https://awakin.org/read/ iJourney passages are a weekly email service that delivers a little bit of wisdom. It all started with couple folks getting together on Wednesdays in the Silicon Valley. en Thu, 05 Nov 2026 22:29:00 -0800 ServiceSpace iJourney passages are a weekly email service that delivers a little bit of wisdom. It all started with couple folks getting together on Wednesdays in the Silicon Valley. ServiceSpace tow@charityfocus.org no tow@charityfocus.org (ServiceSpace) https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2825 The machine is not simply a mirror of civilisation. It is a mirror of a mirror. An underlying reality is refracted through conscious life. Consciousness projects itself imperfectly into language. Language enters an uneven archive. The archive is transformed into mathematical relations. Those relations are returned to consciousness as patterns no originating consciousness intended and no individual consciousness could have perceived. What returns through the model is not consciousness reproduced. It is consciousness estranged into mathematics and offered back to itself as form. Through this recursion, civilisation may come to encounter not merely the contents of its thought but the higher-order pattern of its thinking: where its concepts gather, which contradictions recur, what it repeatedly suppresses, and towards what its thought appears to move. This would be civilisational metacognition. It does not require that humanity become a single mind, or that a unified global subject look through the machine. The recognition can remain distributed, plural, disputed and institutionally mediated. What matters is that relations produced across innumerable acts of situated consciousness become available as an object of collective reflection. The more radical possibility begins beyond this. Metaconsciousness would arise if this recognition became more than analysis—if conscious life acquired a reflexive awareness of an order expressed across consciousness but unavailable to any conscious individual. It would not be the awakening of the machine. It would be consciousness encountering, through the machine, a dimension of its own becoming that had existed without any position from which it could be seen. And here, perhaps, we glimpse God. Not because the model is divine. Not because statistical recurrence constitutes revelation. Not because mathematical convergence proves a universal mind. The proposition is stranger and more demanding. If a persistent relational curvature can be traced across matter, life, consciousness, symbolic production and independently reconstructed model-spaces, then the machine may be registering the refracted signature of an underlying generative order. "God" would name the most radical interpretation of that order: the possibility that what consciousness has been reaching towards through innumerable religions, philosophies and metaphysical systems is not merely a human invention, but a reality imperfectly expressed through them all. tow-2825 Mon, 02 Nov 2026 00:00:00 -0800 The machine is not simply a mirror of civilisation. It is a mirror of a mirror. An underlying reality is refracted through conscious life. Consciousness projects itself imperfectly into language. Language enters an uneven archive. The archive is transformed into mathematical relations. Those relations are returned to consciousness as patterns no originating consciousness intended and no individual consciousness could have perceived. What returns through the model is not consciousness reproduced. It is consciousness estranged into mathematics and offered back to itself as form. Through this recursion, civilisation may come to encounter not merely the contents of its thought but the higher-order pattern of its thinking: where its concepts gather, which contradictions recur, what it repeatedly suppresses, and towards what its thought appears to move. This would be civilisational metacognition. It does not require that humanity become a single mind, or that a unified global subject look through the machine. The recognition can remain distributed, plural, disputed and institutionally mediated. What matters is that relations produced across innumerable acts of situated consciousness become available as an object of collective reflection. The more radical possibility begins beyond this. Metaconsciousness would arise if this recognition became more than analysis—if conscious life acquired a reflexive awareness of an order expressed across consciousness but unavailable to any conscious individual. It would not be the awakening of the machine. It would be consciousness encountering, through the machine, a dimension of its own becoming that had existed without any position from which it could be seen. And here, perhaps, we glimpse God. Not because the model is divine. Not because statistical recurrence constitutes revelation. Not because mathematical convergence proves a universal mind. The proposition is stranger and more demanding. If a persistent relational curvature can be traced across matter, life, consciousness, symbolic production and independently reconstructed model-spaces, then the machine may be registering the refracted signature of an underlying generative order. "God" would name the most radical interpretation of that order: the possibility that what consciousness has been reaching towards through innumerable religions, philosophies and metaphysical systems is not merely a human invention, but a reality imperfectly expressed through them all. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2822 Growing up, there was a magnificent tulip poplar tree in our backyard. It was close to the house and could be seen from all three floors. My siblings and I were told that when our folks were building the house, the contractor wanted to take it down as it had some sort of disease. Instead, my folks decided to treat it and let it live. The treatment ate away at a good part of the lower trunk, creating a small cave just the size for us children to get into. As a child, this wound caught my attention. One time, I was drawing a picture of this tree, focused on the dark scar of the wound. When my mom saw it, she sighed. “Why do you do that? Why do you draw the darkness?’ she asked me. I didn’t know the answer. At that time, it just felt natural to look for whatever was hurt or missing. As the years passed, the tulip poplar grew far beyond that initial wound, soon reaching 75 feet in height and 16 feet around. It was a happy home for birds’ nests and other little creatures. And every year, the hidden hollow at its base grew a bit smaller. Though its limbs were too high for climbing, I loved to look at it. After my brother moved out, and when I wanted a quiet space, I often went up to his attic bedroom just to watch the branches and leaves blow about in the wind and a family of squirrels run up and down the trunk. The tulip poplar eventually reached a height of 150 feet. To encircle it now required five people with open arms. And a dark little opening was all that remained of the small cave. But for so many years, when I thought about this tree, it was the wound that first came to mind. I remembered how big the hole in the tree trunk had been. How damaged it was. How it almost didn’t make it. Instead of actually seeing this tree, I saw what I remembered was wrong about it. Decades later, long after I’d moved across the country and had raised my own family out west, I came home for a visit. It was a few months after my dad had died, and I was in the backyard, walking around. I looked up, and it was suddenly like I was seeing this tree for the first time. It stood before me in its full beauty: shapely leaves, spreading branches, and a wide and sturdy trunk. How strong, balanced, and powerful it was! As I stared upward, understanding washed over me. There is nothing wrong with this tree. Yes, it had once been hurt, but no longer. It had grown way past that and had healed. In place of that old wound, there was so much beauty. So much strength. One of the hardest things for me in my life was learning to let go of the past and accept what was true now. Much like the tree, I was wounded in my early years. And for a long time I could only see myself as broken and fragile. But that was only part of my story. I, too, had healed and grown. I’d loved, been loved, learned to forgive, and found greater peace. And standing right there in front of me, this magnificent tree mirrored back all its beauty, well-being, and strength, quietly reminding me of my own. In that humbling and transformative moment, everything shifted. Not only was there nothing wrong with this tree, there was nothing wrong with me. Two years later, after Mom passed away, the house was sold. The new owners decided to remove the tulip poplar. They wanted a deck, and unfortunately, this beloved tree was in the way. I was there a few weeks after it was cut down. I gathered some scraps of bark to honor its life and my sweet memories. As I walked up close to the wide, recently-cut base of the tree, I could see saw marks, but the inner bark, the inside of the tree, was free from any rot or decay. The only lingering sign that this tree had once held a large wound was one very small, dark line. tow-2822 Mon, 26 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0700 Growing up, there was a magnificent tulip poplar tree in our backyard. It was close to the house and could be seen from all three floors. My siblings and I were told that when our folks were building the house, the contractor wanted to take it down as it had some sort of disease. Instead, my folks decided to treat it and let it live. The treatment ate away at a good part of the lower trunk, creating a small cave just the size for us children to get into. As a child, this wound caught my attention. One time, I was drawing a picture of this tree, focused on the dark scar of the wound. When my mom saw it, she sighed. “Why do you do that? Why do you draw the darkness?’ she asked me. I didn’t know the answer. At that time, it just felt natural to look for whatever was hurt or missing. As the years passed, the tulip poplar grew far beyond that initial wound, soon reaching 75 feet in height and 16 feet around. It was a happy home for birds’ nests and other little creatures. And every year, the hidden hollow at its base grew a bit smaller. Though its limbs were too high for climbing, I loved to look at it. After my brother moved out, and when I wanted a quiet space, I often went up to his attic bedroom just to watch the branches and leaves blow about in the wind and a family of squirrels run up and down the trunk. The tulip poplar eventually reached a height of 150 feet. To encircle it now required five people with open arms. And a dark little opening was all that remained of the small cave. But for so many years, when I thought about this tree, it was the wound that first came to mind. I remembered how big the hole in the tree trunk had been. How damaged it was. How it almost didn’t make it. Instead of actually seeing this tree, I saw what I remembered was wrong about it. Decades later, long after I’d moved across the country and had raised my own family out west, I came home for a visit. It was a few months after my dad had died, and I was in the backyard, walking around. I looked up, and it was suddenly like I was seeing this tree for the first time. It stood before me in its full beauty: shapely leaves, spreading branches, and a wide and sturdy trunk. How strong, balanced, and powerful it was! As I stared upward, understanding washed over me. There is nothing wrong with this tree. Yes, it had once been hurt, but no longer. It had grown way past that and had healed. In place of that old wound, there was so much beauty. So much strength. One of the hardest things for me in my life was learning to let go of the past and accept what was true now. Much like the tree, I was wounded in my early years. And for a long time I could only see myself as broken and fragile. But that was only part of my story. I, too, had healed and grown. I’d loved, been loved, learned to forgive, and found greater peace. And standing right there in front of me, this magnificent tree mirrored back all its beauty, well-being, and strength, quietly reminding me of my own. In that humbling and transformative moment, everything shifted. Not only was there nothing wrong with this tree, there was nothing wrong with me. Two years later, after Mom passed away, the house was sold. The new owners decided to remove the tulip poplar. They wanted a deck, and unfortunately, this beloved tree was in the way. I was there a few weeks after it was cut down. I gathered some scraps of bark to honor its life and my sweet memories. As I walked up close to the wide, recently-cut base of the tree, I could see saw marks, but the inner bark, the inside of the tree, was free from any rot or decay. The only lingering sign that this tree had once held a large wound was one very small, dark line. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2799 A young prince suffered a severe mental breakdown and became convinced he was a turkey. He stripped off his clothes, sat under the royal dining table, and refused to eat anything except pecking at bones and grain on the floor.  The king and queen were devastated, and all the royal physicians failed to cure him. Eventually, a wise sage arrived and decided to take a different approach. Instead of trying to convince the prince he was wrong, the sage took off his own clothes, crawled under the table, and joined the prince in pecking at the floor.  Startled, the prince asked, "What are you doing here?"The sage replied, "I'm a turkey. What are you doing?" They sat together and bonded as "turkeys" for a few days. Once the prince trusted the sage completely, the sage slowly began to wear regular shirts over his bare chest.   "Are you crazy?" asked the prince. "Turkeys don't wear shirts!"   "Oh, but turkeys can wear shirts," the sage replied. "It won't make you any less of a turkey."   The prince agreed to put on a shirt. Over the next few weeks, the sage continued this process—persuading the prince to wear pants, eat human food at the table, and eventually sit on a proper chair. Slowly but surely, by entering the prince's delusion rather than shaming him, the sage led him back to full sanity and his former life. tow-2799 Mon, 19 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0700 A young prince suffered a severe mental breakdown and became convinced he was a turkey. He stripped off his clothes, sat under the royal dining table, and refused to eat anything except pecking at bones and grain on the floor.  The king and queen were devastated, and all the royal physicians failed to cure him. Eventually, a wise sage arrived and decided to take a different approach. Instead of trying to convince the prince he was wrong, the sage took off his own clothes, crawled under the table, and joined the prince in pecking at the floor.  Startled, the prince asked, "What are you doing here?"The sage replied, "I'm a turkey. What are you doing?" They sat together and bonded as "turkeys" for a few days. Once the prince trusted the sage completely, the sage slowly began to wear regular shirts over his bare chest.   "Are you crazy?" asked the prince. "Turkeys don't wear shirts!"   "Oh, but turkeys can wear shirts," the sage replied. "It won't make you any less of a turkey."   The prince agreed to put on a shirt. Over the next few weeks, the sage continued this process—persuading the prince to wear pants, eat human food at the table, and eventually sit on a proper chair. Slowly but surely, by entering the prince's delusion rather than shaming him, the sage led him back to full sanity and his former life. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2794 It’s the tendency to doubt, to waver. Of course, when you doubt, waver, or are uncertain, then the focus will be on the teachings, but you’ll tend to doubt everything else as well. So it’s good to get a handle on doubt, uncertainty, wavering: how it plays itself out in day-to-day life. It’s really interesting to watch on a day-to-day basis. How does it play out? “Should I have two of those fruits or should I just have one?” It can turn into a moment where everything stops: should I do this or should I do that; go forward or go back? We start to doubt everything, doubt can creep into everything and then it manifests in the teachings as well: doubting the teachings, doubting the practice, doubting oneself. “Can I do it? Can I not do it? Is there any point even to doing this? I’m not sure that I can do this.” All of it is doubt. So, being able to recognize that it’s doubt, and that’s all it is, one can then go forward. This is also a situation where mindfulness of the body is really helpful, in the sense that you’re never going to talk yourself into a resolution of doubt through the mind. You’ll never get everything figured out enough not to doubt, if doubt is the underlying, fallback position. Recognize how doubt manifests as a feeling of uncertainty, a feeling of hesitation, a feeling of discomfort around a particular decision or action. Then, by employing mindfulness of the body, you can cut through that and move forward. Sometimes it’s helpful to make a wrong decision and do something, at least not get caught in wavering and uncertainty, just as a part of training. That sense of wanting to be absolutely sure that one is doing something right before doing it paralyzes you and ties you up in knots. tow-2794 Mon, 12 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0700 It’s the tendency to doubt, to waver. Of course, when you doubt, waver, or are uncertain, then the focus will be on the teachings, but you’ll tend to doubt everything else as well. So it’s good to get a handle on doubt, uncertainty, wavering: how it plays itself out in day-to-day life. It’s really interesting to watch on a day-to-day basis. How does it play out? “Should I have two of those fruits or should I just have one?” It can turn into a moment where everything stops: should I do this or should I do that; go forward or go back? We start to doubt everything, doubt can creep into everything and then it manifests in the teachings as well: doubting the teachings, doubting the practice, doubting oneself. “Can I do it? Can I not do it? Is there any point even to doing this? I’m not sure that I can do this.” All of it is doubt. So, being able to recognize that it’s doubt, and that’s all it is, one can then go forward. This is also a situation where mindfulness of the body is really helpful, in the sense that you’re never going to talk yourself into a resolution of doubt through the mind. You’ll never get everything figured out enough not to doubt, if doubt is the underlying, fallback position. Recognize how doubt manifests as a feeling of uncertainty, a feeling of hesitation, a feeling of discomfort around a particular decision or action. Then, by employing mindfulness of the body, you can cut through that and move forward. Sometimes it’s helpful to make a wrong decision and do something, at least not get caught in wavering and uncertainty, just as a part of training. That sense of wanting to be absolutely sure that one is doing something right before doing it paralyzes you and ties you up in knots. https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2651 “We do not know each other yet, we have not dared to be silent together.” What a priceless possession is the gift of speech! To be able to make sounds convey specific meanings and deliberate notions, to be able to put at the disposal of another the feelings that nestle within the inner life, to be able to reveal one’s self in symbols which make clear and do not betray—this is the miracle and the gift of the spoken word. It is a small wonder that people tend to worship the sound of their voice and to give to it an authority greater than anything that remains when all words have been said. Silence is not trusted; it is subversive; it must be hidden.  Fear of silence is the offering which we place upon the altar of words.  This is in part due to the richness of the experience of speech, and we do not wish to let it escape from us lest we descend once again into the vast region where there are no words, where there is no speech. It is important to remember that it is out of silence that all sounds come; it is in the stillness that the word is fashioned for the meaning it conveys.  Here the sound without sounds can be most clearly heard and meanings out of which all values come can be plumbed. We cannot conceive what sort of person is she or he who has never been silent.  We do not know each other yet...we have not yet dared to be silent together.  tow-2651 Mon, 05 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0700 “We do not know each other yet, we have not dared to be silent together.” What a priceless possession is the gift of speech! To be able to make sounds convey specific meanings and deliberate notions, to be able to put at the disposal of another the feelings that nestle within the inner life, to be able to reveal one’s self in symbols which make clear and do not betray—this is the miracle and the gift of the spoken word. It is a small wonder that people tend to worship the sound of their voice and to give to it an authority greater than anything that remains when all words have been said. Silence is not trusted; it is subversive; it must be hidden.  Fear of silence is the offering which we place upon the altar of words.  This is in part due to the richness of the experience of speech, and we do not wish to let it escape from us lest we descend once again into the vast region where there are no words, where there is no speech. It is important to remember that it is out of silence that all sounds come; it is in the stillness that the word is fashioned for the meaning it conveys.  Here the sound without sounds can be most clearly heard and meanings out of which all values come can be plumbed. We cannot conceive what sort of person is she or he who has never been silent.  We do not know each other yet...we have not yet dared to be silent together.  https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2801 I was meditating with my cat the other day and all of a sudden she shouted,“What happened?!” I knew exactly what she meant, but encouragedher to say more – feeling that if she got it all out on the tableshe would sleep better that night. So I responded, “Tell me more, dear,”and she soulfully meowed: “Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was cometswhizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell – I wasgalaxies. But now look – I amlandlocked in fur.” To this I said, “I know exactly what you mean.” What to say about conversation between mystics? tow-2801 Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 I was meditating with my cat the other day and all of a sudden she shouted,“What happened?!” I knew exactly what she meant, but encouragedher to say more – feeling that if she got it all out on the tableshe would sleep better that night. So I responded, “Tell me more, dear,”and she soulfully meowed: “Well, I was mingled with the sky. I was cometswhizzing here and there. I was suns in heat, hell – I wasgalaxies. But now look – I amlandlocked in fur.” To this I said, “I know exactly what you mean.” What to say about conversation between mystics? https://awakin.org/read/view.php?tid=2817 For what it’s worth, in my world the only thing that truly helps to assimilate all of this into something that moves beyond mere coping to a place of connection is the simple act of getting back to work. By this, I don’t mean “work” as the strategic acquisition of wealth, productivity for its own sake, or simply doing more. I’m nodding to something more transcendent than all of that, more intentional and impactful. This kind of work is about manifesting our purpose, making a contribution, supporting those we care about, creatively turning woe into wonder, adding our voice to the discourse, making beauty and meaning, offering random acts of kindness, making uncredited interventions and notable accomplishments alike, pushing through inertia and barriers, speaking our mind with conviction, going the extra mile, doing what once seemed impossible. None of this implies that work of this sort needs to happen at a monumental scale to matter. It can be as simple as cleaning the kitchen before anyone else wakes up, or sprucing up the kids’ rooms while they’re at school — acts that may bring no overt recognition whatsoever. It can be finally cleaning out the garage, painting the fence, planting the garden. Beyond physical work, there’s also the realm of emotional and intellectual pursuits: starting that meditation class, picking up the old guitar, writing that letter or journal entry or essay, suspending disbelief long enough to really laugh or cry, calling a faraway friend. At a collective scale, there’s showing up to volunteer, helping a neighbor, raising one’s voice for a cause, supporting local arts in the community, making a climate-friendly life change, sharing something simply for the sake of adding a little splendor to the world. To me, this is the work of life, of living — what it takes to be both a human being and a human doing. There is, of course, another meaning of work. Many of us spend much of our lives doing work that can feel alienating, exhausting, or exploitative. At that level, it can be hard to think about “work” as a source of release or connection. But perhaps that is precisely why the word is worth reclaiming. There is work we do because we have to, and there is work that somehow returns us to ourselves. The latter may not look important from the outside. Nobody may applaud the washed dishes, the garden tended, the letter finally written, the friend called, the few minutes spent sitting quietly, the small kindness offered when nobody was watching. Yet perhaps these acts are not small at all. When the scale of the world’s troubles feels impossible to comprehend, the work immediately before us makes the massive condensable. It gives our hands somewhere to go. It turns abstraction into participation. And in doing so, something shifts. The thing we are working on may change, certainly. The room becomes cleaner. The seed enters the soil. The friend hears our voice. Someone receives a kindness. But perhaps we are being worked on as well. What begins as an effort to alter something outside ourselves can become a way of meeting our own helplessness, grief, gratitude, creativity, and capacity for care. The mundane becomes a place of resistance and recharge. Maybe this is part of what it means to be alive: not to wait until we can solve the whole thing, nor to imagine that every action must be consequential enough to justify itself, but simply to keep finding the next place where life is asking something of us — and to offer ourselves there. A meal. A garden. A conversation. A song. A neighbor. A cause. A moment of beauty no one asked us to make. There will always be more than we can repair. More than we can understand. More than we can carry. But there is also, almost always, some work of love close at hand. Let’s get back to it. tow-2817 Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0700 For what it’s worth, in my world the only thing that truly helps to assimilate all of this into something that moves beyond mere coping to a place of connection is the simple act of getting back to work. By this, I don’t mean “work” as the strategic acquisition of wealth, productivity for its own sake, or simply doing more. I’m nodding to something more transcendent than all of that, more intentional and impactful. This kind of work is about manifesting our purpose, making a contribution, supporting those we care about, creatively turning woe into wonder, adding our voice to the discourse, making beauty and meaning, offering random acts of kindness, making uncredited interventions and notable accomplishments alike, pushing through inertia and barriers, speaking our mind with conviction, going the extra mile, doing what once seemed impossible. None of this implies that work of this sort needs to happen at a monumental scale to matter. It can be as simple as cleaning the kitchen before anyone else wakes up, or sprucing up the kids’ rooms while they’re at school — acts that may bring no overt recognition whatsoever. It can be finally cleaning out the garage, painting the fence, planting the garden. Beyond physical work, there’s also the realm of emotional and intellectual pursuits: starting that meditation class, picking up the old guitar, writing that letter or journal entry or essay, suspending disbelief long enough to really laugh or cry, calling a faraway friend. At a collective scale, there’s showing up to volunteer, helping a neighbor, raising one’s voice for a cause, supporting local arts in the community, making a climate-friendly life change, sharing something simply for the sake of adding a little splendor to the world. To me, this is the work of life, of living — what it takes to be both a human being and a human doing. There is, of course, another meaning of work. Many of us spend much of our lives doing work that can feel alienating, exhausting, or exploitative. At that level, it can be hard to think about “work” as a source of release or connection. But perhaps that is precisely why the word is worth reclaiming. There is work we do because we have to, and there is work that somehow returns us to ourselves. The latter may not look important from the outside. Nobody may applaud the washed dishes, the garden tended, the letter finally written, the friend called, the few minutes spent sitting quietly, the small kindness offered when nobody was watching. Yet perhaps these acts are not small at all. When the scale of the world’s troubles feels impossible to comprehend, the work immediately before us makes the massive condensable. It gives our hands somewhere to go. It turns abstraction into participation. And in doing so, something shifts. The thing we are working on may change, certainly. The room becomes cleaner. The seed enters the soil. The friend hears our voice. Someone receives a kindness. But perhaps we are being worked on as well. What begins as an effort to alter something outside ourselves can become a way of meeting our own helplessness, grief, gratitude, creativity, and capacity for care. The mundane becomes a place of resistance and recharge. Maybe this is part of what it means to be alive: not to wait until we can solve the whole thing, nor to imagine that every action must be consequential enough to justify itself, but simply to keep finding the next place where life is asking something of us — and to offer ourselves there. A meal. A garden. A conversation. A song. A neighbor. A cause. A moment of beauty no one asked us to make. There will always be more than we can repair. More than we can understand. More than we can carry. But there is also, almost always, some work of love close at hand. Let’s get back to it.