What do people want? (hint, it's not a view)

[Don Salmon]

I just went on a rant about Bernardo trying yet again (he went to the James Randi site, of all places!!) to try to put forth some logical (!!) arguments for and against materialism.  No takers (surprised?)

Well, maybe people do want something like a view.  But not in a logical form - at least I don't think so. People pay money (cable TV, endless web subscriptions, movies, etc) for stories.  Politicians make up stories.  Humanity survives on stories (not bread alone).

Evolution is the greatest story, I think. But neo-Darwinian/materialist evolution is the worst version of the story.

What is happening now?  Why is the world in crisis? Financial breakdown, widespread eco collapse, over population?  All of the above?

Jean Gebser, among many others - including many today (see "reality sandwich" website) think something is definitely happening - humanity is leaving its adolescence behind (adolescence = materialism) and starting to wake up.

Here's a little glimpse of some inspiration about waking up (from the last page of our yoga psychology book): (notice what you **feel** when you read the last two statements from Mirra Alfassa - do you have a sense of amazement, of the excitement, the hope she is conveying?)

************************************************************

Towards the Future, Now

 

In the introduction to this book, we spoke of the current era as a time of unprecedented change. Some suggest we may be in the midst of a global renaissance resulting from the infusion of Asian spiritual wisdom into the world culture. Others say we may be seeing the end of a 5,000-year age of empire leading to a new age of global collaboration. A further, and even more momentous possibility is that we are in the beginning stages of the emergence of a new consciousness altogether beyond the mind.

We close with some suggestions as to what might be happening.

 

One thing seems obvious, humanity has reached a certain state of general tension – tension in effort, in action, even in daily life – with such an excessive hyperactivity, so widespread a trepidation, that mankind as a whole seems to have come to a point where it must either break through the resistance and emerge into a new consciousness or else fall back into an abyss of darkness and inertia.

 

This tension is so complete and so widespread that something obviously has to break. It cannot go on this way…  [But there is a hopeful sign which] we find traces of…in all countries, all over the world: the will to find a new, higher, progressive solution, an effort to rise towards a vaster, more comprehensive perfection.[i]

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

We are in a very special situation, extremely special, without precedent. We are now witnessing the birth of a new world; it is very young, very weak – not in its essence but in its outer manifestation – not yet recognized, not even felt, denied by the majority. But it is here. It is here, making an effort to grow, absolutely sure of the result. But the road to it is a completely new road which has never before been traced out – nobody has gone there, nobody has done that!  It is a beginning, a universal beginning. So, it is an absolutely unexpected, an unpredictable adventure…

 

It is not a question of repeating spiritually what others have done before us, for our adventure begins beyond that. It is a question of a new creation, entirely new, with all the unforeseen events, the risks, the hazards it entails – a real adventure, whose goal is certain victory, but the road to which is unknown and must be traced out step by step, in the unexplored. Something that has never been in this present universe and that will never be again in the same way…

 

One must put aside all that has been foreseen, all that has been devised, all that has been constructed and then… set off walking into the unknown.[ii]

---

[i]   Alfassa, Mirra, Questions and Answers, Volume 9, pp. 296-297.

[ii]  Alfassa, Mirra, Questions and Answers, Volume 9, p. 150.

   

[George]

We've burned up our cultural and economic resources. Next up: war, internal and external. Don, you are such an optimist! ;-)
However, there are some shifts:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/28/thomas-piketty-capital-surprise-bestseller
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/oct/11/russell-brand-revolution-alienation-despair

[buz painter]

Are we all here because we are searching for "Truth", or are we here because it fits our original bias? I'm interested in what everyone here thinks. Don's rant rings true (or does it feed my bias?). I know. If I'm not confused, I'm not paying attention, or something like that.

As for me, I can look back some forty or fifty years and see a progression of thought leading to this point. My view has changed on several subjects: Big Bang, Darwinism, God, progressive civilization... Does this mean that I have an open mind and am willing to change my views based on empirical information or do I just bend with the wind of polemic. I know that I laugh at myself sometimes when I read the discussions here. Hey, what Don says makes sense. On the other hand when Peter answers that makes sense. Wait, Sci brings up some telling points. Around and around. At some point I must sort through all of this and form a view of my own. Or do I?

[By the way, I am unsure how to post replies. How do I post a reply without including all the original  quote?]

[RHC]

>[By the way, I am unsure how to post replies. How do I post a reply without including all the original  quote?]

The way you did it is fine. Everybody as a different way.  You might want to make sure you delete most of the replied to comment if it is very long. 

I think everybody views the world through a particular bias, framing, filtering that changes over time.  The trick is to stay as aware as possible of it and treat it as a "working thesis"  which of course can be very hard to do.   Having said that it is hard for me to imagine returning to materialism. 

[Scott Roberts]

On Saturday, October 11, 2014 4:16:23 AM UTC-10, RHC wrote:

I think everybody views the world through a particular bias, framing, filtering that changes over time.  The trick is to stay as aware as possible of it and treat it as a "working thesis"  which of course can be very hard to do.   Having said that it is hard for me to imagine returning to materialism. 

I don't think it is difficult at all to treat idealism as a working thesis. This is because it denies common sense. Common sense is dualist: there are mental events and there are material events. What takes effort is to remind myself that what I automatically take to be material events are actually mental. (Interestingly, the philosophical materialist has the same problem in reverse.)

[RHC]

Scott I agree.  What immediately made Idealism viable to me was dreaming.  Not that dreams are proof of Idealism, a materialist would just claim that the brain models waking reality from sensory inputs and dream reality from memories but as a proof of philosophical concept it was and is very comforting to me.  And of course the materialist version I just recounted is full of holes. 

Bob

[Peter Jones]

On Saturday, 11 October 2014 22:22:26 UTC+1, Scott Roberts wrote:

I don't think it is difficult at all to treat idealism as a working thesis. This is because it denies common sense.

 Aargh. Remember that true words should seem paradoxical. Nondual idealism does contradict common sense and it doesn't. How can this be? It's because if we use the ordinary logic of common sense rigorously (which we rarely do) then it would be bang in line with common sense. Otherwise it will seem a complete contradiction of it.

For most people 'common sense' uses a variation on Aristotle's logic that works fine in everyday life but fails when we come to closely analyse the world.  If we use dialectical logic in the way that Aristotle recommends then Buddhist doctrine comes bang into line with it.  It has been described as 'enlightened common sense' and for me this is exactly what it is. Here 'enlightened' would not necessarily mean anything very profound, just an acquaintance with Aristotle's logic and Nagarjuna's famous logical argument. I bet it seems even more like common sense where the enlightenment is of a more profound kind.   

[RHC]

I agree with you Peter.  

Common sense is a manifestation of the trickster.  

[Sciborg2 Sciborg2]

As George said elsewhere, getting people into lucid dreaming is probably way better than throwing out logical arguments. Few people care about logic, or parsimony for that matter.

Even philosophers just get lazy once they think they've hit an answer that appeals to them.

[Scott Roberts]

I agree. I was merely pointing out that it takes an effort to keep the results of "the ordinary logic of common sense [used] rigorously" in mind. At least it does for me.

[George]

Yes, you need to give people something they can live - is my broader point, I suppose.

[Bernardo]

Don,

Clearly you're suggesting that we offer a 'story,' not an argument. Can you elaborate more on the differences between an argument and a story? Should a story be an image-based myth?

B.

[Roslyn Ross]

I think the core factor in offering anything to society in general is that people can identify a 'gain,' or something which might be useful.

[Don Salmon]

will get back to you soon….

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[Peter Jones]

On Monday, 13 October 2014 06:59:24 UTC+1, George wrote:

Yes, you need to give people something they can live - is my broader point, I suppose.

Yes, This is true. But unless the audience is sympathetic, and perhaps a bit gullible, you also need to show that it is not just a consolation but functions as an explanatory theory. The days of people being content with listening to authority are gone. To me giving religion a sound metaphysical foundation is like translating the Bible from Greek to English.

[Roslyn Ross]

I am not so sure that the days of people being content with listening to authority are gone. I do believe that there are probably more who will question authority than in generations past and all to the good. There is also, even with its distortions, more capacity to seek and process information because more people are educated and because the internet makes it easier, but, most people in the realm of science/medicine to which religious affiliation has been transferred, of all ages, will listen to the authority of that voice without much question.

And for the same reason they did with religion in times past and still do in less enlightened societies- fear. The difference is that with religion the fears were generally of next-world punishment and today the fears spread by science/medicine are of this world punishment. All involve death but the cries from the medical clinic and science research laboratory 'pulpits' are: You will die if you do not do what we say.

The power of the fear of death remains at work as it has always been. Just in different form.

I see science and religion as opposites at either end of a polarity. Both will benefit from a world which is not imprisoned in materialist thinking.

[George]

Surely, but just an explanatory theory isn't enough, so it does need both sides. Much of the "debate" approach to idealism vs materialism focuses on its explanatory power. Most people just won't care, read past the first paragraph.

What will capture their interest is: Chinks in the current view directly linked to problems they are having in life, to some extent, but more than that, how a new view reconfigures their life and its meaning. Described as "a story" that is meaningful to them, rather than point-by-point debating (which can always be researched by the interested).

For instance, the power of this sort of thing - of a new view providing hope or just making more sense, etc.

The motor for someone being persuaded is that that being persuaded leads to an attractive place.

[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, I agree. You have elaborated on what I was trying to say. People cannot be convinced unless they need to be, but will become interested if there is something in what you say which they perceive a beneficial.

As to maths, some people do have greater innate skill, as they do with many things, writing, linguistics, music, painting, sport etc., but yes, the right attitude and the right teaching makes a huge difference. I will say though, as someone never good at maths, that there is a particular way of thinking involved and I am sure those who did not have innate language or writing skills would say the same.

[RHC]

Bernardo I think your basic instincts on this are correct.  Yes you need stories and multiple analogies to address particular objections and issues, but you have to start with an argument and in addition to it being philosophically tight, if you want the ideas to be taken seriously by left brainers (especially engineers, scientists etc..) , your argument has to have some utility or at least explanatory power that materialism does not, and ultility needs to be pointed out directly and somewhat in their terms (assume people have no imagination).  It really depends on your audience.  Society is not particularly influenced by philosophers, at least not directly or in the near term, its the TED talk crowd that you should be addressing if for no other reason, because you are uniquely qualified to do so. Thats your crowd, not academic philosophers, who are probably going to ignore you in the short term anyway.  

I think you should all go back and read all the comments on Bernardo's JREF post, from a more tactical perspective and you will see evidence of what im talking about.  Sure there was a lot silliness, but given that for most of those folks and most of the people you have to get to listen to you, Idealism is so out of left field, so outside their framing of reality, that you just cant bludgeon them with it all at once not expect exactly the kinds of responses you got.  But that was the real value of what you did.  Drop a bomb in their midst and see what happens.  But thats only used if you go back and actually listen to what they say from their perspective and for clues of how and what you need super effective arguments for.  How would your 25 year old self have reacted to your post on there? :) 

[Don Salmon]

oh, i was going to wait till i had time to respond fully, but if it sounded like i was presenting an either or that was definitely a mistake  a story AND an argument, I fully agree with Bob.  but even more so with Geroge:

1. Argument: you will reach a tiny fraction of the public - but that fraction that shapes the cultural mind set (top level scientists, engineers, philosophers, etc

2. Story - you'll reach a slightly wider proportion, maybe the 10-20% who love Thomas Berry/Michael Dowd/David Korten's "new story", "the great turning" - the evolution story about where we came from and where we're going.

3. What's in it for me?  This i Roslyn and George's point (stated very crudely).  We're tailoring our remember to breathe website to appeal to this 80% or so of the population, while trying to make the underlying theme about meaning and purpose (which is not yet a "story" or "argument".

Yes, by all means, the best, rational, left brain appealing argument possible.  But even th 1-2% who respond to rational argument need story and personal appeal and music and video to make it real to them.

sorry to be perhaps overly concise - i have a bunch of thoughts on this and no time right now; will try to get to it later today or this week; lots of ideas. (and arguments and stories:>)

[Peter Jones]

My 25 year old self would have said that if you cannot produce an argument and a useful explanatory theory then it's all well-meaning waffle. I suppose I must be a frustrated lawyer.

[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, well put Don. I was also going to say until I read your last line, that I believe the story is important to everyone. I am not convinced that scientists, engineers, philosophers shape the cultural mindset but tht is a digression.

Interestingly I feel and think that this discussion thread exists because of the fact that society/culture has reached a turning point. What comes first, the curiosity or the conversation? I do believe also that there are other influences at work and the fact that very often 'advances' or 'discoveries are made by more than one person, at the same time, who have no contact with each other. i.e. as happened with Darwin, as if there is an 'idea whose time has come.' Reading various histories of various aspects of science makes it clear that an 'idea' may be around for decades or even centuries, until its time comes.

These are ideas whose time may have come or not. They are also ideas whose time may come sooner because of discussions like this.

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[Roslyn Ross]

No, it is probably just who you are. If you have never done Myer-Briggs you might like to give it a try. More adventurous and more insightful would be astrology. :)

I have never held argument or explanation to be necessary for anything although if it does not make sense then it holds little weight.

On Monday, 13 October 2014 14:42:11 UTC+2, Peter Jones wrote:

[Don Salmon]

Roslyn, your last 2 paragraphs - that there are other influences in changing a culture - will lead me into something I thought you disagreed with, though you also said you were not familiar with it. i mentioned in some post that there dis overwhelming cultural, scientific (from cognitive science, neuroscience, anthropology,etc) as well as astrology and all kinds of non mainstream sources, that consciousness - collectively - evolves in a quantum like fashion - by which I simply mean, as j alan hobson has said, it is 'graded" - it changes by "leaps and bounds" to put it most bluntly.  

The story I think is most powerful - it got 10 million views when Tolle was interviewed by Oprah - is that we are in the midst of a transition to a new 'grade" of consciousness (for metaphysicians I'm not talking about ultimate consciousness but phenomenal).  This is (you won't be surprised to hear) the foundation of Sri Aurobindo's vision - that the upheavals of the past century point to a dying of the mental/rational (what Gebser called the deficient mental mode, which has been dominant since the Renaissance, particularly in Europe but now around the world), and the financial meltdown, environmental destruction, falling apart of the nation state, etc are all surface, very superficial, signs of the dying of this way of knowing.  

Gebser referred to it as "integral" consciousness, sri Aurobindo as "supra mental" or gnostic or "vijnana", that story, when told right, totally grabs people. 

But Peter is absolutely right too - you need a clear, rational argument, and not just for the left brain types, but it needs to be grounded in intuition (Peter, if you want an argument, and you don't agree with this, I'll claim that virtually every argument you accept that you may think you accept on purely logical grounds, would be utterly meaningless without an underlying intuitive knowing - which gets back to George and Sci's notion that materialism has no explanation for reason - because all reason is grounded in a non materialist intuition; even our sensation of a red apple would be impossible without an underlying "knowledge by identity" - "That" in us knows "That' which is manifesting as "apple".

good lord, I better get back to cleaning the house:>)

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[Roslyn Ross]

Don, we may well have had crossed wires on that. Perhaps because I was not using the site properly and missing various posts, or just because….

I thought you were saying that the research evidence showed there was a particular point where a capacity for thinking developed, emerged etc. I am more inclined to believe that the capacity for thinking is innate and has always been with us.

However, and I think I said this but no matter, there are cultural and social influences which impact that capacity and how and when it manifests. Perhaps this is what is divined through research.

I see the innate capacity also being influenced by astrological and spiritual influences,i.e. that there are times, ages, eras of change or development in certain areas.

And I have read a lot of material on new stages or grades of consciousness – which makes sense on some levels. Whatever the answer there are of course times of change, influenced by many things of which we remain unaware.

I don’t see the mental/rational as deficient but anything which becomes dominant at the expense of other capabilities or faculties is likely to become destructive. The goal as I see it is balance. But perhaps we needed an age of patriarchy to balance previous, largely unknown, matriarchal ages, perhaps in civilizations long since disappeared, in order to find the middle ground.

I am not convinced that nation states are falling apart and the financial meltdown was worse in those nations without regulation than others, and hardly led to the end of the financial world. Rather it led sensibly to those with not enough regulations bringing in more, like the US which did the worst in the meltdown, and those with a lot, like Australia, which did the best, checking that they had enough.

As to environmental destruction, the reality is that over the past 30 years there has been more recognition of and responsibility to the environment than ever before. Sure, it is more necessary but let’s just say that the environmental vandalism of the previous century or so, has been, in the developed world at least, largely curtailed, if not stopped.

I know a bit about mining because it is the industry where my husband works, and particularly in Australia, there is rigorous legislation and regulation which holds mining companies accountable from the beginning to the end. And it holds them accountable anywhere in the world that they operate. Here in Malawi, a mine was built in the bush, to First World standards in general and ecology in particular and it will be, when the mine life ends, returned to the green fields it was before work began. But I digress.

I am not saying the concept of ‘ages’ is wrong, just that it does not completely

‘speak to me.’ And that is purely one opinion or view.

 

 

I agree with what you are saying in general and that it is important, as one would with any venture, to have a clear, rational argument with as many ‘t’s’ crossed and ‘I’s’ dotted as possible, as well as a story which might capture an imagination ready for it.

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[Peter Jones]

On Monday, 13 October 2014 13:49:42 UTC+1, Roslyn Ross wrote:

"I have never held argument or explanation to be necessary for anything although if it does not make sense then it holds little weight."

There you go. If it doesn't make sense it carries little weight. So you do examine arguments and take them into account. We all do. We need the stories and the arguments. Nagarjuna was not wasting his time with his famous logical argument but showing us how to make sense of the stories and the practice. It's not that any approach is useless, just that it's horses for courses.   

[Roslyn Ross]

I don't mean sense as demonstrated through argument. Often quite the opposite. I mean sense as intuition and experience and logical reasoning applied to the issue. I will say I am not sure common sense can be learned and some have more than others.

[Peter Jones]

Don writes, "But Peter is absolutely right too,..."

Of course :)

"...you need a clear, rational argument, and not just for the left brain types, but it needs to be grounded in intuition."

To be understood, yes. But to simply work, logic will do.  This is the whole idea of logical analysis, that we are not relying on intuition, or no more than is necessary.  

"(Peter, if you want an argument...." .

Need you ask ;)

"... and you don't agree with this, I'll claim that virtually every argument you accept that you may think you accept on purely logical grounds, would be utterly meaningless without an underlying intuitive knowing - "

I would disagree very strongly. If a logical argument cannot be accepted without reference to intuition then it is a failure. 

"good lord, I better get back to cleaning the house:>)"

I was just going to suggest it :)

I share your view of the primacy of experience but seem to have a higher opinion of the power of reason. It can't take us to the destination but it can help us to map the route. Also, while many people are more interested in stories than arguments, this cannot be true for any serious philosopher. (It does, however, seem to be true for many scientists). Also, crucially, I think a person would be a fool, or taking a big risk, to take up a religious practice without first checking that the doctrine makes sense and that achievement of the goal is at least logically possible,  We have to have a way of distinguishing between true religion and spurious nonsense, and logical analysis does the job. Experience does it better, but we cannot know this when we start out.

[Don Salmon]

Peter:

How do you understand the following statement (substitute virtually any statement if you wish)

The light in the room is on.

Investigate your pathway of understanding far enough, and you'll see that it's not through logic alone.

But I think we may have a word problem here.  I am distinguishing logic and reason.  If you're talking about reason, then I agree with you. I'm talking about computer logic, the kind that materialists think is sufficient to understand the universe; purely quantitative analysis.

Perhaps we're actually taking about the same thing (and by "intuition" I mean the ground of reason, without which reason turns into computer logic).

Oh dear, can you contradict me, or argue with that?

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[Don Salmon]

oh, and I'm actually just getting to the end - having put off cleaning the kitty litter boxes until everything else was done!

[Don Salmon]

ah, finished the kitty litter.

just had to add one more thing, Peter - if you support the idea that computers "understand" - that computer logic is equal to understanding, then you support the materialists (see any number of Feser blog posts that Sciborg2 has given us on this).

And since you're not a materialist..

I'm right!

[Don Salmon]

(though since we probably mean the same thing, using different words, you're right too, and possibly, just possibly, righter than me!)

[Roslyn Ross]

There is a good chance that everyone is a bit right and perhaps that is the plan.:)

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[Peter Jones]

Don - I don't think we disagree at all but just arrange our ideas differently. 

'The light in the room is on', is not an argument but a first-person report. However, If I know that the room has no lights in it I can use logic to refute it.   

I cannot distinguish between logic and reason. The 'computer' logic you speak of, 'as used by materialists', is faulty, and Aristotle would not have approved of it. I would even propose that is not logic but a rejection of logic. Used correctly, as Nagarjuna shows, dialectic logic can construct a proof of Buddhism. Used incorrectly it leads to a muddle of logical positivism, dialethism, mysterianism and little more than footnotes to Plato. (I'm about to submit an article on this to SciSal.). What most people call logic, the logic of common sense, is an abuse of Aristotle.         

Of course, N's proof brings exactly no real knowledge, but it shows us where the knowledge can be found and the form it is likely to take, I think we have to accept that Nagarjuna created this proof for a good reason. .His audience was skilled monks, yet he still felt his logical exegesis had something to say to them.   .

How logic is grounded is not really the issue for me. Roslyn brings up the 'something-nothing' problem. Logical analysis shows that the Buddhist solution for this dilemma is the only one that works. This can be formally demonstrated. Intuition would be required to understand this solution, of course, but not to reach it. A child could reach it. I reached it before I even knew a single thing about Buddhism. It came as a very big surprise to discover that the Buddha agreed with me. .  

 

[Peter Jones]

On Monday, 13 October 2014 16:25:49 UTC+1, Don Salmon wrote:

just had to add one more thing, Peter - if you support the idea that computers "understand" - that computer logic is equal to understanding, then you support the materialists (see any number of Feser blog posts that Sciborg2 has given us on this).

No, of course I don't believe this. I am getting on but still retain my sanity. I don't believe it because logical analysis shows it to be a daft idea, as you also conclude.   

[Don Salmon]

I agree. 

[Peter Jones]

You may make an important point when you say 'everyone is right'.  The 'two truths' doctrine implies that there are always two ways of looking at things, and this seems true to me, The truth would be to give up both ways of looking, or to avoid extreme views. This is not an abandonment of dialectic logic, but a recognition that it points beyond itself. We don't cut off our fingers just because they can never be the same thing as what they point at. 

[Sciborg2 Sciborg2]

@Peter: Definitely let us know when that article hits SciSal!

[Don Salmon]

This is back to Bernardo's question to me - he asked if I was saying we should have a story instead of argument, and I briefly answered, both.  I think George and Stewart both also added that people want practical things. I think BB said that also but I don't recall.

Here's the beginning of an answer, though I have more on arguments (absolutely necessary) and views (or stories - also necessary).

This is what Jan and I have been putting together for our website and our first ebook, 'Train Your Brain, Change Your Life".  All the underlying neuroscience is from Dan Siegel, who has synthesized over a dozen disciplines, including neuroscience, psychiatry, developmental psychology (including attachment theory, brilliantly outlined), chaos and complexity theory, anthropology, and several others).

We are trying to put together a framework to emphasize one simple idea - there are an incredibly large number of people who think there is total confusion about what to eat, how to exercise and sleep, how to manage one's emotions, etc.  In fact, there's incredibly unanimity among the best experts.  To put it simply, what do you need to do to be healthy in terms of eating and exercise? Eat "real" (i.e. not manufactured in a factory) good quality food, not too much, lots more plants than most people usually eat, and move a lot more (including good quality, high intensity interval cardio and 2 or 3 resistance sessions a week, but even more important, "fun", enjoyable movement that's just a natural part of one's day that's not "regulated exercise").  

So that's so simple you can tell people about it in less than a minute.  The hard part for almost everybody, is doing it.  

So again - there's what do to - save money, buy less unnecessary things, live more simply, cultivate warm, supportive relationships among family, friends and community etc, - just these 5 areas alone - food, exercise, sleep, time, money and relationships - would eliminate 50% of both physical and mental illness.  And they're incredibly simple. You don't need to study it, read a hundred websites, consult dozens of experts.  

But then, there's doing it.  Which for most people appears to be phenomenally difficult. 

So here's a working framework we're putting in the opening of our book, an in the "Putting It All Together" section of our site.  How is this relevant to you?  The vast majority of people don't care about philosophy or metaphysics. Even scientists, doctors, artists and other professionals.  They won't even necessarily pay that much attention to a new "story" about "how things are."  But everyone cares about being healthy, having at least some modest level of financial and physical security, having good relationships, having at least a balance of positive emotions, and - Jan and I would like to believe, though I know this is arguable - having some kind of sense of meaning and purpose in life, even if for the majority of people that means caring for their children and grandchildren.  

So here's our current framework - I'll send more later in the week on the first thing - making a clear, rational argument, and the 2nd - having a story/view that is deeply meaningful to people. (the third is practical relevance - "what's in it for me?" to put it most crudely).

 

·      Healthy habits:

o   Eating good quality food

o   Getting sufficient sleep and exercise

o   Using your time and money in a way that will further your meaningful goals rather than indulge your passing desires

o   Being sure to allow time for relaxation and play

 

·      Meaningful work and activities: 

o   Wherever possible, choosing work that you care about and which feels deeply meaningful to you. But since that’s not always possible, as an alternative, finding things you can do to bring meaning to whatever work you do, and using whatever time you’re not at work to pursue activities which nourish your need for meaning and purpose.

 

·      Caring, mutually supportive connections with others:

o   Cultivating connections with others based on respect, empathy and compassion - focusing on giving support at least as much as receiving it.  To whatever extent you can, trying to foster a sense of connection to people beyond your immediate circle of family, friends and co-workers.

 

·      Living from the core:

o   A life lived “in balance” is what we call “living from the core.”  When, through mindful, heartful attention, you learn to live from your core, you feel as though there’s a “place” of peace, calm, and strength inside you that is unshakeable, and capable of guiding you through even the most difficult challenges you will ever face.

o   Training attention, and reflecting deeply on one’s aims in life, are the keys to contacting the core.  Through mindfulness and heartfulness, the parts of the brain and heart are activated that are responsible for integrating and balancing the mind, emotions and instincts. 

§  Training attention in this way will help you

·      Develop healthier eating, exercise and sleep habits

·      Use your time more wisely and budget your money more carefully

·      Increase positive states of mind and decrease negative emotions

·      Connect more deeply to others

·      Increase your overall sense of meaning and purpose in life

****************

I would argue that it shouldn't be too hard to show - you'd need to put together a few steps, but I think it could be done, and it would be fascinating - that on virtually every count - a materialistic view/philosophy/metaphysical outlook makes every single one of these things harder to attain.  

The thing that's incredibly difficult for people to understand is the "outlook" is not a matter of a set of beliefs held in one's superficial waking consciousness. It's about a deep, deep, visceral sense of who one is, what the world is, how one relates to one's job, to other people, to one's body and mind, etc.

One example of how you can connect these in a way which touches people immediately is the placebo. Extensive research has shown that placebo pills can reduce or ELIMINATE symptoms in the following diseases: anxiety, depression, ADHD, migraines, arthritis, asthma, epilepsy, Crohn's disease, hypertension, parkinson's disease, inflammatory disorders and many kinds of pain besides migraines. 

And how do placebos work?  By means of people's beliefs, attitudes and expectations. if you think that depression is a "real" "biochemical imbalance" (scientists have known since the late 1970s that it's not) then there's nothing you can do about it but take a pill. If you realize the extent to which the mind can change the brain (there are no definitely known limits) then you realize you don't have to rely on a pill.

Ellen Langer took a group of men in their 70s and placed them in an environment for 7 days where they pretended they were in their 50s; they watched movies, read magazines, listened to music from 20 years prior.  They not only had more energy, they lost weight (without changing anything about the way they ate), their blood pressure went down, cholesterol levels improved, and some even gained 2 inches in height!

All through a change in belief.  This is something you won't get from logical argument!  Though as I said, logical argument is absolutely necessary.   

Cognitive behavioral therapy - particularly when combined with mindfulness - also uses logical argument. But it has to be framed in the context of a powerful relationship and connected to an individual's deepest cares and values.  when done well - especially, as I said, combined with mindfulness and even better, with improved healthy habits, and a stronger support community - there's not a single mental illness - and many physical illnesses - that can't be improved dramatically, or even cured. 

   

                                                                                               

[Don Salmon]

I'm not sure it's clear from the last letter - those 4 categories are the 4 areas we think are most essential (at least, in terms of being relevant to the average person) to living a deeply fulfilling, meaningful and purposeful life.  Hope that wasn't too confusing. 

[George]

Loosely connected - one of my interests has been eyesight, its nature and improvement. 'Where you look out from' is very important, and the 'core' idea is applicable here:

The Reptilian Brain, Dissociation
and Seeing from the Core 

by Rosemary Gaddum Gordon, D.B.O., M.A.

17th International Conference for Holistic Vision, Paris, France October 2002 

When we are frightened or stressed our instincts give us three options. We can run away, stand and fight, or freeze. These three options are not in our conscious control. The Reptilian brain, so named by Dr Paul MacLean, author of “The Triune Brain”, governs this response. In essence, a part of all mammals, including humans, is still a reptile. It is the part of our brain which is the deepest and, on an evolutionary scale, the most ancient. It controls our basic needs such as self-defense, reproduction and digestion. It is here that we find the centers that control the autonomic nervous system. This is especially important to us, of course, because the focusing of the eye is an automatic function. 

What I want to speak to you about is how the Reptilian brain effects the visual system, why it’s important for us to understand this effect, and what we, as vision educators, can do about it. 

As fear and stress activate the Reptilian part of the brain the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) becomes aroused. This causes, among other things, the pupil to dilate, the eyelids to retract, the heart rate and force to increase, the digestive system to reduce its activity and the adrenal medulla to release adrenalin and noradrenalin into the blood stream. These hormones effect every cell of the body, increasing their metabolic rate, preparing us to fight or flee. 

In his book “Waking the Tiger”, Peter Levine tells the story of an impala running away from a cheetah. They are both racing at 60 to 70 miles (100 to110 kilometers) per hour. The SNS is highly aroused. Adrenalin and noradrenalin are coursing through their blood streams. As the cheetah leaps to attack the impala, the prey falls to its impending death, although at that moment, it may actually be uninjured. The impala has been overwhelmed; the system, which is in a hyper-aroused state, freezes.  

The freezing or immobility response has two survival advantages. One is that the predator thinks its prey is dead and may drag it off to hide it in the bushes for later consumption. The impala may then awaken from this frozen state and escape in a moment when it is not being guarded. The second survival advantage is that when the impala goes into the immobility response, it enters an altered state of consciousness, which allows it to feel no pain if it is torn apart by the cheetah. It dissociates.  

Freezing and dissociation are concurrent, but for the sake of clarity, let’s separate them. We’ll look first at freezing. If you remember back to a time when you were a little frightened; probably the muscles of your body tensed, the heart rate increased and your breathing may have become more shallow or stopped. This is the normal, physiological response to stress; it is the body preparing to fight or run away. But interestingly, it is not just the muscles that constrict, the perceptions also constrict. For instance, if a big truck is coming towards you down the wrong side of the road, you stop looking at the view of the mountains and listening to the music on the radio. Instead, all your senses are directed towards the oncoming truck and how to avoid colliding with it. 

As long as the visual system is looking for ways to avoid the truck, (or the impala is trying to escape from the cheetah) we are using the energy of the stress response; adrenalin is flowing as we look for an escape route. If we find an escape and successfully avoid the crash we may pull over and allow ourselves time to quiet down again. Later we may recount the event as an exciting story. If the impala escapes it will shake and shake, “…literally shaking off the effects of the immobility response and regaining full control of its body. It will then return to its normal life as if nothing has happened.” (Levine) When we are safe after being frightened we often shake too, especially if we are alone or in a loving environment. 

If we can’t escape, we become overwhelmed and like the impala, we freeze. The whole body goes into the immobility response. In the visual system when the eyes freeze they stare, the pupils dilate, the eyelids retract and the perceptual field shrinks. All of us have experienced this freezing to some extent or another in our lives. Now, the scare does not have to be as great as an oncoming truck for us to experience some or all of these natural, physical responses. Sometimes it’s just a little thing like a child jumping out from behind a door. For most of us, the immobility response to a small fright will only be momentary. For others who have been badly traumatized such a fright may trigger a response that lasts much longer. In this paper I am not addressing those who are suffering from severe, untreated trauma. Though they will be helped by these methods, they need to proceed extremely slowly with much support and building of their resources. 

As vision educators we are trained to notice when people are staring. They generally stop blinking, their breathing becomes shallower and their eyes often appear to “bug out” from their sockets. Sometimes their whole head will strain forwards. Let’s briefly explore why vision is impaired when we stare. “In normal vision the eye is in constant motion. Small involuntary movements persist even when the eye is ‘fixed’ on a stationary object. As a result the image of the object on the retina of the eye is kept in constant motion.” (Pritchard) These movements are called saccadic eye movements. There are three different rates of saccadic eye movements, the fastest being 150 cycles per second. When an image is stabilized on a retinal cell it soon fades and disappears. When the eye muscles freeze these saccadic eye movements are diminished and the image is not seen as clearly.  

Let’s look at dissociation now. When the impala freezes, it dissociates. Many people, who have been in bad car accidents or other terrifying situations, have reported the experience of looking down on their bodies from the outside. They do not feel the pain of the body, even if they can see that it is badly injured. They are dissociated. They are somehow “out of their bodies.” 

People who come to see us will often stare and have a disengaged quality in their eye contact, as if the mind is not really present with what they are looking at. This disengaged quality is some degree of dissociation. In some way this person is overwhelmed and it is showing up in their visual system. The amount of dissociation may not be so much that they wouldn’t feel the pain of being dismembered, but it may be enough to avoid hearing their parents arguing yet again, or seeing the sign on the highway indicating their exit, or even noticing the beauty of a flower as they walk by. People may describe this experience as feeling spacey, or preoccupied with something else. It’s an experience of not being present, of not being in the here and now. .  

As Dr. Bates said, poor eyesight is due to mental strain. Mental strain is caused by stress. Stress is a form of fear. As we have seen, our physiological response to fear is automatic and out of our conscious control. When the strain is temporary the system returns to its normal strain-free state. The eyes stop staring, the pupils return to an appropriate size, the muscles relax, the heart rate reduces and the breathing normalizes. When the straining becomes chronic, however, the system may not return to its normal state, but stay frozen. The eyes may chronically stare, vision is impaired and dissociation increases and becomes more common. 

This conference is about improving vision. Having discussed some of the problems let’s explore what can be done about them. It is my opinion that vision can be improved in a variety of ways, but what seems to be a basic requirement is that the person be embodied. 

Being embodied is the opposite of being dissociated. It is about being aware of the body and its sensations, rather than ignoring them. It means being “home behind the eyes in order to see,” as Janet Goodrich said. This is not necessarily an easy thing to do for people who are in the habit of dissociating from fear or stress. Of course, there are those who dissociate and maintain their good vision. It is not their eye muscles that get frozen. They freeze somewhere else.  

About seven years ago I began to teach people a way to be embodied so they could see more comfortably and clearly. I call the experience Seeing From The Core. This is a way of seeing and a technique to help you to get there. It is a method that encourages the resolution of habitual freezing and dissociation. It supports our being in the here and now. It is a way to see that helps us be more in touch with what is happening on the inside of ourselves while, at the same time being aware of the outside.  

This technique explores the central line of the body. It relates to the spine and spinal cord, as well as to the chakras, the flow of chi and other energetic paradigms. The center or mid-line is especially important in vision because our two eyes need to coordinate around this line in order to work well together. Once the student has learned to find this central, energetic line, she/he finds the place on it that is the most comfortable, and rests there. Most people have a place inside themselves that is familiar and feels like home. For instance, one person may have done a great deal of martial arts, and centering in the belly is easiest. For another, centering in the chest is more natural. We each have our preferences and styles. In addition, vision is not always the primary sense we are using at any given moment. We cannot attend equally to what we are hearing, seeing and sensing. One sense must be the most important, or “the figure”, while the others are less important, or “the ground.” (Kohler)  

As we become familiar with this energetic “line”, we notice that the place on this line where we are centering will vary depending on the task at hand. For instance, if we are filled with love while looking at some children playing we may center in the chest or heart area, feeling that love while we watch them. We may experience this as “seeing from or with the heart.” When physical movement is the predominant activity, especially if it is strenuous, we center in the belly. When vision is the most important sensory input, many of us naturally center our awareness in the head.  

Having this sense of an energetic line allows the student to fluidly connect with the major centers in the body. This is helpful because it connects the eyes to the whole being. It helps allow the student’s emotions to be expressed through his/her eyes. When people freeze their eye muscles, they lose touch with them. The eyes become disconnected from the body. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to say that seeing and emotional expression becomes disconnected. Someone with poor vision may be very embodied for other activities, but they “dissociate” for seeing. Seeing is about making contact with the visual world. This safe, kinesthetic base within the body can allow us to stay in contact with the world, so our perceptual field need not shrink. As Anne Morrow Lindbergh says, “Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others.” My sense is that only when we are seeing from our own Core can we truly connect with the visual world.  

Some people know how to be at their Core. Others don’t, but they can be taught. I haven’t known a single student who hasn’t liked the experience. It is an experience of relaxing into oneself, of muscles softening, of seeing directly, of sensing a connection with the world. We are more grounded because the Core line reaches down into the earth, just as it reaches up to the sky. We know where we are in space and time. From the Core, we are the only person who has our particular perspective on the world. What is true for us in any moment is therefore of value. It is our piece of the puzzle. It is our truth. This is empowering. 

Levine states that for traumatized people, being aware of the body’s physical response to stress is healing. It helps them re-enter their bodies and become more present. I believe the same is true for vision. In my own experience of healing my vision, I noticed how difficult it was for me to relax and allow myself to see. I also noticed that I saw much better when I was present and aware of my body. When I meditated I was aware of sensations of energy up the center of my body that felt good. As I became more aware of that energy while going about my day, I noticed I was more present and relaxed. I began to call it my Core and to teach it to students. They found it both comfortable and useful too. Now, it feels like a blessing. Whenever I find myself lost, when I’m not present, I return to the center of my chest. This is my easiest place of access to my Core. As I return, I feel my chest soften as I connect via my Core to the inside of myself, up and down the “line” within my body. At the same time I open to what I am feeling. Once this is clear, the emotion connects, still via my Core, with all of me, including my eyes and I see much more sharply and with greater depth perception. When I look at my personal history, my trauma involved having to hide my so-called negative feelings. It is very affirming to me to be able to experience those emotions, be present with them from my Core and see really well. It is not about being pure and happy, it’s about being real and present with what is. 

As I said, after wild animals escape they shake and go back to their life. When we allow ourselves to experience the stress response, the system naturally returns to its original non-stressed state when the danger has passed. We may even notice some shaking. But unfortunately, what many of us tend to do is to be afraid we’ll be overwhelmed, so we freeze and dissociate again, even in situations where there are other options. In this way we not only repeat the same old pattern, but we build on it so that it becomes a chronic, habitual response. 

We can apply this directly to vision improvement. When people are aware of tension around their eyes and are invited to relax it, they often don’t know how. In fact, attending to it can often increase their tension. They worry about it. Many people even give themselves a hard time for being tense; they feel they should have some control over it. Telling them about the Reptilian brain and the stress response can often relieve this piece of their pattern. At least they don’t have to feel stressed about feeling stressed.  

As vision educators and as students, Seeing from the Core is very valuable. When we are in the place of truth, even when we are in a stressful situation, we are more relaxed. We have a home base. We can notice our real responses to people, events and things. We can be aware of how we experience stress in the body. When we are at the Core and attend to the sensations around the eyes we have some distance. It’s not about being emotional, it’s about being with the physical sensations that accompany the emotion. For example, many people who don’t see well dislike reading eye charts. For any number of reasons, they feel afraid. They tense; they stop breathing as fully and stare. If at that point we stop and introduce the Core, they relax, breathe and stop staring. When they do this they see smaller letters. Sometimes it’s just momentary. But as we know, if they can experience clearer vision for a moment, then with practice, the chances are good that they can experience it for longer and longer periods of time. They begin to have a new relationship with their eyes, the eye chart and their vision. 

At first I thought Seeing from the Core would only work for myopes, because of the increase in visual field that occurs. However, I’ve found that presbyopes are also helped, as are people with strabismus. My sense is that it is a place of balance, of safety within the body. It feels right, so one relaxes. A forty-five year old woman came in recently. Her acuity had been excellent until she turned forty. She was wearing reading glasses. When I showed her the Core she said, “Oh yes, this is where I used to see from.”  

Another student called me the other day and said, “When I remember the quiet place inside my head, it really improves my vision.” It gives one a little sense of distance from the eyes, a sense of space, so that one can sit back, so to speak, and receive the images. This prevents the habit of straining. We are giving the eyes the opportunity to move freely and see, just as Bates said. Sometimes it’s the acuity that sharpens; sometimes it’s the visual field that expands and sometimes it’s the double images that resolve into one. 

All the techniques that we teach or practice are more effective when we are embodied. Whether its edging, sunning, swinging or palming, if we are at the Core we are more likely to notice our eyes feeling more relaxed and that we are seeing more clearly. The same is true when we practice other visual skills such as converging our eyes. When we practice from the Core, we are less likely to strain, because we will be aware of the sensations in and around our eyes. What I am proposing is not that we change our techniques but the context in which we teach them. Seeing from the Core is not only a way of seeing, it is a way of being: for us as well as for our students. 

The Reptilian stress response is out of our control. Visually, our muscles tense, our perceptual field shrinks, our pupils dilate and our eyelids retract. If we are overwhelmed, we stare, dissociate and our acuity is diminished. Most refractive errors are caused by stress. We cannot avoid all the stresses of life, nor can we stop our bodies from automatically responding to them, but we can prevent the freezing response from becoming habitual and fixed. When we can stay connected with the body using Seeing from the Core, we are less likely to be overwhelmed, whether the cause is physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. As we practice, we can thaw our old patterns, dissociate less, stare less and allow the eye muscles to move freely, so we can see more comfortably and clearly. 

[Roslyn Ross]

interesting, if only because within many witchcraft and shamanism traditions the emphasis is on how we see - seeing sideways being crucial to seeing beyond this world. And of course blindness or the loss of one eye is common in myth in regard to seers and those with greater wisdom and in sight!

[Roslyn Ross]

The book, forget the name, about Ellen Langer's experiment was fascinating.

[Don Salmon]

Thanks George, great story!

--

[Don Salmon]

just read it more carefully. Yes that's very close to what we mean by the core. it still amazes me that they've developed a way to talk about all this in incredibly specific neurological terms. You would probably like Dan Siegel very much. His influence pervades our site. Here's the page on the core: http://www.remember-to-breathe.org/The-Core.html 

[George]

Ah yes, basically the same thing, however you provide the background. 

If (for convenience here) you imagine your body to just be a seamless part of this 'dream environment' and yourself to be an awareness that tunes into and positions itself in the world - basically you are just a pattern of attention - albeit attached to the body as its frame of reference, then some locations offer greater clarity than others. When you centre your attention (not focus) on a particular area, you are literally experiencing that location in a 1st person sense.

The 'core' is good because it tends to be a clear, uncluttered area; you are basically directly experiencing the background space, which being structureless expands out immediately. Whenever you direct your attention to a region where there is no object, you default to the background, pretty much (provided you stop tinkering/generating excess thoughts and movements; i.e. stop creating mental objects in that location).

The lower abdomen (Dan-Tien) and just behind the forehead (where your prefrontal lobes would be) are two particularly nice locations to "be". It's fun to move your centre around and contrast it. For instance, moving it to the back of your head, base of your skull where your amygdala is does indeed give a more emotional fear-based context. Moving it forward to the centre then opens it out. Of course, just releasing focus and becoming the background space is best, but for those who can't do this, the two "classic" locations are the next best thing.

That positioning yourself at the 'core' improves vision says something about what "eyesight" actually is. In contrast, attempting to actually see with your eyes always causes a reduction in vision. (Try it. It makes you go 'blind-sight'.)

Thanks George, great story!

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes - but I guess it is like many things, the less we focus the better  - in other words, we can try too hard.

I remember reading some research a long time ago about how much people 'saw' with peripheral vision of which they were not conscious but which could be revealed through various means including hypnotism.

[George]

Ultimately, one shouldn't manually 'focus' or control one's attentional profile at all, perhaps.

[Stewart Lynch]

This is interesting George, thanks for sharing. I've looked into improving my eyesight in the past. I've read a few books on the Bates method and I managed to improve my eyesight by 1 diopter in a few months of practice. Quite impressive since my eyes haven't changed since I was about 5. I intend to get back to it one day, although I'm hoping that my meditation will also help.

Stewart.

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[George]

I started with Bates too and a book by Jacob Lieberman, but I noticed that when my vision cleared it didn't feel like I was looking through "eyes" at all (Lieberman makes this point in the book I think). And of course I wasn't: when your vision is working, then you are experiencing clarity of objects in your 'mind-space' or whatever without really doing anything, hence 'seeing from the core' = 'getting out of the way'.

I got quite far with palming, but I did much better when I started practicing that. Interestingly, in any situation which I'm worried about or nervous, I actually notice myself 'moving back in my head' and my vision blurring as a result (like I'm trying to get away, I suppose). So a lot of it is psychological!

Windows to the soul, eh?

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[Stewart Lynch]

> seeing sideways being crucial to seeing beyond this world

Roslyn, could you expand on this?

[Stewart Lynch]

> Ultimately, one shouldn't manually 'focus' or control one's attentional profile at all, perhaps.

in my current exploration of meditation this is a question that I continually keep coming back to. In the same way that we shouldn't stare with the eyes, maybe we shouldn't 'stare' with the mind, for similar reasons.

[George]

"Stare with the mind" - a great way to put it!

(When you stare with your eyes, what are you doing? Trying to make it happen, but also trying to exclude what you perceive as distractions. But where do distractions come from? Actually, often from the attempt to exclude information in the first place. If a distraction is 'included', it stops being distracting. Meditation that is about 'excluding' I think of as 'effortful'...)

[Stewart Lynch]

> If a distraction is 'included', it stops being distracting. Meditation that is about 'excluding' I think of as 'effortful'...)

yes, I agree. The excluding seems to happen as a by-product of something else. If it's the main focus it involves struggle. The trick is to get it to happen effortlessly.

I watched this last night and found it to be really useful:

http://youtu.be/WsqWkJ8fNWE

He says that he starts from a position that he doesn't know what meditation is (and he's been studying it his whole life). Well worth a watch.

[Don Salmon]

I tried the Bates method many years ago (my eyesight - very near sighted - was 20/200 at the time).  I had increasing flashes of perfect vision - I'd suddenly see the letters on a sign hundreds of yards away.  I didn't have the quiet time I would have needed to stabilize it, but I have no doubt it's possible.

This just goes toward psi research - if psychokinesis is a fact, there isn't a single change in the body that couldn't conceivably be effected by attention. 

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[Roslyn Ross]

It really is about being able to see 'more' than most and 'seeing sideways' also means looking at things in ways other than that of the norm. It is symbolic of vision being more and having more capacity than that of the normal way of seeing. Witches and shamans and seer can see in ways others cannot. Witches and shamans were of course traditionally healers ...

[Roslyn Ross]

Isn't that a basic of meditation? To remain aware and observe what comes but to remain separate from it.

On Tuesday, 14 October 2014 13:06:50 UTC+2, Stewart wrote:

[George]

On the Psi side, for eyesight I think it's more a case of "body misuse" and developing poor nervous system habits. In other words, our improving vision isn't a result of, say, softening hardened lenses or repairing damage, etc. It's about stopping interfering, which is what I think much 'functional improvement' comes down to.

(The whole 'bad eyesight causes' is a pretty instructive example of where medicine and our worldviews have taken us, actually. The idea that so many people would develop poor vision in their teens, say, and that this would be normal somehow is ridiculous!)

Thanks George, great story!

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[Don Salmon]

@George and Roslyn - speaking of "forcing".  There's a great story (it was on our website but we just took the page off temporarily) about psychologist Les Fehmi. He developed a brain based theory of attention several decades ago inspired by his Zen practice. he noticed (this is not the pop left/right brain theory but compatible with the best of current neuroscience) that each hemisphere had a different kind of attention - the left tends to view things in a more detached, objective stance, distancing itself from things; the right tends toward a wider, more immersed and experiential way of attending. Neither is necessarily "forced' or better or worse, but in modern society we are overwhelmingly biased toward the left mode - women not as much, but still, far more for all of us than in most previous societies. 

An emergency room nurse came to Fehmi for treatment. She had been having tremendously painful migraines, terrible stomach cramps, panic attacks, and all around anxiety for years. She worked 12 hour shifts in the ER, and of course, the pain and anxiety got much worse on the days she was working. It had gotten to the point she could barely function at work.

Fehmi did not do any kind of therapy except to teach her how to switch back and forth from left brain attending to right brain attending.  Within 3 weeks all of her symptoms were gone. Completely.  After many years of daily pain and anxiety, gone.  Within 3 months, she said, there was not a single aspect of her life which had not changed for the better.

All from a little shift of attention. 

[George]

I know his work! His later stuff on Open Focus is essentially an alternative route to awareness/enlightenment almost - basically, becoming aware of the space you occupy and the space around you; moving from chronic and stressful narrow-focused attention to a wide-open attention.

Related:

http://www.brainwavevirtuosity.com/pdf/attention-to-attention_les_fehmi.pdf

Thanks George, great story!

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, I have read a bit on this. It is also where astrology for the open-minded and Myer-Briggs in general can be so insightful in terms of helping us understand where we might lean - although for the self-aware, not hard to guess.

Education has re-inforced the left-brain mode of thinking although there has been greater awareness in recent decades of its limits.

Thanks George, great story!

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[Don Salmon]

Here's an interesting exercise. I don't know if you'll be able to hear this. I've attached a harpsichord sonata by Scarlatti (actually, an orchestrated excerpt - turn the volume down a bit as the trumpet may be a bit loud).

Listen to it once, trying to analyze the form, count the beats, figure out where the repetition of the melody is, etc.  

Then listen a separate time, just letting yourself be immersed in the music.

Be careful, don't just the 2nd as "better" than the first.

I had a theory lesson one day in 1970 that forever changed my way of hearing music. i had generally been quite prejudiced against analyzing music harmony, counterpoint etc.  I went to my music theory teacher, and we spent one hour - seriously, one hour - analyzing ONE MEASURE of a Bach prelude. I had heard that prelude many times before, and had not particularly liked or disliked it. It seemed like a typical Bach phrase, perhaps a bit more boring than others.  By the end of that hour I don't think I had ever experienced the beauty of a piece of music with such depth and subtlety.  

The integration of left-and-right modes of hearing - of attending - is a rather amazing thing.

Try it. I'd be interested to hear if this has any interest as we want to develop these kinds of things for our site. 

And let me know if the attachment works. 

[Don Salmon]

I think to play the music again you have to go back to the post and click the attachment again. Also it's best heard through headphones. 

On Tuesday, October 14, 2014 7:45:28 AM UTC-4, Roslyn Ross wrote:

[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, it works, love the music.

[Roslyn Ross]

I got lost each time in the music - could not count beats or think while listening. I could feel the music playing through and on my body - which is what happens when I simply listen to music. I often close my eyes at concerts because seeing is too distracting.

On Tuesday, 14 October 2014 14:07:33 UTC+2, Don Salmon wrote:

[George]

Related a little to our 'seeing from the core' discussions:

http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/ken-macleod-strange-feelings/

My mind had stepped back from my personality and wondered how it could possibly be that

[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, and we can have different psychic abilities and sensitivities. I am particularly sensitive to sound - hate noisy cities - but also I 'hear' and 'read' things in people's voices, so much so that I can hear more from the sound of their voice than the words they use or expressions.

[Peter Jones]

On Monday, 13 October 2014 16:55:54 UTC+1, Sciborg2 Sciborg2 wrote:

@Peter: Definitely let us know when that article hits SciSal!

 

Sci - Would you read it for me and comment? It needs a reality check and proofreading.

[RHC]

Didnt want to start a new thread for this so apologies in advance. 

Has anyone tried meditating with music or particular sounds, sonic fields etc..?   Any thoughts on this. 

 

[Don Salmon]

this is good for this thread.  Part of "what people want" is what Aditya (our newest member) pointed out - experience.  Practices of all kinds are related to this, I think.

This is particularly relevant for me because one of the main things we'll be selling on our site will be various music/meditation packages.  Our book (Yoga psychology) comes with a 45 Minute CD that includes a number of different musical meditation tracks.  One is a basic "mantra" type meditation - but people have found it especially helpful because you synchronize the music, breathing and repetition of words.  So you might breathe in "relax" and breathe out "peace" (for you advanced folks, this is all very basic, of course).  People find it's very helpful to have the sound of the music "guiding you."  We're also making "breathing videos" - the visual also expands and contracts as you breathe in and out.  It can be combined with Qigong movements, which makes it a whole body experience.  And you can do any number of different breathing techniques - if anybody here knows ujayi breathing, that's incredibly powerful. (I often tell people who are just learning it that it can feel a bit like you've just taken a few tokes of a joint - try it, you'll see what I mean - there are instructions all over the net for ujayi)

There was a whole community of music therapists and music healers in the East Village (new york) during the years I lived there.  We experimented with a whole variety of sound experiments. My two favorite types of music meditation are (a) drones and (b) shamanic drumming.

They have really different effects. I love playing with composing different kinds of drones.  You can use tambura like sounds, string orchestra sounds, large choruses or gregorian chant type drones.  It tends to be extremely helpful for concentration and lucid dreaming. In fact, I composed a 45 minute drone with some simple undulating melodies for my lucid dream research back in the early 90s - it was quite successful, particularly for helping people stay conscious as they went from waking to sleep. Now that I have much better music software, I'm looking forward next spring to developing some lucid dream drone music.

Drumming activates the internal energies rather than calming you.  but it can also be used for lucid dreaming as well. If you have trouble generating imagery, I would suggest using this kind of thing, as the drone music tends to make it harder for some people to get their imagination activated enough to do dream work.  

Jan and I did some experiments some years back with very very very slow movement to a drone.  We combined this with a dzogchen type "space of awareness" exercise - starting with a recognition that the space of the room or outdoor area is "pervaded by" and "constituted by" awareness (nothing but awareness) the game was to maintain that sense as the body started moving. The music - since sound pervades the space one is in - was incredibly helpful in maintaining that sense of all pervading awareness.

we've tried these with many different groups in various places, and I do think, as Aditya said, this kin of experiential learning could be combined with an exploration of what this so called "matter" is that we think we're touching and seeing and hearing. I'd love to do a 4 or 5 day retreat which combined that kind of contemplative exploration of matter and mind along with music and other dzogchen like experiential exercises, using music, video and whatever else to bring it all together. We'd want it to be very playful, with people ultimately designing their own exercises and games for doing this.

Finally, we've been trying for years (actually, i tried it for many years before meeting jan too) to develop some kind of group improvisation that was simple enough for beginners to enjoy. It's really hard because some people just have a hard time keeping a beat. But basically, you start sitting, just being with the breath, being with experience, and then "allow" your hands to start keeping a beat on your legs (thighs or knees).  Everyone keeps a regular beat, then slowly each person begins to make very very slight variations - like just one different beat every once in a while. When it works, it can be exhilarating. The challenge is not to "decide" to change but to notice an intention spontaneously arising to change the rhythm.  

If that works we'll take it into standing and then walking. And then if the group is really cooking, we can add scat syllables for improvising - doom, duh, bah bah baba be dooop be doop   doom duh bah bah ban be-doop be-dooop 

daba daba daba doo-dah doo-dah dum dum   

and so on.

if people really get the sense of everyone as one organism and the improv teas over, it is an incredible experience of non-action in action.  

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 11:20 AM, RHC <rhcc...@gmail.com> wrote:

Didnt want to start a new thread for this so apologies in advance. 

Has anyone tried meditating with music or particular sounds, sonic fields etc..?   Any thoughts on this. 

 

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[Roslyn Ross]

I sometimes do this in a minimal way - just putting attention to whatever sounds are around. I am not much of a meditator at the best of times though in an official sense but think I kind of do it naturally, often...

[Roslyn Ross]

Really interesting post Don. I have read a great deal about meditation and do it a little and have done for many years but seem not to be greatly suited to it, however much I may admire certain aspects of the practice.

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[Peter Jones]

Not suited to meditation Roslyn? I find this an odd idea. Do you mean some particular form of it?  

[Roslyn Ross]

No, I mean in general. I have read a lot about it, tried various forms, do not relate at all to mantras and chants, could never do it sitting up and the closest I have come to maintaining anything more than ten minutes, is more a physical meditation with a position of observer of thoughts, feelings, sounds etc.

There is in my nature, a resistance to doing things for any kind of 'should' and since I don't find much purpose or meaning in meditation it becomes a should and there is resistance. I think and feel it is enormously useful for some people, sometimes, but not for all and I do not see it as any sort of requirement for spirituality.

I think there are many ways of being meditative including gardening, cooking, painting, even writing poetry, daydreaming etc. etc. etc. and I also think and feel that for some people sleep is a highly meditative process, particularly when lucid dreams are involved and where one consciously and meditatively works with dreams, so yet again, everyone is different.

I have never taken recreational drugs but had many friends who did and I remember her telling me one time how marijuana enabled her to see and experience the world..... high attention to detail, experience and intense connection with things, from the leaf to the painting, and I thought: But that is how I am most of the time!

Maybe meditation does not suit me in the same way that highly sensitive people are wiser not to become vegetarians, since meat has a 'grounding' influence on the body - as does smoking actually. Many 'spiritual practices' are done to 'raise sensitivity' but for those who are naturally highly sensitive, this is often not only not required, it can be dangerous.

[Roslyn Ross]

p.s. I do find simple meditation, including a mantra like Om Mane Padme Um, is very useful for 'waking up in the middle of the night' with jetlag. It is never wise to get up and 'meditating' soon sends one back to sleep. The chant prevents thoughts intruding.

On Thursday, 16 October 2014 12:33:58 UTC+2, Peter Jones wrote:

[George]

No, I mean in general. I have read a lot about it, tried various forms, do not relate at all to mantras and chants, could never do it sitting up and the closest I have come to maintaining anything more than ten minutes, is more a physical meditation with a position of observer of thoughts, feelings, sounds etc.

Hmm. At it's core though, meditation is just about allowing an "unwinding". That mantra, focusing, contemplating side is optional. Chatting with someone recently about this, about how meditation can become such a "thing" and doesn't necessarily need to be if you aren't looking to push for an experience, I gave them my daily exercise:

---->8----

Here it is:

• 10 minutes, twice a day.

• Lie down on the floor, feet flat with knees bent, head supported by books, arms by your side or hands resting on abdomen. (Like this.)

• Decide to give up completely to gravity: to "play dead". 

• Let go of your body and mind, let them move as they will. Allow them to unwind.

• Don't even "pay attention"; just let your attention be open and wide. If it focuses on some thought or pain briefly, let that happen, and let it open out again.

• After 10 minutes, decide to get up, but don't do anything about it. Wait until your body moves by itself. (This won't happen first time, but eventually it will happen.)

Basically, you are letting the "stuck thoughts" and "uncompleted movements" you have amassed unwind and dissolve themselves. You do not need to do anything for this to occur. Gradually, your perception will become clearer and clearer. 

Note: Any effort to focus or do anything will get in the way. There is a method of accelerating this by "overwriting yourself", but it's nicer this way. 

---->8----

[Roslyn Ross]

I agree George, that it can become more of a thing, if not obsessive but if it flies your kite, why not?  I would never get to it twice a day - once a day, four days a week is about as good as it gets for me.

I generally lie on a bed although floor is also fine. Otherwise it is pretty much what you say here. Ten minutes I can do, on occasion twenty and rarely thirty but that is about it.

I have gone through periods where I did it more and for longer but I cannot say it made a whit of difference in general to how I felt or my life. No doubt, if it had, I would be more committed.

But then I see it like many things, as an option, not a requirement.

[George]

Exactly, it's optional, like everything. There are subtleties to these things which means it can be better or worse for people. Many people do not know you to "let go" or even how to "intend"; and implicit in this approach is a background intention/will to abandon yourself. In fact, it is this decision that is the vital ingredient, more than anything. If you truly made that decision, you wouldn't even need the daily lying down thing.

I'll add something, though: There's a reason I say lie on the floor. Lying on a bed you are not supported and your nervous system won't release - particularly around the neck and lower base of the skull. It's this area that is key to the process or releasing, or whatever you want to call it.

[Don Salmon]

There's an interesting thing about the way we in the modern age approach things like meditation.  I think it would be a surprise to many - especially those interested in Asian spirituality - that a majority of people, even those dedicated to a spiritual life, in India, never meditated. Take the Bhavagad Gita for example.  Krishna recommends Bhakti and Karma Yoga for many.  I'm most familiar with Sri Aurobindo's interpretation of this, but I know it's true for many others as well.

If you have any sense of Divine presence - whatever that may mean to you, then acting more and more with a heart open to "That" can be sufficient for total awakening.

Probably the best Western example of this - and this may "speak" to you more, Roslyn - is Brother Lawrence's "Practice of the Presence of God."  He had diligently tried for some years to do all the practices and techniques and prayers and devotions he had been taught, and found them all quite dry.  He simply made up his mind to do every action for God, in the Presence, with his heart oriented toward God.  He had a limp, and tended to be quite clumsy, dropping things, and his job was in the kitchen, and other monks made fun of him. If he felt irritated, or reactive at all, he would simply reorient his mind toward that Presence.  His letters on this have been considered one of the great spiritual classics of the last several centuries (I believe he lived in France about 400 years ago).

On the other hand, George's exercise looks wonderful.

2 more possibilities:

about 15 years ago, I took a Dzogchen workshop with Alan wallace. he gave one of my favorite meditation instructions.

We were sitting, with our gaze down, looking at the floor a few feet in front of us (no purpose in looking, just having your gaze on something that won't be too distracting).  The instruction was 2 words: "do nothing."

He just added, "if you notice that thoughts are starting to link up, just "release" them ever so gently. This is hardly a "doing" - it's more a previously set intention that just seems to work on its own when you notice thoughts linking up.

But I think the key in what you said is, it seems to have no purpose.

For that, many people have found Dan Siegel's "Wheel of awareness" exercise very helpful. I'm going to describe it in what our philosophers here may find to be a very dualistic image - so don't take this too literally - it's just a metaphor.

Imagine your awareness (it's not "yours' but you know what I mean) is at the hub of the wheel. All that you are aware **of** is at the hub of the wheel - whether it's "inner" stuff - thoughts, feelings, memories, sensations, etc - or "outer" stuff - the floor, the walls, sounds in the environment etc.

If you take Alan Wallace's instruction in this context, all you are doing is sitting in the hub of the wheel literally "doing nothing."  The only reason you would want that little extra step - letting go of thoughts that start to link up - is because you're "practicing" (it's not really practicing, it's just being, but then words are very difficult to describe these sorts of things) recognizing that you always already are at the hub - or, to put it a different way , you ARE the hub. you ARE that awareness.   

Theoretically (ughh, theory again) there would be no problem with thoughts linking, up, they can't literally take you away from what you are.  But in practice, it makes a difference.

What was it yogi berra said?  In theory, there may be no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is?

Well, when you come to a fork in the road, take it, right?

Pedestrian: "Hey, Yogi, what time is it?

Yogi Berra: "You mean now?"

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[George]

Good comment, especially with "re-orienting yourself to God's purpose", loosely - this is basically wu wei, being "flowed through" by the environment. If you commit to that, you don't need an exercise. However, we modern folk are constantly pushing ourselves, so a daily regime at least gives you 10/20 minutes to experience the opposite - which then leaks into the other minutes. (That's why there's the decision part and the not trying to get up part. Learning to allow movement to happen by itself, at its own, integrated pace.)

The fact is, you don't need to do anything in order to be yourself! The reason you're having problems is that you're spending your time trying to be someone/something other than you are, without realising it.

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[Don Salmon]

That's a great point George.  I think most people who commit to a meditation regime (see, that word - "regime' - ACKK!!) are just adding one more project to their schedule.  I suspect Roslyn has a lot of integrity and just won't do this to herself.

It's funny - I first meditated in 1973. It felt right and I did it regularly for 6 months, then just stopped. I was reading Krishnamurti who was dead set against any practice, said it was all just conditioning the mind. I started studying with a teacher in late 1974, who was asking us to sit for 2 hours a day!! Couldn't do it.

In 1976, early August, I ran into Valo Riberto (great name, no?) who was also in the group. I said, "How's your meditation going?" He said, "What meditation?"

Well, we were kids (early 20s) and wanted to really do it, so we agreed to meet up at 4:30 AM (the meditation was supposed to start at 5, and well, you know, we were kids who were determined and had lots of energy).  So I rode my bike to his building (this was the east village in NYC) and we rode down to a pier on the East River, and sat till 6 every morning for one month.  We started in darkness and opened our eyes to a radiant sky with the morning sun blazing reds and oranges and all kinds of other hues.  Then biked back uptown and started our day. 

Haven't missed a day since:>)   It's not a chore and not something about making things happen. Just something I (and now we) do.  Oh, and I got over Krishnamurti that year too:>))

But you don't have to do it.  I have strongly recommended to some people who were trying too  hard not to do it.  But for the most part, if you get what George is talking about - its' really something you don't do while doing it - there's nothing quite like it in the world.  And if you get it, you may have the opposite problem of not wanting to do anything else.  or even better, finding that you're "meditating' much of if not most of the time whether you're sitting formally or not:>)

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[Roslyn Ross]

Well said. I think if the mattress is very firm there is plenty of support. And how long one's neck is, how large the head, etc., would impact on it surely. I have tried floor and bed and the latter works better for me in terms of release and relax....

[George]

Good stuff. In short, don't do mediation in order to become enlightened, etc. Do it for the same reason you'd do anything else: because you enjoy it, at the time or subsequently.

In order to "experience yourself as awareness", you simply have to decide to do so. Want to clear out the baggage and accumulated tension? Applying effort won't help; you need to let it unwind, so forced meditation won't help. Focused-type meditation changes your state (the content of your awareness) for a certain period, with after effects. That's a cool thing to do, but it is just what it is.

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, again well said Don and I relate to what you say. I am always cautious about any musts or should and they are often applied with our one-fix, quick-fix mentalities today.

Brother Lawrence does appeal to me and it reminds me of a wonderful little book someone gave me many years ago which was really Quaker mindfulness, or life as a meditation, which really had an impact on me and which is a form of meditation I doubt I would ever master but which appeals to me. And that is, if we put our attention completely into whatever we are doing - scrubbing shit off the toilet, painting a picture, making the bed, sweeping the floor, then that is prayer! I is also meditation and mindfulness.

It is that being in the moment.

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, really good points George and how I see it. For me, given that I spend my entire time pondering when I am awake and probably when I am asleep and the only thing in which I can become utterly absorbed for hours an not think about anything else, is cooking, so a little bit of time-out meditation makes sense.

[Roslyn Ross]

Thanks Don. I think it has more to do with my basic belief that forcing yourself  to do something or eat something or be something is never a good way to go. Well, not for me anyway. I am hardwired to resist  shoulds and firmly believe if you do something which is supposed to be good or you but then hate it or don't enjoy it enough to do it willingly, it cannot be doing you any good and in fact, quite the opposite.

And resistance is never pleasurable - I could never see the sense in 'no pain, no gain';' do not believe that exercise should hurt; do not believe massages should be anything but pleasurable and believe that harmony in life comes from finding what works for you, regardless of what might work for others.

And yes, if it works for you great and if it does not, then it does not matter.

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[Roslyn Ross]

Yes, we are on the same wave length!

[Roslyn Ross]

Interesting of course the colloquial terms which indicate our frequency, vibration nature - and wave as opposed to particle. We don't say on the same particle length. We say in tune, in accord, in sync, same wave-length, etc. etc

[RHC]

>its' really something you don't do while doing it - there's nothing quite like it in the world.  And if you get it, you may have the opposite problem of not wanting to do anything else.  or even better, finding that you're "meditating' much of if not most of the time whether you're sitting formally or not:>)

after which you end up looking and sounding like Eckhart Tolle. :)

im still working out what meditation is for me (or maybe what I am for it)  but at this point in time it doesn't seem to want to be just simple awareness.