and the universe will endlessly fuel this curiosity in humans’ minds and subsequently take us into various space missions. When Neil Armstrong took his first step on the moon, I was 15, felt absolutely electrified and wholeheartedly believed his historical speech: a small step for a man but a giant leap for mankind. Wow! We would be all right, I told myself. Sadly and shockingly, apart from the opinion that the moon landing could be a hoax, humanity has hardly leapt anywhere at all. I can’t even say whether we are walking backwards or not, since we don’t even know how much forward or backward we were in the first place, whatever that first place was. How confusing it is! Nevertheless, this is the heart of my entire work – helping you to find the beginning and the end! The desire to find the grand ultimate When the term ‘the final frontier’ is used, even in fictional terms, it still seems to me that they want to find a state where nothing can go beyond. Once again, this is the notion of wanting to find the ultimate nature, isn’t it? The desire to find the grand ultimate or the absolute entity in the universe has always been with humans. We don’t realize this because we often get caught up with other less important things in life and have lost our primary intention. Wanting to find certainty Humans are mortal. We have fears, especially the fear of death. This is why we have the notion of God coming into our heads because we need to trust something or someone entirely so that we can take refuge and reduce our fear and insecurity. Even when one is not a God-believer, it doesn’t mean that one does not have the drive to want to know the ultimate truth. Atheists, agnostics or scientists, or whatever you want to categorize yourself, deep down you are afraid of death and you still want to know that you can truly rely on something that is permanent and not subjected to change. In other words, you want to know the ultimate truth with the hope that this ultimate nature will put everything straight for you and maybe be able to explain death rationally so that you will have no fear of death and the mystery beyond it. The search for the ultimate nature has always been with mankind. Albert Einstein was one of those people who desperately wanted to find the ultimate nature. The genius used his own words such as: the absolute ruling point in nature, the theory of everything or the unified theory and related it to physics whereas the Buddha connected the ultimate nature to the end of suffering and Christ connected it to returning to the Kingdom of God. Searching out there The notion of wanting to find the final frontier in the universe is yet another way to say ‘I want to find the ultimate truth’. Intellectuals, especially astronomers, naturally assume that the final frontier of this gigantic cosmos is in outer space. As we like to say: ‘the truth is out there’. That is why we need to travel away from the earth into space to explore, to find out more facts and information. We hope that such information will help us to understand the origin of our own planet, our lives (consciousness), as well as to give us some ideas of the future of our home planet. We want to have comforting thoughts that humanity will live on, which once again is the result of the fear of death and uncertainty. We need to know the state of certainty so that we can rely on that hope. This urges us to explore deeper into our tube of intellect, which is the source of acquiring knowledge. We have gained knowledge in all avenues and subsequently transformed global society into this modern civilization with all the technology and economy run by a few capitalists. During the process of so-called ‘development and progress’, we have lost track of our intention to find the certainty or the ultimate truth. Instead, we have been caught up in the wonder and glory which science, technology and money can offer us – the comfort zone which overwhelms our intention to find the ultimate truth. Hence, human suffering due to the widening gap between the rich and the poor continues and is even accelerating in many countries. Talking sense is all we have So, let’s bring back our primary intention to find the ultimate truth with the hope that we can subsequently find eternal peace and happiness. Is the truth really out there in space? Do you really believe that we can find the truth in the space by spending our whole lives searching for it out there? If there was any truth out there at all, will that truth make us any happier than we are now? You must seriously ask these questions. Most importantly, do any of these ideas make any sense to you at all? Talking sense is all we have left here if we want to know such a massive subject as the ultimate truth or the final frontier. If we can’t relate to things that truly make sense to us, perhaps we should forget about this whole issue. As for me, my common sense tells me that if we cannot find the truth right where we are, where else do we think we can find it in this gigantic universe? It makes much better sense to say that the truth is right here in front of us so that we can make some use out of it while we are suffering the punches, bruises and mental stresses of this life. Don’t you think so? The ‘eureka experience’ I have reached the point, following my ‘eureka experience’, that I am able to know precisely what the ultimate truth is. That’s how I could come up with the 28 terminologies to represent the ultimate truth. To save your time to flip back the pages, I put them down here for you once again. They are as follows: 1. The ultimate enlightenment 2. Nirvana 3. The Kingdom of God 4. The Tree of Life 5. Godhood 6. Tao 7. Eternity 8. Immortality 9. The ultimate (absolute) truth 10. The ultimate reality 11. The grand ultimate (the meaning of Tai chi) 12. The absolute ruling point in nature (Einstein’s concept) 13. The absolute simplicity 14. The absolute ordinariness 15. The absolute normality 16. The ultimate certainty 17. The true self 18. The real self 19. The non-self 20. The eternal peace 21. The absolute harmony 22. The ultimate freedom 23. The end of suffering 24. The true (real) happiness 25. Here and Now 26. The final frontier 27. Life out of prison 28. The innocent perception (my coinage). The ultimate truth has one taste, one sole experience, but that extraordinary and unique experience can be called by different names, words and terminologies. Words and true experience are two totally different things. For example, there are many different names in different languages for a green thorny fruit with a very pungent smell and a creamy taste and texture known in English as durian. But the word ‘durian’ and the actual fruit are two totally different things. I suppose it is easier to draw the distinction with material object like the fruit but it still works in the same principle when dealing with the non-material form as the ultimate truth. It is important that we must draw the division between the actual experience of the ultimate truth and its name. You can see that among the above 28 terminologies, there are only four of them that you can deal with in a scientific (rational) manner when a definition is needed. They are: the absolute ruling point in nature, here and now, the ultimate truth and the innocent perception. For the rest of the 24 terminologies, we would need to go through a lot more debate, and more than likely a philosophical discussion and arguments, to be able to reach acceptable and agreeable definitions. Used as a verb Having said that, even with those four mentioned terminologies, it is only the term ‘the innocent perception’ that can be used to describe an action of how one can perceive things innocently. The other three can still be loosely and ambiguously interpreted and defined. Furthermore, the innocent perception is based on the very scientific tools humans have – our senses! Therefore, it is only this coinage (the innocent perception) that will allow us to work on and to find knowledge about ‘the ultimate truth’ in a scientific manner – using direct observation. In this chapter, I will do my best to connect these two terms for you: the innocent perception and the final frontier. I am drawn to this term, ‘the final frontier’, because I can clearly explain to people how our search for the final frontier as the ultimate truth has gone wrong. It definitely goes wrong at the point of perception! Two ways of perceiving sense objects People do not realize that there are two ways of perceiving sense objects at the moment of perception. You have the choice to perceive sense objects in the innocent manner or the not innocent manner. This fact will only be revealed if you have engaged in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness for a length of time. This practice will enhance the quality of the mind, which is made up of the metaphoric Tom and Jerry.1 Using this practice is how I know about this fact which has enabled me to know that the innocent perception is the ultimate truth. Experience X – the not innocent perception The not innocent perception is the perception with some thinking and talking involved: e.g., upon seeing a round object, you say ‘a ball’ in your head; upon hearing sounds, a reaction in your head saying ‘horrible music’; upon smelling something, you instantaneously say ‘oh…nice smell of coffee’; upon tasting a lemon, you exclaim ‘sour’ and upon touching a soft toy, you note ‘oh… so lovely’. This, of course, sounds very normal to any human being. We are all bound to think or say something upon perceptions. Well, this is very true to an untrained mind – the mind of one who has never practiced the four foundations of mindfulness. The majority of people in the world, especially intellectuals, think that this is the only way to perceive sense perceptions. To such persons, any alternative would imply that you must be unconscious or in a vegetative state! This is however not true for those who have trained their minds through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness (vipassana or Bringing your mental self back home). Experience Y – the innocent perception The truth is that the vipassana practice can actually refine the state of humans’ minds. To be more specific, this practice can enhance the quality of our consciousness element which I have represented as the mental self with the mental eye (the 6th sense). If you can go through the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness, you will gradually and naturally progress until you reach the 4th foundation of mindfulness which I clearly state is the innocent perception. This practice systematically reduces the number of thoughts (Jerry) in your head. The first two foundations will take away all the loud, familiar noises and chattering in your head. The 3rd foundation of mindfulness will prompt the practitioner to be more aware of the very instant when thoughts enter the mind. This will allow practitioners to clear the constant drifting and monologues from their minds. Consequently, the practitioner’s mind (mental home) becomes silent, still, and at peace. At that moment, your perceptions are all still there; the sensory perceptions do not just disappear into thin air only because your mind is still and quiet. The difference is that upon perception as experience Y, you are not drawn into the old traditional habit of labeling your perceptions with names, giving attributes, reasoning, analyzing, moralizing and philosophizing like we normally do with experience X. Experience Y or the innocent perception is the very moment when you are able to perceive sensory objects innocently or perceive things as they truly are. Consequently, experience Y is not tainted with humans’ thoughts. Please refer to chapter three, the five aggregates making up human life. They are one part mass (physical self) and four parts of formless natures: thoughts, memories, feelings (Jerry) and the consciousness element or mental self (Tom). 1 Humans’ thoughts are unreliable due to their rapidly changing nature and hence are illusive. Thought is not the absolute nature; it also creates the state of dualities (good and bad, positive and negative), which cause endless and sometime pointless arguments – the very source of all problems from domestic to global! So, it’s important to know that there is an experience upon perception in which thoughts play no part and this is experience Y or the innocent perception. The final frontier is right here For the above reason, experience Y, the innocent perception – perceiving things as they truly are – is by all means purer than experience X. It also has the in-built absolute, definite and ultimate characteristic we have all been searching for, and is qualified to be the nature of the ultimate truth. We can call experience Y the final frontier or the absolute ruling point in nature. Experience Y is the very nature that Einstein wanted to locate. This experience Y is similar to having a straight ruler in your hand that you can use to measure absolutely everything in the universe. Every issue about life and the universe will always lead us back to this ultimate truth. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can go beyond this experience of the innocent perception. All the intellectual glories, which we assume to be development and progress, in fact belong to experience X, the not innocent perception. This is because experience X prompts us to enter our tube of intellect, an action similar to digging an endless rabbit hole without any clear purpose. I will elaborate on this in the next chapter. In the meantime, we can ask ourselves what else do we need or where else do we have to go if we have already found the ultimate truth or have reached the final frontier. All the searching can finally end right here! There is no need to explore the gigantic universe to search for anything, is there? The exploration into space to find the unknown truth is far too ambitious and doesn’t bring happiness in individuals who walk on this tiny blue planet for a staggeringly short length of time. To the contrary, the innocent perception as the ultimate truth and the final frontier not only can fulfill the best ambition (purpose) in individuals, it can also bring instant peace, true happiness, mental stability and subsequently great harmony in humanity. This is the direct path to peace on earth. All these benefits can happen instantaneously if only individuals know how to perceive sensory perceptions innocently. This makes much better sense and corresponds to a wise saying used for centuries, ‘if the ultimate truth is not right where we are, where do we think we can find it?’ Indeed, the ultimate truth, as the final frontier, is right here under our nose, but we completely overlook it due to our heads being constantly inundated with thoughts and feelings (Jerrys) which prevent individuals from seeing the truth. Purely rational Please know that this notion is not far-fetched or delusional. It is purely rational and scientific. The best part is that everyone can take part, can experience it, and can prove it for themselves by engaging in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness. There is no other way to do it. This practice is considered a skill just like swimming, cooking and driving: the more you do, the better you will get. The more you practice bringing your mental self back home, the easier it will be to gain control of your own thoughts and feelings (mind) and the quicker you will be able to reach your 4th home or have experience Y, the innocent perception. This ultimate insight will allow you to gain wisdom. Only then, will you be convinced and be able to make the connection for yourself that the innocent perception, the ultimate truth and the final frontier share exactly the same experience. Hence, if we can all engage in the practice of the four foundations of mindfulness or BMSBH, we will find out for ourselves that the innocent perception is very much possible. Once your basic mental skill is good (knowing your breathing, movements and sensations), you will progress to reach the 4th home and you will know exactly how to perceive sensory perceptions innocently. This is the only way we can help our fellow human beings to reach the final frontier, to end all the on-going searching and to settle ourselves down for true happiness. Only through this extraordinary practice will humanity definitely be able to find true and eternal peace and live in harmony. Dead simple Simple explanations are always better than difficult and complex ones. The notion of the final frontier I put forward is much simpler than searching the universe for an absolute ruling point; it not only makes sense, it is also accessible to all beings. The sages of eastern wisdom also said that the most profound wisdom in the universe has no depth. That’s why I have not a shred of doubt that the innocent perception is the ultimate truth as well as the final frontier.
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