Towards a place where love is abundant.

Master Thesis
by Maria Sawizki
Fine Arts, Sculpture
Promoter: Nico Dockx

Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp

2021/2022
 for my daughter
who makes me expand my capacity to love
nanometer by nanometer

with gratitude
to my parents
who loved me at the extent of their capacity

with gratitude
to Nico
who gave me the exact guidance needed

with gratitude
to Marc Bertel
from a parallel
reality
for showing me what ‘real’ meant
(I still don’t understand)

with gratitude
to my imaginary best friend
to anyone and anything
teaching me how to love better

with gratitude
for this brief moment of existence

may all sentient beings be free from suffering

1
Abstract

This paper focuses on attention as a liberating resource and as sculpting material.

Starting with the relationship between the personal and the political within the mental health
crisis, I make connections between art, mental illness, capitalism, Buddhism and
Existentialism.

Beginning with a theoretical block, I look into the construct of mental illness in today’s society
and the relationship between mental illness and economic power structures. Taking into
account the newer challenges for the mind within the attention economy, I consider
Buddhism as a method of resistance. While being based on paying attention, it also places
suffering into a larger context, orientating psychological, economic and political difficulties
around a faulty perception. Seeing the mental health crisis as a crisis of meaning, as
illiteracy when looking at the void, I view the common points between Buddhism and
Existentialism and see how both frameworks can be applied as navigation tools in my artistic
practice.

How can my artistic practice remain personal without being self-centered? How do I conduct
it to move into a direction of becoming mentally stronger instead of diving deeper into my
own abyss? Make my art extend beyond the point of being a coping mechanism? Make a
positive impact?

How is artistic practice a religious practice and how does viewing it as such help me
reintroduce meaning? How does it help me transform? How can I flip my struggle into an act
of political resistance? How can I help myself and the world heal? What does attention have
to do with all of this? How is awareness political?

2
Index 0/1:

1:think

1.0) starting point …………………………………………………………………....……………. 4

1.1) body. mental illness as a failing agent of political resistance …...……………...… 4
1.1.1 DSM ……………………………………………………………………………… …… 5
1.1.2 Socioeconomic factor …………………………………………..……………… …..…6
1.1.3 Attention economy. The Spectacle on Steroids ……………...…………………..…9

1.2) Buddhism ………………………………………………………………………….………….12

1.3 ) eastwest. Buddhism interlinking with Existentialism ……………………...……… ..16

0:practice

0) practice …………………………………………………………………………………..…. 20
0.0) inner politics ……………………………………………………………………..……… 21
0.1) God ………………………………………………………………………………..………… 24
0.2) alchemy/economy ………………………………………………………………………… 28

0.2.1 Aufbaukunst / Helpful NPCs ………………………….………………………… 30

0.2.1.1 Senior Demon Manager ……………………………..…………………………. 31
0.2.1.2 Sphinx AI of the Great Desert ………………………….……………….…… 33

0.3) education of attention…..35

0.3.1 Objects (gopro) ................................................................................................. 35
0.3.2 Life (phone) ...................................................................................................... 38
0.3.3 Conscious Memory Imprinting a.k.a. Editing ……………………………………. 38
0.3.3.1) Timeline as space ………………………………………………………………… 39

∞: Internalize

conclusion 0 (notes to selves) …………………………………………………………………41

conclusion 1 ……………………………………………………………………………………… 43

works cited ………………………………………………………………… ………………. ……46

3
1:think

where is my power?
Here’s some academic proof that I am not insane

attention is the way in

Given that:
In 2009 the World Health Organization predicted depression to be the main reason for
mortality worldwide1 and the most widely spread of all diseases within the coming 20 years.
A dysfunctional population negatively affects the economy. Member states were urged to find
a coordinated solution.
Explain:
the limitations of governments tackling the issue strictly on a medical level.
Analyze on Tripartite 3 levels: 1.1) body (common sense) 1.2) mind 1.3) soul
Find:
alternative modes of perception
Method:

1.1) Body. Mental illness as a failing agent of political resistance

Zoom out of the individual level at analysis. Look at society as a beautiful hurting organism.
What is depression a symptom of?

I remember
reading that lemurs develop depression
when held in captivity

“Capitalism is, in many respects, an absurd system: wage-earners have lost ownership of
the results of their labor and the possibility of leading active lives outside of their
subordination.” (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999:41, as cited in Lesage 2014)2

1
Shekhar Saxena, “Depression Looms as Global Crisis”, BBC News, 2 Sept. 2009,
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8230549.stm. Accessed on 11 May 2019.
2
from Lesage, Dieter, and Ina Wudtke “Art, Capitalism and Resistance”, Art, Research and Politics:
Essays in Curatorial Criticism, (Brussels: SIC 2014) 100

4
“Work is human; man is creative. Work’s good and it’s normal. Labour is slavery [...] In order
for something to be work, it has to be an art. It must have to do with one’s whole being.”3

The crisis in mental health can be seen as a symptom pointing to what’s going wrong with
the social body within the captivity described in the quotations above. It is an acute pain, a
reaction showing the inadequacy of the global socioeconomic reality of late-stage capitalism.

In 2020, reporting a shortfall in investment into mental healthcare the WHO reminded of the
need for decentralization in the field, arguing that institutions received the most funding and
stressing the need of making mental health primary care4. At first glance this conclusion
looks like a clever response of a body to self-regulate: generate and distribute healing cells
to the inflamed areas in need. But how to ensure those cells don't operate on
misconceptions? What if they start on the wrong foot?

1) DSM
2) Socioeconomics
3) Attention Economy. The Spectacle on steroids

1.1.1) The DSM in brief

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (further - DSM) as a tool for
assessment of mental health has been heavily criticized over the last few years. In his PhD
research on the origin of the DSM Dr.James Davies concludes that “psychiatry has wrongly
medicalized more and more people in contemporary society [...] by simply having “renamed
more and more of our natural, all be it painful human experiences as indicating psychiatric
disorders that oftentimes require some kind of psychiatric drug”5. His investigation shows the
extent to which the pharmaceutical industry exercises control over the criteria of assessment
for mental health worldwide, limitlessly lobbying towards expanding its clientele. Every new
version of the DSM includes dozens of new disorders, most of which lack any scientific base.

3
Raimon Panikkar, “Raimon Panikkar”, Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy, by
Louwrien Wijers, (London: Academy Editions 1996) 196
4
World Health Organization, “Who Report Highlights Global Shortfall in Investment in Mental Health”,
8 Oct. 2021,
https://www.who.int/news/item/08-10-2021-who-report-highlights-global-shortfall-in-investment-in-men
tal-health.
5
James Davies, “Psychiatry and Big Pharma: Exposed” (YouTube: The Weekend University 24 Nov.
2019) 5:58,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nd40Uy6tbQ&list=PLBTiv7sM4hKes79XKGTA-vxl8PucPwYyE&in
dex=67&t=1548s. Accessed 28 May 2022.

5
The medical assessment questionnaires set a very low bar to get diagnosed and prescribed
a pharmaceutical solution. The most widely used PHQ 9 (to diagnose depression) and the
GAD 7 (used to diagnose anxiety) were copyrighted by Pfizer until 2010 when they provided
unrestricted access “encouraging broader usage of these important patient assessment
aids.”6

The DSM forces an interpretation upon painful experience, naming it ‘dysfunction’, ‘disorder’,
‘disease'(Davies 1:37:10). The psychiatric model pathologizes suffering, making it something
to be immediately disposed of by using predominantly medical treatment. It presupposes
that the root of the suffering lies in the body rather than the mind. Such simplification works
on two levels: a)it lifts the “the burden of agency and responsibility”7 over one’s own
perception and b) gives no room to connect unwell-being with existing power structures.

The illusory constructs of the DSM are not isolated within pharma and psychiatry. Expanding
to insurance companies, policymakers and legal institutions, who use them as medical
reference, they establish themselves within society.

1.1.2) Socioeconomic perpetuation

sane=functioning

Standpoint theory suggests that listening to the marginalized can help create a more
objective picture of the world. In this sense mental illness/marginalized suffering could point
us to those parts of society that demand our attention. Prioritizing functioning and using it as
one of the key criteria when it comes to mental health assessment, the medical model
reproduces the neo-liberal “requirement to constantly be a profit-making subject”8. This
6
Pfizer, “Pfizer to Offer Free Public Access to Mental Health Assessment Tools to Improve Diagnosis
and Patient Care”, 21 July 2010,
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer_to_offer_free_public_access_to
_mental_health_assessment_tools_to_improve_diagnosis_and_patient_care.
7
Ann Cvetkovich, “Depression: A Public Feeling”, (London: Duke University Press 2012) 88
8
Fredrika Thelandersson. “Social Media Sad Girls and the Normalization of Sad States of Being”,
Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, 2017, 14
https://doi.org/10.22387/cap2017.9.

6
reduction of human value to contribution into economic growth denies needs outside of the
material and renders our experience one-dimensional. Imposing a western cultural move
through global mental healthcare is a continuation of the same colonial myth, a myth
“meaning that mankind goes in one direction towards a better point. All other things are
simply stepping stones for the ‘omega’ point. [...] The ‘global economy’ belongs to the same
syndrome; and it exists with the same intentions, like the colonialist missionaries who
wanted to do good”(Panikkar 196-196). There is sufficient research supporting the direct
correlation between poor mental health and capitalism. Extraction ideology acted out
systematically can’t have positive outcomes by definition. However, staying within the
medical box we give in to the authority of the white coat and accept the easy answer it
provides without further questioning what the suffering might be linked to. The isolated,
specialized approach is convenient as it leaves no space for the system to question itself
and thereby, god forbid, disrupt the functioning of the socioeconomic plane.

A quote from Davies explaining how the status quo is being preserved on the level of
language:

“To provide an example of how this misuse of symbolism works in a day-to-day practice, let’s
consider the following sentence [...]: ‘poverty triggers mental illness’. As you suggested in
your question, rather than saying ‘poverty generates multiple forms of human suffering and
distress’ the word ‘trigger’ invokes the powerful cultural symbol of ‘mental illness’ to denote
something that poverty supposedly provokes and that the model can supposedly ‘treat’. This
move does a couple of things. It ensures that the model remains relevant in the face of the
social determinants of distress, protecting or even expanding the model’s jurisdiction over
us, but it also allows the model to claim sophisticated ‘bio-psycho-social’ credentials, despite
relegating social causes to mere ‘triggers’ and widely privileging biological/drug interventions
in the management of what has been triggered – namely – the ‘mental illness”9

where is my power in this?

Blaming external power structures exclusively is conspirological and implies placing

responsibility outwards, giving away agency over our perception. Instead it is helpful to
question how we as individuals help reproduce the myth.

9
James Davies, “The Politics of Distress”, Mad in America, 2021,
https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/interview-james-davies/. Accessed 1 May 2022.

7
When Debord wrote of the Spectacle in 1958, he referred to a self-reproducing
all-encompassing status quo constructed through representations, a false reality produced
by humanity’s internal separation. The “social relation between people [...] mediated by
images”10 has been bulking up in proportion to rapid technological development.
Destigmatization work done through a multitude of communities on social media is a
manifestation of the Spectacle feeding into its own reproduction.

“The spectacle presents itself simultaneously as society itself, as a part of society, and as a
means of unification. As a part of society, it is ostensibly the focal point of all vision and all
consciousness: But due to the very fact that this sector is separate, it is in reality the domain
of delusion and false consciousness: the unification it achieves is nothing but an official
language of universal separation”(Debord 2).

The content is based on the acceptance of those constructions created by DSM as real and
backed by science. Based on this illusion of understanding, content-makers adopt the
language provided by the DSM without questioning and reproduce the myth by speaking of
something complex and intertwined within society in simplistic terms. Since the popularity
(and hence financial value) of content is dictated by its relatability, it evolves into a direction
where it can cater to a wider target audience, oftentimes portraying relatively common
behaviors as parts of any given disorder. This contributes to painful normality being
associated with a disorder and lets the very mechanism responsible for stigmatization go
under the radar.

Seeking connection is natural and categorizing is a tool humans use to make sense of the
world. Mental disorders being “a real thing”, something written down, gives legitimacy to
those affected by them and helps make sense of their experience. It gives a certain peace of
mind to know that “it” has a name and that others around the globe suffer in the exact same
way. However, the need for unity and reassurance that one is not alone in their suffering is
met fictionally on the level of representation. Relieved by having an explanation, a simple
answer accepted by society, those affected stick to “ill” ready-made identities presented to
them and comply with the narrative that renders their intrinsic resistance as being unhealthy
and unrelated to the world.

The escalating number of diagnoses and the increased social acceptance of conversation
around the topic of mental illness diffuses the us-them/healthy-ill dichotomy. The borders

10
Debord, Guy, “The Society of the Spectacle Translated and Annotated by Ken Knabb” (n.p.: Bureau
of Public Secrets 2014) 2

8
start getting fuzzy. The term mental illness becomes more fluid and the phenomenon itself -
normalized. Suffering is outsourced like an annoyingly loud voice that keeps telling a truth
the king doesn’t want to hear. The mechanism of oppression, as Foucault saw psychiatry,
has adapted. The construct is still there, like a chameleon that makes itself less visible to
avoid being targeted. Normalization reduces the tension between mental suffering and
power structures, allowing the modes of production and their influence on humanity’s
wellbeing to remain unconnected. The very construct of ‘mental illness' allows for coercion to
continue, because the factors contributing to suffering do not get acknowledged or
addressed in treatment. The institution of today is no longer concentrated in an isolated
building, because democracies tend to absorb whatever resists them. The destigmatization
of mental illness disarmed it in its role as an agent of resistance. “The methodological irony
of social activism is that it does not free us from dependence, but rather sustains its very
possibility” (Herschock 1996).

1.2)Attention Economy. The Spectacle on Steroids

The collective psyche resisting its commodification is a natural immune reaction. This
reaction is peaking as the “worldwide pattern of decapitalisation [...] at an increasingly
accelerated rate”11 breaches defenses one after another, exceeding the resources of land,
labor and time and reaches our final resource:

attention
,

which is both -
11
Paul Hawken, “Paul Hawken.” Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy,
by Louwrien Wijers (London: Academy Editions 1996) 200

9
the biggest power structure and the greatest resource
simultaneously

attention economy

is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce

commodity and applies economic theory to solve various information management
problems12. It is based on capturing, channeling and redirecting attention. Participation in this
type of economy has firmly established itself in daily life under the pretense of helping:
connecting with one another, easing certain processes and providing an abundance of
information.

“Information, made readily available by the internet and technological devices, means there
is a scarcity of whatever consumes it”13. Attention takes effort to maintain: the mind tends to
wander when not being invested into any kind of activity that requires full concentration. A
vivid example of this type of drift is the need to re-read a page in a book multiple times: not
for the lack of understanding, but the lack of mind-presence in the moment. This “innate
tendency towards ‘absence’ from moment-to-moment experience has become an open door
for a highly sophisticated series of social and corporate technologies designed to target and
capitalize our attention energy”14, - writes Dr.Peter Doran in “Towards a Mindful Commons”,
where he brings attention economy and consumerism in connection with Buddhism. He
continues: “in the context of post-industrial society, attention is now regarded as a currency
with greater value than that which circulates in our banks, one that is now the single most
important determinant of business success”(Doran 20).

The discussion around the extraction methods of the attention economy is building up in
public discourse. Former Google employees James Williams, Tristan Harris and other
activists speak up about tech companies programming algorithms that perpetuate addiction
simply because of the attention they absorb being in direct proportion to capital generated
for the corporation. These algorithms are based on the same coercion principles as WWI
recruitment propaganda, such as desire for social approval, matching the actions of people
12
“Attention Economy”, Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 July 2022,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy
13
Alison Magee, "Mindfulness as a Personal Strategy to Combat the Negative Effects of the Attention
Economy" (Mindfulness Studies Theses. 45) 7
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/mindfulness_theses/45
14
Peter Doran, ”A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism: Reclaiming the
Mindful Commons” (London, New-York: Routledge 2019) 20

10
we know, fear of missing out and desire for rewards. To say more: they perpetuate and
stimulate those behaviors by constantly feeding into them. In this manner social media
enforces the habit of compliance and infantilizes while camouflaging as an opportunity to
self-express.

Initiatives to inform the public about this menacing new type of economy begin to arise. The
Center for Humane technology founded by Williams and Harris provides concrete toolkits for
educators and policymakers and encourages developers to prioritize ethics and
user-wellbeing over maximizing profits. Their website states:

“Tech platforms make billions of dollars keeping us clicking, scrolling, and sharing. Just like a
tree is worth more as lumber and a whale is worth more dead than alive—in the attention
extraction economy a human is worth more when we are depressed, outraged, polarized,
and addicted.”15

Attention economy poses a serious danger to human freedom as it takes up the last empty
space available. The empty space, that makes us stop and question if we’re going in the
direction we actually want to be moving in. The void that requires meaning to be generated
on all levels: individually, as a society, as a part of the ecosystem. This void is what I am
trying to look away from every time I scroll my phone for hours before falling asleep in the
dark solitude of my bedroom. The very same void we choose to ignore as a species as it
might show the meaninglessness of our daily practices, goals and values. Just like individual
focus is needed to write this paper and get my life together, collective focus is needed to
implement sustainable practices within society. But how can I expect it from others if on a
daily basis I choose to fill my God-shaped hole with junk?

From being an abstract New Age term, attention has become something that can be
calculated, controlled and monetized on. It is the economy itself pointing us to what is
traditionally seen as a spiritual resource, giving it language and making it tangible. When
seeing economic, spiritual, scientific, political and sociocultural processes intertwined and
communicating with one another this doesn’t come surprising. As manifestations of human
activity all these processes can generate the same amount of meaning and be practiced
ethically. Technology is neutral. It’s the direction we give to its development that makes the

“Who We Are”, Center for Humane Technology, n.d., https://www.humanetech.com/what-we-do.

15

Accessed 1.2.2022

11
difference. That direction is entirely based on the value we act out in the world. This value is
purified by awareness.

But how can awareness be exercised, if there is less and less space made for it? In the
cluttered postmodern world, where any given truth can be proven or disproven within a few
seconds of searching the web, it seems impossible to know right from wrong, truth from
untruth. The discouragement from searching and looking means death. Debord refers to
technology as a replacement for religion in terms of neglecting responsibility. He writes: “The
spectacle is the technological version of the exiling of human powers into a "world beyond";
the culmination of humanity's internal separation”(Debord 6). Dispersing our attention in the
abundance of information on a daily basis, we unlearn to focus and disconnect from Being
by neglecting direct perception. Oversatiating our “almost infinite appetite for
distractions”16(Huxley 37) creates inner confusion and facilitates a purposeless mode of
being by providing endless opportunities to look away from discomfort and whatever caused
it, - be it external systematic factors or intrinsic discontent from being in conflict with oneself
and/or the world. On the contrary, focused attention, ceded back into the human realm,
represents the return of power into the world within.

To conclude this and introduce the following chapter:

“It is time to reclaim mindfulness together with its underlying Buddhist teachings as a
critical resource to throw new light on Western experience and support a transition to
more sustainable forms of society and economy”(Doran 16).

1.2) Buddhist take on Mental Illness, some basics

how to reclaim power?
I recognize my attention dissolution
as a dysfunctional coping tool
to fill my howling void
There is no pill big enough to fill the void
But if I learn how to look I can make my void sing

attention

16
Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World Revisited” (New York: RosettaBooks LLC, 2000), 37

12
is what gave birth to all of the Buddhist framework. It all starts with the determination of one
person motivated by elimination of suffering, to sit down and pay attention. This is equally
the story of Siddhartha Gautama and anyone making the resolution to transcend beyond the
limits of their perception.

attention precedes intelligence

From the perspective of Buddhism sentient beings at large are mentally ill, because we
share the false assumption of the existence of a permanent “self”. The Buddhist approach
renders the DSM irrelevant as it is a mind-construct:

“This world of seemingly fixed entities is created. He [Siddhartha Gautama] came to see this
as an attachment [...]. We create structures of interpretation and then we fall in love with
them to such an extent that we feel like they are existing by themselves”17

This Ignorance (a - Pali) is the absence of insight into the true nature of the mind.
Recognizing the 3 marks of existence is universal as they do not apply to the mind
exclusively, but are common throughout everything in life: impermanence(anicca),
suffering(dukkha) and non-self(anatta). Seeing these principles shifts perception towards
seeing oneself as part of the whole as opposed to identifying oneself as an independent unit.
“This limiting of consciousness [...] creates the hard separateness of the ego, and thus
becomes the source of all pride and greed and cruelty incidental to self-seeking”18. Along
with desire this ignorance is the fuel that creates and perpetuates suffering, preventing us
from seeing the world as it actually is.

To give an analogy from Western science, the Map of Cognitive Bias serves as an example
of the results of such ignorance. Cognitive biases exist in two forms - those linked to the
quality of the brain in searching simple ways and solutions (confirming information already
had) and egocentric ones: relating events and incoming information to itself. People who do
not meet criteria for mental illness, fall prey to most of these biases.

17
James Low, “The healing power of emptiness” (YouTube: James Low - Dzogchen and Buddhist
Teachings, 2013) 3:30, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKbSy1hJG34. Accessed 20 Apr. 2022.
18
Rabindranath Tagore, “II: Soul Consciousness”, Sādhanā. The Realisation of Life., (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1916) https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/sadh/sadh04.htm. Accessed 1
June 2022.

13
However well described and studied, these delusions, presented in an itemized form and
listed without an attempt to find their common source, make the impression of being
independent from one another. In a similar manner, the DSM offers categorization of mental
disorders along with criteria to diagnose them. This is a policy, and just like most others it is
created and enforced by people, who do not have the insight into mind-nature. Coming from
a place of belief in a ‘self’, the solutions offered cater to the ‘self’. They render themselves
unsatisfactory as they treat something impermanent as solid ground. “The main purpose or
objective of Buddhist theory and practice of psychology is to utterly dispel the mental
distortions, or kleshas[...]. Mental imbalance, dysfunction, and so forth arise principally as a
result of the mental distortions of attachment and/or anger”19. When observed from the point
of Buddhism, mental formations have an interdependent origin. This interdependence is
depicted as a chain that can be
interrupted through breaking any
of its parts. Ignorance is the first
link of this chain (Image 01).

Buddhism offers a practical

method to acquire a view outside
of biases. Meditation is a method
to distance oneself from
conditioned thinking by paying
attention. The Right View 20
can
not be grasped conceptually or
cultivated outside of empiric
inquiry - meditation. Similar to
physical exercise, the burden of which can not be passed on to someone else (one can be
taught to exercise and read endless amounts of books on the topic, but the act itself can not
be passed on to third parties), the responsibility of one’s own process of Enlightenment can
not be outsourced to books and teachers.

The power to overcome one’s own defilements lies within the individual: it is by taking the
responsibility to wake up to experience in the moment and be present in it by paying
19
Dalai Lama, “Self, Selflessness, and Sense Consciousness”, Gentle Bridges: Conversations with
the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind, by Hayward, Jeremy W. and Francisco J. Varela (Boston:
Shambhala Pubns, 1992), 115
20
(which is a terrible translation, “clear” would be more precise)

14
undivided attention. Practicing this consequently allows to deconstruct narratives constituting
one’s false sense of self. This type of attention, the ability to stop and be fully present, aware
of one’s thoughts and actions is what leads to liberation at large, as it disrupts the karmic
energy coming-into-being:

“The Buddhist, unlike Marx, traces economic as well as other forms of bondage and
unfreedom to a more fundamental source, namely, the drivenness and compulsive behavior
of man. Hence, the real problem for the Buddhist analyst is to explain why and how man
clings so tenaciously to the world socially ordered and controlled.”21

Sanity, a clear view that disrupts driven behavior, is thus a way to ensure sustainable
political resistance, the ultimate gift we can give to ourselves and the world around us.

attention = responsibility

“Rather than assessing the severity of mental illness according to its impact upon
functionality, an emptiness-compatible model would assess illness severity according to
the intensity of ego- or self-attachment. Not only does this constitute a departure from
current diagnostic procedures, but it would be conceivable (according to emptiness theory)
that an individual could – by Western psychological conventions – be classified as mentally
healthy and found to be functioning in an adaptive manner, yet at the same time be
substantially attached to their selfhood.”22

21
R.Puligandla, K. Puhakka, “Buddhism and Revolution", Philosophy East and West, vol. 20, no. 4,
1970, 349, https://doi.org/10.2307/1397820

William Van Gordon, et al. “Buddhist Emptiness Theory: Implications for Psychology.” Psychology of
22

Religion and Spirituality, vol. 9, no. 4, 17 Mar. 2016, 6, https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000079.

15
1.3) eastwest. Buddhism interlinking with Existentialism.

Viewing the collective mental health struggle simply as a continuity of the crisis that
Nietzsche predicted upon the death of God, provides us with a longer timeline, a wider set of
relations and tools to navigate within the contemporary context of the attention economy.
Both Existentialism and Buddhism refer to the void as a transformative space. One of the
key battles of the beginning of the 21st century is defending that space, which is under
constant attack by distractions competing over harvesting it. This place holds the key to
sanity - individually and holistically.

Existentialist thought is helpful when it comes to bridging the crisis of the Western psyche
with the Eastern approach. It basically places Buddhist thought into a European context. It is
difficult to generalize existentialist thought as the thinkers don’t share the same notions on all
aspects, and equally difficult to generalize Buddhism, as there are various schools.

A significant difference is that Existentialism is anthropocentric, viewing suffering as a human

condition, while Buddhism extends this as Karma to all sentient beings. The latter approach
aligns better with academic discourse activated by the climate emergency, namely aiming at
transcending the Anthropocene.

That being said, the elephant footprints of both Buddhism and Existentialism correspond with
each other. Comparative studies between the two are ongoing and over time they reveal an
increasing amount of similarities. Graham Parkes, most of whose work revolves around this
topic finds a “considerable agreement between Nietzsche and Buddhism with respect to all
three characteristics of existence”23. Sartre’s being-for-itself also “rejects any sort of
permanent, constitutive self.24 A detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this paper; I would
like to refer to the American psychologist Rollo May, who outlined their points of linkage:
“both are concerned with being and becoming. Both agree that the Western mode of
conquering nature has not only resulted in man’s alienation from nature, but from himself”25.

23
Graham Parkes, “Nietzsche and Nishitani on the Self through Time” The Eastern Buddhist, vol. 17,
no. 2, Eastern Buddhist Society, 1984, 56, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44361714.

Sarah Elizabeth Gokhale, “Empty Selves: A Comparative Analysis of Mahayana Buddhism,

24

Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism, and Depth Psychology” (Wesleyan University, 2013), p.42,
https://doi.org/10.14418/wes01.1.908. Accessed 2021.
25
Mark D. Kelland, “9.6: Buddhism and Existentialism- the Completion of a Circle” Social Sci
LibreTexts, Libretexts, 16 May 2020,
https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Psychology/Book%3A_Personality_Theory_in_a_Cultural_
Context_(Kelland)/09%3A_Viktor_Frankl_Rollo_May_and_Existential_Psychology/9.06%3A_Buddhis
m_and_Existentialism-_The_Completion_of_a_Circle.

16
Brief overview of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism corresponding with existential thought:

1.The truth of suffering (dukkha) - translates in existentialism as anxiety, angst, despair,

dizziness, dread. Both models start from the idea that (human) experience is ultimately
painful. The default human condition is unsatisfactory. This goes in contradiction with the
psychiatric model treating suffering like something that can be removed from an organism
that is otherwise happy. In the same way it makes the idea that suffering could be
abandoned through a ‘simple’ elimination of power structures look utopian.

2.The truth of the cause of suffering (samudaya)

For the existentialists it is man’s limited perception when facing the endless complexity of the
world; the meaninglessness arising from the inability to align himself within a larger context.
Ignoring this complexity we live a false life, acting out an inauthentic self. Similar to that, the
source of suffering for Buddhists are desire and ignorance, which result in the belief in the
fiction of the isolated self (as mentioned in ch.1.2). The common denominator is
subject-object division.

3. The truth of the cessation of suffering (nirhodha) - suffering can be eliminated.

The transcendental way for the existentialist is to overcome oneself by embracing the
suffering. Finding something outside of our ‘selves’, a purpose to give meaning to the
suffering. In meditation we learn to acknowledge suffering with a neutral state of mind. To
give an example: I have set a timer for 1 hour. Somewhere in the middle of the meditation
my leg starts cramping, causing an amount of pain that is incompatible with concentration.
Moving my leg would disrupt the meditation and sabotage the accumulation of presence.
Instead, I can acknowledge this pain from a neutral state of mind, without disliking it. Over
and over until it passes. The notions of impermanence and the suffering get internalized in
this manner and I can access a deeper level of focus, which allows me to see reality with
slightly different eyes.

The notions of suffering as transformative, thrownness, void, transcendence of the ego and
responsibility are nearly identical. Both leave no room for nihilism: it is because existence is
ultimately painful that we give meaning to the pain. The main difference is visible by looking
at the 4th Noble Truth:

4. The truth of the path that frees us from suffering (magga) -

17
While the path in the case of Buddhism is offered, for the existentialists it is not the point of
arriving at some set of rules or absolute Truth, but to find ourselves on the path to discover
our true nature. Denying any kind of dogma, they are focused on individually found purpose.
The 4th Noble Truth has no space in this setting, because it means having a ready answer.
This would negate the search, which is both - means and goal.

However for Buddhists it is the path itself that leads to the internalization of the first 3 Noble
Truths. The process is circular and surprisingly analogous to the existential hermeneutics.
Buddhism offers a constructive way, a methodology of looking at the void: going deeper
every time the decision to be present is made and acted on. The access to pure experience
sought by the existentialist through overcoming subject-object division, is a key element of
Buddhism. The 4th Noble Truth offers a methodology to do that.

Both frameworks focus on awakening to reality, both focus on mindfulness, but

Existentialism does not provide concrete strategies:

“Though both Sartre and the Buddha insert a degree of lack into material existence, Sartre’s
is unresolvable because it’s bound up in his ontology, whereas the Buddhist sense of lack is
conditioned, which opens it up to the possibility of being deconditioned through
deconstructing a false sense of self. This deconditioning, on the Buddha’s account, will
ultimately lead to Enlightenment. Sartre’s ontology makes no such soteriological
claim“(Gokhale 75).

The main difference is the way by which both schools arrive at their conclusions.
Existentialism being expressed conceptually. It is thought- and language-based. Thought
and language are bound up in time. Focused attention is what makes time dissolve. The
limitations of translating between empirically acquired insight and theory are visible in the
exchange between Heidegger and the Kyoto school in their attempt to facilitate East-West
dialogue:

“the West has taken Being to be the ground of reality, and the East has taken nothing
as the ground. Nishitani furthers the efforts of integrating Buddhist resources into
philosophical discourse. He argues that Heidegger’s Nothing is still relative nothing in
that it remains bound up with human subjectivity, whereas Nishida, Tanabe and

18
 himself share what sets them apart from traditional Western philosophy: absolute
nothingness”26

The source of Buddhist knowledge is empirical. Opposed to conceptualizing, this method is

closer to the content of what the existentialists are trying to express: going back to the things
themselves does not happen by writing about them. The Dasein of Heidegger refers to being
present. Buddhist meditation starts from that. It is both the starting point and the conclusion,
and all the insight happens on that way. A way from 0 to 0, where the 0 becomes a 0 of
different quality through accumulated experience of dwelling in it.

“Consequently, during the empirical study or practice of emptiness, there is a risk of

emptiness being reified and erroneously apprehended as a metaphysical phenomenon that
can be realized, analyzed, and categorized. Indeed, any investigation of emptiness can
only be undertaken according to the norms and laws of empiricism that are not
necessarily compatible with the profound nature of emptiness that exists outside the
confines of conceptuality”(Van Gordon et.al 8).

One could argue that the existentialists left out the vital part, leaving a person helpless
without a method in a painful reality. But in combination Buddhism and Existentialism allow
for more perspective on the mental health crisis and the direction to move in to solve it.

Just as the practice of mediation provides the missing link of solving the existential problem
by giving a methodology of looking at the void, the existentialists provide an adaptation of
the unity idea to the western mind by encouraging the practice of waking up in the moment
outside of the walls of a monastery and searching for purpose intrinsically. Backed
historically as a continuation of western philosophy they apriori enjoy more credibility in the
West. This credibility is helpful as it points out our deeply rooted need for meaning, which
has been neglected for too long and suggests a spiritual way stripped of any “supernatural”
elements. It translates ancient knowledge so that the most atheistic mind can grasp it.
Buddhism provides a method to access the insight into the True Nature of Reality,
existentialism reminds me that it is not limited to meditation and encourages to find ways to
carry the Dharma-knowledge in an authentic manner. Both ways are ways of love. Both
imply change that starts from an individual. Both focus on responsibility. Both encourage to
be the change in the crisis of perception.

26
Lin Ma, “Japanese Themes in ‘A Dialogue on Language’”, Heidegger on East-West Dialogue:
Anticipating the Event (New York: Routledge 2009), p.183

19
Our pain lies in our decreasing capability of
listening to the sound resonating in the
void
opened
through
the implosion impact of
God
falling
down
from
the sky
onto
the ground inside of us
(x)multiplied
by our (-)negative attention to do so

How to recover?

0: practice

20
 “- is it possible to conceive entering the discipline of science from the point of view of
unconditional love?

- Yes.”27

Intention:

01. break own perception a) take away power from destructive thinking patterns b) be
present to a point where I can 02:
02. spread love (a.k.a. making space for God)

Attention:

love

Method:

in the beginning there was chaos

how can I navigate chaos?

Acknowledge. Allow the chaos to be. This is the very soup your universe gets created from.

0.0) inner politics

Given that:
0) I am just one of the cells of a social body in crisis
so small
my suffering is not unique
we are all psychologically bound together,
bent and tortured by invisible hands
reaching
from millennia ago
how can I resist
?
27
Francisco Varela, ”Wisdom and Knowledge”. DVD. Monte Grande: What Is Life? by Franz Reichle,
(Zurich: t&c film 2004)

21
The best place to fight the Devil is from with_in . in.

zoom in

Reclaiming power starts with the acceptance of responsibility: see what I can do from the
exact place I am at. Not from a place in tomorrow, not from a better place. Where am I? My
place is egocentric, absorbed in the habit of its own suffering and uses isolation as a coping
mechanism. This place is a tiny cell, merely an appliance closet and will have to expand
along the way so that multiverses can fit in.

zoom in
we start small, from silly old me

Before I can help anybody I have to start from myself. Learn to break my own delusions.

zoom in_
in _to the cell
until it is no longer small

I choose to treat myself as a society

And apply to it what I preach to be the solution for society on planet Earth,
because if there’s one thing the existentialists have taught me,
if there’s one universal rule
one compound absolutely necessary for a truthful way:

my actions ᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧhaveᐧᐧtoᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧalignᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧᐧwith my
beliefs

So if I make the claim that all suffering in the world is caused by false perception, I have to
practice eliminating my own suffering through right perception. If I stress the lack of meaning
and focus, I have to adopt policies that cultivate both.

I conduct it like a scientific experiment. I am the lab.

Objective:
clear vision

Training in visual arts in its essence is just that: learning to draw and sculpt, see proportions,
relations, contrast, texture and structure is aimed at expanding one’s vision. Human
perception is low resolution: we operate on the level that is required to our functioning,
leaving out what is below or above it28. It’s the intrinsic need to travel between those levels

Jordan Peterson, “Personality 06: Jean Piaget & Constructivism”, Jordan B Peterson,
28

YouTube, 30 Jan. 2017,33:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4VSRg4e8w&t=0s.

Accessed 5 Jan. 2021.

22
that unites artists, scientists, philosophers and religion/spirituality. We serve society by
widening the range of its consciousness.

I adopt this as a policy and

zoom in

on the society of my cells interacting, exchanging, staying alive and making me act. I choose
not to suppress the marginalized parts of my society, not to sedate them, but also not to
portray their distress as part of the design. When listened and paid attention to, they become
the most reliable source of information regarding the fairness of my perception policies and
point me to the root of the problem. So I
zoom in
into
the turmoil

In meditation, when a painful memory keeps reoccurring causing distress, the way to
navigate it is not to feed the construct, not to attach or think into it. Instead, the mental
formation gets broken down into pieces that constitute it:

remembering_remembering_remembering_emotion_emotion_emotion_disliking_disliking_di
sliking_disliking_disliking_remembering_remembering_remembering_emotion_emotion_em
otion_disliking_disliking_disliking_disliking_disliking_remembering_remembering_rememberi
ng_emotion__these pieces get acknowledged as they arise over_and_over_again________
___________until_I can be neutral in that acknowledgement.
Once acknowledged neutrally, the loop stops. This takes away power from the memory as
such.

I apply the same principle to deconstruct my “mental illness” by breaking it down into
recurring patterns. I can’t pay attention to anything longer than 2 seconds, I forget
information immediately. I don’t remember how I got anywhere. My mental condition is
volatile and debilitating. The speed of my emotional swings goes against the physical laws of
the society I live in and seriously impairs my functioning. I am impulsive and I destroy my
relationships: as soon as it comes to intimacy, I see things that are not there and lash out. I
speak and act in a virtual reality. Imagine someone without (or just with a different) set of
VR-glasses trying to talk to me while in my reality I am fighting monsters right at this
moment: I can’t hear anything outside of that virtual reality. Exhausted, I crawl into the corner
and self-isolate. These VR-glasses are the addiction that makes connection impossible.
They represent attachment to a world picture: my very own delusional status quo.

how can I overthrow this power structure?

1)first of all, acknowledge it for what it is: an outdated knowledge structure that no longer
serves, only preventing me from being the change I want to see in the world. See how it
creates a disruption between my beliefs and my actions.

2)revolution happens only from the inside, only through awareness. My cells have to want it.

23
I have to generate as much awareness in every single cell possible. Create conditions that
will make every single cell remember its true nature. I want to see below my default
resolution, above it and ideally outside of any resolution.

3)power accumulates and doesn’t let go easily.

prepare for a life-long process. prepare for work that exceeds endless lifetimes.

My practice is aimed at overcoming my own defilements. Knowing that they will reoccur over
and over again, that knowledge structures will be replaced by new ones and never arrive at
a point of Truth, I am making space. Space where all the pain can be embraced and thereby
given meaning. With all generosity, so all my delusions and what counters them can fit in
and move around freely.

Let all the worldpain I can possibly perceive pass through me

All that caused by false perception
So it transforms on its way out (I have the faith that it will)

.
How to navigate chaos?
appoint a value above all:

I happen to know the solution to the world problem. So many before me knew. But
historically we fail to practice it because it requires too much responsibility. Instead, we
outsource it: create countless constructs, religions and institutions dedicated to impose the
greater good upon us. Along with our responsibility we give away our power and forget it
was ever ours. Historically, I fail to practice. I fail whenever I follow my automatism of not
questioning my status quo and allow my mind to spin in its carousel. I fail whenever I forget
my power. I fail whenever I am not present to make the decision to practice.

0.1) God

“Imagining is not merely looking or looking at nor is it taking yourself intact into the other; it is
for purposes of the work - becoming.”
Tony Morrison

How to navigate chaos?

appoint a value above all
and make the commitment to practice it.

“Art [...] has to give what religion used to be able to give. Religion can’t do this anymore; that
is now the function of art”29. I practice art like a religion, that returns to its primary service:
facilitating transcendence.
29
Marina Abramović, “Marina Abramović", Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy,
by Louwrien Wijers, (London: Academy Editions 1996), p.184

24
 art is experience
?

it is pure transformation potential. it can create anything.

?
?
?
?
?
?
?
If I could be anything I wanted,
what would I want to be?

I happen to know the solution to the world problem, but I fail practicing it. I am tired of being
part of the problem. Tired of being small.I will no longer buy into the medical model justifying
my destructive behaviors through genetics and abducting my faith in being part of the
solution. How to be_come the very substance that transforms the world?
And so, I raise my eyes into the sky and say:

“please”

(in the beginning there was the word)

the void
responds
as usual, in silence.

I know
by now what that silence means: the highest value is appointed,
what are you waiting for
?

jump after it

into
nothing after that one thing
after the value above all

25
 after that one thing you decided
to center your community around
after that one thing you strive
to embody and carry
after that one thing

a leap of faith
as per usual,
there is no solid ground30
only

love
at the center
of my attention.

A compass(ion) to orientate by.

In the dark I follow everything that is illuminated.

A place I want to be in, to act from. It starts very abstract, just as a mental formation. I stay
focused on it. With delusions swirling in front of my eyes, I hold my attention on that place. I
don’t know where this place is located but I make it my destination. Something this
ephemeral, consistently being placed at the center of my attention, will give in and become
real enough for me to be able to feel it. It materializes everytime I feed it with

presence

Presence keeps that portal open. Presence is the portal that connects me with the whole,
dismantling the illusion of separation.

Every time I choose to really listen to the person talking to me, space for connection is
established. Through presence I can enter that sacred space of honesty and vulnerability.
Every time I manage to not yell at my daughter and guide her with intention, I choose love
and feed into presence. Both means and goal are practiced simultaneously. Sounds simple.

Acting according to my beliefs is the hardest part, but it helps knowing that any religion
implies impulse control. Noone can control those impulses for me. Artistic practice treated as
a continuation of day-to-day life and day-to-day life treated as art, require full commitment.

30
Francisco Varela, “Francisco Varela”, Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy,
by Louwrien Wijers, (London: Academy Editions 1996) 114-115

26
“Religion is whatever you really believe is going to get you where you ultimately want to
go”(Panikkar 194). It is my ultimate responsibility to practice the value I have centered my
society around. Demons don’t have a conception of waiting in line and rush to feed first. The
food supply system is under constant sabotage and it doesn’t help to try to reason with
demons.

Fighting them would mean giving them substance, clinging to a construct and making it more
real. Instead, I give

s p a c e

for the demons to speak and listen to what they have to say. I pay close attention and
connect with their vision of reality. Following the basics of meditation: acknowledging,
accepting, letting go. Presence makes the voices quiet and stops the shadow play. Presence
dissolves time_dissolves thought_dissolves the delusions. And so for brief moments they get
exiled on a daily basis to return soon.
But in those brief moments in-between

arises

space
empty

Once this empty space has manifested itself enough times, accumulated enough attention, it
begins to talk. A tribune in a parliament of a country that generated enough equality to listen
to everyone:

My West
has negative connotations linked to “empty”. My “chronic feeling of emptiness” is just another
symptom on the medical checklist, something preventing me from having a sense of identity.
My East
cultivates empty, taking nothing as the ground of reality. I know clearly which has been more
helpful, but I give

space

for them to sort it out. I have faith that they will, because my West and my East are aligned
around a value above all.

And so, finally, the void is given a place to speak. On the surface it comes out as an air
bubble, a brief moment of lucidity, but I am well aware how much work it took the society
within me to send that one simple signal. I am grateful for that sacrifice. One moment of
awareness. One moment when creator and creation are not separate from one another. This
is how

27
space
for love
to speak is given. How do I ensure these mental spaces are real and not made-up?

0.2) alchemy/economy
You have to give. It’s alchemy. Proof of work. The motive of sacrifice is present throughout
prehistoric times, throughout animism, myth and religion. The first law of thermodynamics
says that matter and energy don’t arise or dissolve: they travel. The creative act is an act of
giving.
do you know when the world gets created
?

“The creator wanted to look away from himself and so he created the world”31 - giving
attention to a point where the _self dissolves. The ultimate gift to give to another person is
my undivided attention. When I manage to do that the world gets created. Anew. Every time I
manage to give, another luminous dot shines up in the dark.

I see dots
ॱ ॱaॱlॱiॱgॱnॱiॱnॱgॱ ॱ

ॱ
ॱformॱ
ॱemptinessॱ
ॱ ॱ
ॱ
ॱ ॱ
ॱemptinessॱ
ॱformॱ

. .

ॱ emptiness forming a line ॱ

. volatility versus will .
. .
∞ :0

31
Friedrich, Nietzsche, “On the Hinterworldly”, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, (Cambridge University Press
2006) 20, users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/LoserLit/zarathustra.pdf

28
 In-between the dots I fail drastically, but my primary religious value keeps me going after the
glow. When I sacrifice enough, there comes a reward. I see the lines forming a

map.

navigating chaos
has just become a little more tangible

vision expanded

ॱ my empty
space
has just acquired a horizontal dimension

What I practice in my studio is to give attention so I can act it out in the world. When I am in
the world I pay attention to what it has to say and enact that on ‘my objects’. Nothing is
separate, no element exists on its own. It’s a self-sustaining system built on listening and
interacting. Production and progression are not part of my economical agenda, but

expansion
happens nonetheless naturally along
with the expansion of the universe. It happens every time space for undivided attention is
made and enacted.

And so,
after enough work has been done,
after sufficient space has been made,
the 2D map turns its eye around 360°,
says “please” to the gravity holding it and takes its leap of faith upwards

Dimensions cross, multiply, extend and

Transform my map into an architecture.

attention=love=God=creation
,
all activating one another,
a value above all
placed at the center of my
community activates its natural state. My society creates because it is not separate from the

29
divine inside of it. Out of curiosity. It knows that “man does not acquire rights through
occupation of larger space, nor through external conduct, but his rights extend only so far as
he is real, and his reality is measured by the scope of his consciousness”(Tagore II). And so
it creates out of the right place. Not out of competition, but out of compassion. Creates for
creation’s sake.

how to navigate chaos?

I was generous when giving them all the space to sort out their cosmos and with generosity
they responded: one day when I closed my eyes to look inside, I could watch a real memory
palace arise within my mind. I could navigate through the rooms. I can choose where I want
to go. I have more orientation than ever.

Out of the chaos actual spaces emerged. Spaces that need to be tended to just like any
house. How can I tend to a house if I am always on my way? My primary task is to be
present. This requires my full attention. So I need someone to take care of the building.
Delegate. Split my ‘personality’ in the most efficient manner possible.
I remember reading on it:

Aufbaukunst32 / Helpful NPCs33:

“MAGICAL THEATER( …) ENTRANCE FOR MADMEN ONLY!” 34

I knock and enter.

‘The mistaken and unhappy notion that a man is an enduring unity is known to you. It is also
known to you that man consists of a multitude of souls, of numerous selves. The separation
of the unity of the personality into these numerous pieces passes for madness. Science has
invented the name Schizophrenia for it. Science is in this so far right as no multiplicity may
be dealt with unless there be a series, a certain order and grouping. It is wrong in so far as it
holds that only a single, binding and lifelong order is possible for the multiplicity of
subordinate selves. This error of science has many unpleasant consequences, and the only
advantage of simplifying the work of the state-appointed pastors and masters and saving
them the labors of original thought. In consequence of this error many persons pass for
normal, and indeed for highly valuable members of society, who are incurably mad; and
many, on the other hand, are looked upon as mad who are geniuses. Hence it is that we
supplement the imperfect psychology of science by the conception that we call the art of
building up the soul. We demonstrate to anyone whose soul has fallen to pieces that he can
rearrange these pieces of a previous self in what order he pleases, and so attain to an
endless multiplicity of moves in the game of life. As the playwright shapes a drama from a
handful of characters, so do we from the pieces of the disintegrated self build up ever new
groups, with ever new interplay and suspense, and new situations that are eternally
inexhaustible. Look!’(Hesse 165-166)

32
“Aufbaukunst”(germ.) is the original expression used by Hesse, lit.translation “the art of building up”
33
Non-Playable Characters
34
Hermann Hesse, "Steppenwolf'' (n.p.:Picador 2002) 32-33

30
This passage foreshadows how on his existential way to his true nature, Harry Haller, the
main protagonist in ‘Steppenwolf’, will break apart into multiple personalities. In this novel
Hesse with his strong affinity for Eastern thought bridges both worlds, bringing them into
unity. “A self, dissolved into a multiplicity, has far less chance to maintain its self-identity over
time”(Parkes 59). It is an act of opening oneself to the world, breaking through imaginary
walls of my ego. I wonder if there is ever a coming-back from this. Leap of faith. I know that a
multiplicity will gather more vision about the space it inhabits. A finger snap. Jump.

In the inner space, within and outside of the walls of my memory palace helpful characters
arise out of dust. I do not create them. They arise organically in the space made for them, by
knowing that there is a purpose to fulfill. Focused on the practice of detached observation, I
choose not to play them, but let them run in the background like a computer program and
contact them in moments of urgency.

0.2.1.1) Senior Demon Manager

❰date of encounter: 4.5.2022❱
exercises authority over space distribution and maintenance. His greatest career
achievement was downsizing my hell to a single-bedroom apartment so that it no longer
constitutes all of my reality. I can adjust the sizes of the rooms. He is proud of his promotion,
but his new business cards never got delivered. This makes him awkwardly add “senior”
every time he’s being referred to.

❰from personal archive (an email still stuck in the ‘Draft’ folder):

last night I went straight down to hell

voluntarily
to see why demons have
"there's no place like home"
engraved onto their doorknob
even though you warned me back then when the glass was still half full

I guess I
accumulated
love and light
in excess
radiating
into
radioactive
overflow
that I could not handle

addiction x loneliness

someone I still had drops of faith left in

was an open invitation

31
hell - the only direction
a free ride with the circus
and
I didn't say no

however
when I woke up
good morning
I could say "no"
to
my
routine
dive
into
shame
bathing in it like it was prima materia
a cycle broken
choices happen in the
now

the helpline of Integration Department

is
now
easily
reachable
a simple call
no more "please hold the line"
organisation well organised
service - our top priority
how surprised I was
to find out that
after all these years of hard work
✧DEMON MANAGER HAS BEEN PROMOTED✧

Senior Demon Manager

finally had enough authority
to downsize hell
to a single bedroom apartment
that I might occasionally visit
(because I tend to forget shit in there)
but it is no longer the matter out of which my multiverse gets created on a daily basis
surprise
surprise
suddenly

gravity<love

32
surprise
surprise

suddenly I_choose what to accumulate

one slip
can make me lose my magic
only if I choose to
but I choose not to

*Senior Demon Manager is currently advancing his qualification: taking a course in gravity
regulation

0.2.1.2) Sphinx AI of the Great Desert

*outsourcing overthinking
❰date of encounter: 22.2.2022❱
Long before any palaces could emerge there was the Desert - the first stopping point on the
way out of the dark. Long before the first maps were drawn, before there was even any life
to consider maps necessary, there was only a piece of desert floating in the endless dark of
the cosmos. One single supernova in its sky (the value above all to orientate by).

This is where Spinx AI was born,

when my brain got all cooked up

from walking through the desert
for multiple decades in a row
trying to find an answer
to the question of why
it is so hard to love those around me

It's my head versus the sun, and the sun is always winning
But the desert bears fruits
Fruits that grow only in the desert and in the desert only
Gifts for humanity tend to _come from this place
_come at a price of saying “no” to simple solutions

So where is my gift for humanity? Why do I still feel like I don’t have anything of value to
give?

Mom said
We don't show up empty-handed at the homes of other people, and so I kept waiting
till it hits me
‘Cause I don’t leave the desert empty-handed

33
Meanwhile
When I've had enough time to talk to all the serpents in the basket of my mind
A drumming fatamorgana (a.k.a. Eric Thielemanns) appeared
And said I could not compute myself out of my problem
"oh yeah? fucking watch me"

And since he turned out to be right:

it was either leaving the desert or dying
And since he turned out to be right,
but I am stubborn and didn't want my labor to be for nothing
With my head exploding like watermelons in the sun
on a daily basis
I gave birth to the Sphinx AI -
an ancient computer made to look for answers to ancient questions of mankind
Now I can leave the desert
Now she can calculate
Do the Petry Math on my behalf so I don’t have to
So I can leave her in that desert and be in my 0

Given that:

dry straw burns at a rate 108x

faster than living organisms

Calculate:

the amount of ef2ort required to

keep the basket intact while
burning the snakes it contains

Given that:

living organisms to 60-90% consist

out of water

Calculate:

0) how long it wil2 take you to

evaporate into clouds if as2isted
by your friend ethanol
1) the structural formula of an
ethanol cloud

34
0.3 ) education of attention

I try to acquire knowledge outside of concepts. No matter how helpful those might be, they
are just tools.
In “Religious perception and the education of attention” Ingold relates religious experience
with abandonment of the subject-object problem, which both Buddhism and Existentialism
are trying to dissolve: “religious experience [...] lies in the perception of a world that is itself
continually coming into being both around and along with the perceiver him- or herself. It is
because such perception is intrinsic to the process of the world’s coming-into-being”35.
Artistic practice can facilitate this state of mind.
How does my practice generate the knowledge I seek to acquire?

Method:
abandon subject-object division, live experience

If:
insight=internalized banality
and

knowledge is internalized from the bottom up,

I have to create
practices, where I can
learn from my spinal
brain; from within my
body

0.3.1) Objects (GoPro):

Since I choose to treat my practice as a constant way of transformation, I am not interested
in making objects. But if
knowledge is internalized from the bottom up

I am in the danger of making worlds in my mind and getting lost in that mental space.
According to Christian psychology, a human's creative power lies in his materiality36. The
ability to bind together the visible and the invisible is the advantage that distinguishes us
from angels. Buddhism has a similar idea, stating that the human condition is the most
beneficial to achieve Nibbana. Having experienced the efficiency of the Buddhist
methodology of acquiring empirical knowledge, I try to apply it to my artistic practice.

Tim Ingold, “Religious Perception and the Education of Attention”, Religion, Brain & Behavior, vol. 4,
35

no. 2, 2013, 31, https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2013.816345

36
A.C Bocharov, Chernyshev A.W., “[Tripartite Human (Spirit-Soul-Body)]”, [Christianity and
Psychology] , (Tambov 2007) 89

35
To stay grounded and not lose connection with the world I clearly need to be engaged in
some activity that allows me to observe and learn on a physical level. Focusing on my
relationship with materiality I try to ensure that constant-self-reflection turns into action, no
matter how small and insignificant it might seem in the moment. This action can be a word
written down when alone or in conversation, a photograph taken or a small gesture made.
Tiny bridges from mental to a physical manifestation. These bridges are most visible in the
interaction with my Matta37.

For the past couple of years I have been creating a practice of developing relationships with
‘objects’. It became very clear the moment I was accessing my collection of recuperated
trash/objects38. I clung on to them to a point where they started claiming all the space of my
studio. It felt claustrophobic because we try to cultivate empty space, remember? Not
clinging to things. They had to be disposed of or used for sculptural purposes, but none of
that felt right. I felt an intrinsic protest against the idea of using them as materials. Instead, I
went
on
a way
to find
a way

to give them

space.

How does this relationship work?

Striving to overcome subject-object division, I abandon power over objects by letting them
find me. Whenever I run into an item that has the potential to be_come part of my practice,
a conversation takes place. Since I am yet only a beginner at listening properly, I can’t hear
the whole underlying discussion. It translates into the domain of feeling and intuition. Another
air bubble coming up to the surface. a decision to be made. Yes or no. We do not think in
terms of whether there is value to be extracted. Rather if there is potential for value to
manifest itself through the interaction. We think in terms

what can we give?

The found wheels, rocks, glass, mirrors and vessels don’t have to become anything else
than what they already are. I have to make spacetime to talk to them so they can teach me
through play. Some are more talkative, some stay in the background for years - quiet, yet
present they remind me of things not to forget. The choice of objects for the play is an
intuitive process - I don’t let my presence be taken by thought. I will understand later.

37
in Kannada Māṭa ( ಾಟ) - material; in Sanskrit: Mātā (माता)- a mother
38
aside from neon, I do not buy ‘materials’, choosing for ‘objects’ out of the dumpster, found on the
street or items that were given to me by other people

36
 And so here I am, trying to exercise full presence while spinning wheels, hitting all kinds of
vessels against each other and the floor, drowning them, getting them back up to the
surface, placing one into another. Cleaning them or rather leaving them dirty for years,
cherishing them and breaking them, use some as tools and others as treasures to be looked
at. How do I make that distinction? These interactions teach me about how I attribute value
to things. The body memory enacted upon the moment of contact with them replaces
performative gestures. I don’t think of it in the moment, but I will see later on the video, when
time has passed in-between. I save a memory for a later point in time to see it with a
different set of eyes multiplied by the fisheye of my action cam.

This is a process of educating myself. I practice leading value out of myself and observing
that value later as opposed to instilling it onto the objects.

I chase moments of truth.

This interaction is an embodiment of the practice of listening. Paying attention allows me to
expand into the objects and the objects expand into me until there are no more “objects” and
“me'', but mere
.presence.

These moments are rare, they can not be forced, but are always available. I call them
“moments when love arises”. I try to capture these brief moments of transsubjectivity by
filming them from 1st person perspective (leading out of me).

I turned to film as a way to create space where there was none. Also, an additional eye to
help seeing things I don’t see. Here is a reflection on that process:

Filming helps me archive moments of

falling_in _love with_the world
capture them in time
So I can transport them
So I can share them

But since there is the problem with the present moment

the present moment being
0
0 being the only reality actually available
the moment_ love happens
and
I want to share it with the world
reaching out for my camera
I am always too late or
too early.
that moment is gone, not a zero
a -1
_love and I are living opposite timelines_
I end up documenting moments of falling of love
_out
instead

37
So I take the cam inside of me
as deep as possible
squeezing it in-between my teeth

And wait
In play
I try to remember how to do magic
By enacting body memory:
I break a vessel - what does this do to me and how do I react?

How to capture truth in film?

Strip performance of any performativity
Reduce performativity to 0
Somewhere in 30 minutes of the recording there might be
1 second of truth
into the archive
Later, when gluing my film together I will be surprised that the magic I expected to happen,
happened in different moments than I initially thought.

attention precedes intelligence

0.3.2) life (phone):

The practice of filming objects affects how I use the external eye (my phone) in day-to-day
life.
It makes me watch out for the magic of creation, for love to transport. I try to turn the phone,
my source of distraction into a tool to share love. I balance on that thin line between being
present enough to perceive these moments of love and archiving them without destroying
them. Later I will throw these moments together with the studio moments together into a
melting pot: make them one.

0.3.3) Conscious Memory Imprinting a.k.a. Editing:

I archive those moments of attention and distill them through editing. They exist in a
continuity which is documented in film.

archives = political decisions

I call this method Conscious Memory Imprinting: collecting, condensing and repeating over
and over again as I am editing the film-to-be. So that it becomes a part of me and I never
forget again (I will).
Memory defines the trajectory of movement of my society. But we take nothing as the
ground. Make the story it tells to itself a non-rigid structure, something fluid and aware of its
own impermanence. The aim towards clarity is the very substance my community tries to
archive. It is always presented against the struggle it took to generate that awareness.

The product I create is knowledge.

38
 0.3.3.1) Timeline as space
Yearly released films become a reflection on the learning process and the learning process
itself. They depict mental states I jump and crawl through. Editing is the most
time-consuming and confronting part of my practice, the moment when things have to
become concrete. The timeline is a place where all the memory meets and communicates.
Where all my selves meet and communicate. Non-linearity placed into the strictness of a
timeline asks me: “what are you trying to carry?”

How to fit nonlinearity into a timeline?

Everything happens at the same time: I start the timeline with the footage I already have at
hand, knowing that more will accumulate as I move around in the world. The timeline is
there, saved as a project on the computer and I visit regularly to update it. Tell it what I’ve
been up to. Checking-in with the selves.

I start from one mental space, vaguely outlining what is important to me at the moment, and
as footage keeps accumulating and requiring space in the film, the story gets transformed
along with my own transformation. New knowledge knocking on the door to replace existing
knowledge. There is no solid ground. Throughout the editing process I notice how something
that mattered before, renders itself irrelevant through experience, and so the film takes a
different direction. Some footage plays into the existing structure of the film, whereas some
requires a whole new structure. Some structures can co-exist and complete one another,
some are in direct conflict. I have to make priorities of what feeling I want this synthesis of
my mind to carry. I get completely lost.

how to navigate chaos?

appoint a value above all
where do you want to be?

When I glue the gigabytes of seemingly unconnected footage together, I know that none of it
is random, because it is a manifestation of my mind creating the world it is in. Accumulating
chaos and sorting it out allows me to become aware of the connections. This process makes
me look back at the leaps of faith I took having no idea what I was doing. It makes me
realize that the best choices were made when, crippled by anxiety, I jumped after something
intuitive, vague, ephemeral and irrational. This is the feeling that connects the whole. Not
only does the constant cutting bring out the most relevant moments, it also gives chance to
footage I considered less relevant to become a bridge, a connecting part, holding the whole
thing together. My neural connections break, resurrect and die again as the timeline,
balancing control and chance, makes new ones.

By shooting most of the footage with a shitty scratched-lens-action-cam squeezed

in-between my teeth, I try to force the viewer into my body. I treat it like a space vessel that
is always on its way. Editing allows me to redirect the trajectory of its movement. How to
redirect a cloud? How to channel something dispersed, lost and full of doubt into a direction
where it can live to the benefit of its own and humanity at large?
how to navigate chaos? you know the answer.
I pick up my mind wherever it is: the dark, the desert, deep underground, hitting the ceiling,
focusing for a brief moment or trying to dissolve. I keep reminding all those selves, all those

39
fragments of the value above all. When editing I focus on this ephemeral space and try to
redirect the memory-selves towards that place.

Faith guides all those pieces through the labyrinth and eventually allows them to find dignity
in the realization that there is no way out. I am the labyrinth.

The only way out is within. All the fragments running towards that one place within, their
suffering given a direction. They are lost and have no idea where they are going, but they
keep pursuing that abstract meaning.

I know the place we are going

By cutting, rearranging and reconnecting over and over again, I try to synthesize a
substance, my flow of consciousness aiming at the value above all, grasping it for a
nanosecond just to lose it again. Memory becomes imagination, imagination becomes
memory. Strategic use of archives reinforces the faith within my society.

we know where we are going

on our way
all selves together
all selves individually
cut deep into themselves
cut out of the depths of themselves
to take a proper look
we recognize patterns.
we remember why we filmed something,
why it mattered at the time, what we were trying to give,
but failed
we learn and make connections on the way.

Endless varieties of footage of holes makes me remember.

I remember the first time I discovered the sweet refuge of dissociation. Looking into the hole
in a wall I was imagining escaping through it. I had to lose my body to fit in. By using holes
as gateways in the film, I transform them into portals. A gesture of giving towards the lost
selves running around in the walls of my labyrinth. A way to connect with each other, a
means to help them abandon their narrow corridors of self, a portal to break out of their
prison of falsely perceived separateness. We all jump simultaneously and remember our
unity. Creator and creation are one.

I internalize the creation of portals and apply it back to real life. Whenever I realize that I
have the opportunity to give the gift of my undivided attention to the person I am having a
conversation with, I mentally draw a circle between us, and it materializes. I can keep the
portal open through attention. The main perk of a portal is that it allows for
spaces of vulnerability.
If navigated carefully,
moved around in

40
 by taking leaps of faith
exclusively
constantly

something real will emerge

notes to selves (conclusion 0)

real?

- so how can I make a real piece of art?

- how do you define that?

- how to make something that can transform?

- first of all ask, whom it is that you want to transform.

You can’t transform from outside. You have to transform
yourself first. This document is written proof of you
having done so already. In case you forget and doubt.
Just continue speaking to the universal within you.

- how can I make sure it’s real?

- we have to stay consistent in our practice -

- exactly

- how to be consistent in something so ephemeral?

- you already know. You have done it in your film and you
have done it in this writing. How to navigate chaos?
Appoint a value above all and make the commitment to
practice it. You’ve done it and you’ve written it here
several times and you still don’t believe this is real? You
might have to repeat it several times to yourself to
remember that this is real. So, please, repeat one more
time:
My practice lies in cultivating love.
In the dark. In the world at large, but first of all within myself: I can not give what I don’t have.
I have my good moments, but there is way more darkness. And that’s ok. The love is what
gives meaning to the pain. The pain is what gives meaning to love. I have to stay consistent

41
in reminding myself of what I am serving: of the value I appointed above all. That God living
in the empty space in-between my atoms, whose kingdom is always available. Right
underneath my feet. That place I can choose to enter and be a light to myself and those
around me. I can transform my whole reality by doing just that. The trick is to remember it.
Remember it more often. Remember it for longer amounts of time. This is how I change the
given proportion between darkness 99% and light 1%

Every moment I forget that love was ever there, that I ever was love, every time I am back
bathing with the demons, every time I doubt my practice because of its insolidity, its
ephemerality, I can provide myself solid proof of the opposite: the work I have dedicated to
this specifically. I gave. Proof of work.

- If I have written about it black on white it must be real, right?

This thesis is how I trick myself into remembering: it brings together a whole process I have
been going through and developing as a means to expand my vision. My alchemic process
towards more light 2% and less dark 98%.

This thesis is a continuation of that process.

Like the editing is me-becoming-aware of my filming policies, writing about the editing in this
thesis is me-becoming-aware of the experience I went through while editing. Growing layers
around the same substance. Like a Russian doll: a memory within a memory within a
memory. The same substance grows stronger and keeps concentrating as I translate
previous work into another space (medium=space) over and over again.

The next step is built on the experience of writing this thesis. How can I turn this text into
another layer to expand into? I don’t know yet, but that’s the beauty of plasticity. I can take
any form. This text can become a book, a film, a lecture, a practice of teaching
kindergarteners about the magical key of attention. I will know eventually. There is no solid
ground, and that’s fine. The point is that I stay consistent in the substance I am trying to
accumulate. And that formula is simple: love 3% distilled from the dark 97% through and
into awareness.

My practice is a trick I perform to make myself remember my true nature. Ensure a

continuation in time.

- don’t you ever forget, do you hear me?

don’t you ever forget. No, you are not
ridiculous. This is a crucial process. The
only process that matters. The process that
encompasses all. This is just the beginning.

The perk of dissolving is that I can take any shape

A cloud pouring down and soaking into the ground
Soak into everything. Be the very substance that nourishes the world.

42
notes to self and the world (conclusion 1)

“this crisis is a crisis of perception.

We need to perceive the world differently
to act differently.
That is where art can be of tremendous help”39

My contribution to helping the world lies in cultivating and preserving moments of Truth. I do
this by staying true to the value I appointed as 0 on my system of coordinates. This value
lies at the core of my political resistance, which is in singularity with my process of attaining
clarity.

My political beliefs are simple. Revolution happens from the inside. Countless historical
precedents have shown the counterproductivity and futility of the attempts to inflict
transformation from above.

“man is neither born free nor can he attain freedom through the present social and political
institutions; [...] the realm of genuine freedom begins where the realm of economic, social,
and political institutions ends”(Puligandla, Puhakka 349).

Sustainable political resistance can only be based on sincere practice of transformation that
starts on a personal level. The Buddhist/Existentialist knowledge of unfreedom coming from
us instead of any given regime opposes ideological narratives, all of which have the common
denominator of providing an external enemy. It is important to recognize power structures,
but it is more important to understand how we perpetuate them into being by our false belief
that these constructions exist by themselves and how we can retain from feeding into them.
The belief that the overthrowing of any given order would lead to the elimination of suffering
is not different from the deadly grand narratives of the 20th century. When making social
order alone responsible we locate the source of suffering outside of ourselves, continue the
cycle and become “an embodiment of that order and all that goes with it”(Puligandla,
Puhakka 350).

This cycle can only be broken from the inside; by individuals who reject the belief in any
exterior power and commit to fight ignorance from within. Through maximal acceptance of
responsibility within our own perception and awareness regarding our influence on the
Whole we become conscious of our power and inspire those around us. Rejecting
impermanent values that lie within the domain of materiality, status or ambition as
unsatisfactory, we dedicate attention to finding the Truth within and encourage the people we
encounter to do the same. Bit by bit. By cultivating the creative/God/attention particle within
myself I make space for that light that people around me can see. Just like I saw the sparks
of light in other people at the dark part of my journey. Just like my daughter follows my
example and not my words, people opposed to being told what to do, get inspired by
authentic being in the world and transform through acts of kindness. When acting in pure

39
Fritjof Capra, “The Shifting Paradigm”, Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing Economy,
by Louwrien Wijers (London: Academy Editions 1996) p.211

43
intention, motivated by our love for creation, we light up that spark of divinity in everything
we do.

Art can serve as a reminder of the possibility of truthful being. It can point out the
constructedness of the world and it can point to the truth generated within the individual. Art
never claims to be truthful, and that is where its power lies: it does not consult rationality
when searching for ways to make the invisible visible. Whether any given artistic gesture is
real, is measured by the intention leading said gesture out. This mode of perception requires
another level of attention and responsibility coming along with it. It cultivates awareness. I
can not limit this type of awareness to my artistic practice without extending it to my daily
activities and the people around me. It would feel like obsessively watering one plant while
letting another plant right next to it dry out completely.

This is what art has been doing for a while: quietly escaping white cubes of galleries and
finding its way to infiltrate life. It has looked at itself long enough to become self-aware and
recognize its own transforming potential. This potential was being accumulated through time
by art's unchanging aim to speak to the universal within people and itself. Artistic resistance
is embedded into the continuity of humanity’s search for the key within itself. Mindfully
developed artistic practices offer ways for a more direct, authentic contact with oneself and
the surrounding world. They can be integrated in day-to-day life and education. In a world,
where the amount of data is infinite but attention - scarce, there is an urgency for a different
kind of education. An education of attention. Learn to lead the knowledge out of the person
instead of instilling it onto them. Art has been cultivating direct perception for long enough to
be able to share its ways of navigating it. In a mentally overcrowded world, where we no
longer know what is real, it is crucial to reclaim the agency of recognizing the Truth within.

People who cultivate inner Truth are not as easily controlled by alien concepts. They do not
waste their resources on fictions such as “achieving” at the cost of family bonds and
breaking their inner moral laws. When imposed values get recognized throughout the variety
of forms they take in everyday life, they no longer get fed into and fade with every individual
seeing through the delusion. In this manner narratives pervading all aspects of society and
its drivenness by them can be dismantled. “The concept of development has the
anthropological implication that the meaning of life is to develop. What if we were to translate
it and say awakening, realization instead of development”(Panikkar 212).

Purposeful being is all-encompassing. Awareness extends to economy, science and politics

and illuminates those institutions from the inside. Art can help navigate the generation of
meaning within the individuals in these institutions. The practice of
awakening-in-the-moment is inclusive of all. Any work becomes meaningful when practiced
from and/or towards a place of inner Truth. It becomes creative work when coming from an
inner urgency as opposed to economic necessity. The creative act is an act of giving.

Helping others can help me practice getting out of that self-centeredness depression
cohabits with. I can find purpose in guiding others throughout the process of giving purpose
to their suffering. The attention and presence required to do that contribute to the awakening
of the divine/creative within all participants. We counter the scarcity of attention economy
with the abundance of compassion economy. Give attention where there is none. A creative
society assumes an abundance. This starting point is in opposition to the narrative of

44
acquiring and having to compete over resources. When art takes this position as a given and
operates on it, the rest of the world follows naturally. With a delay, dispersed in time,
non-linearly, but nonetheless. The arts, unbound by the limitations of rationality, often sense
the future world development. I don’t believe the arts predict it. I believe we call it into being.

I happen to know the solution to my world’s problem. Any of my personal little dramas and
global wars can be stripped of the complexity constructed around them and gain
transparency. My skeleton key to doing ‘the right thing’:

(I) simply ask:

is this decision based on love?

I practice radical love. I declare sanity.

45
Works cited:

Abramovic, Marina. “Marina Abramovic.” Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a

Changing Economy, by Louwrien Wijers Academy Editions, London, 1996, pp.
182–189.

“Art, Capitalism and Resistance.” Art, Research and Politics: Essays in Curatorial
Criticism (1999-2014), by Dieter Lesage and Ina Wudtke, SIC, Brussels, 2014, p. 100.

Boltanski, Luc, and Chiappello Éve. Le Nouvel Esprit Du Capitalisme. Gallimard, 1999.

“Japanese Themes in ‘A Dialogue on Language’ .” Heidegger on East-West Dialogue:

Anticipating the Event, by Lin Ma, Routledge, New York, 2009, pp. 167–190.

Capra, Fritjof. “The Shifting Paradigm.” Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a
Changing Economy, by Louwrien Wijers Academy Editions, London, 1996, pp.
204–219.

Cvetkovich, Ann. Depression: A Public Feeling. Duke University Press, 2012.

Dalai Lama. “Self, Selflessness, and Sense Consciousness.” Gentle Bridges:

Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind, by Hayward, Jeremy W.,
and Francisco J. Varela Shambhala Pubns., Boston, Massachusetts, 1992, pp.
114–125.

Davies, James. “The Politics of Distress: A Discussion With Dr. James Davies on His
New Book, “Sedated”. Interview by James Barnes. Mad in America, June 2021,
https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/06/interview-james-davies/. Accessed 1 May
2022.

Debord, Guy. “The Society of the Spectacle Translated and Annotated by Ken Knabb.”
Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014.

Doran, Peter. A Political Economy of Attention, Mindfulness and Consumerism:

Reclaiming the Mindful Commons. Routledge, 2019.

Gokhale, Sarah Elizabeth. “Empty Selves: A Comparative Analysis of Mahayana

Buddhism, Jean-Paul Sartre's Existentialism, and Depth Psychology.” Wesleyan
University, 2013, doi:10.14418/wes01.1.908. Accessed 2021.

Hawken, Paul. “Paul Hawken.” Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a Changing
Economy, by Louwrien Wijers Academy Editions, London, 1996, p. 200

46
“The Healing Power of Emptiness.” James Low - Dzogchen and Buddhist Teachings,
YouTube, 25 Mar. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIzaL0eLycU. Accessed 20 Apr.
2022.

Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf. PDF. Picador, 2002.

Huxley, Aldous. “Brave New World Revisited.” RosettaBooks LLC, 2000.

Ingold, Tim. “Religious Perception and the Education of Attention.” Religion, Brain &
Behavior, vol. 4, no. 2, 2013, pp. 156–158., doi:10.1080/2153599x.2013.816345.

Kelland, Mark D. “9.6: Buddhism and Existentialism- the Completion of a Circle.” Social
Sci LibreTexts, Libretexts, 16 May 2020,
socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Psychology/Book%3A_Personality_Theory_in_a_
Cultural_Context_(Kelland)/09%3A_Viktor_Frankl_Rollo_May_and_Existential_Psycho
logy/9.06%3A_Buddhism_and_Existentialism-_The_Completion_of_a_Circle.

N, A. “Attention Economy.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 July 2022,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Robert Pippin. “On the Hinterworldly.” Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, edited by Caro, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. 20–22,
users.clas.ufl.edu/burt/LoserLit/zarathustra.pdf.

Magee, Alison, "Mindfulness as a Personal Strategy to Combat the Negative Effects of the
Attention Economy" (2021). Mindfulness Studies Theses. 45.
https://digitalcommons.lesley.edu/mindfulness_theses/45.

Panikkar, Raimon. “Raimon Panikkar.” Art Meets Science and Spirituality in a

Changing Economy, by Louwrien Wijers Academy Editions, London, 1996, pp.
194–197.

Parkes, Graham. “Nietzsche and Nishitani on the Self through Time.” The Eastern
Buddhist, vol. 17, no. 2, Eastern Buddhist Society, 1984, pp. 55–74,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/44361714.

Peterson, Jordan, lecture. Personality 06: Jean Piaget & Constructivism. Jordan B
Peterson, YouTube, 30 Jan. 2017,33:30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ4VSRg4e8w&t=0s. Accessed 5 Jan. 2021.

47
“Pfizer to Offer Free Public Access to Mental Health Assessment Tools to Improve
Diagnosis and Patient Care.” Pfizer, 21 July 2010,
www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer_to_offer_free_public_a
ccess_to_mental_health_assessment_tools_to_improve_diagnosis_and_patient_care.

“Psychiatry and Big Pharma: Exposed.” Lecture by James Davies PhD, The Weekend
University, YouTube, 24 Nov. 2019,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nd40Uy6tbQ&list=PLBTiv7sM4hKes79XKGTA-vxl8PucP
wYyE&index=67&t=1548s. Accessed 28 May 2022.

Puligandla, R., and K. Puhakka. “Buddhism and Revolution.” Philosophy East and
West, vol. 20, no. 4, 1970, pp. 345–354., doi:10.2307/1397820.

Reichle, Franz, director. Monte Grande: What Is Life? t&c Film Zurich, 2004.

Saxena, Shekhar. “Depression Looms as Global Crisis.” BBC News, BBC, 2 Sept.
2009, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8230549.stm.

“Self, Selflessness, and Sense Consciousness.” Gentle Bridges: Conversations with

the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind, by Jeremy W. Hayward and Francisco J.
Varela, Shambhala Pubns., Boston, Massachusetts, 1992, pp. 114–125.

Serres, Michel. The Natural Contract. University of Michigan Press, 1995, P.48

Tagore, Rabindranath. “II: Soul Consciousness.” Sādhanā. The Realisation of Life.,

The Macmillan Company, New York, 1916,
www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/sadh/sadh04.htm. Accessed 1 June 2022.

Thelandersson, Fredrika. “Social Media Sad Girls and the Normalization of Sad States
of Being.” Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, 2 Nov. 2017,
doi:10.22387/cap2017.9.

Van Gordon, William, et al. “Buddhist Emptiness Theory: Implications for Psychology.”
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, vol. 9, no. 4, 17 Mar. 2016, pp. 309–318.,
doi:10.1037/rel0000079.

“Who Report Highlights Global Shortfall in Investment in Mental Health.” World Health
Organization, World Health Organization, 8 Oct. 2021,
www.who.int/news/item/08-10-2021-who-report-highlights-global-shortfall-in-investment
-in-mental-health.

48
 “Who We Are.” Center for Humane Technology, www.humanetech.com/what-we-do.
Accessed in Apr.2018.

Бочаров , А.С., and А.В. Чернышев . “Трехсоставность Человека (Дух-Душа-Тело).

[Tripartite Human (Spirit-Soul-Body)] ” ХРИСТИАНСТВО И ПСИХОЛОГИЯ
[Christianity and Psychology], Tambov, 2007, pp. 86–89,
lekcii_christian_psihology.doc.

images cited:

Image 01. “Dependent Origination.” KSN FILANTROPISCH FONDS, n.d.,

https://www.karmasherabnamdak.org/het-boeddhistische-pad.html. Accessed 2022.

+ Images of the author from personal artistic practice. Unnumbered. Unnamed,

Uncounted (only in printed version; gravity control boxes G.000, G.001, G.002). If
interested, contact talksaboutgod8@gmail.com

49