This Precious Moment

This seemingly mundane moment is pregnant with beauty and mystery, complexity and possibility. There is more power and wonder contained in this moment than most appreciate. In this talk, we take inventory of the many wonders that dance around us now, in this precious moment.

Transcript

This precious moment is all there is.

Along comes another,

And another,

And another.

It may seem mundane,

Uneventful,

Pointless to some.

But let's take partial inventory of what we have in this precious moment.

Countless atoms are vibrating,

Moving,

Retaining the shape that is the eye,

The ear,

The skeletal frame,

The brain cell,

The ground you sit or stand on,

The gases in the room you breathe.

Invisible forces like gravity are at work now.

Subatomic particles like muons are traveling through me and you now.

There's more mystery in this moment than most appreciate.

The you you think you are is made up of trillions of atoms that form cells.

Each cell is a self-contained,

Sentient entity organized to perform a specific function.

They live in a symbiotic community called your body,

Which you didn't have a hand in designing.

The you you think you are is dependent on gut flora,

Billions of bacteria,

And the organization and coordination of particles and trillions of cells you cannot see.

We're gifted with a complex body which we can direct to go this way or that.

To commit to this or that cause.

Follow this or that passion.

And all of this comes courtesy of the breath.

And how the breath comes.

Do you know what just touched you?

Two clusters of neurons within the brain stem help regulate the breath.

Even as you breathe now.

One side is the pre-Batzinger complex which generates respiratory rhythms.

A signal from the brain stem controls the amplitude and frequency of the breath.

The pre-Batzinger complex is regulating the number of breaths you take per minute.

And controls whether the breath is deep or shallow.

The pre-Batzinger complex regulates breath to meet behavioral and metabolic demands.

And now as you breathe,

The diaphragm contracts creating a pressure vacuum inside your chest cavity.

Intercostal muscles are recruited to expand the ribs now.

The lung fills with air now.

A gas exchange takes place now.

Oxygen diffuses through the capillaries and you expel carbon dioxide now.

The breathing pattern changes depending on whether you're stressed or calm now,

Healthy or ill,

Moving or still.

These respiratory signals travel via the vagal nerve which branches out to most of the organs of the body.

Within the brain there's a pathway that connects the pre-Batzinger complex to brain regions associated with emotion,

Arousal and motivation.

As soon as air enters the nostrils,

It's filtered.

Now.

The oxygen the body extracts from the air you breathe binds to a molecule of hemoglobin which is transported throughout the body now.

Blood delivers oxygens to your cells which make up organs.

There are many organs.

They're each complex.

The liver alone has over 500 functions.

Ask the little self to name one.

There are feedback loops that allow this system to work.

And what controls all of this?

Certainly not the little self I imagine myself to be.

A new moment,

Another breath.

It's also wondrous.

This moment I command the mouth to speak and it speaks.

Often we ramble mindlessly and use speech without appreciating its power.

So we misuse it.

Within the brain stem is another cluster of neurons called the parafacial nucleus.

The parafacial nucleus coordinates breathing and speaking and controls non-rhythmic breathing via the phrenic nerve.

The coordination of these processes enables me to speak now.

My words ride the exhalation now.

I don't talk when I breathe in.

That sounds weird.

Phonemes of sound travel on the out-breath.

The vocal folds vibrate as air passes through them during exhalation of air from the lungs.

I breathe in.

I breathe out and speak.

The vibration produces a sound wave.

The rate of vibration determines the pitch of my voice.

Right now the brain is coordinating the breath and speech.

The brain is also producing the content of speech.

A thought comes and the brain dresses it with words.

You do this every time you speak.

Instantaneously the muscles of the lips and mouth and tongue move this way and that to produce phonemes or discrete sounds like s,

Ow,

N,

Dz.

Some are voiceless.

Some of them like the buzzing sound are voiced.

Some are p,

P,

P,

P,

P,

Produced with the lip,

P,

P,

P,

Lips like the p,

P,

P,

P sound.

All of these sounds are k,

K,

K,

K,

Complex.

The k sound,

For example,

Is what linguists call a voiceless velar stop.

The brain pushes the tongue forward so the middle k,

K,

K,

Curls up,

Touches the top of the mouth,

Blocking air flow,

While at the same time k,

K,

K,

K,

Creating air pressure as I gently breathe out.

The k sound is made when I release the pressure by dropping my tongue down.

I don't have to understand linguistics to make k,

K,

K,

K,

These sounds.

I learned them as a baby.

There's so much complexity,

K,

K,

Complexity and simplicity now.

I just think thoughts and the words flow.

It doesn't feel complex.

There's no strain.

This talking seems quite effortless.

The brain pulls from semantic memory to produce these words and arranges them in a way that obeys conventions of grammar,

Order,

Etc.

,

Which makes sense.

Out-sense not of if these taken I not order would words.

But if I say taken out of order,

These words would not make sense,

Then you understand.

The words I speak might inspire or annoy or frustrate or encourage.

But I'm aware,

In this moment,

Of the preciousness of speech.

Mindfulness of speech is itself a practice which takes intention,

Training and discipline.

But we often take it all for granted.

The breath.

This gift of life.

The gift of hearing.

The gift of speech.

This precious moment.

These sound waves consist of vibrating particles,

The way waves on an ocean are made up of water molecules.

The vibrating particles knock into other particles,

Causing those particles to vibrate and knock into other particles,

Which vibrate and knock into other particles,

And so on,

Traveling across the air like waves on the ocean.

These vibrations travel into the microphone.

They're recorded.

I'll upload the file and it'll sit in a server somewhere in the cloud waiting for you to click play.

The complexity of the technology is a subject unto itself,

Which we can appreciate now.

These words are traveling out of my mouth now,

And continuing their journey now.

They're like time travelers,

Given birth in one moment in time,

Suspended in another,

Only to reappear in some future moment that is now.

Yet there's only ever now.

Only ever this moment.

I'm recording this now on Friday,

October 7th,

2022,

At exactly 11.

17am.

And these words are being received in some future now moment,

On some other day,

At some other time that is now,

In some other part of the world now.

The vibrations traveling through the air now cause your eardrums to vibrate,

And these vibrations are converted into nerve signals that are sent to your brain.

And in an instant,

Your brain is making sense of these words now.

Consider how many sub-processes are at work in your mind this moment to enable you to listen and comprehend these words.

Messages jump from neuron to neuron across synaptic clefts,

Connecting nodes in the brain,

Pulling from memory,

Retrieving,

Decoding,

Making meaning,

Evaluating,

Reflecting,

All in this moment.

The neurons that store memory are ever in the now,

In this moment.

Meanwhile,

The brain is coordinating respiration and countless other functions as you listen,

Now.

We can appreciate this complexity,

Now,

And celebrate whatever unfolds in this precious moment.

You don't have to travel to some exotic location to feel curiosity,

Or wonder,

Or awe at what is.

You blink,

You move your eyes and focus on this or that at the speed of thought.

Your brain processes and co-creates and assigns meaning.

Your eyes alchemize rivers of light into sight.

The data is routed through the brain,

But what controls whether something is seen as gated as good or bad,

Beautiful or ugly,

With purpose or meaningless?

Another breath,

More wonders,

More to celebrate and appreciate.

But what's this moment to the little self?

The little self may be unhappy,

Dissatisfied,

Incomplete,

Restless,

Bored,

Miserable,

Frustrated,

Discontent,

Wanting,

Grasping.

The little self can't simply be in this moment.

It's hard to appreciate the miracle unfolding moment by moment.

For it to be happy,

Conditions must conform to its expectations,

Indexed to its pleasures and demands,

To illusions of how the world should be in order for this deluded construct to be happy.

But you're not your thoughts.

You're more than the construct.

This little self you call you doesn't contract the heart muscles,

Doesn't maintain pH balance of the blood or electrolyte levels.

Your body stays warm,

No furnace.

The you you think you are doesn't sustain the life force dancing within or the needs that support life.

In this moment,

In this precious moment,

I'm aware of my interdependence.

Hundreds of hands helped grow the food that sustains my energy in this moment.

Rain,

Microbes in the soil,

Sunlight,

How connected it all is.

Yet how mindless and ungrateful a little self can be.

Preoccupied with its petty self-centered concerns and its own self-importance,

The miracle that this life is easily missed.

By misidentifying with the chaotic torrent of thoughts we ascribe as me or the self,

We can dysregulate the healthy functioning of this body,

Of the breath,

And out to our neighborhoods,

Our communities,

Even the earth of which we're a part.

The little self imagines itself as separate,

But we're interdependent and connected to all that is.

For billions of years,

Tiny cyanobacteria labored to create an atmosphere hospitable to life.

There was an explosion of living things.

The composition of gases you're now breathing in this moment are made up of the trillions of in-breaths and out-breaths of plants,

Animals,

And other beings that no longer exist.

Even this experience,

This talk comes to you thanks to the efforts of millions.

How many people were involved in producing the technologies we use to create or listen to content?

The microphone and laptop and software I used to create this came from countless minds.

Inside these devices and the infrastructure that enables this transmission are components made from raw materials extracted from the most remote corners of the world.

The processor is made from silicon,

The battery from lithium,

Nickel,

Cobalt,

And manganese.

The screen is made up of indium and tin.

The micro-electrical components and wiring are composed of copper,

Gold,

Silver.

The capacitor is made from platinum and palladium.

Tantalum.

Who mined these?

How long did it take humanity to discover how to convert ore into metal?

Who transported these raw materials by rail,

By truck,

Or ship?

How many hands were needed to lay the rails to build the diesel truck engine?

How many people in factories around the world did it take to create the device you're now using?

How many mathematicians,

Engineers,

Computer scientists,

And others were involved in the design of just the processor that runs the device?

Who fed and guided and educated these people?

How many investors,

Bankers,

Supply chain managers,

Entrepreneurs,

Government bureaucrats were involved in creating the ecosystem for these products to emerge?

We're plugged in and are an integral part of this complex ecosystem.

And human history had to unfold as it did for this moment to come into being,

For this arising.

Meanwhile the planet spins on its axis at about a thousand miles an hour,

And it's orbiting the sun at about 67,

000 miles an hour,

But no one is holding on for dear life.

The solar system turns,

The galaxy is in constant flux,

The universe dances within and without.

So much beauty and mystery and perfection just waiting to be discovered now.

Another moment comes.

There's more contained in this second than the puny intellect can grasp.

This second is made up of a trillion billion zeptoseconds.

But there's only ever this now,

This moment,

And it's more beautiful and magical and complex and wondrous than the little self can comprehend.

And with these words,

This technology,

With this breath,

I direct your attention to the mystery which animates you even as you listen now.

Neither reason nor words can reach that preciousness within.

But we can use reason and words to point the way to it.

These words are like the proverbial finger pointing at the moon,

Not the moon itself.

And we can enjoy the soft inner radiance of that light in silence.

In this precious moment.

Reviews

♥️🙏

Experience grounding and gratitude. Good talk.