Thursday, 17 May 2012

What Is The Problem?

Natural selection both generated and impedes consciousness:

organisms were naturally selected for sensitivity to environmental alterations;
sensitivity became sensation because pleasure and pain enhance survival;
thus, consciousness was a by-product of natural selection
but self-preservation and pursuit of pleasure distract attention from mere awareness.

However, these motivations originated with consciousness
and, like it, express pre-conscious processes.
We have not "sinned" by initiating selfishness.
Some societies encourage selfishness

but others discourage it
and we can transcend it.
Zen meditation is practice of mere awareness
with consciousness as an end-in-itself. 


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