In physics, we have the regular physics that applies to our human-scale world, and quantum physics which applies to very small scales. The rules of regular physics makes sense to us intuitively, at least for the most part. It’s a world we are familiar with, and one that our brain is adapted to understand and relate to. In contrast, the rules of the quantum world can seem quite counter-intuitive and outright weird to us.
It’s similar when we explore ourselves. At a normal scale, it’s all relatively familiar. We can find love for ourselves as a whole, or for parts of ourselves and our experience. We can dialogue with these same parts. We can train a more stable attention. We can find in ourselves what we see in others. Some of it may be a bit unfamiliar, but it’s all happening within a quite familiar world.
When we explore our experience in a more finely grained way, and on a “smaller” or more basic scale, it can feel quite unfamiliar at first. It’s similar to quantum physics. Things don’t work quite the way we are used to. Different rules seem to apply.
For instance, we may see that sensations appear “stuck” on images and words, lending them a sense of reality and solidity, and giving them a sense of charge (velcro). We may see how images, words and sensations appears as who we are, or a threat, or a command to do something (due to velcro).
We may see that we cannot find what initially appeared so real and solid, including a body, a particular (deficient or inflated) self, a threat, a command, an object, a person, words, images, sensations, awareness, and anything else we can give a name to.
That’s all quite outside of our normal experience, and yet it’s right there when we slow down and look more closely and systematically. (For example by using the Living Inquiries, as above.)
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Initial notes……
– Regular vs quantum physics – different logic, quantum physics logic seems odd, doesn’t make sense in the regular physics context
– Same with surface mind vs more finely grained dynamics (the ones explored in some forms of inquiry, including living inquiries)