Anger & Resentment - or Happiness and Gratitude?

I think an interesting refraction of this question is: in what ways are we right now trying to treat our practice like an 'enlightenment machine'? I've actually been thinking a lot about this question. I recently gave a talk, which I neglected to record, about my impression of the 'pharmaceutical' impulse in man—that is, our impulse, more expressed currently than ever before, towards pharmakon; towards remedy, towards reaching for something that we can take or some tool that we can turn on ourselves to resolve negative sensations and relieve suffering. And how the true practice is the antithesis of that; the purposeful relinquishment of the pharmakon. At bottom this can be expressed in the need for patient endurance with certain things. But even before that there's a thousand ways that we instinctively look for the 'make it better' button, and sometimes it seems like practice is just unlearning each of those ways, one by one.

But of course practice is itself a remedy. The question of how it is a remedy and not a pharmakon is a very interesting one. A true practice in these pre-enlightenment machine days, it seems, might necessarily be one with absolutely no multiplication of effort at all. Anathema to all labor-saving devices.

Anyway, that's a possibility.

I think an interesting refraction of this question is: in what ways are we right now trying to treat our practice like an 'enlightenment machine'? I've actually been thinking a lot about this question. I recently gave a talk, which I neglected to record, about my impression of the 'pharmaceutical' impulse in man—that is, our impulse, more expressed currently than ever before, towards pharmakon; towards remedy, towards reaching for something that we can take or some tool that we can turn on ourselves to resolve negative sensations and relieve suffering. And how the true practice is the antithesis of that; the purposeful relinquishment of the pharmakon. At bottom this can be expressed in the need for patient endurance with certain things. But even before that there's a thousand ways that we instinctively look for the 'make it better' button, and sometimes it seems like practice is just unlearning each of those ways, one by one.
But of course practice is itself a remedy. The question of how it is a remedy and not a pharmakon is a very interesting one. A true practice in these pre-enlightenment machine days, it seems, might necessarily be one with absolutely no multiplication of effort at all. Anathema to all labor-saving devices.
Anyway, that's a possibility.

-cruxdestruct

but let's say that if in fact the real fruit of "practice," the real benefit and way to relieve suffering is in a living realization that there really wasn't any problem or suffering in the first place due to living in the illusion of separation -- who or what would want or need anything to "make it better?" Where would the pill land in the body/brain? Where would the enlightenment machine apply it's brain change?

Or was that another way of saying what you were saying?

...the true practice is the antithesis of that; the purposeful relinquishment of the pharmakon. At bottom this can be expressed in the need for patient endurance with certain things. But even before that there's a thousand ways that we instinctively look for the 'make it better' button, and sometimes it seems like practice is just unlearning each of those ways, one by one.
But of course practice is itself a remedy. The question of how it is a remedy and not a pharmakon is a very interesting one. A true practice in these pre-enlightenment machine days, it seems, might necessarily be one with absolutely no multiplication of effort at all. Anathema to all labor-saving devices.
Anyway, that's a possibility.


-cruxdestruct

I think that's wisely thought out. Can awakening be awakening if one does not unlearn like that? I don't know. We also tend to think (as Kate mentioned with C-sections) that our "cures" for "problems" are solutions, when they often are based on a less than whole understanding of the entire system (body, mind, etc.). And then there are the "side effects" we didn't plan on. It may be, (though perhaps not) that the process of the journey itself is an integral part of awakening, and even if one had a magic wand to rewire the brain, the awakening that resulted from that would not be the same in fundamental ways as the awakening developed by the process of practice. Whether that's good or bad, I have no idea. But it would likely be a very, very different thing.

You realize, given human nature that it would be about five minutes before they figured out a way to use such a machine or a spinoff of it as a torture device or war machine.

(see nuclear energy, fertilizer, fire, and the wheel)

I really like the point you're making, Crux.



This hypothetical situation is comparable to the use of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of various psychological disorders. For example, sometimes individuals with panic disorder are prescribed fast-acting benzodiazepines like Ativan or Xanax, which quickly suppress the anxiety symptoms. But, it is almost always the case that providing quick relief only makes the problem worse. Rather than learning to use their bodies and and minds to tolerate and experience anxiety - thus reconditioning their fear response - they place all their hopes in something that is outside of their concious control - a pill.



So, a potential downside to an enlightenment machine might be that the effects wouldn't really last. If people expect it to remain in place, simply because their brains have been altered, they may be more likely to fall back into old habits that undermine the effects of the treatment/procedure. Our brains are changing constantly, as they should. Part of this whole awakening business is building skillful patterns of behavior that keep on moving in the right direction. I don't imagine this being any different after awakening.

Part of this whole awakening business is building skillful patterns of behavior that keep on moving in the right direction. I don't imagine this being any different after awakening.


-awouldbehipster

Hence, "After the machine, the sandwich." There is always the next important thing, whether profound or mundane, if that distinction even makes sense.

"There is always the next important thing, whether profound or mundane, if that distinction even makes sense." -Shargrol

Interesting. It seems that distinction make less sense over time.

Jackson, How come you're not a fan of Spiral Dynamics?

I find it interesting that rather than address the hypothetical posed people are more interested in addressing why the hypothetical is impossible, or more like something they already know.
[image]


-cmarti

How does that fail to address the hypothetical-- albeit not in the way in which you intended?

"Jackson, How come you're not a fan of Spiral Dynamics?" -Jake2

It was developed from a research design that was very poorly designed and executed. The model is somewhat useful, but not reliable enough for me to bank on. I think they got lucky in a sense, in that they were able to expand their interpretion of their studies based on other, pre-existing and well-developed developmental theories.

Doesn't mean it's not interesting, though

Okay, so say the machine could awaken people and they would awaken in such a way that their awakening would be recognizable and "normal" - so a zen master or advaita teacher or knowledgeable teacher or colleague would sit down and interview them and say "yep, that's awakening". Nothing missing or wrong or defective or weird about it.

My total gut reaction, imagining that as vividly as I can (I'm literally creating the scene in my mind as strongly as possible), is a combination of wariness and disbelief. Really? I then imagine myself tentatively interacting with such a person, trying to feel out their experience. I can't get past a sort of mental image of me walking around such a person who is sitting in my dining room, looking at them from all angles and poking them like some kind of specimen, asking question after question to try to ascertain where we share an experience of things and where we might not. I now imagine the person saying something that really resonates with my own experience, so there is a real sense of personal connection. I feel a combination of wistfulness and joy.

Better?

Jackson, You seem very knowledgeable in these areas and I haven't read up much on the actual research behind SD and figured you may have. So I appreciate your opinion, thanks. I do know that the original SD book by Cowen and Beck did not hold my interest at all--it seemed all over the place.

It is interesting though that most of us have so much trouble imagining such a machine that it's hard to then imagine how we'd feel about it's existence.

Do you think it is because we are so invested in our own private dramas/narratives (it's an adventure movie staring ourslves) about our own efforts toward awakening that we just don't want to go there? Or, maybe we want to "practice" to become "enlightened" so we can then become something special that other people aren't. If a machine could just do it for everyone -- then, shit, we can't become special anymore. What's the fun in that?

That said, I literally cannot fathom that such a machine would work because I don't think enlightenment is located in a single SPOT in the brain that would only require some kind of manipulation to then produce an awakened person. It really makes no sense to me. Awakening is an elusive combination of lots of stuff -- material and non material. I'm pretty sure.

And I also have trouble thinking of enlightenment as something that happens in fixed stages -- stream entry and your brain changes this much, next step/path and it changes again in a certain identifyable way for good, and on and on step by step. I guess that is what a lot of people think and it could be true of course. But so far I think it can come and go based upon practice and grace and a really awake person can slip back -- how far back I'm not sure.

Maybe, though, if the machine existed and every human got to use it -- nothing would change. What is the saying? before enlightenment trees were trees and mountains were mountains and then after enlightenment -- trees are trees and mountains mountains, nothing special.
We'd all still have our instincts and DNA and we'd all still be competing for the best mates and we'd protect our kids, maybe we'd all just kind of do it all with the knowledge that it was all just a dance? I don't know.

@chris, I feel like you have an ulterior motive (ie you recently read something? or some conversation somewhere sparked a ponder?).

I think the machine thing is distracting, and it clearly gets in the way of the question.

What if you stated it instead, "how would you feel if you had spent 20 years meditating, attending retreats, working with teachers before you awakened, and one day your cousin called and said he'd awakened, and he'd only had any kind of practice for about three months."

Would that get at the same point?

I created this topic because I was interested in how people here feel about the possible substitution of technology for effort in regard to what we do. That substitution happened over and over again in our history and I suspect will happen with increasing frequency in our future. I think one day, assuming we don't destroy ourselves and/or the planet beforehand, human beings will be able to engineer the combination of chemistry, physics and biology that may make up the attributes that some folks have and that we currently call "awake."

-cmarti

It's interesting, I think the whole ideal of technology mediated enlightenment of "buddhist geeks" is a red herring. I do not doubt that the majority (50+%) of young adults could be enlightened if the culture included it in education. I think it would be a natural consequence of daily practice and a few short retreats a year and a few months of retreat when the timing is right. No technology needed. But where probably 100+ years away from anything like that. Technology is attractive because it might be a quick fix, but, like others, I doubt it will be due to unintended consequences.

I actually thought Chris question was essentially: how much of an identity do you carry around that is associated with "a hard working meditator"?.

But if you asked me if a machine could make it so that I could instantly speak French I'd have the same reaction. I don't think it is possible.

It's like the woman from the "stroke of ...." (enlightenment?) speech. Yes, her brain changed in such a way that she saw things differently for a time but that didn't mean see was also instantly enlightened.

'ta, guys-- I'm off on retreat for a few days.

I just experienced shock and surprise at taking the observation that people are constituted DIFFERENTLY from one another-- and from me!-- to a new level. The context was an astrology class I'm taking, but it's everywhere. Here on our small group, for sure. Ming likes to say his teachers used to answer his vexed questions about whether A or B was better/more appropriate/truer with 'Yes.'

Perhaps that riddle will keep me company on the windswept North Coast...

Chris, I think it's an interesting hypothetical. I would have had an easier answer in the past, which would have included all four of those emotions in varying degrees, for all the obvious reasons. Just that in my own path, where I'm at, I relate to this hypothetical in a different way.

Now I find it more interesting in that it illuminates certain assumptions about what constitutes awakening being a set of traits. I think this way of talking about things is useful, but limited. Lately I'm more interested in and hence noticing more (or the other way round? lol) the way in which the basic elements or traits of awakening play out in actual human life. Life is a process of experiencing and doing and relating, yeah? So the big differences between more and less awakened life to me are all differences in the processes of doing, relating and experiencing, not a set of traits that belong to a static thing, and if the thing has them it is awake and if not it is not. See what I'm getting at?

The actual playing out of awakeness and authenticity in relationships and life seem much more significant to me than the bare set of shifts that produce the capacity for increased awakeness and authenticity. Awakeness isn't these bare shifts, it's what we do with them. Without enactment, awakeness is just a potential. So the best a machine could do is make it easier to provide an opportunity to live a more awake life. The way I used to feel about this hypothetical, summed up in your thread title, simply don't apply to the actual me right now, because they were based on a whole different attitude to what awakening was.

Stated differently, while I can imagine a machine that imparts prajna mechanically, maybe, I don't see awakening as prajna-only, any more than a human being is cognitive-perceptual only. Rather, awakening to me is a holistic set of shifts in the domains of the three trainings, insofar as these correlate with integral facets of human nature. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, awakening is as awakening does. Otherwise, it seems to me, we aren't really talking about awakening at all, any more than talking about a post-pubescent human whose forebrain is all wired up is talking about an adult The neuro-phenomenal changes simply open a door to a different way of being-in-the-world, then it's up to us to walk through it.