Within this body, the world becomes and knows itself. Mind appears as matter, and matter speaks as mind. Life lives itself within this body.
The mind is the invisible part of the body, and the body the visible part of the mind. Whoever said that, it is true. Indeed, what is the body but perceptions in the mind, and what is the mind but the perceptions of the body? The two are within one another, just like the world I inhabit inhabits me. The two are “not-two”, advaita (अद्वैत).
“It is just within this fathom-long body,” the Buddha says, “with its perception and intellect, that I declare there is the cosmos” (AN 4.45; Rohitassa Sutta). For what can be known of the world other than what is known within the body? And what world is there other than the world that is known?
This body is more than a few limbs and organs, and so much more than a means to an end, a “thing”. Nāma-rūpa (नामरूप), the Buddha called it, meaning “name-&-form” or “body-mind”. The garden where I write this speaks through my pen. And these words you are now reading are part of my body, beamed across mountains, valleys, and oceans as food for your body. Nourishing, I hope.
It is not only through the mouth that I feed. The entire body is constantly feeding. The eye is feeding, on sunsets, concrete, and social media. The ear is feeding, on music, traffic noise, and silence. The nose is feeding, on the smell of coffee, pollution, and my lover’s hair. The skin is feeding, on the fabric of my clothes, on cosmetics, on the sun, and on the wind. The tongue is feeding, this I know, but the mind is feeding also, on conversations, books, news, and dreams. My body is constantly feeding; and as the food, so the life.
My body is not my body. I do not occupy it, nor do I direct it. I, the self, am the speech of the body, the language of the mind. I am an invocation of the cosmos.
May we know that which is body, mind, and cosmos,
Simeon
But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body."
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
In this essay, I explore the Buddha’s deepest teaching, a vision where life is not a sequence of events, but a dance of causes and conditions. What we call self, world, or body dissolves into relationship. And in that dissolving, something whole is glimpsed.
Suggested Reading
The Embodied Mind by Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, and Eleanor Rosch
This groundbreaking work bridges Buddhist philosophy with cognitive science, proposing that consciousness cannot be understood apart from the body and its lived experience. The Embodied Mind is a pioneering exploration of how awareness is not locked in the brain but flows through the body, the senses, and the world they touch. A read that can change not only your thinking about the world, but your experiencing of it. Order here to support SEEKER TO SEEKER at no extra cost to you.
Beautifully said. It really drives in the *feel* of anatta. It doesn’t really add anything to what you much more eloquently expressed, but the analogous idea that had come to me is that my mind is in the world and the world is in my mind.
Existence as being the space within a duality, what exists between two poles, is central to much if my understanding. Our attempts to reconcile the poles and transcend them is the spiritual quest, I feel.
I love your content, btw. You are a true searcher.