Peeking in on Nature’s Hoodwink

We are born with a bio-illusion⁽¹⁾ which goes like this: Through hunting, “I” can gather fillers to satiate (fill) the hole. Primal emotions of need (e.g., desire, lust, want, wish, crave, etc.) and fear (e.g., insecurity, anxiety, doubt, apprehension) drive this illusion forward. This illusion originates in the hunter gatherer instinct to find food to fill the empty belly. The illusion lies in the fact that it promises happy-ever-after contentment once the hole is filled. Alas, that promise is broken the moment the next need arises, which is often literally within the next few moments.

“I” (our illusion of self) jumps from one filler to the next, driven by a need to fill the hole. The hole is eternal. It correlates to nothing, reality, the void, eternity, time, death, silence, loss, the mysterious female, etc. The filler is transitory. It correlates to the current ‘something’, like one of the five, that we feel will bring happiness (i.e., objects of our fears, needs, desires, dreams, hopes, etc.) Fillers are illusory in that the happiness they bring is extremely fleeting, in contrast to what they promise.

The quest to fill the hole (empty, void, silence, stillness) is ultimately futile. Accepting this paves the way to the only path that works⁽²⁾, e.g., attain emptiness, cease to desire and remain still. This helps us follow the constant and return to being the uncarved block. Certainly easier said than done, although unless said and re-said, accepted and re-accepted, the illusion will continue to dominate awareness.

Biology hoodwinks us and sends us off on one wild goose chase after another. Nature’s purpose here is to keep us (and all living creatures) moving forward seeking what we need to survive. We start at ‘X’ and go around in circles feeling we are getting somewhere. In truth we are simply headed back toward where we begin (turning back is how the way moves).

Nature hoodwinks living things into sensing that if they only go that extra step, (around that circle) they will win and find contentment. True contentment, when it comes, is death. Nature can’t afford to let living creatures know that, otherwise they might not take filling the holes seriously enough to survive.

The natural balancing forces found in the wild, but lacking in civilization, along with our large brain, appears to throw nature’s hoodwink out of balance a bit. Our large brain enables us to take life too seriously reaching back into a remembered past and leaping ahead into an imagined future, instead of just dealing well with the present moment (as other creatures do). Thus, for us, knowing about Nature’s hoodwinking ways may help us regain some lost balance. Knowing the rules of the game (of life) may help us play it more effectively.

There are two paths: one is following the way and the way only where attention is directed towards the hole, towards emptiness. The others are the by-paths where attention is directed towards the fillers. Because the myriad creatures in the world are born from Something, and Something from Nothing, instinct draws the attention of living things to the fillers. Therefore even the sage treats some things as difficult. That is why in the end no difficulties can get the better of him.

⁽¹⁾ I may have coined a new word here, at least as I use it. I googled bio illusion and only found a link to a Czech movie company.

⁽²⁾ As always this is in the eye of the beholder, i.e., it is only true if you have found it that way. The proof is in the pudding. This parallels the ‘joy of giving’ phenomena. In fact research has found that people feel a heightened sense of happiness when ‘giving’.