Eroding! Eroding! Concepts’ Houses Have No Foundations!

A journey of erosion through geology, biochemistry, and philosophy

Weathering is the geologic process that breaks down rocks and minerals at Earth’s surface through physical, chemical, and biological mechanisms. Frost weathering, oxidation, hydrolysis, abrasion by wind and water, and plant growth can all contribute to weathering rock over time.

Majestic mountain peaks thrust toward the sky, imposing monuments of stone rising tall over the landscape. Yet even these mighty edifices forged over aeons yield before time’s patient touch. Seasonal ice crystals wedge themselves into microscopic cracks and fissures, prying open spaces between mineral grains under cryogenic expansion. This frost weathering slowly works the rock apart. Churning winds carrying fragments of silica sand scour and erode precipitous cliffs, smoothing rough contours into gentler slopes through abrasion.

Water

Water, the geologic sculptor par excellence, seeps inexorably into fractures weathered open within the bedrock. Expanding and contracting into ice daily, water pries cracks incrementally deeper over decades. This freeze-thaw weathering dislodges mineral grains and rock shards that clatter into the ravines below after each hard freeze. Rivulets trickling with meltwater leach out cement between intergranular boundaries, dissolving critical binding elements through chemical weathering.

Erosion

As the facade gives way, house-sized boulders suddenly careen downhill in rockslides that shake the earth, leaving behind sheer stratified walls of stone stripped naked. Plodding glaciers grind past carrying entire mountainsides within their translucent icy jaws, abrading, plucking, and pulverizing stone into fine silts and clays over inexorable frozen centuries through glacial erosion.

Wave upon wave of such geologic processes wear down once stark alpine features into gentler undulations of stone. Ever slowly, erstwhile sawtoothed ridges decline into foothills, then finally dunes of barren sands destined to vanish into the global cycles of erosion as if these giants never ruled the landscape.

Collagenase

The geological processes echo an even more intimate dissolution within our cells and tissues. The structural protein collagen comprises over 30% of total body protein. Its sturdy triple helix molecular structure provides strength and flexibility to skin, organ scaffolding, bone matrix, and cartilage. Collagen fibrils weave together forming tough yet pliable networks that uphold the body’s architecture. This most abundant mammalian protein appears an epitome of reliability.

Yet unbeknownst to most, the inevitable decay of our inner terrain is encoded into collagen’s very essence. Secreted throughout living tissues are matrix metalloproteinases — a family of over 20 types of proteolytic enzymes, including the aptly named collagenase. Using a zinc ion in their catalytic site, these collagenases bind to and break specific peptide bonds within collagen fibres. They steadily nibble away intracellularly, fragmenting enormous collagen proteins into smaller peptides and amino acid chains. Like geological weathering wears down mountains, so collagenase gradually devours collagen from within our very bodies.

Recycling

This endless recycling between collagen synthesis and enzymatic erosion maintains dynamic equilibrium. As existing connective tissues are digested by metalloproteinases, fibroblast cells continually secrete new collagen chains into the extracellular matrix. Like weathered mountains rising anew from molten magma, collagen emerges only to inevitably surrender into component molecules. Form builds up and breaks down in ceaseless exchange. Even while appearing solid and continuous, our bodies metabolize the very structures upholding bodily form. Renewal and dissolution interpenetrate in an imperceptible dance of impermanence.

Anitya Bhavana

This invisible yet inevitable trajectory from mountain to sand and collagen fragmenting echoes teachings on impermanence within Vedanta, one of the six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy. Vedanta is centred on an analysis and interpretation of the knowledge conveyed in the ancient Indian spiritual texts known as the Upanishads. These writings explore the nature of reality and self, and are considered the philosophical essence of the Vedas — the foundational Hindu scriptures.

Vedantic teachings

A core teaching across Vedantic traditions is that our normal perception of the world as concrete and permanent is ultimately an illusion. What we take to be solid and enduring is instead characterized by anitya — the Sanskrit term meaning impermanence or transience. We can experience this directly in the weathering effects of nature, where what initially appears stable is gradually or abruptly transformed.

The cultivation of anitya bhavana refers to consciously fostering a mental attitude that embraces the truth of impermanence permeating all conditioned phenomena.

Anitya bhavana involves intentionally turning attention to notice the arising and passing away of experiences, seeing clearly how all constructed forms are fleeting waystations in matter’s cycle of becoming.

As enduring stone yields to the elements, bending to the laws of change, so too do our possessions, accomplishments, relationships, beliefs and even our sense of self reveal their ephemeral nature when illuminated by mindful observation.

Contemplative practices

Contemplative practices which foster anitya bhavana are said to uproot unconscious clinging to concepts of permanence. Bringing awareness to reality’s unfolding through anitya bhavana supports radically accepting the irreducible groundlessness underlying momentary manifestation. Recognizing impermanence pulls one into alignment with the suchness of being, liberating consciousness from rigid constructs to flow with life’s inherent impermanence.

Neti neti

This acceptance of impermanence aligns with the neti neti practice within Vedanta, expounded by Adi Shankara. Neti neti means “not this, not this” — it is a contemplative technique using negation to release identification with anything perceived as temporary and conditioned.

As the mind inquires into the nature of objects, neti neti reveals that no “thing” can be grasped as itself. Phenomena have no intrinsic essence but are dependently originated, arising and ceasing due to countless interdependent causes. Just as the mountain’s form is contingent on geological and weather processes, so too is anything we conceptualize as a discrete entity a tentative mirage within a web of interbeing.

Attachment

Neti neti meditation progresses through deconstructing successive concepts to reach a radical openness. By relinquishing attachment to any definitions, the practice culminates in a lack of limiting identification, a profound freedom beyond conceptual constraints. The mind realizes its natural state is pure consciousness, unconfined by any qualifications or attributes.

The neti neti release from relying on linguistic labels and customary categories parallels how weathering smoothes jagged topography into anonymous heaps of debris. As granite disintegrates into gravel through temporal cycles of change, consciousness sheds limiting labels to rest in its innate unconditioned clarity.

Both neti neti’s radical negation and the erosion of mountains into sand reveal that surface distinctions are fleeting mirages, not enduring realities. By ceasing to grasp at appearances, consciousness awakens to its true formless nature beyond syntheses and opposites. The mind relinquishes dependence on compartmentalized constructs and descends into the uncarved block — the undifferentiated substrate from which particular formations temporarily coalesce and then dissolve.

Substratum

This substratum remains when weathering scours unique structures into uniform sediments. The vast nameless awareness beneath conception persists as identity markers slip away through neti neti. Mountain or sand, solid or scattered, all manifestations emerge from and merge into the same boundless source — the silent unborn truth ever at the heart of change.

In parallel, the ephemeral bonds of collagen continuously cohere and uncohere according to intrinsic biological cadences. The cells of the body vibrate in harmonies of synthesis and decay, orchestrating a dance of presence and absence. Form solidifies from inchoate potential and then melts again into flowing plasma streams.

Radical impermanence

Contemplating such radical impermanence through neti neti opens inner sight to the groundless arising in each moment. The mind releases rigid fixation on conceptual objects and awakens from its projections. Disidentifying with any describable or locatable phenomenon, awareness merges back into its native unlocalized unconditioned being — the timeless unchanging is-ness before identifying any this or that.

“Neither am I bound by Death and its Fear nor by the rules of Caste and its Distinctions, Neither do I have Father and Mother, nor do I have Birth, Neither do I have Relations nor Friends, neither Spiritual Teacher nor Disciple, I am the Ever Pure Blissful Consciousness; I am Shiva, I am Shiva, The Ever Pure Blissful Consciousness.”

“Ātmaṣaṭkam” by Adi Shankara

Follow this link to read the whole short poem “Ātmaṣaṭkam”.

What remains when all external constructs fall away?

What we call matter in modern times was called by; the ancient psychologists Bhutas, the external elements. There is one element which, according to them, is eternal ; every other element is produced out of this one. It is called Âkâsha. It is somewhat similar to the idea of ether of the moderns, though not exactly similar. Along with this element, there is the primal energy called Prâna. Prana and Akasha combine and recombine and form the elements out of them. Then at the end of the Kalpa; everything subsides, and goes back to Akasha and Prana.

There is in the Rig-Veda, the oldest human writing in existence, a beautiful passage describing creation, and it is most poetical — “When there was neither aught nor naught, when darkness was rolling over darkness, what existed?” and the answer is given, “It then existed without vibration”.

This Prana existed then, but there was no motion in it; Ânidavâtam means “existed without vibration”. Vibration had stopped. Then when the Kalpa begins, after an immense interval, the Anidavatam (unvibrating atom) commences to vibrate, and blow after blow is given by Prana to Akasha. The atoms become condensed, and as they are condensed different elements are formed.

(The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda/Volume 2/Practical Vedanta and other lectures/Cosmology)

Notes:

Akasha: In Indian philosophy and cosmology, Akasha (also spelt as Akash or Aakash) is considered to be the fundamental element or “tanmatra” that makes up the essence of the universe. It is often translated as “ether” or “space” in English.

Akasha is believed to be the first and most subtle of the five elements, from which the other elements (air, fire, water, and earth) are formed. It is considered to be the medium through which all other things exist and move and is often associated with sound and vibration.

In some interpretations, Akasha is seen as the repository of all information, including memories and experiences, and is sometimes described as a kind of cosmic consciousness or field of awareness.

Kalpa: In Hinduism and Buddhism, Kalpa refers to a long period (aeon) related to the lifetime of the universe. A Kalpa is a complete cycle of creation, maintenance, and destruction of the universe, and is equivalent to 4.32 billion human years in the Hindu tradition. Kalpa is equivalent to 12 hours of the Creator God, Brahma.

Prana: Prana is the vital energy or life force in Hinduism and Buddhism, which pervades the whole universe and is responsible for life and consciousness. It is also associated with breath and respiration, which are the main means of acquiring and maintaining prana in the body. Prana is an essential component of life and is often associated with the subtle energy body and the chakras.

Thanks for reading.