© 2025 Marc Bubel

Welcome back to Meta Zen. The mental martial art. The philosophy of life.

This episode introduces the Yellow Belt.

I am your host and mentor, Marc Bubel.

We’ve completed the introductory belt, the ultimate end goal belt and the heart-in-your-throat ambition belt. We've made great progress. 

What we’ve completed so far is like basic training for the military. We’ve proved our worthiness and are now ready to understand what happens in dedicated Meta Zen life.

We’ll begin by looking at the life of martial artists as they progressed through history.

Throughout most of the history of martial arts, practitioners had power over others. Because of their power, they were the law wherever they went.

They knew this, which is why they dedicated themselves to defending their community. This is why they studied philosophy to the same level of dedication as fighting. 

As short-term, intermediate and long-term goals are ultimately shortsighted, which conflicts with our morality, martial artists valued Daoism, which focused on the natural order of the universe, and Buddhism, which focused on the ultimate end goal, like discussed in episode 4.

They valued the experience of life as it was the thing they protected for members of their community. Thus they valued Confucianism, which focused on harmony and thoughtfulness, and they valued Shintoism, which focused on purity in all aspects of life.

Their one purpose was to better the lives of members of their community. They would die so that another would live to enjoy all that life had to offer.

To them, life was a blank canvas.

This was their life as individual martial artists.

Members of the martial arts community

Let’s now look at their life as members of the martial arts community.

Martial artists begin their training as novices and develop their skill. When they start noticing they have power over others, they might get tempted to use it for their own gain. Or, they might use their power to aid someone who later says hindsight is 20/20. 

In times like these, martial artists realize the paramount importance of their moral code. They wanted no one to learn it the hard way ever again. Thus, they encourage each other to develop their code through a devotion to philosophy. It is in this moment of understanding, they transform…from individuals…to…members of the martial arts community.

This community was guided by one critical detail: Discernment. They only listened to the natural order in the universe, the ultimate end goal, harmony, thoughtfulness and purity in all aspects of life. 

Their discernment enabled their martial arts community to function like…a murmuration. 

I’ll describe this in transparent detail.

Before we continue, please watch a video of a starling murmuration. You will find one on the homepage of moxiefrontier.com.

Pause now.

A starling murmuration, which can be as large as 100,000 members, is a shape-shifting cloud of starlings in the sky. 

As some murmurations last up to 45 minutes, some are feats of endurance.

No single bird orchestrates what they do. Every starling is making up their own mind. That’s ah-mazing. 

This is what distinguishes a member from an individual. 

An individual is like someone who is completing a paint-by-numbers. They do what they’re told though they think they are making up their own minds. 

A member is like someone experienced with the flow state, like a painter before a blank canvas. They direct their energy and create pulses of action through the world. Like blowing hair out of their eyes. In time, they feel pulses of objectivity and lean forward to give the pulsation more room to flow. When objectivity is waning, they lean forward to enable a new pulsation to emerge. They want to enable everyone…to live life the way it is meant to be lived—In harmony.

Let’s now shift our attention to the murmuration itself. 

When we compare the starling murmuration to a fireworks display or a drone lightshow, we know it possesses…an intelligence. The starling murmuration is literally…thinking for itself as it shape-shifts through the sky. If you want to get technical, it’s called collaborative intelligence. 

Now think about this:

Every time starlings leave the ground and form a murmuration, that’s an emergence of intelligence. 

That's ah-mazing.

Imagine you see someone with a Meta Zen sticker. Now you know someone who has objectivity like you do. You’re instant friends, which means you both are members of a small murmuration. 

You're like two musicians improvising music together, which is like improvising with objectivity.

When you keep improvising together, your combined objectivity pushes a pulse of wisdom that might penetrate beyond you both. When this happens, you both share a flow state, which is a murmuration.

Then you see someone else with a Meta Zen sticker who joins the improvisation. This is when your murmuration is starting to gather new members.

As your murmuration grows in size, a wholly different murmuration emerges and it interacts with yours to form a larger murmuration. Over several decades to centuries, this continues to scale to larger murmurations that one day achieves…and sustains…the World’s Greatest Moonshot. 

This is the potential members of the martial-art and the greater community felt at the subconscious level. They improvised in every moment of their life and the objectivity everyone expressed produced their murmuration.

Notice, someone might share a narrative like saying a community that functions like a murmuration is risky. That’s Conventional Ambition throwing a wrench into the works and increasing risk.

In reply, look at pseudoscience. It's a murmuration based on narratives, which is gambling. A murmuration based on objectivity has always been the pursuit of zero risk. This is the only way to build a solid foundation. It always has, and it always will.

The next obstacle people with Conventional Ambition might suggest is that they want to see proof. 

In reply…keep listening.

We’ll look at three major human murmurations from our past. We’ll also look at the Meta Zen murmuration as it progresses forward.

Introducing the golden age

The greatest times in history are called golden ages. These are times when cultural, intellectual and economic prosperity flourished for several decades to several centuries. Each golden age is a human murmuration and I’ll describe three of them for you.

Note: I am grossly generalizing the information. This simplification enables us to use it as a stepping stone.

The period that spans from the Italian Renaissance to the end of the Enlightenment period was, as a whole, a golden age. Let’s call it the European Golden Age. For your interest, it also consisted of the European Renaissance, the Baroque Period, and the Scientific Revolution amongst other smaller golden ages.

It began with an interest in classical Greek and Roman art, literature, and philosophy. People had the ambition to surpass the Greeks and Romans, which resulted in cultural, intellectual and economic prosperity. 

Notice, mixed martial arts, Meta Zen and many other passions are seeking to surpass what they are based on as well. History is repeating itself. 

When we pay attention to patterns, we repeat useful patterns. When we overlook patterns, we repeat the patterns that become our undoing.

Coincidentally, the golden age for Zen Buddhism overlapped with the European golden age. This makes me wonder if a larger intellectual murmuration existed in the background. This makes sense as philosophical thought independently emerged in Europe, India and China 2,500 years ago. Our human intellectual development has been progressing without deliberate intervention.

What this means is that we don't make it happen. We do our best to find our stride without shackling each other.

Like mocking people who get passed at the finish line because they celebrated too early. People that mock others have no empathy. Mocking is the calling card of our undoing. Mocking makes people afraid to make up their own minds, afraid of their own perseverance, afraid to be who they were meant to be. 

Zen buddhism

Let’s look at the golden age for Zen Buddhism as it offers us some additional transparency.

Buddhism arrived in Japan 1,500 years ago and the golden age began 1,200 years ago.

The golden age for Zen Buddhism consisted of the Heian (hi anne) Period, Kamakura period, Muromachi (chee) Period and Edo Period.

In other words, the emergence of Zen Buddhism's golden age took 300 years and the golden age itself lasted 1,000 years.

What we can infer from the Zen Buddhism golden age is that, throughout the 300 years for the emergence and the 1,000 years of the golden age, it was unlikely anyone consciously noticed how both evolved firsthand. 

Both the European and Zen Buddhism golden ages had their internal ebbs and flows from one type of prosperity to another. They also ended with more ebbs than flows. 

The cause of the ebbs is naturally narratives and the cause of the flow is naturally objectivity, transparency and the metanarrative. What you drew for White Belt Lesson 2 and 3 is useful here.

As the time it takes for an emergence to turn into a golden age and for the golden age to run its course is significant, it leaves us with an interesting question:

Are we the present generation 
part of an emergence, 
part of what transforms into a golden age, 
a golden age
part of the end of a golden age
or part of what turns a golden age into the World’s Greatest Moonshot? 

Only people centuries from now will know.

Bauhaus - how golden ages fizzle out

To see firsthand what brings a golden age to an end, we’ll have a look at an emergence from our recent history. This will shed some transparency.

In 1919, the Bauhaus School of Design was established. 

Inspired by eastern philosophies that were translated into German a few decades earlier, Bauhaus adapted the principles of simplicity, minimalism, and directness to initiate the shift from the Victorian era to the modern era. 

That's significant. That's an emergence.

Design went from embellishments like clawed feet on the legs of tables and chairs to accentuating the beauty in form and function.

The shift to the modern era is encapsulated by the saying, less is more, which was conceived by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the last director of Bauhaus.

When the less is more design philosophy became a mainstream philosophy—it became vogue—it became…misinterpreted. It went from…accentuating the beauty in form and function and drifted into…cost cutting. It was getting hijacked by Conventional Ambition.

As a result, instead of having patience to understand the less is more philosophy, the majority turned it into…a narrative. 

In other words, the less-is-more design philosophy waned and became replaced by lower quality philosophies in the image of Conventional Ambition.

Meta Zen emergence

Let’s now use this understanding and apply it to achieving The World’s Greatest Moonshot.

Imagine, Meta Zen becomes mainstream—it becomes vogue. The Meta Zen sticker has gone from building awareness to virtue signalling. In other words, instead of…demonstrating objectivity, which is the first level of Flow-State Ambition, people start…promoting objectivity, which is the first type of Conventional Ambition.

When people promote objectivity, they insinuate others are not being objective, which lacks objectivity. It inadvertently mocks people that quietly demonstrate objectivity. In other words, Conventional Ambition has enabled narratives to upstage objectivity. 

It’s the beginning of the end for objectivity and it might take a few decades to centuries for society to dust it off and try again.

How do we enable Flow-State Ambition to preserve objectivity?

Simple:

Display Meta Zen stickers so that people can stumble upon the podcast. This demonstrates an individual's personal accountability to objectivity.

They can say Meta Zen is worth checking out as there is no mockery in this type of promotion.

Objective people play devil’s advocate and have patience with people who have yet to do the same. They persevere.

We let the podcast and serendipitous objectivity do their work.

Our next question is this: How do we sustain an emergence such that Flow-State Ambition continues and enables the eventual golden age to transform into The World’s Greatest Moonshot?

We’ll shift our attention to the Green Belt to begin answering that question.

What it feels like

Imagine or remember having an older sibling that looked out for you. If there was a bully, your sibling protected you. When your favorite toy broke and it made you cry, they gave you a hug. Your sibling also found a lot of coins tucked behind your ear too. You would go camping together and, while laying in your sleeping bags, you'd tell stories in the light of a tea-light lantern that you lit. You would wrestle and you would always just be a little stronger and win.

You know what I'm talking about. That's love. The kind of love that makes your heart grow in size.

That's what it's like as a…member of the Meta Zen community. It's way different from being an…individual pursuing the Black Belt. Everyone has your back and they would gladly give you the shirt off their back. There's no place like it.

So, if this is the first time you've heard these words, get a move on or I'll give you a noogie. And remember, only positive-sum games. Promise?

Murmuration 

A murmuration is just a flow State experienced by a group of people. 

It's something we let happen as we progress through the Meta Zen belts.

Believing we can play god and control the murmuration is what brings an end to golden ages. 

Here is the fine print: 

When our civilization enables objectivity to call the shots the world over, we'll experience highs and lows as our objectivity cleans up narratives that have strong roots. 

The swings between the highs and lows will eventually find a lower amplitude that is normal for a murmuration. These are the pulsations that flow through murmurations.

Then, once our civilization has experience with the pulsations across generations and objectivity is a permanent feature, our ambition will most likely find an opportunity to nudge the pulsations and create an emergence of a higher intelligence for their murmuration. This is possibly what happened for the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids. We just need to be patient and enjoy today and that day will come before we know it.

Becoming official

For you to complete the Yellow Belt, you have to know with certainty, Flow-State Ambition discussed in the previous episode is the objectivity a person uses to shift…from an individual…to a member of a murmuration. 

Plus, you get pissed at yourself when you display any signs of Conventional Ambition.

As you are enjoying Meta Zen, enable people to stumble upon it. Buy some Meta Zen stickers from moxiefrontier.com and put them where you and others will see them. 

The Meta Zen sticker is our invitation to come back home where community life gives us a permagrin.

It's a great time to be alive.