Dharma Talk Recommendations

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second part of Jeffery Martin on buddhist geeks online...

I found that interview quite fascinating. A couple things that jumped out at me as especially interesting:

-that most subjects initially said they "hardly had any thoughts" but when asked to really look carefully, it became apparent that they had thoughts, they just didn't need to pay attention to them all the time. Thoughts were "not sticky" as some people describe it.

-that the specific type of thoughts that don't matter any more are self-referential thoughts - as he distinguishes them: "[what becomes irrelevant/less sticky/etc is] the part of thoughts that deals with you know sort of self
referential thinking.
So it’s the part of thought that deals with
anything that had to do about thinking about yourself basically.
It
doesn’t impact your ability to schedule things.
It doesn’t impact your
ability to solve math problems.
It doesn’t involve all those other
types of thinking."

-that on a machine, people show the same emotional responses. but they don't "experience" them. Again, it's about these things not sticking perhaps, not holding them, etc.

-the lack of "noise" in the mind seems related to people being able to focus and "be present" so much more deeply that their productivity actually goes way up.

-that for people whose context of practice does not prepare them for awakening, it can be initially be extremely traumatic (he gives example of a Christian who suddenly feels Christ within has vanished)

what bits did others find most interesting?

(edited for typo)

Ona, those are the bits that jumped out at me as well. I'm going to listen to it again, maybe a few times, and really let it all sink in. It's not that it's complex so much as perspective-giving.

I always prefer reading the transcript to listening. Allows for rereading the good bits over and over, and skimming the boring bits.

No other thoughts on this podcast?

I will confess to listening to both parts of the interview at least three times, maybe four. (It was my background noise during work on Monday and Tuesday.)

Sometimes we hear only what we want to hear from these interviews, so I know that the pieces that stood out to me are more than likely quite biased toward my own point of view. That said...

I think that Martin's initial overview of some of his findings may support some ideas that I've been trying to put forth. Although, I think he's doing a better job than I am of describing it. First, he talks about how this event of awakening to "non-symbolic consciousness" seems to be (for lack of a better term) a real thing. It actually happens. Beyond that, however, the qualities of this developmental shift varies pretty greatly, save for a few broadly applicable results.

It would seem that the role of thinking/rational cognition changes for those who have awakened to some degree. I know this to be true from my own experience, and I've heard the same thing from everyone I know whose practice has resulted in realization to one facet of non-symbolic consciousness or another. This shift in the role of formal cognition seems to correlate with a greater sense of well-being and ease than was otherwise the case. This makes sense, given the way that human language can really cause a lot of problems for people - a topic for another discussion.

The "end of self-referencing" thing is a little tricky, but I think it works in much the same way. Whether one no longer notices self-referential thoughts, or simply sees them as "thoughts" that are not longer sticky (e.g. no longer weighted with the same level of importance) seems less important than the fact that one's identity has moved beyond self-referencing in one of those two ways. Why it works one way for some and another way for others is not something I'm aware of. I imagine there are myriad variables contributing to the fruition of either stage.

I'm becoming less judgmental about the idea that some people really do want to end self-referential thinking entirely, rather than simply transcend-and-include it. I still get frustrated when I see people who don't know that they can have these thoughts and still be awake. Again, the role that human language plays in emotional well-being is paramount here. Sometimes the sheer act of trying to get rid of something is what reifies it in the first place. Placing a great deal of importance on a particular thought or set of thoughts tends to increase their frequency and intensity... for most people. That's why I would like both options to be presented, rather than simply saying one has to be preferred over the other. And honestly, I still prefer allowing thoughts to trying to uproot them. But, like I said, I'm trying to admit to myself that some people report finding benefit in stopping this process altogether. Anyway...

I found it interesting that Tarin Greco's saying, "You get what you optimize for," was highlighted in the podcast (I think he coined that phrase, but I could be wrong). To a certain extent, I agree with him. Beyond the general shift in identification that results in awakening, there are numerous routes one can take. What we choose will be based on what we value. I know that some people do not acknowledge that any choosing occurs post awakening, but I think I disagree. Choice/intention remains, it's just understood and used within a different context (in my understanding). And so, if we set our sights on developing a particular result, sometimes we get it. Sometimes we don't.

That's all I have for now. I'm interested to read what anyone else took away from the series.

There's one thing that I found interesting and not quite in agreement with what I've been told:

Now there’s some different ways how that shows up. For instance, those thoughts can return here and there. There are some people that they return for early in the morning just after waking for the first 15 minutes or 10 minutes or 5 minutes, whatever it is. There are some that returns for if they get very sort of hypoglycemic if they don’t eat, if they are sleep deprived, those thoughts can return. So there appears to be an inhibitory mechanism that we’re dealing with here. And by the time you reach the end of this, it’s pretty darn clamped down, unless the brain doesn’t have what it needs to sort of function normally or function optimally and then it’s almost like that inhibition can lift a little bit and some of the people that are in sort of the earlier parts of those later stages can have some self referential thoughts kind of bubbling back up.

The idea of an inhibitory mechanism added to the brain as a result of practice seems to fly in the face of what I hear from most meditation teachers (not adding anything, revealing the true nature, etc.). Any other way to explain these observations?

The fact that some awakened folks continue to have thoughts - if not MORE of them - but simply don't give them a whole lot of importance points to at least one version of awakening which doesn't damn the stream of thoughts. From this point of view, to allow them seems more natural. And, for them to not arise at all would imply that inhibition of some sort is happening.

I don't see where he says that this mechanism is somehow "added" at awakening. I would think that if there were an inhibitory mechanism, it would be present prior to awakening as well. Perhaps it can be exercised like a muscle, with some people being very "strong" and others not so much.

I'm not suggesting that I really know how this works. Just talking it out.

True.

This is just a reply to Jackson's post from this morning (I just can't get through this Dr. Martin Geeks material) because I am interested in what he said here:

I'm becoming less judgmental about the idea that some people really do want to end self-referential thinking entirely, rather than simply transcend-and-include it. I still get frustrated when I see people who don't know that they can have these thoughts and still be awake.



For me, he is getting to the heart of what has been bugging me for about a year or so now. I just don't understand the idea of "wanting" a certain specific result from practice. Not knowing IS most intimate and one can't really not know and be intimate I don't think if they have preconceived ideas about what results they want. This is so entrenched an approach in me that I must be just blind to the reasoning and impulses of the "desire to end self-referencing" people.

While to "transcend and include" seems completely right to me, I wouldn't want to look for and expect that either (and I'm not supposing that Jackson does either). My practice (that works for me now, of course, and can and will change) is to cultivate approaching everything as brand new all the time. It's fun.

Now, if I pause and look back on a day or length of time spend in "not knowing" and remember how it felt, what I thought and what I did -- there is a huge variety of everything going on all the time from abject self centered pain to feelings of empty joy to wonderful feelings of compassion and love to anger and resentment to great clarity and insight to an almost boundless sadness and incredibly skillful behavior as well as unsurpassed stupidity and embarrassment and moments of great unitive openings ---- ALL kind of contained in this great big space, like BBs rolling around in a huge beach ball.

Here is a recent two-part video from Tara Brach:

http://www.tarabrach.com/video/2011-07-20-Mystery-of-Who-We-Are.html

I just listened to Part One while working here in the office, so I didn't hear every word, every section completely, but, what I did hear is very soothing and contains some practical advice for eliminating suffering.

I really enjoyed what I heard of the first talk. (I had to play it while doing other things, but the parts I was able to attend to fully were lovely).

What jumped out at me was one sentence she said somewhere not too far into the video (paraphrased):

"every time we feel that something is missing or something is wrong in some way we are caught in an identity that is less than the fullness of who we are"

I thought that was really beautiful.

I really enjoyed what I heard of the first talk. (I had to play it while doing other things, but the parts I was able to attend to fully were lovely).
What jumped out at me was one sentence she said somewhere not too far into the video (paraphrased):
"every time we feel that something is missing or something is wrong in some way we are caught in an identity that is less than the fullness of who we are"
I thought that was really beautiful.

-ona

I know, she can be very poetic.

I've been listening to a lot of dhamma talks by Thanissaro Bhikkhu at work over the last couple days. I hadn't ever really bothered listening to his verbal teachings, because his written work is often so scholarly, and (believe it or not) I'm not always into that. But, I can tell from listening to his teachings on meditation that he is a VERY skillful practitioner as well as an exemplary scholar. That kind of combination is hard to come by.

If anyone is interested, you can find his talks here...

http://dhammatalks.org/mp3_index.html

Ha, YESSSSS soon my takeover of this place will be complete!

Ha, YESSSSS soon my takeover of this place will be complete!

-cruxdestruct