The Structure of Becoming

floating toruses and waveforms over Greek ruins

2. Phase-Locking in the Toroidal Realm

While the self has a discrete structure, it is also an open system — an antenna capable of phase-locking with external memes.

These resonant patterns can either strengthen the mind’s coherence or pull it into forms of entrainment that diminish agency. The self-torus’ wavenumber-6 standing wave facilitates initial entrainment with external structures, but the long-term consequences depend largely on how the helical core incorporates new patterns and how the central nodal cross processes them. When the cross remains relatively open and discerning, phase-locking with refined resonators (such as those found in art or philosophy) can support greater coherence. When the cross becomes rigid or overly attractive, external patterns can dominate the system’s orientation.

Memes themselves are resonant toroidal patterns that possess a rūpa-like structure in the realm of toroidal resonance. While they require physical carriers (books, songs, images, rituals, institutions and so on) to be transmitted in the material world, their coherence as patterns lies primarily in their topological structure. Most memes share the wavenumber-6 architecture of the self-torus, which facilitates phase-locking, though they typically lack the full differentiated internal structure needed to host reflective consciousness independently.

The self-torus is itself a memeplex. Its helical core, with its lemniscate-like motion in the cross-sectional plane, is where internally generated patterns and externally phase-locked memes are braided together into a composite structure. This makes ongoing phase-locking a continuous structural feature of the self rather than an occasional event. The memes already present in the helical core can exert pressure on cetanā, biasing future selection toward patterns that reinforce the existing configuration.

At the lethe zone, cetanā functions as a gatekeeper in the competition among memes for the limited resource of manasikāra (attention). It determines which external patterns are permitted to phase-lock and braid into the helical core. While the memes already integrated into the core can pull cetanā toward reinforcing patterns, cetanā retains the capacity for discernment. Agency can be strengthened both by reducing automatic identification with memes and by selectively phase-locking with higher-order resonant patterns.

In addition to tuning in external memes, the self-torus serves as a resonant chamber for the upper wavebands — vedanā, saññā, saṅkhāra and viññāṇa. These are topological patterns of organization that arise within the rūpa chamber. They depend on its structured resonance to manifest coherently and gain power at the nodal cross.

The openness or rigidity of this cross strongly influences what can phase-lock with the system and how deeply or constructively. As an attractor, it accumulates influence: Successful phase-locking tends to reinforce its power, creating feedback loops. Larger or more coherent memeplexes can exert disproportionate effects on both the helical core and the nodal cross.

The mid-nidānas — particularly nāmarūpa, saḷāyatana and phassa — establish the basic conditions for an “inside” and an “outside.” They mark the interface at which rūpa functions as a resonant chamber, making coherent internal activity and external phase-locking possible. Physical carriers and metaphysical patterns thus form a joint saṅkhārā — they condition each other without being reducible to one another.

Check out Essay 1. Or read the Existential Firestorm essay series “The 12 Turns” on Kindle.

1. Dynamic Zones of the Self-Torus

The topology of mind reveals a toroidal structure resonating in a hidden realm. Within the self-torus are four interconnected zones: the wavenumber-6 standing wave, lethe, helical polar core and central nodal cross. These illuminate the structure of selfhood — its values, developmental movement, illusion of persistent identity amid flux and volition’s role in the arising of consciousness.

These functional regions arise from the dynamic interplay of the five waveband aggregates. Rūpa (materiality) serves as the toroidal resonant chamber that bounds and organizes the four upper bands: vedanā (feeling-tone), saṅkhāra (binding lattice), saññā (perception) and viññāṇa (consciousness). Without this rūpa chamber, the higher wavebands would remain too diffuse to sustain stable patterns. The structure provides both a ground for individual striving toward greater coherence and the possibility of phase-locking with external resonant forms, in accordance with the demands of will to power.

At its most basic geometric level, the self-torus is sustained by the wavenumber-6, which produces 12 fixed nodes around the circumference. While these remain relatively stable, the regions between them pulsate rhythmically. A standing wave of this kind possesses sufficient structural coherence and harmonic stability to phase-lock in the realm of toroidal resonance without losing its own integrity.

Although the self-torus is grounded in rūpa, it remains undetectable by current scientific instruments. Even if that were possible, the four upper wavebands would still lie beyond the reach of materialism. What follows, therefore, is a topological description of metaphysics — a mapping of the resonant architecture where cosmic cetanā (volition) localizes and surpasses itself within conditioned existence.

The wavenumber-6 establishes the overall container for the other functional zones to operate. Its 12 nodes correspond to the 12 nidānāni of paṭiccasamuppāda, the structural conditions of moment-to-moment dependent origination and maintenance of the self. This layer most directly expresses what underlies experience, while the remaining zones govern modulation and transformation across time.

Within the lethe zone, cetanā narrows the field by scattering all potentialities except the chosen one, and this opens a clearing at the central nodal cross where it can manifest. What arises is not erased after fading from awareness. Through the activity of cetanā, it becomes integrated into the kamma-bhava saṅkhāra — the karmic conditioning strands — within the helical core, where it continues to shape future possibilities and receptivity. A new horizon of possibilities emerges shaped by this accumulated background, continuing the cycle.

Lethe thus scatters in service of gathering. As dikē demands, every dissolution calls forth a movement toward greater coherence as a counter to universal entropy.

This polar tension finds its most concentrated expression in the helical core. Here, a lemniscate-like motion allows opposing polarities to meet and rebalance at each crossing. Because the core accumulates conditioning over time, it possesses the capacity for ongoing evolution rather than mere repetition. While this movement performs the essential work of polarity and integration, increases in coherence and resonance register most significantly in the evolving attractor quality of the central nodal cross. In this way, the helical core supports the conditions for development, while the nodal cross serves as the primary site where that development is expressed and tested.

The helical core’s internal dynamic interfaces with the larger architecture of the self-torus. Its lemniscate-like flow operates primarily in the cross-sectional plane, where the crossing point aligns with and feeds into the central nodal cross. There, the core’s polar activity meets the convergence of the wavenumber-6 standing wave’s nodal spokes. At this intersection, the ongoing work of transformation becomes most directly available for integration to the self-torus as a whole.

The central nodal cross lies in the middle of the self-torus. It is here where one actuality stands forth within the clearing opened by cetanā. This manifestation is momentary, yet not erased. As consciousness nihilates the past from the open future, what has arisen recedes into facticity and vipāka (ripening of kamma), becoming braided into the kamma-bhava helix.

This is not a closed system. Consciousness is continually shaped by saḷāyatana (the six sense bases) and the self-torus’s phase-locking with external memes and resonant patterns. Despite these influences, the self maintains structural resistance to dissolution. Like a hexagon distributing stress evenly across its faces, the wavenumber-6 mode spreads external pressures across its 12 spokes. The helical core further stabilizes the structure, coiling according to the golden ratio so that it can preserve identity while remaining open to polar flipping. Because the ratio is irrational, it generates self-similar spirals that never reach perfect closure or equilibrium, ensuring that the flow always carries within it the seed of its opposite.

The self-torus thus embodies a resonant form persisting even as its specific manifestations change. Ñāṇavīra describes this quality as “invariance under transformation.”

Read Essay 2 or check out the first Existential Firestorm essay series, “The 12 Turns,” on X or Kindle.