Part 9: Fractal reincarnations — The metaphysics of forgetting
Named after the stream of forgetfulness coiling through Hades, lethe as our mind’s volition washes away the accumulated debris of the past for a fresh rebirth each moment. From this void, our future possibilities arise, as does our awareness.
Our will (cetanā in Pāli) secretes nothingness as a fractal eddy in the grand gyre of existence. These micro-arsons mirror the macro-collapses of universes, as human choice reflects the cosmos’ torching of forms to invite the next unveiling. This isn’t random erasure; it’s the telic tug of justice (dikē) pulling away from extremes, ensuring becoming doesn’t dissolve into bedlam — and being doesn’t rigidify into an affront of the world’s ephemerality.
A fragment of Heraclitus says: “Nature loves to hide.” But lethe’s hiding is an injustice within the fundamental polarity; it’s too far toward becoming and away from being. So justice (dikē) steps in as a regulator and pushes nature in the direction of revelation. Here, name and form (nāma-rūpa) manifest in our minds in reaction to concealment.
At its most basic level, lethe is the hidden side of physis, the polar opposite of aletheia, forms that appear and disintegrate in the universe’s ever-changing torrent. This reflects Nietzsche’s Apollo-Dionysus polarity and Heidegger’s elaboration of Heraclitus’ physis and logos. It is, at its core, the being-becoming metaphysic: aletheia as being’s forms, lethe as becoming’s restless undertow and their strife (polemos) as the generative fire.
Our mind’s forgetting mirrors that of the dead in the ancient Greek myth of the river Lethe. Framed in Plato’s Republic (Book X) as the underworld’s regenerative veil, it’s where souls drink to shed grudges and regrets so their rebirth dawns unweighted by prior being (bhava) — although past actions (kamma) and other facticities determine the future’s horizons.
Each moment, cetanā clears a micro-void for the mini-reincarnation of consciousness (viññāṇa). Dark and light — Heraclitus’ logos weaves these opposites into an unseen harmony.
This directed strife prevents flux from devolving into mere chaos, both in our mind and the universe itself. And the regulating telos of justice infuses physis with meaning, which is absent in scientific materialism’s flattened world of physics.
Logos, not logic, supplies the “magic spark” of consciousness — yet we can’t see this when we’re blinded by aletheia’s totalizing glare. Science flattens the world into manipulable grid, while logos deepens it when we attune to the hidden realm’s generative hum.
Echoing this metaphysics, the Buddha described forms as conditioned polarities (saṅkhāra), interlinked fractals feeding one another existentially. The overarching saṅkhāra describing how our mind works is called paṭiccasamuppāda in Pāli (dependent origination). That is, if it’s considered from the existential perspective of the monk Ñāṇavīra — not as a 12-link causal chain on the scale of lifespans, but as the simultaneous arising of interdependent saṅkhāras within the larger one.
Paṭiccasamuppāda lists the will next to consciousness as its necessary basis, providing it with existential nutriment — cetanā’s volitional secretion clears space for the discerning flare of viññāṇa. Further nodes (nidānas) echo this theme of polar strife and regulating justice. For instance, contact (phassa) and feeling (vedanā) form a dyadic saṅkhāra totality, an interlocked holonic rift: Phassa’s poles — raw impingement (lethe’s neutral onrush of amorphous sense data) versus perceptual ignition (aletheia’s meaningful forms) — wage polemos, risking meaninglessness (undifferentiated haze) or fixation (distortions of permanence and significance). Dikē tempers the extremes, forging a regulated breach, which ignites vedanā’s poles — affective neutrality (lethe’s indifferent flow) and evaluative significance (tugs of pleasant or unpleasant) — in escalating strife, teetering toward taṇhā’s chaotic craving or inert disconnection; dikē intervenes as telic justice, weaving the tension toward the next node, clinging (upādāna) and beyond.
Through the dynamic of paṭiccasamuppāda and the forms that manifest in it, we become either enchanted by aletheia’s surfaces — mistaking flux’s signs (nimitta) for solid idols — or attuned to physis’ dual nature, recognizing mental (citta) nimitta of generative forces simmering beneath awareness.
Attuned to this fractal forgetfulness, we are bathed in the grace of physis. We’ll know that the next time we step in the river, it won’t be the same — and neither will we.
Check out Part 10 — Earth and starry sky.
Rob Robill 