Things which damage your ability to act in the world, or your ability to maintain your body/self/character/values/image/environment. In my experience, suffering seems to be caused by the perception that damage of this nature is happening (particularly noticeable by paying attention to the sorts of things that are painful but do not cause suffering).
Hmm. Resolving this disagreement might require digging more deeply into our models of suffering than is worth going into, but it seems like a relevant data point that some advanced meditators report losing their ability to do things that could be interpreted as selling their soul. Which would seem to me at least compatible with a “meditation stops you from suffering by stopping the things that damage the soul” model (I expect that these people might suffer if they then were somehow forced to act against their values anyway).
What’s hard now is doing work I am not emotionally aligned with.It just doesn’t happen, and projects that aren’t aligned have fallen away from my life. In light of this, I’m lucky to have constructed a quirky professional life around my skills. If I hadn’t, then this could have been pretty disruptive.
It’s not that I don’t have the will to do things. It’s that my will is different. I feel plural, like my consciousness is an ongoing system, and that decisions arise from that system, rather than being dictated by a controlling ego. This is not so strange—it’s the loveliness of a normal flow state, when the human system is trusting itself rather than monitoring itself. But having it as the baseline—experiencing flow as your basic state, regardless of the simplicity or complexity of the task you’re engaged in—is wild.
I also recall reports from various people I know that they’ve lost the ability to tell lies (might say that their tongue would just freeze up) or to act in ways they feel are unethical.
Can you define “damage to the soul” more specifically?
Things which damage your ability to act in the world, or your ability to maintain your body/self/character/values/image/environment. In my experience, suffering seems to be caused by the perception that damage of this nature is happening (particularly noticeable by paying attention to the sorts of things that are painful but do not cause suffering).
Hmm. Resolving this disagreement might require digging more deeply into our models of suffering than is worth going into, but it seems like a relevant data point that some advanced meditators report losing their ability to do things that could be interpreted as selling their soul. Which would seem to me at least compatible with a “meditation stops you from suffering by stopping the things that damage the soul” model (I expect that these people might suffer if they then were somehow forced to act against their values anyway).
E.g. Sasha Chapin:
I also recall reports from various people I know that they’ve lost the ability to tell lies (might say that their tongue would just freeze up) or to act in ways they feel are unethical.