Every so often a life appears to change direction in a single movement: not by argument, accumulation, or slow persuasion, but by a direct experience that re-orders what previously seemed obvious. In Federico Faggin’s . (Wikipedia) autobiography Silicon, this kind of pivot is presented not as a new theory but as a change in the mode of knowing—a shift in what he takes consciousness to be, and therefore what counts as real and significant. Here is Federico’s thinking in this in his own words: Faggin: The Hard Problem of Consciousness. An here are some more of my thoughts on this: On Federico Faggin’s Awakening
From a Mahāmudrā perspective, such events are interesting precisely because they arrive “sideways” to the conceptual mind. They do not primarily add content; they alter the constraint-field within which content is interpreted. A person may remain externally similar—same profession, same family, same world—yet the inner centre of gravity has moved. The old explanatory narratives may still be available, but they no longer feel compulsory.
Religious iconography can be understood as working in the opposite temporal direction: not instantaneous, but gradual and ambient. On a recent holiday in southern spain the churches brought up this contemplation: Statues and Icons. Whats behind the forms. A cathedral’s retablo, a painted icon, a crucifixion scene, a Madonna, a reliquary—these do not merely “depict” doctrines. They tune the mind toward particular affective postures: contrition, pleading, gratitude, awe, vulnerability, devotion, moral seriousness, tenderness, fear, consolation. Over time a culture can come to live inside these postures as a kind of weather system. (In this sense, the image is not an illustration; it is closer to a training environment.)
Seen charitably, this is skill in means. Iconography is a public technology for shaping attention and feeling, and for pointing beyond the merely personal. It can also be a mandala in the broad sense: a structured field of symbols designed to evoke and stabilise certain inner configurations. The risk is equally obvious: the same technology can narrow the sky, making a small range of mind-states feel like the whole spiritual horizon.
Mahāmudrā texts often cut across both problems—the sudden conversion and the slow conditioning—by pointing not to what should appear in the mind, but to what the mind is when it stops being coerced by its own fabrication. Tilopa’s short “Six Words of Advice” is almost a caricature of this: don’t recall, don’t imagine, don’t think, don’t examine, don’t control—rest as it is. (Wikipedia) In the longer “Ganges Mahāmudrā Instructions”, the emphasis is again on direct recognition and release through the guru’s pointing-out, rather than through constructing a better mental story. (lotsawahouse.org)
For discussion, one useful question is: when iconography genuinely “points”, what exactly is being pointed to—an emotion, a moral posture, a metaphysical claim, a relationship, or the nature of awareness itself? And when a transformative experience arrives, what prevents it being immediately captured and reduced to the nearest available cultural mandala?
References (web)
- Tilopa — “Six Words of Advice / Six Nails” (Wikipedia summary + Tibetan/Wylie) (Wikipedia)
- Tilopa — “Six Precepts” phrasing (Wikiquote) (en.wikiquote.org)
- Tilopa — The Ganges Mahāmudrā Instructions (Lotsawa House) (lotsawahouse.org)
- Federico Faggin — bibliography entry for Silicon (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)
Milarepa link you asked for (for later “Six Illusions”):
https://yeshe.org/six-illusions-metaphors-of-experience/