The big secrets have a secret. The Secret of Secrets. I don't know what it is, but I know it is probably everywhere I look. I often think about big secrets that I am exploring and that I am ignorant to, despite them constantly staring me in the face. Vipassana meditation has helped me tremendously in investigating myself, to look at the looker. Vipassana has also made me a more effective activist, even though I am currently not sticking to it's practice.
Once upon a time, an ancient squirrel came to the big secrets and said, "You are mighty, you are colossal, you will be easily spotted. Do one of the two - either hide really well, so that no one can see you, or conversely, be everywhere, at every moment, in every corner. In both cases - no one will know about you, and your great secret will be kept".
The big secrets were perplexed. Which option should they choose? Although there was initial disagreement among them, they quickly understood that they had no real choice. They are not small, they are not agile, how could they manage to hide from so many different animals going to so many different and strange places? Hence, they chose the second option, to be everywhere, all the time. That way, even if by chance you notice that they are here, others would think you're mad. No one would believe you, because how come no one else noticed?
If the big secrets had chosen to hide, it would be possible to take someone and say 'Look, behind that playground slide there is a big secret burrowing in the sand,' but it's not possible because they are also behind the playground slide, and right here, both above and below.
For many, many years, the big secrets have been hiding in plain sight. To uncover them, one must simply pay attention to the here and now. And when you stumble upon a big secret, draw near, for it will gently and truly whisper in your ear: The biggest secrets are the most apparent ones. That is the secret of secrets.
As an investigative journalist I have tried to be a fly on the wall, bring the hidden exclusives that no one else has access to. It took me many years to understand that the biggest secrets are hiding in plain sight, and uncovering them is the most prefund, astonishing, and important investigation one can make.
I recently found out that songs are constantly playing in my head, not a stuck song syndrome once in a while, but an everyday ongoing phenomenon that is distracting my attention. I came to see this this because I started meditating on observing my thoughts. That's a huge secret that has been with me for probably 30 years, maybe more. I just never noticed it.
Big secrets are hiding inside but they're also hiding outside. As a child, walking to school, with some of the way paved and some a small vacant lot, it occurred to me that this pavement come on the expense of the animals, but I was very far from internalizing it as the genocide it is. The wild animal genocide is a huge secret. Once you uncover it, it's everywhere. In all probability, you are looking at it at this very moment (ya, where are you right now?).
Practicing Vipassana in the Goenka tradition has thought me that I am constantly reacting to my physical body sensation, and my actions emerge from this reaction. My misery comes from usually unaware reaction to these sensations, not to the outside reality, or as I like to put it, "Buddha was a Statistician".
You always look, but have you looked at what is looking?
If you really wanna investigate the world, you have to look at your own eyes. simulate yourself.
In a true unbiased investigation one eye is on the information from experience, another one is on the information of experience. One eye on the data, another on the simulating tool that is mediating this data.
You never looked at yourself, but you also never looked at the real world. You only perceive through your mind, converting inside changes in your body form "outside" signals into something completely different in quality and essence. The connection between the experience of green and the wave frequency of green is arbitrary. Think about it. Change in matter is converted into experience, and Great confusion arise from this phenomenon, as I tried to explain in 5 minutes:
A Slip to the Tongue: How Language Unwittingly Shapes Bias Towards Animals
You receive info through your sensual experience: hear, sight, touch, etc., but the world has non of those.
The forest is always silent, whether a tree falls or not, whether there is someone there or not. Our perception is deceptive by nature. The outside world is not beautiful, colorfully and soundfull, but colorless, shapeless and silent. I call this reality the silent forest.
Subatomic particles, energy, math, do they "exist" outside? I think it is better to look at them as predictive tools, not reality.
During the last eight years, I have been only practicing consistently for maybe five years, and in those five years maybe an average of four hours a week. Why?
I could be very wrong about this: