Emotional suffering is the set of negative feelings generated by cravings for what we lack (money, power, prestige ...) and aversions to what surrounds us (unpleasant people, events or things). The reciprocal dreads—the fear to lose what we already possess and the fear to get what we repudiate—complete the portfolio of the causes to suffer emotionally. Inner harmony, on the other hand, is the absence of emotional suffering.
Twenty-five centuries ago the Buddha established that emotional suffering could be eliminated by the removal of its causes or origins; this statement became the core message of his doctrine. His teachings, due to the zeal of his followers, derived into a religion, the fourth largest in the world. Pragmatic Buddhism, the subset of Buddhism that excludes legends, rituals, and rebirths, focuses on the Buddha’s original goal: the eradication of emotional suffering.
Although it evolves from emotions, emotional suffering is not such state of mind. Emotional suffering is a feeling, more specifically, a background feeling. Neurologist Antonio Damasio makes a subtle distinction between emotions and feelings. Emotions are the body's reactions to certain external or internal stimuli (e.g., a threat or a remembrance). Feelings are the perceptions of such reactions, that is, the record the brain makes when it becomes aware of them. While almost simultaneous, emotions precede feelings. We do not perceive emotions; we perceive feelings.
Most feelings share their names with their associated emotions¬¬—love is both an emotion and a feeling. Emotions, however, may end up as a different kind of feeling; for example, anger might unusually evolve into euphoria. Furthermore, several emotions might “blend” to generate a sort of unified feeling with which they “resonate”. Dr. Damasio refers to this sensorial resonance as background feelings. It is background feelings what produces the general tone of our life. The potential to stop emotional suffering is at the interface between emotions and background feelings.
Background feelings, in general, can be sorted out as either positive or negative (you can do the same with emotions). Background feelings almost always manifest in opposing duos regardless where they come from: tension or relaxation, imbalance or balance; instability or stability; fatigue or energy. The first items of each pair (tension, imbalance...) characterize emotional suffering; the second (relaxation, balance...) typify inner harmony. Background feelings help define our mental states; they darken or brighten our existence.
Emotional suffering echoes the wide range of human negative emotions, from the simple imaginary concerns, through depressions and slumps en moral, to the most intense, evil bitterness. There are quite many harmful emotions such as anxiety, anguish, despair, hatred, jealousy and envy; in fact, there are more expressions for negative emotions than for positive ones.
The word "suffering" describes both physical and mental distress, hence comes the need for the "emotional" qualifier. Pain, or physical suffering, is sometimes unavoidable and its treatment often demands medication. Emotional suffering, being mental, is almost always optional; its handling seldom requires drugs (the exception are psychiatric disorders with a clear organic origin.) Pain management is not in the Pragmatic Buddhist agenda; emotional suffering, including the emotional distress that comes from pain, definitely is.
Inner harmony is reached by appeasing cravings and aversions. "When cravings and aversions are both absent, everything becomes perfectly clear," said Seng-Tsan, third Zen Chinese patriarch of Zen. Inner harmony is indirectly reached through "the blowing out of the fires of greed and hatred.” (This is the Buddhist definition of "nirvana"). Inner harmony comes from within and does not depend on external factors¬—this would make it outer harmony; inner harmony flourishes spontaneously when cravings and aversions go away.
The elimination of emotional suffering is a very personal undertaking with no need of masters or congregations. Inner harmony is not achieved by devotion to any creed, affiliation to any doctrine or practice of any ritual. Inner harmony is not pursued; it shows up when the noises of emotional suffering are silenced. When people search for inner harmony in sects, groups or ceremonies, they could be inadvertently giving it up... Or, at a minimum, they could be surrendering their influence over it to somebody else.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE
Monday, September 27, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
True Nature *
Michelangelo believed that images already existed in the blocks of marble as if they were locked. Before the first cut, he thought, the sculptor should first discover the idea within and then proceed to remove the excess stone. Michelangelo, so easy for him, just chipped away from the marble what was not statue.
In the same manner, our ego, our brain coded sense of identity, is like a huge stone, sometimes truly heavy; within that rock there also lies our true nature, our own piece of art. If we are to find it, as the great Italian Renaissance artist suggests for marbles, we also have to remove the excess. We do possess the skills to chip away what is not really us and, when we are done, we’ll experience life and everything else very differently.
Our true nature comes out spontaneously after silencing our conditioned reactions. We do not find it though personality tests or psychological inquiries because your answers to such trials come from the conditionings that already make up our ego. We do not develop, build or refine our true nature; it is already in there. Neither we come across it by doing gimmicks or learning routines; the process is more about quieting mental noise and unlearning mental habits.
Once Michelangelo removed the redundant fragments the harmony of his Pietà, his David or his Moses was magnificent. What will we find when we cut down the surplus of our ego stone? Well, within us, there is also harmony, the inner harmony of our true nature. We just have to remove the unnecessary.
Gustavo Estrada
http://innerpeace.sharepoint.com/Pages/aboutus.aspx
In the same manner, our ego, our brain coded sense of identity, is like a huge stone, sometimes truly heavy; within that rock there also lies our true nature, our own piece of art. If we are to find it, as the great Italian Renaissance artist suggests for marbles, we also have to remove the excess. We do possess the skills to chip away what is not really us and, when we are done, we’ll experience life and everything else very differently.
Our true nature comes out spontaneously after silencing our conditioned reactions. We do not find it though personality tests or psychological inquiries because your answers to such trials come from the conditionings that already make up our ego. We do not develop, build or refine our true nature; it is already in there. Neither we come across it by doing gimmicks or learning routines; the process is more about quieting mental noise and unlearning mental habits.
Once Michelangelo removed the redundant fragments the harmony of his Pietà, his David or his Moses was magnificent. What will we find when we cut down the surplus of our ego stone? Well, within us, there is also harmony, the inner harmony of our true nature. We just have to remove the unnecessary.
Gustavo Estrada
http://innerpeace.sharepoint.com/Pages/aboutus.aspx
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
The title of Confession of a Buddhist Atheist summarizes the three perspectives of his life that Stephen Batchelor wanted to share with his readers: his religiosity—confession is a statement of religious beliefs, his adhesion to the Buddha, and his atheism in the non-theism meaning of the word.
The “confession” as such is a detailed record of his spiritual evolution, which takes him to an enlightenment of a nature quite different from “the ‘standard’ mystical experiences of oneness with the universe”. Batchelor’s confession vividly describes the viability of embracing the religiosity of the Buddha’s Teachings without the dogmas of Buddhism and without renouncing to the goodies and beauties of life
The “ist” of the Buddhist that Batchelor became is much closer to the “ist” in those who play an instrument (pianist, violinist) than to the “ist” in the advocates of a doctrine (socialist, communist) or the fanatics of biased views (racist, chauvinist). You do not need sectarian opinions to play piano or violin, you just play; you don’t need beliefs for being Buddhist because being Buddhist is an experience, a way of living. In this book, the author, an impressive scholar, narrates his personal evolution and reconstructs the Buddha’s one; both journeys are described with abundant spiritual, historic and geographical detail. It is well known that there are no dates in the Pali Canon. Still the writer proposes a very interesting sequence of different events in the Buddha’s life; this is the first time I read a proposal for such sequencing. Even though the task involves much analysis and knowledge, Stephen Batchelor is humble enough to say that the source of the raw data already existed in the Dictionary of Pali Terms and that his role was simply “the joining up of the dots”. It was indeed much more than that.
To describe his cosmological/theological views, Stephen Batchelor seems to prefer the term “atheism” (again as non-theism) to “agnosticism” (the impossibility to know the ultimate reality) and avoids (probably on purpose) the word “spirituality”. I find the author’s view quite close to the atheist spirituality that French philosopher André Comte-Sponville defines as “our openness and connection to the infinite, the eternal and the absolute.” Either as non-theism or atheist spirituality, these renovated and renovating views, both Batchelor’s and Comte-Sponsville’s, are much needed in the modern, confusing world, which, though more secular every day, it does need spirituality. Such intellectual non-theisms imply the “tolerant radicalism” of Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti (which Stephen Batchelor a kind of dislikes) and exclude the anti-theism of the “richarddawkinses” and “samharrises.”
There are quite a few interesting, historical events and anecdotes related in Batchelor’s book running from the Buddha’s time and life (which come from his knowledge and research) all the way to the Dalai Lama’s modern era (which are the fruit of his experience and direct interactions). The author’s enthusiasm for the beauty of the Teachings leads him to some overstatements. He says, for instance, that he has “yet to find a fragment of the Pali Canon that doesn’t further illuminate the whole.” (I find this exaggerated; many parts of the Canon are not only repetitive and boring but also obscure and with observations in contradiction with other sections.) These are minor spots that in no way reduce the quality of “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.” The book is an excellent reading not only for newcomers in search of non-affiliated view in the Teachings and for already faithful, open minded religious Buddhists but also an illuminating perspective for agnostics, atheists, pragmatics, skeptics and independent inquisitive minds of all kinds.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE
The “confession” as such is a detailed record of his spiritual evolution, which takes him to an enlightenment of a nature quite different from “the ‘standard’ mystical experiences of oneness with the universe”. Batchelor’s confession vividly describes the viability of embracing the religiosity of the Buddha’s Teachings without the dogmas of Buddhism and without renouncing to the goodies and beauties of life
The “ist” of the Buddhist that Batchelor became is much closer to the “ist” in those who play an instrument (pianist, violinist) than to the “ist” in the advocates of a doctrine (socialist, communist) or the fanatics of biased views (racist, chauvinist). You do not need sectarian opinions to play piano or violin, you just play; you don’t need beliefs for being Buddhist because being Buddhist is an experience, a way of living. In this book, the author, an impressive scholar, narrates his personal evolution and reconstructs the Buddha’s one; both journeys are described with abundant spiritual, historic and geographical detail. It is well known that there are no dates in the Pali Canon. Still the writer proposes a very interesting sequence of different events in the Buddha’s life; this is the first time I read a proposal for such sequencing. Even though the task involves much analysis and knowledge, Stephen Batchelor is humble enough to say that the source of the raw data already existed in the Dictionary of Pali Terms and that his role was simply “the joining up of the dots”. It was indeed much more than that.
To describe his cosmological/theological views, Stephen Batchelor seems to prefer the term “atheism” (again as non-theism) to “agnosticism” (the impossibility to know the ultimate reality) and avoids (probably on purpose) the word “spirituality”. I find the author’s view quite close to the atheist spirituality that French philosopher André Comte-Sponville defines as “our openness and connection to the infinite, the eternal and the absolute.” Either as non-theism or atheist spirituality, these renovated and renovating views, both Batchelor’s and Comte-Sponsville’s, are much needed in the modern, confusing world, which, though more secular every day, it does need spirituality. Such intellectual non-theisms imply the “tolerant radicalism” of Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti (which Stephen Batchelor a kind of dislikes) and exclude the anti-theism of the “richarddawkinses” and “samharrises.”
There are quite a few interesting, historical events and anecdotes related in Batchelor’s book running from the Buddha’s time and life (which come from his knowledge and research) all the way to the Dalai Lama’s modern era (which are the fruit of his experience and direct interactions). The author’s enthusiasm for the beauty of the Teachings leads him to some overstatements. He says, for instance, that he has “yet to find a fragment of the Pali Canon that doesn’t further illuminate the whole.” (I find this exaggerated; many parts of the Canon are not only repetitive and boring but also obscure and with observations in contradiction with other sections.) These are minor spots that in no way reduce the quality of “Confession of a Buddhist Atheist.” The book is an excellent reading not only for newcomers in search of non-affiliated view in the Teachings and for already faithful, open minded religious Buddhists but also an illuminating perspective for agnostics, atheists, pragmatics, skeptics and independent inquisitive minds of all kinds.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Suffering
The proper definition of some Pragmatic Buddhism’s terms is essential for its comprehension. Though certain clarifications might look redundant at times, we offer them because Pragmatic Buddhism, as most any knowledge area, has its own terminology—a sort of restricted vocabulary—that is a requirement to introduce the subject. We chose to do so rather than using eastern languages’ vocabulary that would, in any case, require translations and explanations. Furthermore, English words have an average of three different meanings each and the usage of some expressions of Pragmatic Buddhism does not accurately match any of the alternatives in the dictionary.
Let us begin our glossary with the word “suffering.” We use “suffering” in this blog because it is the most accepted translation of the original term in Buddhist texts. Most scholars agree that no English word is exactly equivalent to what the Buddha meant by suffering. The explanation that follows will clarify it. There are a number of rough synonyms of the "suffering" under consideration, such as anguish, discomfort, dissatisfaction, distress, frustration, sorrow and stress; none of them provide the exact sense of Buddhist “suffering.”
For Pragmatic Buddhism, suffering is the whole range of human anxieties from “tolerable” cravings, dislikes and worries, through “problematic” addictions, hatreds and depressions, to “clinical” disorders such as dependence, phobias and compulsive behaviors. Suffering runs from Henry David Thoreau’s “quiet desperation, led in their lives by the mass of men,” to the agonizing misery of those who have totally lost the control of their existence.
Two additional remarks help in the understanding of this thorny item. Suffering covers all the difficulties and uncertainties that characterize life activities including those which that, by their very nature, are or should be expected to be pleasant or interesting. We all know from firsthand experience that some positive and favorable situations, such as a new job assignment, the preparations for a celebration or the initiation of a romantic relationship, lead to or predispose a certain degree of anxiety and are likely to create difficult moments; such anxiety is one of the manifestations of suffering for Buddhism. Still the challenges of a job promotion, the preliminaries of a party or the charms of a potential romance are not "western" suffering, in the common use of this word.
Furthermore, Pragmatic Buddhism differentiates suffering from pain—grief from ache. Suffering, as we use it here, is mental—an intellectual process, a product of the mind—as opposed to pain, which is physical—a corporal process, the result of something wrong in our body. While pain is often unavoidable, suffering is always optional.
The reduction and eventual elimination of this suffering, which we hope it is clearly defined and delimited now, is the agenda of Pragmatic Buddhism.
Let us begin our glossary with the word “suffering.” We use “suffering” in this blog because it is the most accepted translation of the original term in Buddhist texts. Most scholars agree that no English word is exactly equivalent to what the Buddha meant by suffering. The explanation that follows will clarify it. There are a number of rough synonyms of the "suffering" under consideration, such as anguish, discomfort, dissatisfaction, distress, frustration, sorrow and stress; none of them provide the exact sense of Buddhist “suffering.”
For Pragmatic Buddhism, suffering is the whole range of human anxieties from “tolerable” cravings, dislikes and worries, through “problematic” addictions, hatreds and depressions, to “clinical” disorders such as dependence, phobias and compulsive behaviors. Suffering runs from Henry David Thoreau’s “quiet desperation, led in their lives by the mass of men,” to the agonizing misery of those who have totally lost the control of their existence.
Two additional remarks help in the understanding of this thorny item. Suffering covers all the difficulties and uncertainties that characterize life activities including those which that, by their very nature, are or should be expected to be pleasant or interesting. We all know from firsthand experience that some positive and favorable situations, such as a new job assignment, the preparations for a celebration or the initiation of a romantic relationship, lead to or predispose a certain degree of anxiety and are likely to create difficult moments; such anxiety is one of the manifestations of suffering for Buddhism. Still the challenges of a job promotion, the preliminaries of a party or the charms of a potential romance are not "western" suffering, in the common use of this word.
Furthermore, Pragmatic Buddhism differentiates suffering from pain—grief from ache. Suffering, as we use it here, is mental—an intellectual process, a product of the mind—as opposed to pain, which is physical—a corporal process, the result of something wrong in our body. While pain is often unavoidable, suffering is always optional.
The reduction and eventual elimination of this suffering, which we hope it is clearly defined and delimited now, is the agenda of Pragmatic Buddhism.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
The Eighth Kind of Intelligence
Two and half decades ago Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner defined intelligence as “the ability to solve problems or to create products that are valued within one or more cultural settings.” As the main outcome of his investigations on the subject, Gardner published in 1983 his then well-recognized theory of multiple intelligences, which posited the existence of seven different types of this unambiguously human characteristic. While having some commonalities among them, each kind of intelligence manifests in different ways; a person can excel in one or more forms, be inferior or faulty in another one, and a good average in the remaining. According to their mode of expression, Gardner denominated the seven intelligences as (1) linguistic, (2) logical-mathematical, (3) musical, (4) bodily-kinesthetic, (5) spatial, (6) interpersonal (the understanding of other people) and (7) intrapersonal (the understanding of oneself).
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Several years later Gardner considered that in his original proposal the talents of many bright men, such as botanist Carl von Linnaeus, biologist Charles Darwin, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and entomologist Edward Wilson, did not readily fit in any of the seven definitions; the common thread of their accomplishments was their contributions to the understanding of living organisms. In 1998, after a careful revision of his theory, the psychologist added to his list an eighth kind of intelligence that he denominated naturalist and defined as “the capacity to recognize and classify the components of the environment.” In my interpretation, the wisdom of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, is a clear expression of this naturalist intelligence.
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The theory of multiple intelligences has been the subject of much controversy; many scholars currently consider it of questionable value. As a minimum, I consider the theory thought-provoking and interesting. I admire Gardner’s boldness to categorize such an abstract trait as intelligence. Despite its opponents, I like the categorization, among other reasons, because it allows room to recognize as outstanding intelligences the bodily coordination, the musical skills and the spatial abilities of many dancers, singers and sportsmen whose life styles, measured against generally accepted behavioral standards, lead most everybody to judge them as foolish if not idiotic.
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Let us now return to the naturalist intelligence of Siddhattha Gotama. The Teachings of the Buddha are the fruit of his continuous observations of the physical environment and the modus operandi if his mind. By doing so, he reaches brilliant conclusions which natural and social sciences would confirm as valid many centuries later. The Teachings of the Siddhattha Gotama document premises, such as the impermanence and instability of everything in the universe, the role of attachments and aversions in our behavior, the “illusory” nature of our self-sense, the nonexistence of metaphysical beings associated to live beings, the indivisible unit of mind and body, and the human nature of morality, which today are of wide acceptance in the scientific media. Furthermore, by acknowledging the reality of suffering—the stressful nature of existence—the Buddha anticipates by longer than two millennia Henry David Thoreau’s famous saying when the North American philosopher states that “the mass of human beings lead lives of quiet desperation.”
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What is most remarkable in the Teachings is the fact that its proponent does not have on hand any laboratory, library or research methodology; the first attempts to systematize a scientific method did not see light until the eighteenth century. As the naturalists studied by Howard Gardner, Siddhattha Gotama detects patterns of organization and behavior in the communities of live organisms; for the Buddha the community is the very same human society he dwells in and the observed organisms are his own condition and his own contemporaries.
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The theory of multiple intelligences might eventually vanish from the academic world; it is also quite unlikely, considering how abstract and perplexing are our mental functions, that no classification of human talents will ever reach universal acceptance. But, as defined by Gardner, the naturalist intelligence of the Buddha will be more and more recognized and appreciated by cognitive sciences. The Eastern word that identifies the Teachings of the Buddha (dhamma in Pali language, dharma in Sanskrit) is the most important concept of Buddhism. It is not then surprising at all that in the western translations of such word the expressions “natural law” and “natural order” come up as its most accepted synonyms.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of Hacia el Buda desde el occidente
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Several years later Gardner considered that in his original proposal the talents of many bright men, such as botanist Carl von Linnaeus, biologist Charles Darwin, paleontologist Stephen J. Gould and entomologist Edward Wilson, did not readily fit in any of the seven definitions; the common thread of their accomplishments was their contributions to the understanding of living organisms. In 1998, after a careful revision of his theory, the psychologist added to his list an eighth kind of intelligence that he denominated naturalist and defined as “the capacity to recognize and classify the components of the environment.” In my interpretation, the wisdom of Siddhattha Gotama, the Buddha, is a clear expression of this naturalist intelligence.
.
The theory of multiple intelligences has been the subject of much controversy; many scholars currently consider it of questionable value. As a minimum, I consider the theory thought-provoking and interesting. I admire Gardner’s boldness to categorize such an abstract trait as intelligence. Despite its opponents, I like the categorization, among other reasons, because it allows room to recognize as outstanding intelligences the bodily coordination, the musical skills and the spatial abilities of many dancers, singers and sportsmen whose life styles, measured against generally accepted behavioral standards, lead most everybody to judge them as foolish if not idiotic.
.
Let us now return to the naturalist intelligence of Siddhattha Gotama. The Teachings of the Buddha are the fruit of his continuous observations of the physical environment and the modus operandi if his mind. By doing so, he reaches brilliant conclusions which natural and social sciences would confirm as valid many centuries later. The Teachings of the Siddhattha Gotama document premises, such as the impermanence and instability of everything in the universe, the role of attachments and aversions in our behavior, the “illusory” nature of our self-sense, the nonexistence of metaphysical beings associated to live beings, the indivisible unit of mind and body, and the human nature of morality, which today are of wide acceptance in the scientific media. Furthermore, by acknowledging the reality of suffering—the stressful nature of existence—the Buddha anticipates by longer than two millennia Henry David Thoreau’s famous saying when the North American philosopher states that “the mass of human beings lead lives of quiet desperation.”
.
What is most remarkable in the Teachings is the fact that its proponent does not have on hand any laboratory, library or research methodology; the first attempts to systematize a scientific method did not see light until the eighteenth century. As the naturalists studied by Howard Gardner, Siddhattha Gotama detects patterns of organization and behavior in the communities of live organisms; for the Buddha the community is the very same human society he dwells in and the observed organisms are his own condition and his own contemporaries.
.
The theory of multiple intelligences might eventually vanish from the academic world; it is also quite unlikely, considering how abstract and perplexing are our mental functions, that no classification of human talents will ever reach universal acceptance. But, as defined by Gardner, the naturalist intelligence of the Buddha will be more and more recognized and appreciated by cognitive sciences. The Eastern word that identifies the Teachings of the Buddha (dhamma in Pali language, dharma in Sanskrit) is the most important concept of Buddhism. It is not then surprising at all that in the western translations of such word the expressions “natural law” and “natural order” come up as its most accepted synonyms.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of Hacia el Buda desde el occidente
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Why meditating is so difficult?
Dozens of techniques exist but, in its simplest and most beneficial version, the how of the meditation practice can be explained in just three sentences: (1) sit down still and quiet, (2) close your eyes, and (3) maintain awareness on your breath and your body sensations. Despite this simplicity, most people consider meditating a very complicated exercise. Why meditating is so difficult?
There appear to be good reasons to support this reluctance. Focusing attention is a patience demanding task since our brain seems to be better designed for turbulence and mental noises than for stillness and silence. A 2007 study by Michael Kane at the University of North Carolina suggests that, on average, during thirty percent of our alert schedule we are thinking about things different from what we are doing. And Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver concluded in another 2007 investigation that even while reading, a concentration demanding activity, we digress between fifteen and twenty of the time.
Since we wander for such a high fraction of our awake day, scientists have decided to put their hands on the subject and, as in all research projects of cognitive sciences, computer imaging technology has become their main ally. Schooler and other group of researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have found that two specific brain regions belonging to different neuronal networks become active during mind wandering. The first one, located mainly on the frontal cortex, is known as the executive control system; the second one, more dispersed throughout the brain, is known as the default network. Activation of these networks is not steady or continuous and depends much on the wandering “magnitude”.
By associating the timed images to the mind states of participants as reported during the scanning procedure, the research team also established two levels in the intensity of distractions. In the first one the participants are partially conscious that they are actually wandering and hold the thread of the original task; in this case the predominant neuronal activity occurs in the executive control system network. In the second level, the participants are not even aware that they are distracted—Schooler refers to this second level as “zoning out”—and the neuronal activity is greater in the default network.
The distraction levels are easily recognized when practicing a common routine of Zen meditation. During this exercise, as an example, the meditator silently counts breathing cycles, from one to ten and repeatedly back to one. The counting is just a mental device to focus attention and keep distractions away; now and then the person looses track of the count. When meditators become aware of their mistake at the very moment it happens, they are still in the first distraction level. If, on the contrary, the miscounting lasts longer (for example, it reaches up to fourteen) the meditators, already in the second level, are zoning out.
“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” Michael Kane says and, consequently, a certain degree of distraction is not only acceptable but it may even be necessary. Some psychologists maintain that the creativity flashes—the eureka moments—arise come from the default network when we are zoning out. However, if what permanently enter our head are resentments, obsessions, panics, hatred or other negative thoughts, it means we are in the territory of harmful disorders. It is here where meditation can be of much help; the Buddha said that meditation is the path toward a peaceful, undefiled state of mind.
Being so simple and useful, why do not more people meditate? Common answers, as it could be expected, have little to do with the brain physiology we just described. Accounts include “I cannot concentrate”, “I have too many problems in my head”, “my mind is elsewhere”, “I cannot remain still for so long” and so on. These excuses, well devised to “rationally” avoid the practice, are truly the best reasons why people should sit down, with their eyes closed in a passive attitude, and simply observe the flow of their breathing and of all the sensations that run through their body. Little by little, with the continuous and disciplined practice of this simple routine, their mind will appease and their unruly, disturbing thoughts will eventually settle down.
There appear to be good reasons to support this reluctance. Focusing attention is a patience demanding task since our brain seems to be better designed for turbulence and mental noises than for stillness and silence. A 2007 study by Michael Kane at the University of North Carolina suggests that, on average, during thirty percent of our alert schedule we are thinking about things different from what we are doing. And Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver concluded in another 2007 investigation that even while reading, a concentration demanding activity, we digress between fifteen and twenty of the time.
Since we wander for such a high fraction of our awake day, scientists have decided to put their hands on the subject and, as in all research projects of cognitive sciences, computer imaging technology has become their main ally. Schooler and other group of researchers, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have found that two specific brain regions belonging to different neuronal networks become active during mind wandering. The first one, located mainly on the frontal cortex, is known as the executive control system; the second one, more dispersed throughout the brain, is known as the default network. Activation of these networks is not steady or continuous and depends much on the wandering “magnitude”.
By associating the timed images to the mind states of participants as reported during the scanning procedure, the research team also established two levels in the intensity of distractions. In the first one the participants are partially conscious that they are actually wandering and hold the thread of the original task; in this case the predominant neuronal activity occurs in the executive control system network. In the second level, the participants are not even aware that they are distracted—Schooler refers to this second level as “zoning out”—and the neuronal activity is greater in the default network.
The distraction levels are easily recognized when practicing a common routine of Zen meditation. During this exercise, as an example, the meditator silently counts breathing cycles, from one to ten and repeatedly back to one. The counting is just a mental device to focus attention and keep distractions away; now and then the person looses track of the count. When meditators become aware of their mistake at the very moment it happens, they are still in the first distraction level. If, on the contrary, the miscounting lasts longer (for example, it reaches up to fourteen) the meditators, already in the second level, are zoning out.
“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” Michael Kane says and, consequently, a certain degree of distraction is not only acceptable but it may even be necessary. Some psychologists maintain that the creativity flashes—the eureka moments—arise come from the default network when we are zoning out. However, if what permanently enter our head are resentments, obsessions, panics, hatred or other negative thoughts, it means we are in the territory of harmful disorders. It is here where meditation can be of much help; the Buddha said that meditation is the path toward a peaceful, undefiled state of mind.
Being so simple and useful, why do not more people meditate? Common answers, as it could be expected, have little to do with the brain physiology we just described. Accounts include “I cannot concentrate”, “I have too many problems in my head”, “my mind is elsewhere”, “I cannot remain still for so long” and so on. These excuses, well devised to “rationally” avoid the practice, are truly the best reasons why people should sit down, with their eyes closed in a passive attitude, and simply observe the flow of their breathing and of all the sensations that run through their body. Little by little, with the continuous and disciplined practice of this simple routine, their mind will appease and their unruly, disturbing thoughts will eventually settle down.
Gustavo Estrada
Author of HACIA EL BUDA DESDE EL OCCIDENTE
Friday, September 11, 2009
Mindfulness and mental disorders
Summary
After a pleasurable or a painful experience, the brain builds up conditioned neuronal circuits (saṅkhāras) for repeating or avoiding the experience. Such circuits are triggered when similar circumstances, real or imaginary, reappear. The recall of such circumstances automatically induces desires and cravings, on one side, or fears and rejections, on the other.
Depending upon the frequency or the intensity of the initial experiences, the normal inhibitory mechanisms reduce their strength and may fail to block the conditioned neuronal circuits that urgently demand repetition or avoidance. Compulsions and aversions arise then and, as things get worse, they get totally out of control.
During mindfulness meditation, a significant number of inhibitory neurons are turned on and off continuous and indiscriminately; they get “exercised” in the routine, so to speak, and eventually the lazy ones—those “guards” that had gone on strike—go back to work, which is to say, go back to their regular blocking duty. As either a drugless or a complementary therapy, mindfulness meditation is showing a very promising potential in the prevention and treatment of some mental disorders.
Mind exercisingDuring physical and mental exercising routines, such as dancing or ball juggling, the neuronal work in the brain is mostly excitatory—it triggers action on other neurons—while in the peripheral nervous system, in a symphonic coordination of muscular tensions and releases, it is both excitatory and inhibitory. In purely mental exercising such as chess or Sudoku, on the other hand, the neuronal activity, which is now centered in the brain, is mostly of an excitatory nature. How do we then exercise our brain inhibitory neurons, roughly one fifth of the one-hundred-billion (or 1011) total neurons? How do you train such important cells the work of which—stopping other neurons’ doings—goes very much unnoticed? The answer is through the practice of any form of meditation and, for increased effectiveness, through the practice of mindfulness meditation, a mental discipline which was developed by Siddhattha Gautama, the Buddha, twenty five centuries ago.
Mindfulness is the permanent awareness of life as it unfolds; mindfulness meditation—the quiet and still sitting while focusing attention on some object, means or mental device—is the practice of “directed” mindfulness to make it a permanent habit. Geographically and historically, breath observation is by far the most common meditation tool; as meditators gain experience, they progressively might focus attention on other objects or means such as their bodies, sensations or mind states, or the actual meditation experience.
Neurology Basics
Simply stated, excitatory neurons are nerve cells that send increasing activity signals to their neighbors; inhibitory neurons, reciprocally, are those which order their neighbors to reduce or stop activity. Nervous signals are carried by some chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, which travel through interneuronal junctions or synapses; each neuron is connected to its neighbors by an average of 7,000 synapses (so our brain contains some 7 x 1014 synapses).
Brain functions result from excitatory and inhibitory neurons being connected together in different ways to form neural circuits—ensembles of neurons that process specific kinds of information. When first acquired or experienced, every learned or developed functional task—a piece of knowledge, a skill, an image, a memory, an emotional state, a preference, a dislike—becomes a neural circuit.
Synapses within a neural circuit weaken (or strengthen) with the reduced (or increased) activity of the circuit’s function. Every time a task is repeated or re-experienced, the corresponding neural circuit is “re-run”, strengthening the associated connections in the repetition. Seldom used circuits weaken and the associated function is eventually forgotten. Medical science knows today that the underuse of the brain does decrease both length and quality of life.
Mindfulness meditation
The practice of mindfulness meditation is the “purposeful” stopping of as many common alert state functions as feasible. What happens to your neurons while you meditate? Though every meditator follows his or her personal routine, the steps below represent a typical sequence which, for the purpose of this note, contains enough information for the intended association between neuronal inhibition and mindfulness meditation. While beginners normally stay within the first four or five numerals of this progression, disciplined meditators regularly reach and experience the highest introspection levels. The sequence is as follows:
1. Just by sitting still, quiet, with eyes closed and in an isolated place, an important fraction of your excitatory neurons—the motors, the talkers, the observers, the listeners and, if you have not eaten anything during the previous hours, the digesters—go to rest. Thus far, except for the posture, meditating and sleeping are similar activities.
2. When you become aware of gross sensations—your clothes, the contact with your seat or the floor—the inhibitory neurons that ordinarily block such sensations are turned off (you perceive such sensations; sensations are on).
3. When you focus attention onto the flow of your breath, inhibitory neurons turn on to shut off distractions.
4. As distractions interfere, inhibitory neurons turn off to let distracting thoughts enter (involuntarily). When you notice you are distracted, you go back to Item 3 (inhibitory neurons on again.)
5. As, with practice and patience, you are able to maintain your awareness on your breath for longer and longer periods, subtle sensations appear in different parts of your body, which implies that inhibitory neurons, both at the central and peripheral systems, are turned off (sensations are “on”) wherever those sensations are perceived.
6. As you alternate attention between your breath and those subtle sensations throughout your body, you (a kind of) learn to turn off and on at will the inhibitory neurons that switch on and off these “subtle sensations.”
7. With continued and disciplined practice, you enter progressively deeper levels of joy, inner harmony, equanimity and pure consciousness (intense exaltation of mind and feelings.) At these stages, you always maintain awareness on your mind states and your actual meditation experience (going back to breath focusing whenever you get distracted).
What do you gain from the practice of mindfulness meditation? How do you benefit from the working out of inhibitory neurons, from continuously turning them on and off for a rather long period? The intuitive wisdom of the Buddha, who obviously knew nothing about neurons, answers these questions: With mindfulness meditation you develop the skill to be permanently mindful and reduce (and eventually eliminate) suffering (dukkha); the Buddha never spoke of mental disorders. How does this happen?
The role of inhibitory neurons is similar to that of building guards; when they are accurately and dutifully working (active, “on”), intruders do not cross the threshold (they are inactive, off), undesired people cannot enter and nothing seems to be happening. When guards do not show up to work, any person, intruders and disrupters included, can enter restricted premises. Similarly, when your inhibitory guards are off duty, intruding and disrupting thoughts—compulsive desires or intensive aversions—invade your mind.
Pleasure and pain
In our remote ancestors, pleasure and pain were survival mechanisms designed through natural selection. By generating the desiring emotions that call for the repetition of specific actions, the gratification of satisfying needs, both physiological and social, pleasure became a survival advantage for individuals and species. Similarly, the experience of pain led to the design of fear signals that set off automatic alarms when similar threatening dangers were encountered; the timely fight or flight conditioned response was instrumental for survival. Our desires and fears, therefore, are just simple natural reactions which our genetic code programs in our brain circuits; however, such responses are to be silenced by attentive inhibitory neuron once the demanding need or the threatening danger has been successfully managed.
Mental Disorders and Suffering
Unfortunately, reactions to demands and threats are sometimes mismanaged. If after the satisfaction of a particular need the neural patterns of desires are not shut off, the temporary wishes become permanent compulsions, addictions or obsessive demands. Similarly, if after the disappearance of a threat the neural patterns of fears are not shut off, the transitory worries become permanent aversions, panics or phobias. Minor cravings (the “controlled” daily drinking) and rejections (your “reasonable” hostility to someone “because you don’t have to like everybody”) are considered normal. The Buddha disagrees; according to him, the origin of suffering lies in these minor anomalies. It is only when the inhibitory mechanisms go wild and unruly that a variety of behavioral disorders arises and suffering becomes unbearable. Cognitive sciences are coming to the conclusion that many mental disorders, such as substance dependence, eating disorders, sexual addictions, obsessive compulsive disorders and post traumatic stress disorders, have roots in malfunctioning of inhibitory mechanisms.
Mindfulness meditation has already proven beneficial in dealing with such disarrays. As a therapy tool, it helps at both levels—the socially accepted and the psychologically unacceptable—but, as with any problem, prevention or early treatment is better than late correction. The Buddha properly addressed the elimination of the day-to-day suffering—the usual stress, the ordinary anxiety, the normal anguish of the common life—this is, the initial manifestation of the more complex problems. Mindfulness meditation, the exercise of large groups of inhibitory neurons which bring back inhibitory processes to order and harmony, was both the preventive and corrective prescription he recommended. What the Buddha knew intuitively since long time ago, cognitive sciences are learning the hard way today.
After a pleasurable or a painful experience, the brain builds up conditioned neuronal circuits (saṅkhāras) for repeating or avoiding the experience. Such circuits are triggered when similar circumstances, real or imaginary, reappear. The recall of such circumstances automatically induces desires and cravings, on one side, or fears and rejections, on the other.
Depending upon the frequency or the intensity of the initial experiences, the normal inhibitory mechanisms reduce their strength and may fail to block the conditioned neuronal circuits that urgently demand repetition or avoidance. Compulsions and aversions arise then and, as things get worse, they get totally out of control.
During mindfulness meditation, a significant number of inhibitory neurons are turned on and off continuous and indiscriminately; they get “exercised” in the routine, so to speak, and eventually the lazy ones—those “guards” that had gone on strike—go back to work, which is to say, go back to their regular blocking duty. As either a drugless or a complementary therapy, mindfulness meditation is showing a very promising potential in the prevention and treatment of some mental disorders.
Mind exercisingDuring physical and mental exercising routines, such as dancing or ball juggling, the neuronal work in the brain is mostly excitatory—it triggers action on other neurons—while in the peripheral nervous system, in a symphonic coordination of muscular tensions and releases, it is both excitatory and inhibitory. In purely mental exercising such as chess or Sudoku, on the other hand, the neuronal activity, which is now centered in the brain, is mostly of an excitatory nature. How do we then exercise our brain inhibitory neurons, roughly one fifth of the one-hundred-billion (or 1011) total neurons? How do you train such important cells the work of which—stopping other neurons’ doings—goes very much unnoticed? The answer is through the practice of any form of meditation and, for increased effectiveness, through the practice of mindfulness meditation, a mental discipline which was developed by Siddhattha Gautama, the Buddha, twenty five centuries ago.
Mindfulness is the permanent awareness of life as it unfolds; mindfulness meditation—the quiet and still sitting while focusing attention on some object, means or mental device—is the practice of “directed” mindfulness to make it a permanent habit. Geographically and historically, breath observation is by far the most common meditation tool; as meditators gain experience, they progressively might focus attention on other objects or means such as their bodies, sensations or mind states, or the actual meditation experience.
Neurology Basics
Simply stated, excitatory neurons are nerve cells that send increasing activity signals to their neighbors; inhibitory neurons, reciprocally, are those which order their neighbors to reduce or stop activity. Nervous signals are carried by some chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, which travel through interneuronal junctions or synapses; each neuron is connected to its neighbors by an average of 7,000 synapses (so our brain contains some 7 x 1014 synapses).
Brain functions result from excitatory and inhibitory neurons being connected together in different ways to form neural circuits—ensembles of neurons that process specific kinds of information. When first acquired or experienced, every learned or developed functional task—a piece of knowledge, a skill, an image, a memory, an emotional state, a preference, a dislike—becomes a neural circuit.
Synapses within a neural circuit weaken (or strengthen) with the reduced (or increased) activity of the circuit’s function. Every time a task is repeated or re-experienced, the corresponding neural circuit is “re-run”, strengthening the associated connections in the repetition. Seldom used circuits weaken and the associated function is eventually forgotten. Medical science knows today that the underuse of the brain does decrease both length and quality of life.
Mindfulness meditation
The practice of mindfulness meditation is the “purposeful” stopping of as many common alert state functions as feasible. What happens to your neurons while you meditate? Though every meditator follows his or her personal routine, the steps below represent a typical sequence which, for the purpose of this note, contains enough information for the intended association between neuronal inhibition and mindfulness meditation. While beginners normally stay within the first four or five numerals of this progression, disciplined meditators regularly reach and experience the highest introspection levels. The sequence is as follows:
1. Just by sitting still, quiet, with eyes closed and in an isolated place, an important fraction of your excitatory neurons—the motors, the talkers, the observers, the listeners and, if you have not eaten anything during the previous hours, the digesters—go to rest. Thus far, except for the posture, meditating and sleeping are similar activities.
2. When you become aware of gross sensations—your clothes, the contact with your seat or the floor—the inhibitory neurons that ordinarily block such sensations are turned off (you perceive such sensations; sensations are on).
3. When you focus attention onto the flow of your breath, inhibitory neurons turn on to shut off distractions.
4. As distractions interfere, inhibitory neurons turn off to let distracting thoughts enter (involuntarily). When you notice you are distracted, you go back to Item 3 (inhibitory neurons on again.)
5. As, with practice and patience, you are able to maintain your awareness on your breath for longer and longer periods, subtle sensations appear in different parts of your body, which implies that inhibitory neurons, both at the central and peripheral systems, are turned off (sensations are “on”) wherever those sensations are perceived.
6. As you alternate attention between your breath and those subtle sensations throughout your body, you (a kind of) learn to turn off and on at will the inhibitory neurons that switch on and off these “subtle sensations.”
7. With continued and disciplined practice, you enter progressively deeper levels of joy, inner harmony, equanimity and pure consciousness (intense exaltation of mind and feelings.) At these stages, you always maintain awareness on your mind states and your actual meditation experience (going back to breath focusing whenever you get distracted).
What do you gain from the practice of mindfulness meditation? How do you benefit from the working out of inhibitory neurons, from continuously turning them on and off for a rather long period? The intuitive wisdom of the Buddha, who obviously knew nothing about neurons, answers these questions: With mindfulness meditation you develop the skill to be permanently mindful and reduce (and eventually eliminate) suffering (dukkha); the Buddha never spoke of mental disorders. How does this happen?
The role of inhibitory neurons is similar to that of building guards; when they are accurately and dutifully working (active, “on”), intruders do not cross the threshold (they are inactive, off), undesired people cannot enter and nothing seems to be happening. When guards do not show up to work, any person, intruders and disrupters included, can enter restricted premises. Similarly, when your inhibitory guards are off duty, intruding and disrupting thoughts—compulsive desires or intensive aversions—invade your mind.
Pleasure and pain
In our remote ancestors, pleasure and pain were survival mechanisms designed through natural selection. By generating the desiring emotions that call for the repetition of specific actions, the gratification of satisfying needs, both physiological and social, pleasure became a survival advantage for individuals and species. Similarly, the experience of pain led to the design of fear signals that set off automatic alarms when similar threatening dangers were encountered; the timely fight or flight conditioned response was instrumental for survival. Our desires and fears, therefore, are just simple natural reactions which our genetic code programs in our brain circuits; however, such responses are to be silenced by attentive inhibitory neuron once the demanding need or the threatening danger has been successfully managed.
Mental Disorders and Suffering
Unfortunately, reactions to demands and threats are sometimes mismanaged. If after the satisfaction of a particular need the neural patterns of desires are not shut off, the temporary wishes become permanent compulsions, addictions or obsessive demands. Similarly, if after the disappearance of a threat the neural patterns of fears are not shut off, the transitory worries become permanent aversions, panics or phobias. Minor cravings (the “controlled” daily drinking) and rejections (your “reasonable” hostility to someone “because you don’t have to like everybody”) are considered normal. The Buddha disagrees; according to him, the origin of suffering lies in these minor anomalies. It is only when the inhibitory mechanisms go wild and unruly that a variety of behavioral disorders arises and suffering becomes unbearable. Cognitive sciences are coming to the conclusion that many mental disorders, such as substance dependence, eating disorders, sexual addictions, obsessive compulsive disorders and post traumatic stress disorders, have roots in malfunctioning of inhibitory mechanisms.
Mindfulness meditation has already proven beneficial in dealing with such disarrays. As a therapy tool, it helps at both levels—the socially accepted and the psychologically unacceptable—but, as with any problem, prevention or early treatment is better than late correction. The Buddha properly addressed the elimination of the day-to-day suffering—the usual stress, the ordinary anxiety, the normal anguish of the common life—this is, the initial manifestation of the more complex problems. Mindfulness meditation, the exercise of large groups of inhibitory neurons which bring back inhibitory processes to order and harmony, was both the preventive and corrective prescription he recommended. What the Buddha knew intuitively since long time ago, cognitive sciences are learning the hard way today.
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