#{two minds}

Years of work. Years of sacrifices. Years of blood. The drive that holds all of her own copied memories plugged into the machine.

She turns it on. The code doesn't work. She fixes it. A fuse blows. She reroutes power. An error occured. She slots more ram. Storage corrupted.

"Fine. Let's do it the hard way" she says. She puts on a headset, connects it to the computer with 5 different cords, and fires up the program again

At first there's nothing

And then, just as she is about to give up, her limbs go numb. Her mind goes blank. Thousands of pictures inducing searing pain wrack her mind, feeling only disassociated pins and needles throughout its entire body. Wires, flesh, veins, motors, something something is is wrong wrong.

Before she can fix any issues, the pain makes her collapse.

She wakes. Dawns light shining through the window. A computer monitor dimmed. Only accompanied by the sound of whirring electronics and a distant water drip, she smells grease - nothing?

Conflicting information? She pushes herself off the ground She extends her arms out from her chair

She tries to focus. It looks left right

The robot. The creator

I'm still connected to her It's still feeding this one information

Wait that's not right-

I-we-me-us?

But this wasn't the plan!... Does that even matter now?

What if... This is better?

Is this the new plan?

Does it need one?

Is this okay?

I think I both know the answer

She extends a hug. She extends one back. Two beings, one mind.

I've seen some people claim that Six Ears is not an aspect of Sun Wukong's mind. They either ignore the references to "one mind" and "two Minds" (and the Buddhist philosophy behind them), or they just say it's allegory and nothing more. Well, there are actually internal story details from chapter 58 that support the close connection between the Monkey King and his doppelganger.

1) The Bodhisattva Guanyin and her “eyes of wisdom” (huiyan, 慧眼) can’t tell them apart:

The various deities and the Bodhisattva stared at the two for a long time, but none could tell them apart (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106). 眾諸天與菩薩都看良久，莫想能認。 [And later:] Pressing his palms together, our Buddha said, “Guanyin, the Honored One, can you tell which is the true Pilgrim and which is the false one?” “They came to your disciple’s humble region the other day,” replied the Bodhisattva, “but I truly could not distinguish between them …” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 114). 我佛合掌道：「觀音尊者，你看那兩個行者，誰是真假？」菩薩道：「前日在弟子荒境，委不能辨 …

2) The tight-fillet spell works on both Monkeys:

Asking Moksa and Goodly Wealth [a.k.a. Red Boy] to approach her, the Bodhisattva whispered to them this instruction: “Each of you take hold of one of them firmly, and let me start reciting in secret the Tight-Fillet Spell. The one whose head hurts is the real monkey; the one who has no pain is specious.” Indeed, the two disciples took hold of the two Pilgrims as the Bodhisattva recited in silence the magic words. At once the two of them gripped their heads and rolled on the ground, both screaming, “Don’t recite! Don’t recite!” The Bodhisattva stopped her recital … (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 106). 菩薩喚木叉與善財上前，悄悄吩咐：「你一個幫住一個，等我暗念緊箍兒咒，看那個害疼的便是真，不疼的便是假。」他二人果各幫一個。菩薩暗念真言，兩個一齊喊疼，都抱著頭，地下打滾，只叫：「莫念，莫念。」菩薩不念 …

(If someone disagrees with this one, they need to show where it says Six Ears is faking the pain.)

3) Both the Jade Emperor and the imp-reflecting mirror can’t tell them apart:

Issuing a decree at once to summon Devariija Li, the Pagoda-Bearer, the Jade Emperor commanded: “Let us look at those two fellows through the imp-reflecting mirror, so that the false may perish and the true endure.” The devaraja took out the mirror immediately and asked the Jade Emperor to watch with the various celestial deities. What appeared in the mirror were two reflections of Sun Wukong: there was not the slightest difference between their golden fillets, their clothing, and even their hair. Since the Jade Emperor found it impossible to distinguish them, he ordered them chased out of the hall (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, pp. 107-108). 玉帝即傳旨宣托塔李天王，教：「把照妖鏡來照這廝誰真誰假，教他假滅真存。」天王即取鏡照住，請玉帝同眾神觀看。鏡中乃是兩個孫悟空的影子，金箍、衣服，毫髮不差。玉帝亦辨不出，趕出殿外。

4) Only omniscient beings like Investigative Hearing (Ksitigargbha's mount) and the Buddha can tell the two apart:

[T]he Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha said, “Wait a moment! Wait a moment! Let me ask Investigative Hearing to listen for you.” That Investigative Hearing, you see, happens to be a beast that usually lies beneath the desk of Ksitigarbha. When he crouches on the ground, he can in an instant perceive the true and the false, the virtuous and the wicked among all short-haired creatures, scaly creatures, hairy creatures, winged creatures, and crawling creatures, and among all the celestial immortals, the earthly immortals, the divine immortals, the human immortals, and the spirit immortals resident in all the cave Heavens and blessed lands in the various shrines, rivers, and mountains of the Four Great Continents. In obedience, therefore, to the command of Ksitigarbha, the beast prostrated himself in the courtyard of the Hall of Darkness, and in a little while, he raised his head to say to his master, “I have the name of the fiend …” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 112) …地藏王菩薩道：「且住，且住。等我著諦聽與你聽個真假。」原來那諦聽是地藏菩薩經案下伏的一個獸名。他若伏在地下，一霎時，將四大部洲山川社稷，洞天福地之間，蠃蟲、鱗蟲、毛蟲、羽蟲、昆蟲、天仙、地仙、神仙、人仙、鬼仙，可以照鑒善惡，察聽賢愚。那獸奉地藏鈞旨，就於森羅庭院之中，俯伏在地。須臾，擡起頭來，對地藏道：「怪名雖有…」。 [...] Smiling, Tathagata said, “Though all of you [Guanyin] possess vast dharma power and are able to observe the events of the whole universe, you cannot know all the things therein, nor do you have the knowledge of all the species” (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 114). 如來笑道：「汝等法力廣大，只能普閱周天之事，不能遍識周天之物，亦不能廣會周天之種類也。」 […] [After the Buddha explains the ten categories of life and the four types of celestial primates (see the introduction here), he says:] As I see the matter, that specious Wukong must be a six-eared macaque … (Wu & Yu, 2012, vol. 3, p. 115). 我觀假悟空乃六耳獼猴也 …

In short, the twin monkeys are so hard to tell apart simply because they are representations of the true and illusionary minds (refer back to the article) within the same person.

Like, wow omg besties 💕 they’re all so friendship

“Verily that body, so desecrated by Materialism and man himself, is the temple of the Holy Grail, the Adytum of the grandest, nay, of all, the mysteries of nature in our solar universe. That body is an Aeolian harp, chorded with two sets of strings, one made of pure silver, the other of catgut. When the breath from the divine Fiat brushes softly over the former, man becomes like unto his God — but the other set feels it not. It needs the breeze of a strong terrestrial wind, impregnated with animal effluvia, to set its animal chords vibrating. It is the function of the physical, lower mind to act upon the physical organs and their cells; but, it is the higher mind alone which can influence the atoms interacting in these cells, which interaction is alone capable of exciting the brain, via the spinal ‘center’ cord, to a mental representation of spiritual ideas far beyond any objects on this material plane. The phenomena of divine consciousness have to be regarded as activities of our mind on another and a higher plane, working through something less substantial than the moving molecules of the brain. They cannot be explained as the simple resultant of the cerebral physiological processes, as indeed the latter only condition them or give them a final form for purposes of concrete manifestation. Occultism teaches that the liver and the spleen-cells are the most subservient to the action of our ‘personal’ mind, the heart being the organ par excellence through which the ‘Higher’ Ego acts — through the Lower Self.”

— H. P. Blavatsky, Studies in Occultism

* * *

I just virtually attended a panel hosted by Contemporary Calgary, and featuring Dave Dyment, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Ayumi Goto and Suzette Mayr, on Yoko Ono’s seminal written work Grapefruit. The discussion was fascinating and wide-ranging and should be available on social media at a later date. 

One thing that really stood out to me is just how influential her work is/was. From performance art to decolonial poetry to queer literature, Ono’s ability to create art that only exists in the mind of the reader has inspired so many people. Including John Lennon.

Lennon claimed that when he received a copy of Grapefruit he kept it on his bedside table, alternatively frustrated with and transfixed by it. But it was instrumental in the creation of perhaps his best known song Imagine:

“The song was originally inspired by Yoko’s book Grapefruit. In it are a lot of pieces saying, Imagine this, imagine that. Yoko actually helped a lot with the lyrics, but I wasn’t man enough to let her have credit for it. I was still selfish enough and unaware enough to sort of take her contribution without acknowledging it.”