So we are told in the press that it's the last chance to see comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) that will not return to our skies for 50,000 years. This sounds like a big deal and I must see.

But this captures everything about existence, desire and suffering.

Until we heard about the comet then no desire, no struggle and no gain/loss.

But then we hear about it, we may think big deal. But then we hear its our last chance for 50,000 years and this may stimulate the kind of thought "I don't know how valuable this is, but I know if I change my mind tomorrow it will be too late, so I better see it now so that its done and I don't need to worry about it."

So the text has finally created some desire and motivation to see the comet based on a not sure, but may as well just do it to avoid potential loss in the future.

But can't we just say, well if I miss this comet I'll just see the next? "There are plenty more fish in the sea" goes the saying.

Yes but the next comet will not be this comet. Whichever way I spin it once this comet is out of sight then I will NEVER SEE IT.

And so we start to get fixated on "this" comet. C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is unique, there is only this final chance to see it after which it is gone. No other comet will do, because they are not this comet.

We have switched from "seeing comets" as an experience, and essence, to seeing "this comet" which is an existence.

Now how do things gain existence?

Well up until we read that article it was just "a comet." We have seen comets before, we will see them again. There are always comets in the sky, although few get to magnitude 4 which is about what is needed to see with naked eye in the hugely light polluted skies of England. So any comet will do. Each has an existence, but its not a relevant existence to us. I'm talking "relevant existence" that impinges on our lives and experiences.

Relevant Existence happens all the time, and its spooky. It often happens when we are driving and there is another car. We look at it and we think it can't be going our way, or it can't be wanting to turning in front of me... and then it does. And we think what is the chance of that! How annoying. If we are easily angered or paranoid we start to get angry with the car for almost deliberately messing up our journey. That car could have just kept going, why didn't that car just go the other way and not mess up my journey. But of course we forget that for us to even see that car it must be very close to us and already set up to get in the way. We don't see the tens of millions of other cars that did not mess up our journey at that moment. We just see this one. That one becomes a Relevant Existence, and because of the rules of the universe it must be near us and ready to interfere with us already to even become noticed and relevant.

Likewise this comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) has only become a relevant existence because its travelled close to the Sun and the papers have picked it up and made it into headlines. And now we have noticed it and its started to become relevant to us. This is how existences become relevant, but its all just mechanisms and processes.

When we don't see the mechanisms and processes, we can become tricked into thinking that the relevant existence has some real and fixed relevance. It actually IS relevant in some objective way, like if we were to get hold of the comet and look at it we would find a stamp on it somewhere saying "I am relevant", "I am the real deal." When in fact its only so relevant as we make it. This is how advertising works. If we see it advertised enough then it looks like its the real deal but just because we are exposed to it a lot. Same with music, we hear something enough and our brain starts to make it relevant "the sound of this summer" etc.

Now all that said a new comet appearing in the sky is a remarkable event. Perhaps not for those who almost never look at the sky, but for those who see the sky over long periods of time and get to know it, and then have a new thing turn up: that is quite remarkable. Like with Hale Bopp in 1997, a comet so bright you could see it even in central London, that new entity was really noticeable. We lived with it for many months and then it faded. We got to know it. We didn't need to read news articles telling us "last chance" it made itself known to us, and for those who didn't see it, that did not matter. And for those who did they will have memories of it that summer. For me it was once in France and once standing in a nightclub queue finding it really odd that I was looking at a celestial visitor in what was otherwise a really ordinary urban scene. Like with Van Gogh's Starry Night the beauty of the heavens both reflects in the Rhone river but also overlaps the earthly lights and I think parallels the celestial nature of human love in the otherwise worldly ordinary foreground couple. 

Things can become relevant existences through quite natural proximities like friendship. Its an odd thing that those who believe in the celestial nature of human emotions never-the-less must admit the importance of physical proximity. We rarely lose sleep over people we have never met before. And perhaps we lose sleep over people we met in Past Lives but at some point it all began with a physical encounter.

Relevant existence is fundamentally caused by physical proximity and sensory input. And whenever something like a car or an annoying person becomes relevant, its worth noting that their proximity--rather than what they actually are--is where it all started before we blame them!

So great we realise that the newspaper article is goading us into relevant existence. If we just put the paper down and forget about comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) then we are back to square one. Bliss. Happy. No longer motivated to upset ourselves into action and searching for things.

But perhaps we can't put it down. We have our heart set on the comet now! We sit their uneasy. Really I should go and see it. Tomorrow if I don't see it today I am going to regret it. I will spend the rest of my life regretting that. And we can really build ourselves up into a lather. And then perhaps now fixated on the comet we turn events around and say "Thank God, praise to the newspaper, if I had not read that article I would have missed the comet all together."

This is a classic salesman technique. You are sitting there happy and content. The doorbell goes and the salesman wishes you well and then asks you about something you have never thought of. Have you heard of "Jesus Christ" is an old one that people ignore now. But how about "Are you aware that you could save money from [something]." or "80% of people in your area have already bought [something]"... there are a million things they can say. Remember you were sitting there content, but now you are not content. You think my past life was bad, I'm being offered a better one. Well nothing bad about content, after all once you have bought your new life you will only be content again! But its too later the salesman has tricked you into being unsatisfied and only they hold the key to becoming satisfied. When you are really hooked you will look back and thank the salesman, saying wow until you made me aware I had no idea, I was living a lie, but now I am heading for happy days and satisfaction. Except you were satisfied before.

Problem is few of us are ever satisfied so the salesmen have an easy job. Since we are trying to become content they can easily trick us into trying new things in the hope contentment will come. It won't, but the same tricks that may unbalance the content person will almost always unbalance the discontented person.

So relevant existence is easy to create, and is the basis of sales, brands and much of what we do.

So great we think. I will not answer any doorbells, I will not read the newspapers or listen to news on TV (actually a good thing to do), avoid adverts and not go out of my house so that relevant existence cannot occur. I will become a peaceful oblivious bubble with no desires, wishes or anything to upset me.

Well actually this is not an entirely bad idea.

But it has one flaw. This idea of the "content bubble" just becomes a new "relevant existence"! Uh ho deep existential crisis. Even my "safe place" is just another source of discontent.

Okay so we need to realise that "holding on" is the problem.

Being unable to get comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) out of our mind is the problem, rather than the relevant existence itself. The paper is not really to blame, its our lack of mastery of our self.

We need make a decision do we want to see the comet now we have found out about it. Forget about fears of regretting it, that is just accepting we are unable to master our self. Do we actually care. Are we the sort of person who gets kicks from seeing? Maybe we don't know and its worth a try. Often you do something enough and you get to like it, so its worth a try.

Perhaps you are too busy, or can't be bothered, just let it go immediately. But perhaps you end up unable to decide. So you decide not to go out and see it. Decision made. Some years in the future you see a documentary and that rekindles a "relevant existence" and you think oh now I wish I had gone out and seen it. Then there is regret. Oh no I missed it and will never see it again. Stupid me, self abuse and punishment. But get a grip, you decided not to see it, that was the decision then and now you can't see it so no use changing your mind now. Stand with what you did, really no point changing mind now, past has happened. So no real regrets either. Let go.

And its that ability to undo the process of "relevant existence" to turn it around into "irrelevant existence" that lies as the heart of self-mastery and learning not to suffer. This is the essence of Buddha's teaching.

Once we know we can turn "relevant" into "irrelevant" then the news article saying "

Last glimpse of comet that you won’t be able to see for another 50,000 years

"

loses its sting. It just becomes shall we see it or not. If we make the wrong decision now, we know in future we can just turn it into an irrelevant thing. Sure the comet still exists and has an "actual existence" but so do trillions of other things we will never think about, the point is its "relevant existence" and that lies with us and us alone. 

Its an interesting parallel that celestial objects have an Absolute Magnitude and a Apparent Magnitude. The Absolute magnitude is the brightness of an object at a standard distance away (10 parsecs) while the Apparent is the magnitude to an Earth bound observer. That makes the "actual existence" its Absolute Magnitude while how large and important that existence is to us, the "relevant existence" is its Apparent Magnitude. Obviously the "relevant existence" is down to where we as an individual stands. And its realising that we can move away and make a relevant existence smaller which is the real power we need to gain. So we make a mistake over seeing the comet. It has moved away and its Apparent Magnitude is now too low to be seen by an amateur viewer. We suddenly want to see it, and realise we can't, opportunity missed. We are filled with regret, we agonise about the lost opportunity and wish things were different. In a fairytale our fairy godmother turns up and makes everything okay. But its also a lot easier for us to just walk away and let the "relevant existence" fade too. We can always do this with everything.

But now armed with our new power to just walk away we start walking away from things that seem really import just to show we are not attached.

Buddha did this on his path, starving himself to the point of death.

Jesus did this too, refusing to change his ways before Rome and being crucified to death.

While the conclusions of this self-mortifications were different the fact remains that these great spiritual leaders both put themselves near or even to death as part of the journey.

They turned away from all the comforts we normally want in our life and walked as far away from everything relevant as possible.

But Buddha realised this was wrong. The right path is neither to hold on tightly to things, nor to just throw them away. And Jesus showed us that even when faced with the death of a criminal, hated and rejected (even his closest disciple Peter denied him), even despairing one self there is always still hope.

 So how does that help us deal with C/2022 E3 (ZTF)? We know we have the strength to throw it away if we make a mistake. I mean once its out of sight that's the end, why bother anymore. But while its still in sight what do we do? Well we may have a strong desire to see it. That seems like it may be a problem from what Buddha said (don't cling too tightly). But actually no problem as long as we don't abandon other things we should do in favour of it. Our father is ill in hospital and we don't go to visit him so we can see the comet would be a good example of holding too tight. But then sitting in front of the TV cos we can't be bothered would be an example of not holding enough, and worse holding onto laziness and sloth too much. Its a fine balancing act that we may get wrong. But once its gone wrong we should have the ability to adjust our grip of things to match the new situation. Its when we can't adjust grip (tanha in the Pali) that things go wrong and we and others suffer.

So actually after all that there is nothing wrong with the news article. True it is trying to make us go and see the comet by pointing out last chance. But that is all part of the complex world of demands, needs and desires that we face and the constant adjusting of grip we need on things.

There are lots of areas of confusion. Marriage may look like a strong grip thing: "until death do us part" but even in the strongest view of marriage we know we must let go when our partner dies. Even that grip is not eternal. There are mythologies that suggest it is, and they are potentially harmful when we are encouraged to grip to things even at the expense of other valuable things (for example my muse from the early sections of this blog). Family and friends may look like they need strong grips, but sometimes its good to let go a little so as not to exhaust ourselves. Equally the opposite of grip which is pushing away has all the same problems. We may want to push away what is really beneficial and we need lesson that push. It requires wisdom and self commandment.