Directions – All the Infinite Places A Mind Can Travel
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) July 14, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21358843 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism Meditation Mysticism |
| Keywords | Reincarnation Contemplation Doctrine Phenomenology philosophy Transcendental number Consciousness Mantra Testimonial Reinterpretation Epistemology Aesthetics Dialectic Witness Frugality Trace psycholinguistics Sanskrit Embodied cognition Formality Jungian analytical psychology |
| Key points | Argues that coherence between minds is achieved through understanding, and that the direction a life travels is chosen. |
Abstract
Directions is a standalone lyric-philosophical prose meditation on conscious thought in time. Beginning from the question of what a mind thinks of itself once it accepts the insignificance of the body it is attached to, the essay moves through a five-stage contemplative exercise — Comfort, Darkness, Life, Descent, Arrival — drawing on Transcendental Meditation, the Silva method, and Sanskrit mantra japa, and framed through the Jungian structures of Ego, Persona, Shadow, and Self. The prose then widens into a phenomenology of perspective: infinite superposed realities, the relativity of mental direction, the moral "Jays" exchanged between minds, and a speculative treatment of reincarnation offered explicitly as moral imagination rather than doctrine — pictures, not prophecy. Written in a first-person testimonial register, the piece argues that coherence between minds is achieved through understanding, and that the direction a life travels — the legible trace it leaves — is chosen. The essay stands outside the author's On ——ing series while sharing its framework vocabulary.