My dear friend Caryle and his wife Nadine are at the Kalachakra empowerment with the Dalai Lama today and the last few days. It sounds like an incredible scene. He's sending me texts from it live. Why not? Since “there is no metalanguage,” there's nothing to pop, no precious dimension of realness to sully with reflection...as long as you can hold that in mind...text away!
The Kalachakra is a cool thing. It enables you to travel anywhere you want in time and change things. Buddhism sees time as a mere sensual effect of real entities, you see. Kalachakra means “black wheel.” A black wheel of time.
Wow, time travel! One of my favorite subjects. Did you know that a government agency in China recently made a law against the reference to time travel or alternative realities in public media? I heard this from Zizek, during a conversation he was having with Julian Assange.
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that wanting to travel through time and change things was the epitome of utopian, Beautiful-Soul-type evil. Maybe I just watched too much Doctor Who as a kid.
But the only real time travel I have found possible so far is the kind where you just travel backwards along your own life. Not just remembering: I'm talking about really going back, and going to the places you used to live in and talking to the people you used to know, as they used to be. The trouble is that the further back you go, the darker everything gets...literally: the sun dims and finally disappears and it's night. And everything sort of gets less specific too: people's personalities start to seem like generalized stereotypes of themselves, and landmarks become more stylized, like symbols. Stuff like that. And you never meet yourself, because you're already in the "here" where you are. And you can't change anything. The only way I've been able to change my past--or my future--is by acting differently in the present. Maybe I just haven't used the right techniques.
You know that last thing you say Nick sounds like an awesome technique to me...
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