Guide: Special Composition
The idea of Connected Systems is simply about recognizing that the world as we experience it is broken down into many, many arbitrary ways of conceptualizing how things work together or against each other. By using Attention and Adaptation in the way we experience these systems, we start to find new meaning in the Associations that will lead us to ways to Unlearn the Self.
Connected Systems are just complex things that you encounter that are related to each other. Examples are given below, but a very simple example is a highway.
- A highway
- With four or more lanes
- Some are going in the same direction
- Some are going in the opposite direction
- On the highway are vehicles
- Some vehicles are traveling in the same direction
- Some are traveling in the opposite direction
- Some are similar (red cars)
- Some are different (cars vs semi-trucks)
This is really just a starting point to understand the concept. If you find yourself noticing a Connected System, relax your mind and experience the following things.
- Play with your own perception, seeing systems in different ways, especially moving between the different systems you see (highway and vehicles)
- Within a system, notice there are parts (lanes, individual cars). Feel that they are just "parts" - they aren't the whole picture.
- Notice how
How to approach each of these exercises TODO delete once I create a more approachable description
- individual parts - Notice they are discrete and autonomous in their own way - A rock is its own thing, disconnected from the other rocks in a pile.
- two or more individual parts - How do they relate and compare and contrast; how do they work together; what connects them and separates them
- similarities and differences between the following, noting how a system is composed and connected to other systems
- specialized systems (cars driving in one direction together)
- parallel systems (two lanes of cars)
- opposing systems (two directions of traffic)
- "ecology" - many systems that are loosely related (light poles, sidewalks and streets)
Driving
Warning: Never do any Meditative or Mindful exercise if it makes you less attentive to your driving!
- Cars moving with you - all one system, but all individual cars
- Cars moving against you vs with you - two separate systems with opposing objectives, but at the same time, part of the same system of traffic flowing
- Notice other Systems and combinations of Systems, very similar to what you would notice when Walking.