Man’s bother is nothing other than the impermanency of his consciousness. It has no states or thought-sets that are permanent. Many repeat themselves – appearing, disappearing, then reappearing – but all beyond his capacity to pre-decide what his next thought will be, or his ability to fix it permanently in his consciousness. Under ordinary conditions, consciousness is like a totally out of control madhouse, that somehow works.
Another way by which men indirectly attempt to establish permanency in their otherwise impermanent inner life, is by the adoption of a fixed name, and the consistent reference to themselves as though they have a consistent inner self-of-consciousness. It is thus that those most successful at accepting this façade are the ones who mouth with most pretentious confidence the word, “I.” (Saying): “I think so and so!” “I believe this or that!”
None of these efforts to alter his awareness of the impermanency by the erecting of fixed physical structures, or the imagining of an unending life, or the use of an enduring name, succeed, since not reading a situation correctly precludes any change thereof.
Man’s ultimate attempt came with writing. When men began to write about their thoughts, not about their discoveries concerning the external world, their awareness of their special form of impermanence became permanent.
With seeming total oblivion do humans treat writing as magical and supernatural. All writing, if it is in a book, is somehow important. If it were not, it would never have been written down to begin with, nor then preserved and read. The reason for this overall baseless attitude is again rooted in man’s desire for a permanency in his consciousness, and the act of putting the thoughts of his consciousness into a physical, permanent form is the supreme effort to this end.
J.