Part 2 — Burned by Bad Faith: A free-will vs. fate flare-up in the depths of physis
Are we cosmic Chads blazing our own trails, or just kamma’s cucks getting blown around like embers in fate’s inferno? Part 1 scorched the foundations of reality, leaving us singed by the question of control amid the flux. Let’s delve deeper into the dual saṅkhāras shaping our lives — the mind’s cocky, citta-fueled illusions and nature’s impersonal physis — where free will and determinism spin in a fiery dance (sick Pali glossary).
As Heraclitus sees every element as metaphorical fire, let’s cool off for a bit in his river — the one you can’t step twice in. This cosmic flow draws from two existential fountainheads bubbling from the underworld. One is lethe, the concealed depths of physis’ self-welling forth, nourishing aletheia (revealed forms) in a contingent ground of being-as-becoming. The other is citta, our mind’s wellspring of thoughts, feelings and intention (cetanā), which secretes nothingness to allow the emergence of phenomena in consciousness. Both saṅkhāras — physis and citta — are concealing-revealing polarities, dependent and void of a fixed essence (with the latter superimposed onto the former).
But we typically just think the revealed parts are all that exist, mistaking them for an earth element lost in the flux of fire and water. This solidity includes illusory traps like self-reification, built by a structure of memetic self-replicators. It tempts us to become our pretend roles — like what we do for a living or what sports team or political party we identify with — to escape both the fact we’re forced to make decisions for ourselves and the uneasiness that comes with nothingness in the heart of our being.
Hold up, though! Cetanā is the key to disrupting the causal chains of the past, but it doesn’t nuke them — instead, it flips being’s rigid facts into dynamic becoming (bhava), turning “what was” into flickering possibilities. Ignore this, and you’re locked in samsaric hell; grab it, and dodge the nagging grip of craving (taṇhā).
Enter physis, the primordial conflagration with the nature of what I will call “in-itself-as-not-itself”: a contingent, self-negating lack, void of inherent essence (anattā), where everything props up everything else in dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda). Heidegger describes a sway, or emerging-forth, where the concealed lethe nourishes unconcealed aletheia without a whiff of volition. It’s the groundless ground, evading pure presence through Heraclitus’ strife (polemos), harmonizing fire’s exchanges like logos’ hidden high-five between opposites — up and down as one and the same, creation from destruction. Physis isn’t bossing the show; it’s the impersonal underglow, lethe’s withdrawing depths sustaining flux’s polarity, like hidden embers fueling visible flames.
Both saṅkhāras jam like fire’s wild twins. Citta’s volitional zap crashes into physis’ fated blaze, entangling mind’s illusions in nature’s contingencies. Cetanā oozes over physis’ blank slate, projecting choices amid thrown facticity (Geworfenheit), turning the “not-itself” of physis into something that lets Nietzsche proclaim “amor fati!” He saw life as a quirky ripple instead of a grim compulsion. This reciprocity dissolves idolatry’s brittle fakes, yielding vitalist freedom without spinning into flickering chaos. To reach escape velocity, Nietzsche loved fate to the point where he embraced its eternal recurrence, which was only possible because he could revel in possibilities beyond compulsion. (It may have driven him crazy, though.)
But beware papañca’s chatter, inflating particulars (lethe-nimitta and citta-nimitta) and turning them into delusions of significance while veiling impermanence with exaggerated tales of need. This is where memes pounce like Darwinian gremlins — with vMEMEs spiraling between cults of conformity and power grabs — twisting flux into Sartre’s fixed bad faith. Lethe’s oblivion wipes the slate, flipping the viral echo of the muse Mneme. But this is just the way out: You must see nimitta as clues to hidden renewal, a glow that illuminates the true contingent nature of reality to unmask freedom in idolatry’s abyss.
No-free-will baked into becoming? Hell no, freedom’s a spark you’re meant to fan.
Check out Part 3 — “Wildfire of the memes.” And swing back to Part 1. (Originally shared on X)
Rob Robill 