Categories of stuff - why?

I was just pondering and wanted some bounce-back from everyone else.

Why do we divide experiences into categories? For example observing "stuff that's happening to us" and dividing that from "ways I'm reacting to it." For example if I spill hot coffee on my leg, feel pain, and then get angry at my clumsiness and then angry about the stain on my jeans, isn't it often the case that people divide those into two or three kinds of phenomena: one being physical events (spilling the coffee); another being bodily symptoms (pain from the burn); and a third being emotional reactions (being angry about it).

Or similarly, boyfriend comes home late (physical event); frightens me out of sleep (bodily symptom); I get mad (emotional reaction).

And when we work on ourselves, with therapy or meditation or things like that, don't we tend to have different strategies for these categories?

Just occurred to me that these particular categories may simply be cultural, or may be derived from how we experience the senses, but perhaps they are really kind of arbitrary? Is this as random and useless a topic as I think it might be? I don't know. Does it trigger any response in anyone else? Do people from other cultures make the same divisions?

Well, the stoic philosophers divided the world into things you can't control (boyfriend coming home late, coffee spilling, pain from a burn) and things you can control (getting mad). So you can't prevent some things, but somehow you can exercise your will in regards to how you respond. Is this true? Maybe, maybe not, but it's serviceable to believe that it's true. That means a person could consider, is anger an appropriate response, or maybe just a feeling of dismay? How about humor? Or resignation.

My son was rude to me in front of someone the other day. I choose to respond to my son's pubescent bad behavior with a touch of humor most of the time. This time I decided that a certain level of parental anger (not out of control rage, but emphatic disapproval) was best. It may make sense for my sanity not to let a 12-year-old's bad behavior lead me to a response of humiliation and anger, but it's best for my responsibility as a parent to apply the appropriate level of stern prohibition. To be honest, I did feel angry and humiliated, but it didn't last long, and by the time we had "the talk" I was in complete control of myself.

Or is that an illusion? Without my practice, I would have flown off the handle, perhaps even burst into tears. I did find myself considering a bit of emotional blackmail ("See what you're doing to your poor mother! And me with an arthritic hip and all!") and made a decision not to go there. Could I have chosen this a few years ago? Likely not.

How about this theory --- we have these categories so that we can optimize our actions in this life. Each of the categories has different speeds of karma.

The sensations are over and gone.

The physical event itself is an opportunity to understand physical cause and effect. We learn to predict how dominoes and cups of coffee fall.

Seeing our own physical movements is a way to get insight into training physical movement. Awkwardness can become coordination.

The ways we react are more ingrained and habititual, but also still trainable. Reactions can become totally different responses over time, given the intention to change.

etc. etc.

???

Ona, since there are seemingly obvious pragmatic reasons for 'categories' as descriptive/perceptual devices, I think I will pull an Ona move and throw it back atcha: what's coming up for YOU that makes this an interesting (even if you also suspect it is 'random and useless???) topic?

Hope you appreciate the ball playfully but decidedly tossed back in your court!

I forgot how detailed the Theravada categorization of mental processes is. Thanks for that. It's like the Eskimos having 40 words for snow!

Actually, Jake, I think this did come from a specific train of thought this morning. Recreating it....

I was talking to a friend about various practice stuff, and one thing that came up was how at different points in practice some kinds of experiences are "okay" or "included" and others are "bad practice/distraction/not in line with awakening/not acceptable" and so on. And this connected in my mind to the conversation on Mike's thread about happiness (and can one be "happy" when one is sick, in pain, etc.) And I thought how there seems to be a loose category of mental activity that I used to experience as being a sort of interruption of "awakeness" - such as being impatient, frustrated, irritable, sad and other such reactions to things - that no longer seem to be "other" like that. They can happen, or not, and even if I act on them (such as being abrupt with someone because I'm impatient), that also doesn't seem like an interruption of awakeness (even if I think I should correct the behavior).

And that reminded me of a time in practice when I thought certain kinds of thoughts were distractions from meditation, and then had this recognition that they weren't - they were just stuff happening.

So then I wondered how many different ways there are to categorize things and whether everyone has similar categories and how we seem to go through periods of dividing/including as part of the process of waking up.

I wonder if the trajectory is like the Zen 'return to the marketplace,' at least that's been the case for me (to a certain extent) thus far in my practice - I started out not being able to see all of those separate objects as such, and that was a cause of suffering (for example unable to separate, I dunno, the physical sensation of aversion from the thoughts, or unable to objectify separate thoughts that cause distress). But then doing a hardcore Mahasi practice it became really important to chop them up, identify them and see them as 3 characteristics - and also, to take it to the meta-level, to be like there's no awakeness there when I'm NOT chopping things up like that. Now, again, it feels important to include everything in the field and see how the very chopping-up-ness is dualistic. Will I run away from the marketplace again next, or meet a man selling a handful of magic beans? Who knows?

"I ain't lookin' to compete with you
Beat or cheat or mistreat you
Simplify you, classify you
Deny, defy or crucify you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

No, and I ain't lookin' to fight with you
Frighten you or tighten you
Drag you down or drain you down
Chain you down or bring you down
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I ain't lookin' to block you up
Shock or knock or lock you up
Analyze you, categorize you
Finalize you or advertise you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you..."

I prefer this version

Ona Kiser wrote: I was talking to a friend about various practice stuff, and one thing that came up was how at different points in practice some kinds of experiences are "okay" or "included" and others are "bad practice/distraction/not in line with awakening/not acceptable" and so on. [...]And I thought how there seems to be a loose category of mental activity that I used to experience as being a sort of interruption of "awakeness" - such as being impatient, frustrated, irritable, sad and other such reactions to things - that no longer seem to be "other" So then I wondered how many different ways there are to categorize things and whether everyone has similar categories and how we seem to go through periods of dividing/including as part of the process of waking up.

Yeah, that's such an important thing to notice isn't it? i really find that fascinating too. In some part that very discovery of non-categorization-- where one reaches the point of comfort and familiarity, in a sense, with the 'is-ness' of things, and can 'just sit', is such a relief. And then to see what structures/patterns/differences can be noticed on the basis of that basic goodness or is-ness. Like you say, perhaps you notice that you will change a certain behavior, even though subjectively it arose as part of that is-ness, because you notice that inter-subjectively it hurt someone else, or perhaps just isn't objectively effective or efficient or whatever.

So two big traps that we can fall into (I know because I am intimately familar with both, on a daily basis lol):

1) dividing experience up into categories based on a fundamental, ontological misunderstanding of Reality, and not getting that there is a true nature that equally characterizes all phenomena;-- associating true nature with particular experiences, expressions, etc, thus causing ourselves all kinds of suffering and trying to always maintain certain states or strive for dualistic 'attainments'-- if only X were different in my experience, then "I" would be awake lol, and by god it's up to "me" to make that change happen-- which attitude presupposes a misunderstanding of the nature of things

2) being so enamored of the sameness of the is-ness of things that we stop making pragmatic distinctions, lose motivation or engagement in the ebbs and flows of intersubjective and objective life, and become lost in our subjective appreciation of openness/ one taste, as if suddenly all the differences don't make a difference anymore, which amounts to a disrespect for the complexity and infinite differences of Nature, which we also are!

Like balancing my loving appreciation for the diverse humanity of the participants in an organization I'm involved with, while also knowing that the way the organization operates is incompetent and poorly designed and needs to be revised.

Ona Kiser wrote: Like balancing my loving appreciation for the diverse humanity of the participants in an organization I'm involved with, while also knowing that the way the organization operates is incompetent and poorly designed and needs to be revised.

hahaha! yeah that sums up my workplace pretty well... nothing like community mental health work to show both sides of that darn coin!

Yes-- as you have noted elsewhere, Ona: the answer is often Yes.

Kate Gowen wrote: Yes-- as you have noted elsewhere, Ona: the answer is often Yes.

We could have a whole thread where we just say "I don't know!" "Yes" "I don't know!" "Yes!" It may sound flippant, but sometimes it's just like taking a leaf blower to the haypile.

Did you know that the shortest version of the Heart Sutra is the mantra/ syllable "A"-- pronounced "AH!"--?

So the "I don't know! Yes!" nexus has been noticed from wayback.

Kate Gowen wrote: Did you know that the shortest version of the Heart Sutra is the mantra/ syllable "A"-- pronounced "AH!"--

When I was learning Pali (for those who aren't Theravada people, it's the language of the early Buddhist scriptures, a simplified version of Sanskrit) our teacher pointed out that the first sound in the Sanskrit alphabet is 'Ka' = 'Who'