Greetings, Friendlies!

An article published in Nature Microbiology last week details how a species of bacteria, when deprived of nutrients, releases toxins into its environment.

I like the anthropomorphizing in this phy.org article; they describe the bacteria as "hangry". We do the same, yes? Get grumpy-hungry and release our toxic vibes into the environment.

It got me thinking about vedanā (the pleasant/unpleasant feeling tone of experience, second foundation of mindfulness, aka Feeling Tone), and how I first heard Dr. Judson Brewer explain this basic aspect of living organisms, moving towards what is beneficial to our organism (nutrients/conducive environments/reproductive partners) and withdrawing from what is unbeneficial to our organism (toxins/toxic environments/dangerous others). Vedanā, Brewer and others have claimed, is one way our organism internally communicates this information throughout itself.

Do these bacteria experience vedanā in the same way I do? Unknown. Still, there seems to me something bridging the athropocentric gap, seeing in these bacteria behavior I can recognize in my own organism. YMMV.

With friendliness!