Experiments with Truth and Illusion by Christian Fanli
A series of upcoming talks and group discussions starting in September. The talks are about personal experiments with truth. Subscribe to get invites to events and links to recordings.
“Since everything is but an apparition, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst out in laughter.”
― Longchenpa
Why subscribe?
I will try to host talks every Monday until I leave into a retreat of sorts. I will know the exact date of my departure in early November. So for now, it looks like there will be at least 4 upcoming talks hosted on Zoom and I will have a schedule posted shortly. Listen to these as my experiments with truth. In all that I have done, I have tried to make teaching a core component of my practice. So I humbly approach this as a student practicing through teaching. So bear with me.
Experiments with Truth and Illusion Series
What a wonderful life, full of everything you could ever ask for and everything you wouldn’t ask for. How beautiful. It seems this chapter is nearing an end.
One of my dearest friends said she wanted me to share wildly before I go. But I don’t think there is much for me to share, not in words at least. Nothing that will help anyone. Life is such an experiment to me so my experiments are not necessarily applicable to others and this applies to the supposed insights gathered as well. But she insisted I should share without any focus on the impact. Keeping an open mind and my own curiosity to share, I decided to do so.
So I will try to take the microscopic drips of truth (if any at all) I’ve so called learned through my experiences to as many people as possible before I go radio silent for some time. I feel as if the last 6 or so years, I’ve watched my unquenchable desires for this world begin to fall away in ways that I still can not understand. And through this falling away, instead of a nothingness or nihilism, an incessant joy, mixed with a pointed clarity has been emerging. This life is so absurd that I don’t know how one cannot go about it without laughing constantly. It still appears that I have aeons of polishing to do, but let’s give this a try before I drift away. No regrets.
I do not label myself, “teacher”, I do not label myself “your teacher”, I do not even label myself “your peer” or “your underling”. Labels are provisional. You don’t need a label called teacher, although for some it may be helpful for a time. Thwack! It’s already right in front of you, wait that’s not quite right (words are just that, never quite right and yet…). You are nothing more than it! So if you choose to listen, I’ll be your mouth and you can be my ears for 30 minutes and then we’ll switch roles during Q and A sessions.
Teaching as my practice
I think of teaching as no different than listening. They are both can be ways of practicing dharma and can also be ways of not practicing dharma. For me, I will try to practice it sincerely as dharma. In all that I have done, I have tried to make teaching a core component of my practice. So I humbly approach this as a student practicing through teaching. So bear with me.
What to expect
Experiments with Truth and Illusion Series will begin Monday September 7th at 7PM and end Monday October 19th at 7PM
Talk
Discussion
QnA
We might also have a number of small group discussions.
Help! Would someone like to help me host these? Email me at fanli@christianfanli.org
Possible Talk Titles
The Stories We Live By
Cosmetics, Condiments, and Anesthetics
Experiments with Truth
The Taste of Dissatisfaction
Waking Up to Your Truth
Reality Isn’t What It Seems
Identity and It’s Discontents
The Limits of Education
It’s Right There
Brief Chronology?
As a close companion of Christian Fanli, I played with a loose life chronology from their upcoming book which is part waking up story, part autobiography, part absurd tales of their life as a professional clown, and part dharma talk. Another close companion has been interviewing Christian Fanli to put the book together as a goodbye gift to Christian Fanli’s parents first and foremost. So I wanted Christian Fanli to share a short version of the chronology for anyone who is interested in the person behind these talks. Fanli has warned me that this may help their tendency to project (while laughing), but I digress. So this is one version I put together (of many possible versions) of Christian or Fanli’s (郑梵力) ( their mother in China gave them this name) life.
Chronology
1990 - Born somehow
Orphaned
Foster Kid - lived as a child with different families from different “cultures” ( Filipino / Chinese/ Mexican / African American / White / Indian / British / Irish )
Lived with rich families (like ones that had a macaw and two monkeys under the same roof that they slept)
Lived with poor families ( They lived off govt assistance like food stamps)
Lived in country on a farm where Christian was the shepherd
Skipped College
Studied like crazy / injured their eyes (400 non-fiction books later)
Tried to recreate the education system using nothing but online courses from Stanford, MIT, and Udacity
Followed curiosity to study neuroscience, machine learning, psychology, mathematics, social science, computer science, and language (Mandarin only)
Held several jobs before landing job as programmer ( landscaper, window cleaner, pc repairman, floor cleaner, credit card salesman, collections salesman for funeral, website designer, photographer, graphic designer, Abercrombie and fitch floor model, farmer)
Moved to England and received singing and received pronunciation training from pop singer
Was homeless a few times
Became a Programmer / Software Engineer
Party Animal
Studied under two anthropologists for informal dissertation (off the record academic)
Started meditating (2012)
Lived with a multimillion dollar celebrity (3 years) and lived “the life” for a research study that took Christian Fanli to their limits and then further to confront the unquenchable
Starting making music to make sense of their life while going through a depression, found alterego in “nowhere-ness”
Had the choice to continue on seeking fame or drop it all
Insight - Began renouncing this life
Gave up meat / vegan started to go on a raw diet to challenge the conventions around desire personally and societally ( dharma gate of food)
Learned Chinese and found the concept of “emptiness”
Family from China
Learned machine learning and social science to understand how the world works
Things start to drop away from Christian’s life
Gave up phone, shopping, restaurants, going out, mirrors, switching clothing, and so on
Experimented with renouncing mental and material cosmetics, condiments, and anesthetics
Started the grey phase as a representation of “mundane/nothingness” and interdependence (nothing is black and white, everything is ingrey), started wearing a uniform to work
Studied with partner and created ultimate productivity system (up at 4 am, every hour mapped to a task, logged on Tumblr, and sleep by 8) and created courses / wrote papers
Starting mentally and materially fasting from this life
Worked in two neuroscience labs as a machine learning researcher to understand stress, anxiety, and now craving
Went to go live and work in China and visited family and Buddhist temples to meditate
Become a son/daughter again (baba and mama)
Wake up call!
Heart opening experiences - a vibrant world full of joy, full of sadness
Renounced small identities ( gender, sexuality, race, political, isms)
Voluntarily homeless experiment
Moved into monastic temple part-time and still working as a data scientist and researcher
Honed in on meditation practice and studied across mind traditions including neuroscience, zen buddhism, yogacara, advaita vedanta, vedanta, christian mysticism, catholicism, sufism, huayan, krishna conciousness
Started recording an audio-first book with my good friend and work colleague
NOW: Will soon leave for long retreat / Decided to share before
2020
Bonus
The Name Fànlì
Fan 梵 means many things
(Hinduism) Brahman; the ultimate reality in the universe (concept in Hinduism)
of or pertaining to ancientIndia or the Sanskrit language; Indian
Li 力 means force as in the physics (force = mass * acceleration) and it can also mean strength, competence or to make a great effort with all one’s might
Why subscribe?
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Never miss a talk. Each talk’s event detail will be emailed directly to subscribers and the recording will be available for one week.
I’ll be leaving soon, so subscribe if you want updates over the next few months.
External Links
LinkedIn - http://linkedin.com/in/christianramsey
Twitter - http://twitter.com/christianramsey
Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/without-division-podcast/id1498546433
Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq4wf2MKljWts5qhDTEgD7w?view_as=subscriber
Dharma Music (not to be taken seriously) - https://kaneki.substack.com/p/all-a-dream-song-and-commentary
Writings - https://medium.com/@christianramsey
Meditations - https://insighttimer.com/christianfanli
Github? - https://github.com/christianramsey
Productivity Archive - https://anthrochristianramsey.tumblr.com/archive