From my Buddhist teachers I learned about Pratitya Samutpada
It’s all causes and conditions, they said
Not merely my life, or the lives of all sentient beings, or physical objects:
all the forces and events and entities in reality as such 
A thousand causes and conditions per second
changing quicker than the cells in my body
Conflicts, collisions, coincidences
In deep time, our universe collided with another one
the bubble collision
life’s fabric is made of colliding conditions and traumatic encounters
the unhappy plants and animals suffering

in which there is no possibility of purity or salvation
though there is also no possibility of hell (an eternal prison)
Freud’s object cathexis – even at birth we are attached/wounded, bound by a libidinal charge

examples of things which transcend fascistic ideas of purity:
mathematics
supernovas
light shining through ice

There is a crack in reality – ontologically – structurally
between appearance and substance
phenomena and noumena
form and emptiness

Gödel’s Incompletion Theorem

Athos repeated the teaching of causes and conditions to me

But he reminded me of a very important point: within the mesh of causes and conditions, I have a shaping influence 

I have agency

We need, more than ever, in the mess of postmodernity, to realize that we have agency

Thannisaro emphasizes free will in the Buddha’s teachings, warns against the dangers of passivity (the near enemy of equanimity) 

Allie’s advice:
“As much as the world is important, you are important. Give yourself an oxygen mask first – then you’ll be able to help others”
Where do self and world divide/overlap?
Where do relative level and ultimate level divide/overlap?

a moon in the sky
five pools of water
five moons reflected back
but only one moon