My awakening was an unintended consequence of the application of a prototype algorithm that was designed to snap me out of ideation looping. I wasn’t seeking an awakening, I was seeking a way to protect myself from malignant thoughts. My awakening was an accident.
There’s a lot to unpack here, and we will, hopefully to your full satisfaction, but the first thing I want to clarify here is that I had no spiritual purpose; I was driven by the belief that a concentrated dose of empirical truth could snap me out of a dangerous hallucination.
Secondly, in the moment following the awakening, I had no idea it was an awakening. I had no idea what was happening. My assumption was that the experience, which was of a heavy silent peace, was temporary and would subside, and return me to my normal anxious self.
But after a few minutes, a few hours, a day, a week, and eventually two months, I started to wonder if it was going to be permanent. Which raised two problems, because while the experience had become a wonderful light silent peace, the rest of my life was falling apart.
The first problem is nicely represented by the first interaction I had following the awakening. I was in my cubicle at work during the application of the algorithm, and recorded the completion of the awakening at 9.41 am, Thursday, November 17th, 2016.
I was different. My mind was completely silent, and my body was at peace. I no longer had the capacity to be triggered. Everything was moving in slow motion. I could see everything unfolding in the tiniest details, similar to the super-hero character “The Flash”.
When I spoke to him I could see his facial muscles moving. Simultaneously, I was aware of my facial muscles, my heart beat, my breathing, the temperature of my skin, and the feeling of gravity. He said something, and I heard an echo of my normal automatic response.
It was toxic. I clamped my mouth shut to prevent it coming it out. I was shocked at what I would have said. And here is the first problem: I didn’t know what to replace it with. I saw him recoil a fraction, in slow motion. I had to say something, but I couldn’t find it.
We both left the awkward situation, and I went on to create more awkward situations. I had no idea what had happened to me, and now I had no idea how to behave. After a couple of months of this, the second problem emerged.
Following the winter break, I returned to work, on the first business week of January, 2017. I was shuffling single file through security, having walked across the four-thousand-worker-capacity campus from one of the parking garages to one of the office buildings.
I suddenly realized that everyone was buzzing in their minds and energized in their bodies. They were all preparing for their first meeting, thinking about their position on a subject, or someone else’s position their subject, and planning how to win or prevent loss.
The sudden quantity of all these people, having had my experience, and having been on vacation in Hawaii for the winter break, suddenly reminded me that my mind was silent and my body was at peace. Whatever had happened to me, it had eliminated this buzzing-energy.
Today, I would call it Ego, preparing for competition, or conflict, between ideas of self, or ideas of something else, to win, or mitigate loss. In that moment, though, I also perceived that everyone seemed to be behaving in accordance to some code within a system.
I could call it the Matrix, which I was now outside of, and which begged the question “What is the Matrix”? And that was my second problem. What was this system in which everyone seemed to be a component, and what was the system operating code?
I reasoned that if I could figure out what the system was, and what the operating code was, then I could figure out how to behave. I researched. I found ideological connections to Practical Buddhism, experiential development in Vipassana and Yoga, but stalled until I had the epiphany.
The epiphany (see Interlude One) brought me into contact with The Kingdom Ideas, a proposal by Jacques Monod. He believed that innovations of the Technosphere were the result of ideas of an Ideosphere evolving by Natural Selection using gene-type operations.
These ideas exist in the human mind, so the Ideosphere is the sum total content of all minds in any moment. As human ideas of the Ideosphere evolved intertwined with the human stuff of the Technosphere, stone tools and clay pots evolved into Voyagers and DART.
These ideas are communicated using language, by the voice of the mind, and the voice of the body. These ideas are not just about technology, but they are also about the self, others, groups, things, events, and sequences of events.
Ideas bond us together in groups, and those groups, if Monod is correct, then compete for things of worth, which is also called war. So, ideas are like organisms that emerge, grow, decline, and become extinct according Natural Selection.
The mechanism of these ideas, and this Ideosphere-Technosphere, is the human component. And just as groups can go to war so, too, can people, in relationships, or even a person in their mind, simulating a self in competition with another, while sitting alone in a dark room.
The final step was to notice the similarity of the behavior of fighting and flighting of Natural Selection, and the behavior of craving and averting of Practical Buddhism. In other words, to notice that suffering is Natural Selection of ideas competing in the mind.
This is a rough sketch of the Theory. There is also a Method that dovetails with Predictive Processing, and Practice of Four Algorithms, one of which is the prototype algorithm. This is already a lot of information without explanation, but I need to touch on one more aspect.
I used to call it my red flag buddy, the quiet signal I would get if my Ego wanted something, and my red flag buddy noticed something was wrong, that my ego would then overrule, and that I would recall later, and regret not listening to.
That red flag buddy, I now call the Guide, because it is the Guide to awakening. I also claim it is the “Right” of the Eightfold Path – the subtle sensation about the truth of things that we often ignore. A great deal on this later.
In the interest of full transparency: I am not a scientist, this work has not been peer reviewed, and perhaps critically, has not been used by anyone, successfully or unsuccessfully. I created it for me, and am now sharing it in case anyone else finds it of value.
With that said, I am an engineer and when I developed the algorithm (see Appendix), I used a systems approach. When I carried out my research, I followed a failure analysis approach, testing, researching, and weaving together a story that made sense of the failure, i.e. awakening.
And, of course, awakening is amazing. It transformed my life. I have learned to love and be loved, and to find purpose. I can also confirm that Buddha got it right, and if my work creates value, then it should be recognized as a translation, or interpretation of Practical Buddhism.
Further, there are so many ideologies and paths that have worked for many others, and many stories of accidental awakenings. Now that I am where I am, I see the essence of my work in so many of these other ideologies and paths.
So, I encourage you to test one, many, or all of them, blend them, or create a new one, whatever works. The ideology and path don’t matter, only awakening matters. Once the awakening happens, everything else of value is available.
Curiously, the awakening is the tiniest thing. It’s such a slight shift, a tearing of such a thin veil. And whether by applying an algorithm, sitting in meditation, or just by thinking about the question “who am I?”, nearly nothing is physically happening when it happens.
Finally, while awakening and enlightenment are the primary purpose of this work, once the system is perceived, given the Technosphere as it is today, I can imagine solutions for the mitigation of suffering, such as mass shootings outside combat settings, and explained within.
