Instanssi 2024

This weekend, I attended the Instanssi 2024 demoparty. I participated in the Graphics Compo with this work:

Cosmic Serenity

It's made using Amberlight, a photo of a Buddha statue I made, DALL-E3 through Bing Copilot (for the halo), Inkscape, and Gimp. It placed #9/13. Prints on RedBubble.

"Monks, whatever in the cosmos — with its devas, Maras, & Brahmas, its generations with their contemplatives & brahmans royalty & common people — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect: That do I know. Whatever in the cosmos — with its devas, Maras, & Brahmas, its generations with their contemplatives & brahmans, their royalty & common people — is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought after, pondered by the intellect: That I directly know. That has been realized by the Tathagata, but in the Tathagata it has not been established.
- AN 4.24 Kalaka Sutta

 Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains "in the Tathagata it has not been established" like this: "the Tathagata hasn't taken a stance on it.". The Middle Way philosopher Nagarjuna has said: "If I had any thesis, I would be at fault. But since I have no thesis, I am not at fault". In the western logical tradition, too, the maker of a positive claim (ie. an affirmation, not a negation) has the burden of proof. So, by avoiding positive positions, and instead taking a negating "Neti neti" (not this, not this) approach, we are spared much unnecessary hardship and strife that would be involved in the necessary defense of our claims, if we had an affirming stance on something. In emptiness, there is no nail to hang your hat on.

I also participated in the Summamutikka (Wild) compo with a music video for a track by our band, Valmet Children:

The name of the song, and thus, the music video for it, is "low frequency". It placed #12/19. 

When he encountered some confounding situation, my grandfather would say something that translates roughly as "Now I am completely in the shortwave!" ("Nyt minä olen aivan ulalla!"). Indeed, when trying to figure out some perplexing thing, it makes sense for our minds to "throttle" themselves into an "overclocked" state - that's exactly what modern CPUs do. So, as clock frequency increases, wavelength (being inversely proportional) shortens, leading us to "the shortwave". Several thinkers, perhaps most notably Nikola Tesla, have likened the brain to a radio transmitter-receiver: our link between the body, which is right here, and the mind, which is "out there" (actually, Bodhidharma said that the mind is neither inner nor outer, but let's leave that for now). So, if a frantic search for understanding of the immediate situation at hand can lead to increased operational frequency ("ultra-short waves"), perhaps the state of "low frequency" is the opposite: a deep, unurgent state of rest and relaxation; stressless, only occasionally rippling with thought, if that; a mind like the pool of water in the Samaññaphala Sutta: "clear, limpid, and unsullied".