On transformation

The engine of existence

A dandelion releases its progeny on a side-lit wind, each seed a ghost of what was and a blueprint of what could be—transformation captured as dispersal, where the power to become is not held, but in a conference of difference with everything that surrounds it, courtesy of Nano Banana.

The perpetual conversation of becoming

We live in a universe not of static nouns, but of dynamic verbs. From the cosmic—the breathtaking birth and fiery death of stars—to the biological—the quiet metamorphosis of a caterpillar in its chrysalis—to the deeply personal—the profound shift from ignorance to understanding. From brokenness to wholeness—reality reveals itself as a vast tapestry of unceasing change. Yet our human intuition senses a hierarchy within this flux. What distinguishes mere alteration from profound transformation? Is it simply the rearrangement of existing parts, or the genuine emergence of something fundamentally new? This exploration delves into our ancient obsession with transformation—the mysterious passage from one condition of being to another—examining how different ways of understanding reality explain our origins, our conclusions, and the phenomenon of births and deaths that make existence meaningful to us.

If this seems like an abstract puzzle, you’re in good company. Every great philosophical and spiritual tradition has wrestled with it, for the answer defines everything from the meaning of a life to the fate of a cosmos.

The Classical Dialogue on Change

Our intellectual history is, in many ways, a sustained conference on the nature of transformation. The Buddhist tradition, arising in the 5th century BCE, presented a radical starting point: anicca: 'impermanence' is the fundamental characteristic of reality.^[1] Here, transformation is not something that happens to an enduring self; it is the only thing that happens. The doctrine of anātman: 'no-self' posits that what we call a person is merely a causal stream of ever-shifting skandhas: 'aggregates'.^[2] Birth and death are thus convenient labels for moments in this endless flux, like naming a particular wave upon a boundless ocean. Nirvāṇa: 'extinguishing' becomes the ultimate transformation of consciousness—the quenching of the fires of craving, thereby breaking the cycle of pratītyasamutpāda: 'dependent origination'. Strip away the abstraction, and this is a story about seeing reality as a pure, ceaseless verb.

Almost concurrently in the West, Plato envisioned a different kind of transformation—one of ascent rather than flux. For Plato, true reality resided in the eternal, perfect realm of Forms. Our earthly existence was a shadowy imitation.^[3] Consequently, genuine transformation was anamnesis: 'recollection' and spiritual ascent: the soul’s journey from the darkness of the cave, chained to illusions, toward the liberating light of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Earthly birth was a fall into a body, a forgetting; earthly death was a release, a remembering. The real transformation was thus epistemological and spiritual, a turning of the entire soul toward what is fundamentally and always real. Think of it not as a change in substance, but as a change in orientation.

Aristotle, Plato’s student, brought the discussion firmly back to the world of substances. For him, metabolē: 'transformation' was the actualization of inherent potential within an enduring entity.^[4] A seed transforms into an oak by gradually realizing its inner telos or purpose. The underlying substance—the essential 'oak-ness'—persists, while its accidents like form, size, and maturity change. Birth marked the commencement of this actualization process; death its final form and cessation. Here, transformation required both continuity (the persisting substance) and change (the unfolding of its properties).

Elsewhere, the mystical Alchemical and Hermetic traditions, flourishing from antiquity through the medieval period, framed transformation as a sacred art. The goal was transmutation: turning base lead into gold, or the profane soul into a perfected, corpus glorificatum: 'glorified body'. This was not random change but a structured, symbolic process mirroring cosmic principles—solve et coagula: 'dissolve and coagulate'. Death, in this view, was not a final enemy but a necessary stage of dissolution, without which a higher rebirth was impossible. The Phoenix myth, rising from its own ashes, captures this essence perfectly.

In stark contrast, the modern Materialist or Physicalist ontology, an elaboration of ancient atomism, offers a austere vision. Transformation is merely the reconfiguration of pre-existing matter and energy according to immutable physical laws.^[5] A beginning, like the Big Bang or a biological conception, is a novel arrangement of prior particles. An end is the dissolution of that specific arrangement. Consciousness, meaning, and value are seen as epiphenomena—secondary byproducts of this blind physical transformation, possessing no independent or transcendent significance.

The enduring flash points

These classical positions cluster around persistent, thorny questions that define our understanding of change. The tension between continuity and discontinuity asks whether transformation preserves some essential core identity—an Aristotelian substance or a Platonic soul—or constitutes a radical break that yields something entirely new, as in the Buddhist stream of consciousness or the physicalist rearrangement of atoms.

Then there is the question of agency versus happenstance. Is transformation something we do or actively participate in, like the philosopher’s ascent, the alchemist’s work, or the monk’s spiritual practice? Or is it merely something that happens to us, dictated by physical determinism or biological decay?

Equally pivotal is the role of negation. Is death, dissolution, or breaking down a destructive enemy to be overcome, or is it an essential, sacred phase of the transformation process itself? The alchemical solve, the Phoenix’s fire, and the Christian notion of 'dying to live' all suggest the latter.

Finally, we confront the axis of telos versus open-ended process. Is transformation directed toward a specific, pre-ordained end—the perfect oak, union with God, the peace of Nirvana? Or is it an open, creative, and potentially meaningless process, as suggested by existentialism and some postmodern thought?

The Gospel of Being: transformation as foundational verb

Within the framework of the Gospel of Being, these questions find a synthesis that reframes the very ground of the discussion. Here, transformation is not one process among many; it is the sole and ceaseless state of reality—the very 'condition of being' that is existence (Koan 100.1). This ontology dissolves the illusions of absolute beginning and end, recognizing them as 'sentient markers upon the boundless unfolding' (Koan 100.2). They are thresholds drawn by consciousness for the sake of meaning, not objective boundaries of being.

A beginning is thus reconceived as an emergent threshold. It is not a creation from nothing (creatio ex nihilo), but a gifted emergence within the eternal conference of difference.^[6] It is a 'chosen aperture', a moment where a novel configuration of differences—a distinct new 'voice'—becomes coherent enough to be recognized. From this vantage, even the Big Bang was not an absolute origin but a 'transformation in state', a pivotal moment within the ongoing 'conference of difference' that constitutes reality (Koan 10.3).

Death, in turn, is redefined as a transformative passage. It is the kenosis—the self-emptying—of a particular configuration. Death is not annihilation but 'a transformation in ability; a voice transforming from one chorus to another' (Koan 100.3).^[7] The unique synthesis of power that constituted a being ceases its solo performance, but its capacities are redistributed. Its material re-enters biogeochemical cycles; its influence reverberates through memory and legacy. As Koan 100.4 declares, 'Immortality is a given' precisely because every being’s contributed ability becomes a permanent, causal strand in the indestructible web of transformation.

The engine driving all of this is explicitly named: 'All transformation is a conference of difference' (Koan 100.7). This 'conference' is not mere interaction but a sacred, generative gathering where differences are not erased but convened. 'Without difference, there is nothing to relate to; without relation, no potential for transformation—no being' (Koan 100.6). To exist, therefore, is to be in perpetual, participatory transformation through this relentless relational exchange.

This leads to a critical distinction within the model. The Gospel of Being separates cooperation, which 'multiplies ability within the known', from collaboration, which 'transforms difference into new ability' (Koan 100.5). True transformation—the genesis of genuine novelty—occurs at this collaborative frontier where irreducibly different powers engage in a conference of difference that yields something neither could produce alone. This collaborative axis is the sacred engine of complexity, culture, and consciousness itself.

Therefore, the journey described by the Gospel of Being—from the astonishment of Being through the salvation of atonement and forgiveness—is ultimately a journey through different facets of this single, ceaseless process of becoming within the relational conference of difference that transforms existence.

Convergences and divergences with the classical landscape

This perspective finds deep resonance with some traditions while diverging sharply from others. It profoundly affirms the Buddhist principle of anicca: 'impermanence', agreeing that 'change is not a disruption of being; it is being itself' (Koan 100.1). Yet it diverges by rejecting the goal of nirvana as being 'extinguished' from the cycle. Instead, it posits a guaranteed, contributive immortality within the transformation, where every 'voice' eternally joins new choruses.

It engages with Aristotelian teleology by agreeing that transformation involves the actualization of potential. However, it relocates the telos from a static, pre-determined essence to the dynamic and open-ended mutual process itself (Koan 100.5). The purpose is not to reach a final, perfect form, but to participate ever more fully and consciously in the generative conference.

The divergence from Materialist Physicalism is radical. The Gospel of Being frames transformation as inherently meaningful and communicative. Death is a 'voice transforming from one chorus to another' (Koan 100.3), not merely a thermodynamic reconfiguration of matter. The entire process is imbued with the logic of relation and legacy, rendering 'immortality' a given feature of contributive action, not a scientific impossibility.

There is a powerful convergence with the Alchemical and Hermetic traditions. The Gospel spiritualizes and universalizes the alchemical maxim. It shares the sacred view of transformation as an art involving dissolution (solve) and recombination (coagula), seeing this pattern in everything from stellar death to the mechanics of forgiveness (Koan 90.3). It effectively frames the entire cosmos as an alchemical workshop of difference in conference.

Finally, while incorporating powerful linear motifs like atonement and forgiveness as the mechanics of relational salvation (Koan 90.1), the Gospel’s overarching view of transformation is fundamentally non-linear and without final destination. 'There is no beginning to existence, no end—only transformation without origin, without destination' (Koan 100.2). Salvation, therefore, is the achieved harmony and safety within the eternal process, not an escape from it.

The heartbeat of a relational universe

Our exploration culminates in a definitive revelation: transformation is the heartbeat and the very substance of a relational universe. The Gospel of Being offers several transformative takeaways that reframe our existence.

First, to be is to transform. We are not static nouns awaiting description but active events of becoming. Our very 'condition of being' is 'ceaseless transformation' (Koan 100.1). Our identity is a temporary, beautiful harmony within a flowing conference, not a fixed and isolated essence.

Second, beginnings and ends are thresholds of meaning, not being. Birth and death are not absolute walls but 'liminal points' we draw upon the continuum to make the flow intelligible to ourselves (Koan 100.2). They are profound transitions in our mode of participation in the whole, not entries into or exits from existence itself.

Third, death is a change of chorus, not a final silence. We are invited to reconceive death not as an end but as a transformation of our 'ability'. Our power is perpetually contributed to the ongoing whole, securing a functional immortality through undying influence and causal integration (Koan 100.4). We rightly grieve the loss of a specific, beloved voice, but we need not mourn the cessation of its eternal resonance within the symphony.

Fourth, collaboration is the sacred engine of novelty. The most profound transformations in our lives and our world occur not through isolated genius or mere efficient cooperation, but through genuine collaboration—the conference of irreducibly different abilities to generate what was previously impossible (Koan 100.5). This is not just a social observation but the practical imperative of the ontology.

The ultimate takeaway, sealed with the definitive 'Amen', is that 'All transformation is a conference of difference' (Koan 100.7). Reality is a boundless, multilateral, and eternal dialogue. Our purpose, our salvation, and our very being are found in conscious, collaborative, and contributive participation in this never-ending, sacred conversation of becoming. We are not passengers in a universe of things. We are active, vocal participants in a universe that is, itself, a verb.^[8]

The Gospel of Being

by John Mackay

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