Anger & Resentment - or Happiness and Gratitude?

I think I would feel that it wasn't really "awakening" -- whatever it was

I think that awakening is a combination of changes in outlook taking place, actually, within the patterns and processes of our constantly created/made up separate selves. I don't understand how a machine could effect such a thing.

Do you think it is really posible?

But I guess there are many people (including you Chris?) who think that awakening has some kind of actual, direct effect on one's organic brain that can be located and measured, and, even, I guess, created artificially?

that these "path moments" we hear and read about have actual physical effects on one's brain that can be identified and, again, created artificially?

Is this what a lot of this "science of enlightenment" I keep hearing about but kind of ignoring is all about?

I'd feel like it was time for another grilled cheese sandwich.

Imagine, like the woman in "Stroke of Insight" suddenly being enlightened without any (or very little) preparatory training and processing. It's like being thrown out of an airplane. These people would likely then need several years of integration work in order to integrate their new perspective and mode of experience into life in a productive way. Even those who have practiced for years have quite a bit of integrating to do (read Adyashanti's "The End of Your World" for example).

I think Chris's question is directed more at how we would feel/react rather than the feasibility of such a machine being built. It's a thought experiment.

Cogitating on it, I think I would feel glad because now I don't have to wait and put in as much effort to get to where I want to go. Now I can just go to my local hospital and get a shot of radiation, provided that I can afford it. As for the effort I had put in so far, I'd feel it was worth it. I have experienced innumerable benefits from my practice and may be dead by my own hand had I not developed a regular sitting schedule.

Also, my economics training in college taught me to look at such things as sunk costs. Just look to the future because you can't change the past.

If "enlightenment" isn't something that would make it easier to be productive right away is it really enlightenment?

Whenever I have what I think of as awkening moments or insights the biggest feature of them are a sort of "ah hah" feeling that shows that there really is NO problem and that there never was one and things just seem simple and easy and in perspective and light and often funny.

But that is just me, maybe? Is there someother kind of "enlightenment" in which a person sees themselves and the world in a way that makes living more confused or complicated -- at least for a while, before the insight is intergrated?

I'm open to this answer and not feeling antagonistic

And, Chris, I'd feel disapointed with the machine because I think that part of the vibe of practice is the adventurous feeling in discovering something new and orginal for oneself. The machine would certainly take that away.

And, I don't think the "stroke of insight" lady was actually enlightened -- what happened to her was a series of changes in perception that, combined with her own intelligence and other cabilities made it possible for her to get some awakening that she may not have otherwise been able to have. Again -- I'm just discussing for the fun of thinking with friends -- I'm not trying to cause trouble or bad feelings by having a different opinion.

wrt "anger & resentment, or happiness & gratitude"-- I'd have to say none of the above; Kipling's description of the cat seems apropos... "I am the cat and walk alone; all places are alike to me."

I'm the token non-geek, or maybe even anti-geek, here in the group.

wrt "anger & resentment, or happiness & gratitude"-- I'd have to say none of the above; Kipling's description of the cat seems apropos... "I am the cat and walk alone; all places are alike to me."
I'm the token non-geek, or maybe even anti-geek, here in the group.

-kategowen

If geek means to be all into science and vocabulary and lists and experiments and articles and software, etc. I don't think I'm much of a geek either.

This question does not disappoint



-cmarti

Ah, Grasshoppah-- so cryptic!

Kate, You would have no feelings whatsoever if this discovery was made? I don't think you have to be a "geek" to appreciate the positive contribution such a discovery could have to the future of Earth. But maybe that's not what you were getting at...

But I guess there are many people (including you Chris?) who think that awakening has some kind of actual, direct effect on one's organic brain that can be located and measured, and, even, I guess, created artificially?

that these "path moments" we hear and read about have actual physical effects on one's brain that can be identified and, again, created artificially?

Is this what a lot of this "science of enlightenment" I keep hearing about but kind of ignoring is all about?



Any thoughts on this? I'm very curious

Kate, You would have no feelings whatsoever if this discovery was made? I don't think you have to be a "geek" to appreciate the positive contribution such a discovery could have to the future of Earth. But maybe that's not what you were getting at...


-sunyata

Well, the question seems to come from a different world from the one I inhabit, my own peculiar self-- where the explorations are totally subjective and idiosyncratic; where neuroscientific factoids are mildly interesting, but double-edged in their ability to shed light and deflect attention from things that are more personally significant; where I avoid doctors, hospitals, drugs, and mainstream medicine generally. Where science is not the highest form of knowledge. Where, long ago, in a previous incarnation, we truly hoped/believed that such technology had arrived in the form of psychedelics, and was [briefly] not illegal and available for $5 a trip. And where I have over 60 years' worth of observation of unintended consequences...

My Asian medicine studies have rendered me even more weird and incomprehensible than I was to start with. And that was considerably weird and incomprehensible!

[Let me try this cryptic thing...]

Agreed: science trumps belief. However, wisdom trumps science. In Kate's world, anyhow.

Having slept on your modest proposal of enlightenment for everybody, via technology, I've come up with a way of explaining my dubious raised eyebrow. It seems akin to enthusiasm over Caesarian Section and proposing that it would be wonderful if that were how all births were effected. I don't think so, for pretty much the same reasons: our primitive state of understanding of what occurs during the organic process, and all the unintended 'side effects' of such ignorance.

for even more crypticity: it is an error to attribute causality to merely accompanying effects

That is, I'm unconvinced that what has been observed by way of neural states and actions comes close to demonstrating what they mean or how they are involved in the subjective state of transcendent understanding.

@kate - bingo. i think i agree very much.

Mike - yes, it is very, very clear to me from experience and from the results of various studies that awakening is in part organic changes in the way the brain/mind processes information.
Kate - cryptic? Me???
BTW, I agree, science is not the highest form of knowledge. It's right up there, however.

-cmarti

Friendly argument/discussion:

Chris and Tomo -- interesting that you are both so sure.

However, I'm not sure I asked the question right or got the answer I was looking for. Sure, how the brain does some things must change as a person changes, evolves, wakes up, becomes more wise, etc. But my question is, is there some identifiable change in the organic structure of the brain that directly corresponds to "awakening," and/or specific "path" moments? Something that is verified or close to be being verified?

Okay, that asked, I still can't see it happening in reverse. If this enlightenment place/spot/whatever in the brain IS identified, it is the result of something that happened from a huge combination of processes and patterns within and without the specific entity (thinking as I do that we are all connected). I don't see as something simple like how a drug makes changes in the brain and then a person feels pleasure of a lack of pain temporarily. Am I making sense?

Sure, I think I get why Chris asked the question, but, like a lot of provocative questions, it created, at least for me, a bunch of new ones.

Chris: "Mike - yes, it is very, very clear to me from experience and from the results of various studies that awakening is in part organic changes in the way the brain/mind processes information."

First, to answer the original question, I would not be anger or resentful if an Enlightenment Machine was developed. That's like spending my whole life eating vegetables, jogging, and getting lots of sleep, etc., in order to maintain a healthy heart; and then, getting upset that some burger-loving, obese, beer-glugging guy could extend his life another 30 years by some new, simple heart procedure. Would that make me upset? Probably not. I'd probably be happy that I'd get to use it, and that people would be less likely to lose their loved one's unexpectedly. Anyway, that's the perspective I'm taking on this.

As to whether or not it could actually happen... I think Chris' use of "in part" in his statement is important. I have not doubt that awakening is correlated with changes in our brains. Our brains are changing constantly as we continue to participate in consciousness. However, no matter how much one's brain can be changed by drugs or by machine, I contend the meaning one attributes to changes in their perception cannot be altered in/with the brain alone. For me, human meaning is supported by the brain, but cannot be found there. In other words, having a brain is only part of what makes us human. A human being with a brain couldn't experience meaning (they'd be dead), but a human being without a social context, or participation in language, wouldn't be human either. We need both, or neither work; in fact, neither would arise without the other.

Is it really awakening if it doesn't mean awakening to the individual? Honestly, I think the context of our spiritual traditions are just as necessary for awakening as are the practices we perform. We have a community that tells us, "When this happens, it means that." And this affects both our understanding and our experience - these things are not mutually exclusive.

Now, maybe changing one's perception and relationship to both internal and external phenomena, within one's current socio-verbal context, is enough to result in awakening. Maybe we're already in the right setting. But maybe not. I guess we'll find out one of these days, if such a machine/device/procedure is ever developed and employed.

never mind - two others said the same thing while I was typing....

I wouldn't feel any of those four. I would be interested in the unintended consequences.

Also, the hypothetical seems analogous to one in which, waving a magic wand over a person's head, that person could become "mature". Maturity as a kind of holistic integration of personality in which intention and attention and feeling and thinking and imagining and sensing and relating are dynamically balanced, and emerges through how we live the unfolding of life (though undoubtedly it has neural correlates, neural activity is not all universal and structural, but also correlates with unique biographical memories that are different in each case).

Likewise awakening emerges as a modulation in the way life unfolds, through the unfolding of life, and certainly has a neural (and other biological) component(s), but there again, in part those neural changes must involve uniquenesses in each case it seems. My awakening, like my maturity, will have similarities to yours, but part of what constitutes both (in my current understanding) will be irreducibly unique and rooted in HOW I came/am coming into these shifts, and this includes all the stuff already mentioned like cultural context, personal meaning making, biological temperament, and random personal experiences.

So some questions I would wonder about:

what would *actually* be possible with the awakening machine or the maturity wand? What would awakening or maturity look like, if we could separate the universal neurophenomenal changes from the unique?

What would awakening or maturity be, without the unique biographical traces of having undergone the processes involved in organic transformation? Would they, could they, be what they actually are with the process, *without* the process? Doubt it, but not sure.