Thinking about thinking to be free of thinking.
Vadim Golub
Karma: 18
I am not beyond good and bad. Therefore my model is simple, everything that tends to ahimsa is good, everything that violates it is bad. It doesn’t mean I can 100% follow the ahimsa principle myself, in fact many times I realise that it’s an impossibility! But I still try my best to tend in that direction. In Buddhist Dhammapada it is implied that the intention is almost more important than action itself. Perhaps, it’s just the mechanism of calming myself down, when I realise that ahimsa is practically impossible. But I do what I can.
I think I don’t agree that the dose makes the poison. If the intention is to cause harm even a little, and the resultant harm is not so big, it is still the intention that matters. I think we feel that subconsciously, we are our own best judges what concerns ethical behavior. When we cultivate such intentions (even if no harm is actually done) sooner or later they will poison our life. The evil disposition is not only harmful to the recipient but it’s most harmful to the host of such disposition. As it leads to loosing the peace of mind and murky conscience.
Even the edge cases like the one mentioned above feel that they are doing something wrong. And would not like to live in society that would operate on their principles. They are only “enjoying their time” because most people follow the rules. One can say eventually it’s not about being good and bad, but about the optimal behavior in order for society to work. Society cannot operate without trust between its members. Trust is like a Proof of Work in human relations. It implies that certain work has been performed, even if it is work on ethos of the member.
Aristotle would agree to that as he basically defined ethos as the work done by individual to figure out the middle between edge cases. And it doesn’t mean it is something “mild”—not too hot, not too cold. The middle of the person with developed ethos might seem like an extreme from the perspective of the person of undeveloped ethos. That’s why ascetics, saints and sages are important even if their cases don’t generalize well. They really show where that “middle” really lies. Buddha was saying the same thing. The middle is not established by an average person’s standards (who didn’t go through the process of developing the strong ethos). But by those who are established on a different level of relation to the world (who developed their ethos). Their middle way is usually seems too harsh from an average person’s perspective, but it sets the plank right. And we can develop our ethos by just tending in that direction (even if imperfectly, as that develops devotion and right intention).
That was a rant, but trust is important. It is more so than the principles of good and bad. As it tends in the direction of equilibrium of society. It represents an optimal strategy of unfolding. If trust is lost, society as a rule deteriorates. The same goes for the person. If one is distrustful of everyone, one is dispersed to many unhelpful directions. Concentration on a single (and deep) task becomes difficult. But when one looses trust? When one starts wishing harm for another and is suspicious that it is mutual. So we are back to ahimsa, it is not simply “good” as in judgement about values, it is the mechanism that supports trust in society. So it’s really an optimal behavior that makes trust possible.
I must also have benefited positively from thinking too much, since I’m basically devoid of malice by now. Even when I want enemies gone, it’s for practical reasons and not due to hate.
That’s actually beautiful, as it shows that you’ve developed your ethos through computation of a certain complexity (reflection). That’s your PoW, that will allow you to reap benefits in healthy society build on trust. And for yourself not to spend time on ruminating how “someone might hurt you”. But whether the society is healthy or not that’s another topic. In any case you will reap internal benefits of not wanting to harm anyone. I’m sure of that.
your elephant seems to want this reassurance
Not necessarily. I would be more than content with a state of mind too. It’s only that it seems that it is also more real than my perception of this world in the default state. But what do I know?
why an abundance mindset leads to a large reduction in evil
Exactly! Magnanimity is a strong virtue.
that which is under is rather crude and unattractive
Why do you assume that? Granted I had only glimpses but they were in no way crude or unattractive. It was a total unconditional acceptance, all-permeating tranquility and glorious silence. Peace of mind is the greatest bliss in my perspective. The rest doesn’t disappear it just seems different, and more pronounced and complete, even the little things. Getting to that state even once a day would make life a beautiful journey even in difficult circumstances. Not even speaking of the permanent establishment in that state.
excessive anxiety
Or curiosity as in my case. I came to this question through curiosity. But then anxiety appeared on the scene. And it turned out that’s the best tool to deal with anxiety too.
Hence the importance of immersion.
You can be immersed in many things. In thoughts and feelings are the one edge case. That’s where you are immersed with “the movie”. In being is another. That’s where you are immersed with “the screen”. Your inclinations direct you in one of these ways. My intention is to shift attention from the movie to the screen on the permanent basis, i.e. from thoughts and feelings to simple being. But your inclinations will define what you want from life. As they say: when one sees a beautiful dream one doesn’t want to wake up, it’s only when the dream turns into a nightmare that one wants to wake up. In my view, it’s not necessary to wait for a nightmare, curiosity is enough to have the intention to wake up from even a beautiful dream.
In other words, the problem is that one thinks there’s a problem to begin with.
I think, that is correct and an insight. In my case it’s just not stable under any circumstances. I attempt to make it stable. Otherwise, beautifully put.
When I really want to do something, the feeling of effort does not even exist, because there’s no friction.
That’s beautiful too. In my case I do almost everything through resistance. ADHD means the DMN cannot shut up, so you’ve effectively found the way to shut it down with some autotelic process. That’s a win.
you should be able to make plans which secure a better future for yourself
Thank you for your kind words. In my case, all the futures I can predict are no go, except for awakening. So I’m practically forced to let go and surrender (random YouTube recommendation that popped up in my feed lately, spot on and beautiful). And that’s where the elephant lets me breathe, when I (the rider) realise I’m not in control. And there were some unexpected good outcomes that I couldn’t have planned beforehand. So letting go works for me. It’s also the most important aspect of the way. Letting go is not just giving up, it’s an active process which requires practice (e.g. the Sedona Method) and acceptance of what is. There is a beautiful verse of Ramana Maharshi that describes this:
Know that while the Lord is bearing the entire burden of all the beings of the world, the pseudo-self assuming to bear this burden is like the caryatid figure in a tower appearing to sustain the tower, a droll comedy of figurines provoking ridicule. If one, journeying in a carriage that can carry heavy loads, keeps his burden not in the carriage but on his own head and thereby suffers pain, who is to be blamed?
-- Reality in Forty Verses, Supplement #17
I simply am.
That’s actually beautiful and can be an insight too. Most people say, “I am this” or “I am that” and few just say “I simply am”. Why it can be an insight? When we stop identifying with “being this” or “being that”, we simply are established in being itself. Most folks create metaphysical entities out of everyday notions, the map’s view of the territory confused with the territory itself. Like someone is saying, “I am a simple man”, he creates “a simple man” class in his map and measures everyone else based on that notion, in most cases it means he is far from being “a simple man” and he further endows such class with subconscious virtue of “simplicity”, which is again not so simple but represents a metaphysical notion ascribed to the territory as it’s imagined in the map. Therefore, the most honest and sincere thing one can say, “I am”. Implying “I’m neither this nor that”, not defined by circumstances or other people. It can be a deep insight if that’s experienced fully.
I experience it, just like I experience ornaments.
You say “I experience it”? Are there two “I”s—one the experiencer and another experienced? Where is this experiencer? Is it somewhere in the body? Where is it situated? If that’s a single entity one should be able to spot it or its products. If it is a conglomeration of thoughts, how can it be termed single integrated unit? I ask because in my experience I cannot find any entity, yet actions are performed and thoughts are directed to someone. Who is this one? It’s like Bassui wrote in his Talk on One Mind, “It may be asserted that behind these actions there is no entity, yet it is obvious they are being performed spontaneously. Conversely, it may be maintained that these are the acts of some entity; still the entity is invisible.” So who is the experiencer? Where is he? In the head? Behind the eyes? In the body? etc. This inquiry will work only if you have the similar questions, otherwise it will not have sense. That’s also alright. Not everyone is attracted to the same koan.
none can be proved to be either ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’
But he is far from being awakened. I think that his elephant is seriously sick which led him to his actions. If there is thinking that taking another being’s life is freedom, that means something is terribly wrong with the elephant. I believe that it all stems from the genetic make up of the brain. What he says about values is not necessarily wrong. But. If values are only ephemeral then why choose ‘wrong’ over ‘right’, why impinge on someone else’s freedom? This question has no answer. I tend to follow the principle of ahimsa and categorical imperative of Kant, that one behaves in the way that may be applied as a universal rule. It doesn’t mean you expect other people behave in the same way, that’s just my perspective and other people’s actions are up to them. That’s the same principle Jesus expressed with his Golden Rule.
I also would not call that intolerant to isolate such people from society, as they are fundamentally sick and pose a danger to other beings. One doesn’t think it’s intolerant to go away from the elephant in the rut. It’s a common sense to protect the organism. The same applies here. The same applies to myself. If I ever would pose a danger to other beings, I would like to be either isolated or liquidated. As none of us has a guarantee that won’t be the case, we can only hope that it will work out somehow.
In general such principles as ahimsa are needed for the seekers and not for the liberated. For the liberated there is no need of them, that doesn’t mean they will kill other people. As the metaphor goes, if you realise that everything you perceive is your own Self, how could you harm anyone? It would be tantamount of hurting your own Self. Therefore they say, what is experienced as truth for the liberated (e.g. ahimsa), is the means of practice for the rest. Which means while we are not liberated it is wise to listen to sages and correct one’s behavior in a certain way. What is truth for them, becomes means for us to reach to that state. It’s not imitation, it’s emulation.
Thinking, itself, undermines thinking
Thinking does undermine itself. But the insight is something beyond thinking it’s on the holistic level, it’s on the gut level (or what they call in spiritual traditions the Heart). The wise use of thinking is to breakthrough to that holistic level. And your analogy with fuel is indeed spot on. As Ramana Maharshi expressed in his work “Who am I?”: “The thought ‘Who am I?’ will destroy all other thoughts, and like the stick used for stirring the burning pyre, it will itself in the end get destroyed.” So we might use thinking wisely, to go beyond it, to the pre-conceptual level.
how do you know that you’re describing something external from the human brain at all?
I cannot reply to this question pre-awakening. But it is described as the mind getting out of the way. What I experienced in those rare glimpses showed that “I” was not the body but the field of awareness itself. And there no question of external or internal arose. Questions and doubts stop bugging one there. It’s not like I can guarantee that that’s a reality, just there is no one to whom it matters how to call it. The doubter dissolves.
Bad things don’t exist, as “bad” is a judgement and not a trait.
Exactly. But that doesn’t make you want to hurt other people. Why would it? You don’t want to hurt one’s leg or arm. One might consider hurting other people if one identifies with one’s body and takes another as another body and derives pleasure from overpowering another. So it’s deeply entangled with the belief “I am the body”. If one looks at oneself as at the body, one takes another to be the body also. That belief is the root-belief and it’s most difficult to let go of. Awakening might be defined as the dissolution of the belief that you are (only) the body.
is still a human experience from a human perspective, and thus decorated in a sense
Decoration remains even after awakening. The difference is that identity shifts from name and form (the default mode) to being-consciousness-bliss, from ornaments to gold. It’s like one of these images that show a different picture depending how you look at it.
What is experienced as an existential issue is actually a philosophical issue, which is actually a psychological issue.
I don’t agree here. An existential threat is something that threatens the integrity of the organism is not a psychological issue, it’s an existential issue. It has a psychological aspect but is not limited to it.
What concerns that psychologically healthy people don’t have existential issues, they might not be aware of the underlying questions that direct their life, like “What is the meaning of it all?” or “Who am I?”.
Every person sane or insane comes to one of this questions and has a local answer to it. Why the answer is local? Because it generally changes throughout one’s life. It’s not static. But some answer is usually provided, even if unconsciously. For example, you gave your answer to the question “Who am I?” as “I am this body”. Some person might value the family or friends above everything else, so to him “What is the meaning of it all?” is the family and relations. And so on. The person might not be aware that he is asking these questions and answers them, but the answers can be deduced from his values and intentions. They generally change implicitly with age, situations, etc. and explicitly with reflection. They cannot be “right” or “wrong” and generalized to many. They are highly unique and intimate. They are always about you as you’ve yourself noted. That is, “What’s the meaning of life?” means, “What’s the meaning of my life?”
So I claim that your current answers to questions “Who am I?” and “What is the meaning of it all?” reflect your current experience of life. I can give you my current answers as an example. To “Who am I?” my brain just shuts up (for a moment), it is silent with regard to the answer, I already know that “body/mind/human” are just thoughts. That’s why this question is also the best therapy, as it quietens the compulsive thinking. To “What is the meaning of it all?” my answer is “Liberation” or “Freedom from thoughts”. Even an attempt to answer them (even to oneself) starts a reflection process. That’s why I believe they are important.
There is an I
And how do you know that, seriously? Did you see it? How do you spot it? Where in the body it is situated? What is that centre from which all actions seem to stem?
No, well, then I will only half-ass the effort
Ha-ha. Yes, there are times when I doubt I’m being sincere with the effort. However, the technique is universal, the question pops up, “Who doubts that he is sincere?” And it turns into a game. The pattern however is easy, when I reach a state of no-thoughts I feel elated afterwards and practice seems to click. The concentration is strong and so on. But when I cannot reach it, it feels dumb and not engaging. So I struggle with it willy-nilly. I cannot spot the pattern yet when the practice seems to work.
I tried to let brain do what it likes and it doesn’t go well, it’s constantly anxious with regards to the future. So in my case some process is necessary. “Do nothing” doesn’t work as a rule (sometimes it does though and it’s sweet), as the brain cannot shut up. I think everyone should come up with his own heuristics with regards to the mental make up. Among many therapeutic practices that I’ve tried self-inquiry turned out to be the best even in that regard (that was unexpected as I was not pursuing it from the therapeutic standpoint). I genuinely think it’s the best tool I’ve discovered in my whole life.
Do you know Conway’s game of life?
Yeah, I enjoy the concept of cellular automata and work that Wolfram is doing with his physics project is similar. I especially like what Jonathan Gorard does there and his thought experiments. Math there is beyond my head, I cannot read the papers straight (I tried), but intuitively I can follow his thought experiments which concerns the observer and its model of space and time as being the lag in computation. E.g. a great speculative video, Discussion About Alien Intelligence, a tad too long but very interesting.
But you can’t really remove all the bias from a person without also removing some of the person.
And I’m willing to risk it. Especially considering how humane awakened people generally are, they are more compassionate not less in the result of loosing biases. It shows that there is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing of importance is lost. But what concerns society improvements I agree with you. Generally, sages didn’t directly attempt to change society, and said something like, “First change yourself, then see if society needs changing.”
If consciousness is emergent, it’s very possible that it is.
I’m saying something more radical there. Consciousness is not emergent from the field. The field itself is consciousness. What I meant by proto-consciousness is pure consciousness without content. Which has a potential to appear many. In that model we are not the bodies we identify ourselves with, we are indeed that field. The empirical consciousness of the mind is a reflection of that pure consciousness.
It’s back to analogy of the moon that reflects in many waters in the pots. Water in the pot that reflects the moon is the individual mind. The reflected image of the moon is empirical consciousness. The moon is pure consciousness. When we are entangled with the body we identify ourselves with it. But when we disentangle ourselves from the body as in deep sleep, meditation or awakening, we realise ourselves as being pure consciousness. After awakening we can perform actions in the empirical world while not loosing the insight of ourselves being that pure consciousness. It’s the identification with the body that we awake from.
...we can’t be sure that the way we experience consciousness is how the universe would experience itself if it was conscious.
That’s beautifully put dilemma, which as they say resolves itself on awakening. You exactly realise the non-separation from the universe as pure consciousness itself. But intellectually it is futile to understand it. I have some premonition which stems from my meditation experiences but it’s too weak to say more and not to distort it.
there’s no distinction between foreground and background
That’s the major insight if you experience it directly, not just intellectually. In Advaita they give an analogy of gold and ornaments made of gold. When you look at ornaments, you forget about gold. When you look at gold, you forget about ornaments. But in truth it’s all one and the same.
My worldview allows for “A reality” which is not “THE reality”.
We look at it similarly, your working hypothesis is that it is “locally real” and my working hypothesis—“unreal in the ultimate sense”. In the same sense that ornaments made of gold are “unreal”, while gold, their substratum, is “real”. Calling it locally real is fine by me also.
The name of a folder on a computer.
It’s exactly what Advaita also says. The full description of reality is Sat-Cit-Ananda-nama-rupa, which means Being-Consciousness-Bliss-name-form. It considers Being-Consciousness-Bliss as substratum (gold), and nama-rupa as superimposition on it (ornaments). Name and form is something that is subject to change, exactly as you’ve described with the folders. I also view it in a similar way.
Your case is interesting, you dislike the dream so much that you sometimes wish you were never born, but you’re also really attached to it.
Yeah, I cannot snap out of it. You might indeed be less attached than I am. But I think it’s not so special to be attached to the dream, it’s unfortunately rather a default state. Most likely your strong capacity for analysis helps you to disentangle from it. And yes, duality is an aspect of the mind, it is indeed can be transcended in meditation. That’s the aim.
people do it less as they get older and attribute more things to themselves
I agree that we are our own worst enemy. But this generalization of yours is way too generous. I would rather say it’s the people who think deeply about these matters understand it. It’s just for some thinking about it happens in older age. But some understand it even young.
Not only does realizing this allow you to ‘grasp’ less things, it also allows you to waste less cognitive resources, by defending yourself against less sensory inputs.
You are constantly making the move that Nāgārjuna also did—analyse something down to its very constituents and see it as ephemeral in the result (I know you would not frame it like that). But that doesn’t generalize well as one has to possess a certain complexity of the brain to perform such analysis. I do it myself at times, what concerns “big” things. But I don’t have enough bandwidth to do it with Coca-Cola or smoking, so I just drink Coca-Cola and smoke.
I don’t differentiate much between psychological issues and existential issues
Psychological relates to thinking, existential relates to being itself. Not both occur in the mind. Existential is on the holistic level, which concerns all of the organism (mind included). It’s rather felt that thought. It’s closer to the marrow of things.
I think “Who am I?” is a wrong question
It does engage me paradoxically as a koan should. I would say it’s not exactly presupposes the existence of underlying reality, it’s rather questions whether there is any “I” at all. Hands are moving, sounds are heard, thoughts are happening, who is the master of it all? I cannot spot for the sake of me any entity! I came up with this question myself before I encountered other people who were talking about it, and it led me to some mystical non-dual experiences. I tried many things myself, but the best is that simple question. Which my mind cannot grasp or give an intellectual answer for. It bugs me in a good way.
Throw away stuff which isn’t ‘you’, stuff you picked up because others did, because other people told you to, because you felt obligated, etc.
That’s another important aspect of the practice—letting go. I do that and it’s helpful and that’s exactly how the question works for me! It negates everything as not-”I”. Am I my problems? No. Am I my body? No. Am I my feelings? No. Am I my thoughts? No. What is left there? … [Silence] And that silence sometimes becomes more profound and envelops all else and peace is felt. When in that state, the brain goes through some restructuring, it likes it and as a rule I can take life easier after that.
Self-inquiry is the best tool that I’ve discovered among many-many other things (psychological, hacks, self-improvement techniques, and so on). So I know where I am going and the means to get there. The only thing which remains is doing the practice and perseverance. I already know on the gut level that’s the shortest path there. So here I have no doubts. I only doubt that it’s possible in my case, with my mind (it’s not neurotypical, which means that the DMN is overly active in my case, it’s more difficult to shut down self-rumination).
Almost all limitations are self-imposed
With that I wholeheartedly agree. Reverse-engineering of other people behavior helps to some extent and self-help books are also valuable help but in the end it all comes down to the question, “Who is it that tries to improve?”, “Who is is that suffers?” I just have to be more consistent with practice. I already do it in long sessions and introduced 2 minutes breaks to do it throughout the day. So I’m on the way. The rest is that quote of yours about setbacks and that success may be just around the corner so don’t stop halfway there.
You can’t have thinking without physical matter, and thoughts are made of physical matter.
But here you are assuming that we know what that physical matter is. And when you use the words like location, you’ve already assumed space and time. What I am hinting at is that the field in which it all arises may itself be conscious. Not our psychological understanding of consciousness but something like proto-consciousness. Perturbation of which leads to arising of matter, not a long stretch from the QFT. It’s back to turtles all the way down. Or what was first a particle or a field. I’m basically saying that the field is fundamental and a particle a temporary excitation of that field.
How does it relate to Gaudapada’s quote? It is basically saying that the particle is essentially a local derivative (not in a literal sense) of the field (which is fundamental), in order to detect it on the macro level some background information from the macro level has to be assumed like space and time. But unless it is observed it cannot said to be fully manifest in the field. It’s only during the interaction that the measurement process takes place (it’s most likely highly non-linear otherwise we would already have the explanation for the collapse of the WF). It’s basically Wheeler’s participatory universe interpretation.
That’s what I mean when I say the reality cannot be said to be real from the perspective of the underlying field. And I make an unsubstantiated claim that the field is self-revealing or self-luminous, i.e. conscious.
Apart from that it’s a psychological coping mechanism for me to think that everything that has a beginning and an end cannot be considered substantial in the end run. It helps me to let go of the psychological grip that otherwise tyrannizes me with its bars of “reality”. When in a nightmare I know I’m dreaming it makes the experience somewhat lighter, I know it’s not for real and sooner or later it will end. I regard this life in the same vein. I cannot say like you, that it’s better to be born and suffer than never to be born, because there are times when I wish I was not born. During such times the only relief I have is that I remember that it will end at some point. That’s why Gaudapada’s quote hits close to home for me.
But most importantly, when you start philosophizing about matter, you do it in thinking. And what I tried to express is that I don’t deny the processes that stand beyond thinking but I view thinking phenomenologically, i.e. when awake the world and the seer of it appears, when in the deep sleep they both disappear, phenomenologically, not scientifically. Very simply like for a kid. Something that appears at one time and disappears at another, I do not call real. If the world and the seer were real they would appear without disappearing. But they do disappear in the deep sleep. Why select the deep sleep? Because it’s the third state among waking, dreaming and sleeping. Waking shows me that dream is not real. Deep sleep shows me that waking is not real. Very simply, almost primitively. Phenomenologically thoughts do appear out of nowhere, and subside there, therefore they cannot torment me constantly. Take it as description of empirical experience, not as a theory and it becomes clear. You attempt to analyze everything, and what I attempted to express is primitively simple, almost childish.
I’m claiming that it’s literally impossible to break such ‘containment’
Yeah, I agree about that. When they say, “You will see things as they are after the awakening”, it means a slightly different thing. It doesn’t mean you will literally see what is. It means that self-rumination is turned off. A self-subversive commentary that we all run. And mountains will be just mountains. As sickness, or despair, or death. Without the on-going commentary, “What it all means?”
To the extent that you’re similar to the universe, learning about yourself can teach you about the universe.
Yes, I believe that some principle of equivalence takes place when we shut down the noise in the mind. But I cannot say anything about the nature of it as, first, I only experience it rarely to study it fully, and, second, I lack a proper capacities and preparation to dissect it and express in terms of good models. I think there are many brilliant people who have also experienced awakening are up for the task. My goal is to get an experience, and not to understand it in the scheme of things.
Actually, I think the models are important, but that one should not grow attached to them
Yes! But it’s easier said than done. Also I believe some models are (if not universal) then generalize to many environments. You probably know math better than I’d ever wish for. But the principles of relativity, symmetries, conservation laws and invariants hold the ground firmly even when we change the perspective.
If I can’t predict the future then my knowledge isn’t real, and if I can predict the future then my agency isn’t real.
In my case it’s slightly more complicated. The knowledge one uses in this reality is as real as the said reality and I don’t dismiss it as unhelpful. On the contrary, I believe it gives me free energy in overcoming many entropic pits, which I would otherwise fall into and would have a worse time. And the second part, I can predict the future with about 70-80% accuracy just because I don’t consider myself as an agent. It’s just I don’t like the predictions that much. But life so far had many surprises that I could not predict and that were coming my way unsolicited. When I thought I was in the very depth of depression and didn’t want anything (literally), I had experienced most profound experience of peace and tranquility in meditation. Since than I know that it is possible and try to repeat it. The new door opened where I didn’t expect it to open (namely, inside).
Life requires change, which requires time.
Here, I am not competent enough to answer you scientifically. But experientially psychologically when you experience that state of no-thoughts (and other mystical states, i.e. when the perception of the world shuts down) it feels like you are beyond time and it feels like the memory is wiped out. Do these insights transfer to stochastic processes or similar models I cannot tell. I think they do and I think there are people who are working on it.
Category theory might hold the answer but it might also just be abstract nonsense.
I think there are no useless knowledge, it will close the gaps and make the bridges in different fields. But it’s not a game for everyone as you’ve mentioned.
And very well, you can end the SRIN. But I find it strange that you’re discussing philosophy and talking about life, when you’re trying to solve a psychological issue.
You see, I don’t divide knowledge in categories, I indeed tend to learn what seems helpful to me on the path. But oftentimes (and earlier in life) I am just plain curious, and I cannot help it. I think most knowledge can be helpful and is transformative in a good way. Even if it is to show me how little do I know. But you are right in one regard, I have to be more practical and concentrate more on practice. I tend to philosophize when not engaged in practice and it may be detrimental in the long run. But some people like watching TVs, or read fiction books, I happen not to enjoy these things, but I enjoy (soft) philosophizing and it was a great conversation to be sure! And one more note, it’s not just a psychological issue, it’s a holistic existential issue, it relates to the very being, to “Who am I, really?” And that question is not answerable in logic or in thinking, but only existentially, holistically.
I had constant negative thoughts, and I reflected on them
You see what you did! You reflected the old “you” from the system! That’s philosophizing’s power. That’s exactly what Piatigorsky’s quote is all about. That’s also insight. It’s cool that it’s worked for you like that. I still catch many enthusiastic tones from your text, which I believe is on the level of BIOS of the mind of an individual. Perhaps it’s an echo of youth, as when one is young one is generally believes that things are more capable of change than they really are (I shamelessly generalize here). And as Lazarus suggested, “patients who engaged in denial about the seriousness of their situation did better than those who were more “realistic”″ So maybe you are right in believing that you can reach for the stars.
The logic is sound in that, in order for something to be able to hallucinate, something must exist.
Yes! We establish thinking based on being, not vice versa. Being is pre-conceptual. Everything else we might doubt, but that doubting happens in being. It’s like in a VR-world, we may question its content but not the fact of our being. All images may be unreal (I know you consider it real as long as immersion lasts, but I don’t), but the feeling of existence is fundamental to all that.
In Advaita tradition they call the reality Sat-Cit-Ananda. Sat is being. Cit is consciousness (awareness of being). Ananda is bliss (we are generally happy that we are, even in the depressed state or while assessing suicide, we value that we are, we might not like the pictures that are shown to us, be we like that fundamental substratum of being). Gaudapada actually said, “What is not Sat in the beginning and in the end, cannot be Sat in the middle”. So it means both reality and existence.
The computer existed prior to the program, and it will exist after the program finishes executing.
You see, I take here a phenomenological stance. I don’t know anything about the brain in a dream (except if it’s a part of the dream). Nor do I know anything about memory and neurotransmitters until I start thinking. That knowledge is not intrinsic to me as the knowledge of my being is. It may be called superimposed knowledge. In the deep sleep my thinking doesn’t function and I don’t know anything about the apparatus presumed to do such thinking, but I still am.
I take that knowledge of being as fundamental and primary to other knowledge that my senses tell me. If you will, that’s the only real thing that I have no doubt about. I may mistrust my senses or my thoughts and the world that they build, but not my being. To me it’s still mindblowing to think that all I know about the world and “myself” is mediated through the senses and thoughts! Therefore I tend to mistrust that “reality” as my senses and my thoughts are often lying to me, but I don’t mistrust the reality of being itself. So to me being and consciousness are fundamental to all other knowledge and information. Buddhists, btw, don’t agree with that. They consider consciousness as the product of nescience or primal ignorance. So they take it as a part of the spectacle. They say that the final state is neither consciousness nor its absence. Which is impossible to grasp intellectually. But they remain silent with regard to being.
that thoughts therefore aren’t real
Aren’t real in the sense mentioned. Thoughts are physical, but for me physicality is itself is not established as all processes are in interminable flux, each entity has a beginning and an end and therefore cannot be Sat. If you say that they are the continuation of interactions of the wider system which we assume in thinking, that is true, but the universe is itself under scrutiny as it’s subject to change, most likely have a beginning and an end, therefore not Sat.
Phenomenologically speaking, the only sure thing is being-consciousness (Sat-Cit), everything else is postulated with regard to available computational capacities of thinking, but which is inherently limited. The thing that we cannot process all the information that is going through us leads to ideas like space and time. It’s basically a lag in the computational process. To tell you the truth, I don’t care that much if the universe turns out to be real or not, all I care about is a projection of my mind and the way to fix it.
I suppose you main issue is regarding the agency of the self
The trouble is that intellectually I am almost sure I don’t have any agency, but I still operate as if I do. I believe that’s the problem as I’m not aligned with how things really are. My mind believes in a phantom which is not really there, i.e. the agency.
repeat forever in a huge loop which spans the age of the universe, or have a fractal-like structure.
I agree with that. You described it with intellectual rigor, it was a pleasure to read.
I’d still consider it better than no dream
Here I disagree. As waking up from the dream doesn’t mean you will end up in a void or blankness. It only means that two subnetworks of your brain that are building images of “self in time” and “self and other” are shut down. That means end to SRIN. But according to awakened individuals that’s where you experience things as they really are, i.e. without prejudice, anger, confusion, lust, etc. That is you abandon self-talk and self-subversive modes in thinking. But you will enjoy life in its fullest. It’s exactly “self-torture” that you awake from.
I think your way of thinking allows for too high complexity.
And I feel that I cannot properly process all the information that is thrown at me (meaning actions too). It’s the process of self-torture that leads to problems and doesn’t let me enjoy life. But on the other hand, it’s the same very process that pushes me in the direction of awakening. So I cannot complain because of that. It has its raison d’être.
I think you only need to sit and look at a wall for around 40 minutes before the brain gives up trying to fight again you.
Mine is keeping fighting all the way. I do 1-hour meditation sessions (self-inquiry or koan practice to be precise, as that’s the most helpful tool for me to come to rest) and it’s a fight all the way! Only occasionally it looses its grip and I turn out in the space of no-thoughts, which is a bliss beyond description. But you are right in the regard that that’s the best tool we have to fight restlessness. I meant all the other time, when one is not meditating (and meditation can and should be pursued during everyday actions, so really no problem here as turns out).
Yeah, thought I wouldn’t call the “I” a facade.
There are the states where it’s seen through. Those are the states without SRIN and are blissful. That’s why I call it a facade.
Close your eyes and imagine that you’re in a room
But you have to be willing to do so. And I agree with the rest. The exercises like that helped me in the past, but most helpful was just meditation. So I kept with meditation.
I suggest reading this phrase every day for a while
Thank you, it’s a beautiful reminder to keep going no matter the setbacks. I enjoy one parable which basically says the same thing, but it’s a tad too long to mention it here.
For the most part, it just wants you to acknowledge the worries, and to listen to it without dismissing anything.
Your rider is an uncompromising optimist! Thank you for writing this, your process itself reminds me of meditation. To let go of worries I do something else called the Sedona Method, which is basically four steps:
Load some worry into RAM, feel the texture.
Ask “Could I let go of it?”, answer with: “yes/no/I don’t know”.
Ask “Would I let go of it?”, answer with: “yes/no/I don’t know”.
Ask “When can I let go of it?”, answer with something, even if it is “never”.
The funny thing is that even if you answer “no/no/never” brain learns that that’s something one can let go of and starts restructuring! That’s one of the most helpful techniques I’ve encountered on the path.
Unlearning beliefs which block enlightenment is at least as important as learning more.
Yes, one of the most important things. I only disagree that the rider can see further. It only feigns that it can, that’s where all the worries are coming from. But when you let go and surrender to what is, something else starts happening and the elephant restructures the rider in accordance with its needs. But thank you for your kind words, your rider is irredeemable optimist and I think that is indeed helpful on the path, even if you are not looking for awakening directly. Just don’t think it’s blankness or void and that you will lose all oomph from life, the reverse is true, as one awakened man said you will realise that it’s “whole and complete” on the gut level, not just intellectually.
I tend to agree with everything that you wrote about the reality considering its content. And applying Occam’s razor to exclude the simulation hypothesis. The only thing which I don’t do, I don’t internally consider it real (except in the empirical sense and in everyday usage). One might say, I consider it quasi-real. Why is that? I tend to agree with Gaudapada, who said, “Something that isn’t real in the beginning and in the end, isn’t real even in the interval between the two.” For example, the dream comes out of nowhere and ends in the same place, therefore it’s not even real in-between. The body is born someday and will die some other day, therefore it cannot be considered real in-between. And so on.
The only thing that I have doubts about is pure consciousness itself. I’m not so sure it has a beginning and an end. For all I know, it may be a universal characteristic of existence. That is, not a quality of beings with a particular complexity of brains, but that which permeates all of existence. It seems like a religious belief, but I had this experience which proved to me that some “field” exists beyond the conceptual layer of thinking. And I could not say if it had a beginning or an end. It’s rather my thoughts about it that have a beginning and an end. My thoughts are not reliable indicator or reality as they are themselves come and go (as in deep sleep).
A changing thing can be constant.
It’s the observer who deems it constant. It’s constant with regard to the observer. But even the orbits wobble. As Heraclitus said, “A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not same man.” It’s the second part that is constantly missed: space-time changes but so is the observer of it. Orbits and gravity formed over time with the distribution of matter somehow. We still have no answer which goes beyond the mechanism of gravity. But we have no reason to assume that it’s constant all over. “Unchanging” thing would lead to a plethora of unresolvable contradictions (yes, I know that postulating pure consciousness is also such a thing, I have no answer to it yet, only a limited experience of it).
Why do you decide to define the experience by the negative emotions?
I meant it as an example. You seem to want a better dream (whatever “better” means to you). And I want to wake up from the dream altogether.
I don’t think mere being results in meaning.
When you experience it even once even in a glimpse you will know for certain, that that’s a preferable state. Theorizing doesn’t do it justice. And I’m not the right person to fully describe this experience as I don’t have it on a regular basis. I only know that it exists. In that state the search for meaning itself stops, but it doesn’t land you in void and despair, on the contrary, everything seems alright and as “it should be”.
Is two magnetic poles repulsing eachother challenge or conflict?
I tend to think that it only applies to complex macro systems. Conflict is something that leads to rapid increase of entropy and no free energy (i.e. no possibility to learn from it, to use the obtained knowledge later, no structure, etc.). Challenge is something constructive that has a structure, from which one may learn and apply knowledge later to reduce entropic growth. When challenge is too complex it turns into conflict.
and you can turn it off as long as you can believe it’s safe to do so
What I really meant there was that the mind is always “on”, always seeking for something to do and act, and if one is not involved with something constructive, it turns into restlessness. So one is almost certain to engage in some acquisition of knowledge or some other task that makes one less anxious. One cannot just sit for undefined period of time and be alright with it (until awakening). So the suggestion “not to learn” is not feasible.
I have access to my own nature. I can isolate myself and reflect on what I truly like. I can choose, but only because the brain is malleable.
You accept that there is some nature there beyond the facade of the “I” (which is just a post hoc construct for experience). And you allocate to it much trust if you confide the most important decisions to it. Are you sure it’s not a substitution to “I don’t know where my decisions and values are coming from”, to the unknown which you cannot accept?
At least, I have control over myself.
And the more I look the less I see that I have control over my mind. It’s all the elephant’s doing, over which I have no control. That’s the current model. But I have been observing my mind for a long time. And frankly I was always doubting the control that I have. I did few experiments that proved to me, that the control is a fiction. You cannot will what you will.
but any idiot can get in, turn the key and press the gas pedal, and off it goes
The only question is where it will go in such case? I consider this question the most important for the rider to figure out. As until it’s crystal clear, it’s not certain where are you going, with what speed and whose objective you perform.
I think your issue is that you deprive yourself of agency because you don’t trust yourself with it, and then you hide this fact from yourself.
Plausible assumption. But I have been observing my mind very carefully for a long time to come to this understanding. I cannot find any particular “doer” with certainty, that would have at least quasi-real character. Whenever I look, I only see intentions, thoughts that are coming out of nowhere really. I understand that all of them are of reflex nature, but I cannot spot the first member of such reflex.
That’s probably the elephant you can feel.
Yes, that’s the elephant. And the rider cannot trick it really into believing it’s a life and death situation. It’s much more intelligent than the rider. Why even this? The rider is a post hoc construct of the elephant for some secretarial tasks.
In this case, the elephant would be afraid of holding false beliefs, because it thinks it can be hurt by them.
I believe that it’s the rider who is afraid and has limiting beliefs. Self-referential internal narrative (SRIN) is an aspect of the rider. Self-negotiation and self-observation are always limited to the rider’s capacities and they only prolong its life. My goal is to get rid of the SRIN, i.e. to refactor the rider into a more friendly function or get rid of it completely (i.e. awakening). And to let the elephant do its thing.
I can explain more, but the solution doesn’t actually require understanding the solution.
Yeah, I’ve already got what you mean. You are still enthusiastic with regard to self-improvement. In my case I want more radical change than the change of the rider’s “mood” (function, etc.). Changing the rider’s “mood” may have its value, I don’t argue with that. It’s just I’m sick and tired of SRIN enormously and want to get rid of it. I know it’s possible so I tend in that direction.
I only need to show that I sometimes exist
You exist continuously, otherwise you would loose the previous thread of experience and it would be incoherent. The thing is that being is pre-conceptual, not established based on thinking. How is it established? That’s a greatest koan for me. It’s like asking “Who am I, really?” If one is honest, one will acknowledge that all the mental chatter that the mind comes up with is not “I”. “I’m a human” is a thought. Which didn’t occur to one in the deep sleep. Yet, one didn’t cease being.
Reality is that which exists physically.
I find physicality is a weak description of reality as you omit the fact how do you know of such physicality. You first know it in your thinking which is a process in consciousness. I tend to think that reality has to possess a character of immutability and must be self-revealing without a break to be considered real. Something akin to Leibniz’ idea of a monad. But since nothing we observe has such property, everything is in perpetual flux of change, the question looms, is there a reality that is distinct from the observer of such reality?
To sum up, you cannot establish physicality unless you first aware of it. And the nature of such observer is also at best questionable. Therefore we operate through the principles of relativity. We establish a local pattern and induce that it has the universal character. That’s how we build “the reality”. But something that is dependent on such process is highly vulnerable in terms of calling it “the reality”. It is at best a consensus we reach through the experience of many observers and the principle of relativity. But can it be called “real”? I’m not so sure.
I hope to flip as many negatives into positives as possible, rather than to remove the mechanisms.
So you are essentially saying, “I have a frightful dream, but I don’t want to wake up, I just want to make it a beautiful dream.” That’s an option. I just personally consider it unacceptable.
The meaning of the quote is that this is impossible.
And I believe (that’s the word) that it is possible. Very-very hard but possible. The basic insight in awakening is exactly that person doesn’t exist. It’s simply a conglomeration of thoughts. It’s not removing all of thinking, but just self-referential part of it, the self-talk. Problem solving remains.
I experience meaning as “weight” and “relevance”. Weight is strongly tied to “caring” as well.
Weight and consequently meaning from the narrative is indeed removed, but that’s like removing the meaning from the dreaming apparatus, you stop believing in the dream. What takes its place is satisfaction from just being. No matter the circumstances. So meaning is derived from just being and being ok with it. The circuits of meaning-making are indeed changed. But I have to admit, I cannot understand that state before it’s reached. It’s like the blind who tries to imagine the colors. One has to first fix one’s vision. It’s not theoretical.
Are you sure challenges can’t improve a system?
Challenges can improve the system. Conflict cannot. Learning math is a challenge. Sparring partner is a challenge. Enemy is a conflict.
If you want low mental entropy, I suggest you don’t learn anymore.
That’s a structured challenge, which I can digest and which as a result helps me to lessen entropy. Not learning is not an option as the mind seeks for ways to come to safety constantly. And if one doesn’t learn, the seeking mechanism will just lead one to anxiety. So the dynamics is this: either learn or become restless. I have to admit, that’s the default behavior and it is changed after awakening, where one can remain peaceful without a structured challenge. But for now, learning is inevitable.
It also allows you to create your own values.
And how did you learn of those values? You don’t exist in a vacuum independently of relations. They are causes and conditions that lead you to accept those values. You as an agent, are not in control over it.
Imagine a fictional book character gaining self-awareness
You want a better dream. But you operate under the assumption that you have control over life. I don’t have such an assumption.
I know what my future will be
And I don’t have a clue. All predictions in my case are worrisome and not constructive. But the most importantly, you again assume a capacity of control. Who is the controller? Is it that a conglomeration of thoughts that is built from the past experiences “decides” what to do next? But then it’s not control, it’s fatalism. If that’s something else, one has first to find out what is meant by the word “I”. What is this “I” who decides and controls its own destiny? How is it built? Do you even have control over your thoughts? It’s like a parable, “take a medicine not thinking of a red monkey”, and it cannot be done. I’m skeptical of all prescriptions like you’ve mentioned from EST. As the controller is the controlled. I cannot spot for the sake of me any agent that is apart from life, that can change its course and trust me I’ve tried to spot it. It seems it all works on its own, without the “Mighty Controller”. It is all out of my hands.
Anyway, can you provide more information about the problem you want to solve?
Oh, I wasn’t trying to solve a problem (except for subconscious few). I think philosophizing has its own value, an end in itself and “random insights” are what makes it interesting. It’s rare when someone takes it seriously enough for it to be interesting. And it was interesting for me so far. Your brain is more sophisticated than mine but I will still try to entertain you, especially considering that I see many things differently.
a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography
I think he exaggerated a bit. As many philosophers reflect due to this very reason—to reflect oneself out of the system. To see oneself from the side as an object, as a stone. In order to get an insight and transcend it. And yes, for the attentive such thinking is the most intimate reflection of a person one can think of. For example, here is the first clause of Alexander Piatigorsky’s testament:
He must ceaselessly remain in fear that he will die having failed or not having had enough time to realize his thought of himself as an external object alien to this thought and realize this very thought as alien to all his past and present objects, primarily to himself. This is Noble Fear.
I also think that disabling the internal narrative might be bad for your subjective experience of life, since the story being written might stop feeling like a story.
No need to be afraid here. All-permeating tranquility takes its place and its very life-affirming and accepting, it’s like saying “yes” to everything. I can say so because I’ve experienced those moments when the narrative stops and they are freeing. It’s like you get a complete wonder out of things you previously deemed mundane. But the total shut down of the narrative is my goal and, yes, it’s possible (the post I mentioned above about nonduality discusses this in detail). You say “you need” to “feel meaning”. Who told you about the need? And the meaning-making changes when the brain turns to different modes of being. It’s not obliterated. Kegan invented five stages of development of the self and the meaning-making mechanism where each stage crushes before new begins. It’s a helpful map, when your mind is in a transitional stage.
I consider things like questioning the realness of reality to be a serious mistake.
That might mean two things. Either you deem the very question flawed because the concept of reality is like our belief in ghosts. Or you have to define what you mean by reality, or at least describe it the way you see it.
And to you, the experience would be real.
But it would be a compassionate thing to explain to me that demons don’t exist or direct me to seek a professional help. Not that anyone says someone has to be compassionate. It just would be such an act.
it exists precisely to create a friction which results in development
First, I call development everything that helps me to get rid of the self, to transcend it completely. Second, I disagree with that because suffering doesn’t lead to development in the usual sense as well, it only increases entropy of the situation. Some strong individuals may learn from it, but most won’t. It’s just an explosion, no free energy involved as it doesn’t have a structure.
I think consciousness and the moment itself is “foreground”.
That’s why in ancient Advaita texts they mention two types of consciousness: objectifying consciousness (or empiric) and Pure Consciousness, that which lights up the screen of the theatre (or the cave). From the standpoint of objectifying consciousness, Pure Consciousness is either a fiction or a concept. But from the standpoint of Pure Consciousness, objectifying consciousness is an illusion. Think of the moon that reflects in many waters in pots. Every reflection thinks it has light of its own independent of other pots and of the moon. Until the pot is broken and water drains. Only the moon remains.
because pain grounds them in the moment
But you are already 100% grounded at that point. Meaning when not even pain can distract you from pure being.
Why do you believe so?
I assess my coping strategies as subpar and the internal narrative as overly anxious. I rarely think in terms of society as such complexity is beyond my brains, but I tell you this: do you think it could have been otherwise? It’s a rhetorical question. On that note, I also don’t think we create things or that they are sloppy concepts or ours, we indeed discover them, nobody chose to be born with 10 fingers (which leads to decimal arithmetics) or bilateral vision (which basically gives you trigonometry), Theory of General Relativity or the Universal Turing Machine is practically inevitable for observers like us. ”… we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper” / Einstein.
I could make my happiness not depend on anything, at all. But…
First, one has to come to that place. Everything that needs fixing will be fixed. When you are happy you still tend to homeostasis, not only when you are in pain.
Conquering yourself and conquring reality is two different tasks.
Conquering oneself is tantamount to finding out the reality.
I don’t feel the need to solve it.
But you’ve said yourself, that the point is in playing the game not winning it, so the intention to avoid suffering is there, you accept it, it’s only that you don’t believe it can be done (or is healthy), so you play this game. That is which surprises me. As one thing can be generalized to living beings (and I’m very cautious with generalizations usually) and that’s tendency to be happy. But in your model you refuse to seek an antidote for the sore. I don’t say I don’t believe you, but find it surprising.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger
I don’t agree with Nietzsche here. I’ve already described the way I see it. It’s increase in entropy and the absence of free energy. The energy is there, it’s just cannot be used constructively (i.e. to lessen the entropy increase). So it leads to dissipation of heat (both metaphorically and not).
I’m afraid that’s why you’re not doing well in life
And what’s wrong with that? Or who has the choice over preset conditions of one’s makeup? You see you say you don’t want to win the game but tend to think in terms of conflict and power, as if you do.
It’s like saying “those who don’t understand, speak. Those who understand, remain silent”.
And I think understanding is not a guaranteed outcome even if one is intelligent (and more so if not), but that doesn’t mean you must necessarily remain silent, some will see it from another angle, some won’t. Every way to solve a Zen koan is an error, yet it is helpful in order to lead beyond the mind.
Something thinks, therefore something is.
A cartesian answer. But what about the deep dreamless sleep? You could not think there, but you know that you are somehow. You don’t doubt your being in your deep sleep, do you? If there were no thinking there, how so?..
I consider even the existence of suffering to be alright.
I think you mash up two things into one—pain and suffering. Pain is inevitable and a useful indicator for maintenance of the body. But suffering is an added layer to it which can be reduced or got rid of completely. You accept the intention to be free from suffering. It means that you tend to some homeostatic state and find it preferable (otherwise, you would not have the intention to “play the game”). You state that without such dynamics of pleasure/suffering one would atrophy into oblivion. But I think it is not so. Pain is there as an indicator to keep the body going and it will be there after awakening. What you get rid of is self-ruminating mode of the brain to be obsessed with the body’s integrity. That’s what researches call self-referential internal narrative (SRIN). That’s what goes away. But inputs from pleasures and pains are still coming.
I somehow separated the raw feeling of suffering from the meaning component.
That sounds like an insight. But you were happy to reduce it, see? We tend in the direction of reduction of suffering.
On the topic of “free will”, I see where you are coming from. But I tend in the direction of superdeterminism (latest discoveries by Zeilinger et al, didn’t rule it out). How does it affect my macro level axiomatic system? I tend to relax — it’s all out of my hands and release the malady of thinking that I have to somehow change the world or even my (often dead-end) circumstances. So meta-level thinking often helps on a local macro scale.
Transcendence is not a property of a thing.
Oh, I don’t care about the thing before I’ve figured out how to transcend myself (unless it helps me to do so). It would be contradictory in my perspective. The truth as you highlighted is a property of subjective experience. Even if it applies universally, one has to discover it first in oneself. How do we know if we are not Boltzmann’s brains at all? Objective “reality” is one of the most harmful fictions.
For you, your brain is the judge.
I don’t trust my brain that much. Only locally and superficially. What I meant is the standard against which we evaluate our experience. If that standard is an average normal, it’s almost certainly unhealthy. I have high trust in people who transcended their self. And orient in the same direction. That creates the necessary friction or challenge (but I avoid the word conflict) for development. I think that such questions and examples give the right meta-level perspective so they are healthy for thinking. There most certainly is truth that I’m not aware of, but like the blind who wants to fix his vision, I tend to fix my perspective constantly and not on the level of thinking (so not theoretically).
I reversed an error.
And I’ve personally experienced the state where the world and the self were totally dissolved into the space of “dark electricity” which felt like the only thing that there is. It might be called Consciousness. So I know there is background, but I so far haven’t figured it out nor can I return “there”. But here I contradict Buddhists who deny any such background and more in line with Advaita practitioners who claim that that field (they call it Brahman) is all there is. So for me the question “what was first the chicken or the egg” has an answer—the chicken, i.e. Consciousness. But I cannot express it in better terms.
Would this not require immersion in the moment to the point of self-forgetfulness?
The point of dhyana/meditation is to train immersion to one’s breathing or being, that nothing can remove you from it, not even pain. Then paradoxically you are more engaged with life as your old algorithms of self-subversion and self-rumination break apart and you are more open to what’s really happening. Neurophysiologically it’s deactivating the DMN by some autotelic process without crutches.
All these things getting in your way are likely constructed by your mind in order to protect you, or by your ego in order to protect itself.
They are exactly built by the ego, but they are not healthy nor useful, just “vestigial tails” of past ancestors. They must be factored out somehow, or I don’t stand a chance with life.
What concerns sores. Playing a video game is fine but I’m sure you would not choose that your happiness depend on it, right? Imagine how many things have to be right to play a video game: safe environment, healthy brain, free time, physiological needs satisfied, relative security and so on. Imagine if that house of cards falls apart and if your happiness depends on it, it’s on a shaky ground. So I want to win over my self and get rid of it (read here to get rid of SRIN).
The anxious brain tells the self “I just need more information, then everything can be resolved”.
You think that the questions can be answered only in thinking. But they can be like zen koans that set up thinking with unsolvable riddle, which can only be transcended holistically and experientially. That’s what I meant. Right questions can be like hot coals, that tend to shut down the excessive thinking and collect the attention to a riddle or contradiction.
…to accept that you’re simply a being who prefers virtue over injustice, and prefers enlightenment over ignorance
That’s exactly the case. I happen to prefer that. And it’s not my virtue nor my fault. Pre-set configuration of this brain.
Yes, but you need conflict in order to have force at all.
Not conflict. A challenge. Conflict is dissipation, it’s heat and no free energy, just increase in entropy. A challenge is a structured contradiction usually feasible to solve. When you have an enemy, it only divides you inside and dissipates energy. But a sparring partner is different. See, where I’m going with this? From all expected outcomes the information has to be structured and complex enough to provide surprise to extract the useful relations from it. Otherwise, it’s garbage. The same applies for physical interactions with others. Conflict is just heat and dissipation.
The layer below thought is an animal like state of sensations and sensory impressions.
It’s exactly the opposite — the state of tranquility and peace, where obsessive thinking subsides and the brain is in the state of alertness and readiness. It is very active! But in silence. Some refactoring is going on there at that time, some rewiring. Animals as a rule don’t do that, they are always “on”, they constantly live in simulacra.
One more note, when I asked you “How do you know that there is no background?” it was a trick, as to know there is no background requires you to be outside of foreground at least for a moment, see? It’s a meta-knowledge. How would you get that knowledge if you were constantly immersed in the foreground? You would not know anything but foreground. But you obviously reflect over this matter, which shows you do it from a different space.
I’m not sure if methods for reaching enlightened states can be communicated.
Yes, it’s a well-known conundrum. Eventually, nothing works… Sages accept that. I tend to think it in the way of an analogy with the Feynman’s path integral. I believe there is an equivalent process in thinking. Our thinking goes all possible ways before the optimal solution is reached. And if your brain is complex enough and you feed it the right puzzles (contradictions, koans, whatever), it will come up with the experiential solution at the right time. And it will be the optimal path for it. The trick is to find (or guess) the triggers.
Let me try to experiment with one trigger (that works for me). Forgetting all the concepts. How would you answer the following question: how do you know that you are?
I’m less interested in Buddhism itself than in learning new insights that I can use to reprogram myself with
Actually same here. I only resonate with some of their thinkers who made me think and ponder over questions/triggers that work for me (Nāgārjuna is one such example). If you wish you can share your experiments, I’m always curious about interesting stuff that comes my way unsolicited...
All problems are with the map, the territory is perfect.
If you experience it in this way you are already liberated! That’s what Buddhism points to as well.
Is that not reduction?
Oh, no! Reduction is a process in thinking, and transcendence is holistic experiential insight into the nature of suffering’s emptiness (in Buddhist sense). It’s like writing down a formula for coffee and drinking it. One has to transcend suffering first to get what it is all about.
I think “the middle way” means a balance between extremes.
Superficially it is so. But the roots go much deeper. In short, it is the middle way in our tendency to live in absolutes in “something exists” and “nothing exists”, in “everything matters” and “nothing matters”. It is basically mental relativity stressing out interconnectedness of all “things” and their having no sense outside of relations. If you are interested what the middle way is, read my post on emptiness, I tried to express it there as best I could.
But truth exists, locally. Meaning exists locally, and free will exists in that it’s experienced.
For me “free will” never made any sense, and I’ve been observing my thinking since my teens. All I see is the blind intention that is arising out of the blue and then the body acts, and sometimes it acts first and then the intention arises! You no doubt have heard about Libet’s experiments. Ivan Sechenov, a physiologist, also factored out “free will” out of equation.
Concerning the truth. What if the truth of the default state is different from the one of transcendence? Who is the judge of what is true? What I mean, if I’m blind and someone tells me of colors, it will sound gibberish, but if I’m capable to fix my vision, I will get what he was saying all this time. The state of transcendence according to the liberated is similar.
Only the foreground is real!
How do you know that?
There’s no “being”, only a continuous “becoming”.
I would not agree with that as there are states where the concept of “becoming” looses meaning. But in the end run that’s what works for you and how you call that is secondary (although better maps help to navigate the territory in healthier ways).
But you cannot transcend something in the sense of going beyond it. Have you ever tried to transcend your own humanity?
That’s exactly what it means: going beyond it. As for myself: not only I’m trying constantly, but I’m already sure that “the other shore” exists, it’s not a figment of imagination, liberation is a real deal. And what you imply by super- or less- human is still on the human level. The goal is to go beyond these concepts altogether. It’s exactly to be one with the flow of life. To the point that there is no one, just the flow of life remains.
Him who has compete freedom is not engaged with anything.
On the contrary, it’s to be one with life as it goes. Your concept of freedom is somewhat different from mine. You imply that freedom is independence. But that’s not freedom, it’s a fiction (as no one can be truly independent). From my perspective freedom is the freedom from the self, i.e. from the associations that are built with regards to the body as the self, i.e. self-talk, desire, anger, hatred, delusion, etc. That which prevents me complete immersion with life as it is, instead of how I perceive it and regard everything through the prism of my body.
It transforms the negative into something positive.
I agreed that it has its place. But still sure it’s not the final solution. It’s like in the metaphor: itching helps with the sore temporarily, but to be without sores is more pleasurable. We prefer the state of being without sores than chronic condition of itching and scratching them, don’t we? The same applies here.
One cannot optimize for multiple things at once.
The thing is that they are not essentially multiple. But represent different aspects of the same dynamics: the freedom reflex. Only superficially it seems they are about different things. Virtue is the foundation that helps one to ask deeper questions. And life cannot be integrated until such questions are pondered and resolved. All about the same dynamics.
But the more you shield yourself from life, the less alive you will be.
Again, we have a different understanding of freedom. In my perspective freedom means openness to what is. I believe that’s what Buddhists also pursue. One cannot be outside of relations, but one can get beyond the travails of them. Which basically means to stop self-talk. Not by separating oneself, but by immersing in what is. The constant flow state.
The idea that nobody was to blame for anything. But it’s the concept of morality which makes this liberation impossible…
Buddhists exactly say that eventually there is no one to blame for anything, only the set of causes and conditions. But it doesn’t mean one cannot change conditions to more favorable for awakening, and one of the ways is the morality, as it frees the energies which are otherwise dispersed. E.g. to be cunning requires more energy, than to be truthful, etc.
The goal is to keep the comparison mechanism rather than destroying it
The trouble with it is that comparison operates in thought. Thought is limited by definition and operates by division. When you discover something that is beyond thought, free from thought completely, how will comparison match it? Freedom from thought is possible, it is not a state of zombie but full immersion in what is. Then the baseline will change accordingly (what would one need, if one gets happiness just from being, that lowers the baseline to the ground).
Ideal states should be sustainable over longer periods of time
It is possible to reach those states but very-very hard (that’s why so few succeed). You can check the post Myths about Nonduality and Science that explores this question in depth.
Nothing is fundamental, it’s all our own sloppy constructs. Even this word, “is”, is a linguistic construct.
You are close to the middle way here…
First of all, I am not at all an authority on Buddhism and not apologetic for it. These are just my limited understanding and thoughts. As I view some of their models helpful on my path.
They do not remain indifferent to positive sensations. They are all about developing virtues. What they say, is to choose those positive sensations wisely with discernment. The whole of the eightfold noble path is about developing proper positive sensations irrespective of circumstances.
But the real goal is the reduction of suffering.
The real goal is complete transcendence of suffering through experiential insight. And Buddhists (as many others) are not above illusions of the self and the self itself, only awakened individuals among Buddhists are. They were those who wrote the texts. Describing the way to this state the best they could. And the awakened individuals exactly state that seeing through the mechanism of suffering experientially makes it illusory (not just theoretically accepting it). So they recognize the second axiom as such, but that’s only true for the awakened. One has to transcend suffering to see it as illusory. And no amount of theorizing will help.
With regards to nihilism, it’s not entirely correct that they are nihilistic, it’s deeper than that. They respond with the Middle Way, a way between nihilism and eternalism. Which basically states that all interdependent phenomena lack intrinsic nature (or essence). That is, to begin with. Nihilism assumes the absence of intrinsic nature but implicitly presupposes existence of such intrinsic nature. What Buddhism says, there is no intrinsic nature to begin with, that can be intrinsically absent or negated / ‘nihilized’. The thing is they recover the relative meaning exactly in terms of such non-existence of intrinsic nature and make claim that meaning can only exist if there is no intrinsic nature (I wrote a post about it in details). If there could be intrinsic nature change would not be possible (as essence doesn’t change) and meaning would not make sense as it would be either absolute or non-existent. Other absolutist errors would follow.
So they are not saying that what is not permanent is not worth the effort. They are exactly saying use one’s locally true environment to transcend it. And yes, they will claim that it will seem as an illusion in the result (again, not as a theory, but as experienced reality). But illusion in a sense that it appears in one way, and exists in another. One will still operate in terms of cause and effect. But one will see the illusory structure of absolutes in one’s thinking. Things neither have intrinsic nature, nor they lack such intrinsic nature (exactly because no intrinsic nature exists to begin with). Because of that the self, clinging and suffering are transcended if one gets insight into emptiness.
When one finds meaning in suffering that is only a palliative to cope with, not the final solution, that is the transcendence of suffering. And in its place it has its value, I don’t see they are denying that. They just direct in the way of complete transcendence by insight into emptiness of suffering.
Food taste better when you’re really hungry.
They do say to neutralize the paroxysms of joy and sorrow, but in order to have tranquility and one-pointedness to enable insight. All is tampered to this end only—to get the insight.
I do not agree that freedom is empty, it is empty of the absolutes of intrinsic meaning, but full of tranquility and peace. Something that has a positive meaning and value. That they don’t say about it much is their pedagogical choice. Life will not loose oomph, it will flow unruffled not depending on circumstances anymore. Pleasures will still be pleasures. Joy will still be joy.
Concerning the expectations (I may not get what you mean here), they approach them through the moral instructions, which kind of gamifies the whole experience, and train themselves to be happy with what comes one’s way naturally. That’s lowering the bar to the minimum. However, they also set up the scene for the epic win—the enlightenment. Also according to the doctrine one cannot “live in reality” pre-awakening, one will get lost in one’s cognitive models of it. That’s why they are lowering the bar for the “necessities”. Ideally you will feel joyful just by renouncing the concept of ‘how life is supposed to be’. Self-perpetuating joy (and yes a feedback loop) is implied.
What concerns immersion. When one is not immersed in suffering (or joy), one tends to immersion in being itself. And that’s not something ‘empty’ but indescribably full. It’s like you get the flow state just from being! The baseline of where you get your joy from changes. Instead of externally-driven it becomes autotelic, coming from the inside.
I don’t compare it with the first Jhana as it lacks paroxysm inevitable for all joyful states. In words I can describe it as all-permeating peace for no apparent reason. When it happens, you want to repeat it and are ready to do whatever is necessary to get there (sadly it’s quite unpredictable and rare in my case).
Concerning that what one needs strong concentration and doesn’t need Buddhism I cannot argue with that. Who said anyone at all needs Buddhism. If one gets strong concentration out of any activity, hopefully autotelic, that’s helpful for the brain to switch from the DMN to the TPN network, - that’s the way to diminish suffering. But that’s what Buddhism also says in different words… But eventually, whatever works!
They may tell me I’m a fool, I’m not bothered by that, but what they generally say, e.g. ‘craving leads to suffering’, they don’t prescribe one to get rid of suffering. That’s left up to oneself to decide what to do with it.
Concerning the denial of reality as an illusion based on theory. It is not entirely correct. They stress out experiential insight into the nature of reality. To see things as they are, and not as we perceive them in the default state. And based on that experiential understanding use the map wisely. They are not nihilistic, they stress out the need for the Middle Way between the opposites of ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’, they are quite utilitarian in that sense. Their task is to dissipate the views, not to establish new ones.
It is true, that we are not in control. But the illusion that we are keeps us tense, i.e. clinging to it results in suffering. So, yes, letting go is freeing. That’s why Buddhists express truth in apophatic terms. Always as a negation to what is experienced.
What concerns that Buddhists have a problem with pleasant sensations, it is not entirely correct, they have a problem with clinging to them. They acknowledge that some pleasant sensations (like joy in meditative absorption) are superior in the sense that they are enabling insights into impermanence, suffering and absence of intrinsic nature. So their approach is utilitarian in that sense. They even say that cultivation of joy through meditative absorption is a healthy way to reduce suffering.
It is not that they prefer a flat landscape, they are set on relief from clinging and suffering. In that scheme they even acknowledge that joy from meditative absorption is preferable to other pleasures. But eventually even that has to be transcended. As it is impermanent and lacks substance. It is not like they say, “Pleasure is evil”, they are saying, “Use it skillfully to get insight and transcend clinging”.
Nibbana is usually described in apophatic terms to avoid building concepts about it, so it is always in the negative, e.g. freedom from clinging, freedom from desire, etc. But. The texts don’t say what it is. In one place it is called “the highest bliss”. So it is preferable to mind laden with clinging, even if this clinging is of very subtle form (e.g. for joy of meditative absorption). It is also supreme freedom and relief from what we consider to be ‘normal tension’. But it is not flat. Experiences are still registered, pleasures are there, they just don’t lead to clinging and craving anymore. The inner tension is not there.
So although it’s described in negative terms, it is not flat but “the highest bliss” that results from freedom from craving and compulsive thinking.
And what concerns the second point, it is simple: freedom from suffering is better than suffering. It doesn’t mean pleasures will be absent, they will loose the oomph (clinging and craving) beyond them. In our usual state we cannot imagine how deep the roots of suffering are, only when we experience even temporarily relief from it (e.g. by experiencing the state of stillness in meditative absorption and absence of problematic thoughts), we start to notice how unhealthy our default state in comparison to it. Only then we start wishing to change the default state, when we’ve experienced the other mode of being, of stillness beyond thinking.
What you describe about the human body where the present and future states are compared, it is indeed how we operate by default. We now know it is the function of the DMN which builds an image of “self in time” and performs comparison. But the loss of motivation is not what happens after liberation. We won’t become a zombie. We can judge about it by experience of liberated people. What happens is that the image-building mechanism collapses and actions flow spontaneously in stillness. The body still feeds itself when it has to. Planning and problem solving happens when they have to. What’s different—there is no commentator on top of that, that appropriates the experiences to itself. No inner dialogue, ‘I should do this’ / ‘I shouldn’t do that’.
The model that is helpful to understand it: we can divide the brain operation into an elephant and a rider, where the elephant is highly complex sub-conscious mechanism that performs all computation and solves all problems, and the rider is the conscious part of it, that appropriates the results to itself and claims that it decided to solve a problem and has solved the problem. After awakening the rider is wiped out, but the elephant still functions very much (as it always has done). In the end, it’s all about letting go and letting the elephant do what it does. As you yourself mentioned in the beginning, the control is only imagined and beautifully stated:
It merely feels as if we’re holding up the world through our cognitive strain, but it’s possible to just let go of everything and discover that it was holding itself up all along.
That also applies to ourselves! We are not in control of our thoughts or we do not choose what to desire (“You can do what you will, but not will what you will”, Schopenhauer). All that happens is out of our hands, we only imagine we have control.
What concerns the enlightenment—it’s anyone’s guess until one reached it. But some experiences with meditative absorptions tell me that:
The experience is not neutral, it is blissful beyond compare! It is like everything is permeated by peace and thoughts stop (self-referential ones, which are about 95% of them). It’s like you are high just on your own being! Nothing else is required (which doesn’t mean the body won’t feed itself when hunger is felt, but even not feeding the body feels alright, if it happens).
Peak pleasures are experienced more deeply and feel more pleasurable than ever. But. There is one but. Pain is likewise experienced more deeply. It’s like there is no dissipation to other thoughts and current experiences are being amplified and you cannot hide from them. I think that transfers to liberated state as I’ve heard many liberated people describe it in the same way.
What concerns the answer to ‘Is it better to love and lose than to never have loved?’ as ‘No.’ It is not what they say. They just express the law that if one has great clinging, one will suffer a lot. They don’t prescribe ‘not to love’ (in fact the opposite is true, as loving-kindness and compassion are virtues to be cultivated). They say: love, but love wisely, without clinging and craving. And use such love (as that’s superior to pleasure) to come to insight concerning the insubstantiality of self. Love is a potent portal to understand ourselves.
To sum up, Buddhists are not prescriptive (what concerns laymen), they are descriptive. They say “do as you wish, but that’s how it works”. And for those who are already keen on removing the suffering they give directions on the best way to do it (that they knew of). But in the end, you yourself described everything beautifully in the first paragraph! To the extent to which we let go of illusory control (clinging), to that extent we are free.
To sum up the reply in simple terms to all raised questions concerning pleasure in the Buddhist model: for the unliberated all pleasures are concomitant with suffering.
That includes “positive pleasures” such as pleasure derived from the beautiful art or profound scientific thinking. It happens due to the fact that for the unliberated all pleasures imply craving (tanhā) of some sort and corresponding mental states bear the three marks of existence: impermanence (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and the absence of substantive nature (anatta). Even pleasure derived from well-being as a result of craving (bhava-tanhā) is not free from the three marks. As it is a subject to change (impermanence).
That said, some pleasures are higher in the scheme of things as they might lead to insight into the nature of the self (or rather non-self, anatta) or directly to the non-dual state (Nibbana). Those pleasures include joy states (pīti and sukha) experienced during deep meditative absorption (samādhi). Deep absorption states might arise during the periods of contemplation on a scientific problem or profound art form as well. Stillness of the mind which is the result of deep meditative absorption is propitious for insight into the nature of reality. In that sense it’s a preferable state. Albeit still not free from subtle craving therefore subtle suffering.
And for the liberated the mechanism of craving is absent. So pleasures (and sorrows) don’t lead to clinging (upādāna) and are experienced with equanimity and peace independent of the outcome. Whatever the pleasures may be. It doesn’t mean that the sensations are not registered or action is avoided. The key words here are equanimity and peace. Action flows naturally in accordance with the circumstances.
Sorry to bother you again, but I was wrong about joy (pīti and sukha) all this time! They are mental factors in Buddhism, so they have three marks of existence: impermanence, suffering and no substantive nature. When I was writing I was thinking about the term ananda from Advaita tradition. Which is usually translated as bliss and concomitant with liberation. I thought they were synonymous. And they are not!
Buddhists don’t use a positive term to describe that state, they only point to the unconditioned nature that results out of extinguishment of the fires of delusion, greed and hatred. Profound peace and freedom that results out of that extinguishment may be described as happiness. The happiness of release from craving. In one place they describe it as “the highest bliss” (parama sukha).
The stillness of the mind that I was referring to comes from Advaita tradition and called there sahaja sthiti (natural state or innate state) and may be partially experienced during the meditative absorption (samādhi). When the mind abides in the meditative absorption thoughts and craving cease and what is experienced is deep peace beyond description. I wrongly called it “joy”. But it is called bliss in Advaita tradition and Buddhist tradition in general describes it in negative terms, i.e. the absence of craving, etc.
Therefore, what I meant by “joy” was the extinguishment of craving and the resulting “highest bliss” (parama sukha). And what I meant by “stillness of the mind” was the pointer to that natural unobscured abiding—called sahaja sthiti in Advaita, which finds its ultimate consummation in the realization of Nibbana in Buddhism.
To sum up. Stillness of the mind is bliss. Craving is turbulence in the mind. As long as there is craving there is seeking for pleasure (or avoiding unpleasantness) to still the mind. Satisfying pleasure is not bliss, only a spasmodic glimpse of it, a temporary relief. The highest bliss is possible if we reach effortless stillness of the mind by getting rid of craving. Whatever we do in that state of stillness is unblemished by craving and excessive thinking. Until then we are subject to craving of one kind or another.
So to answer your initial question in terms of the Buddhist doctrine: all pleasures are concomitant with suffering (for the unliberated and for the liberated the mechanism of craving is absent).
To put it simply: everything we do with a still mind is pure joy (based on the doctrinal assumption and some personal experience). Craving is turbulence in the mind. We crave to be free from suffering or satisfy a desire. As long as there is craving there is seeking for pleasure (or avoiding unpleasantness) to still the mind (at least temporarily, to have a glimpse of joy the still mind entails). Pleasure is not permanent joy (happiness) only spasmodic glimpse (if at all). So craving and pleasure are interrelated. The Buddhist doctrine states that permanent joy is possible if we get rid of craving or still the mind.
What concerns great music, art, science and so on—they mostly come from deep absorption and one-pointed concentration to the point of detachment from everything else where craving subsides and the mind becomes still (at least for some time). Stillness of the mind or the absence of craving are the same.
This is a fascinating dialogue, thank you for sharing it! I want to jump on board of the Reassuring Voice and add some comments.
First, nirvana is not extinction of a person, life or experience. What is extinguished is suffering (dukkha) and its cause—craving (tanha). It’s the extinction of the fire of ignorance, clinging and aversion—not of consciousness or life. The result is described as the highest bliss, supreme security and freedom. All are positive terms. It is the end of problematic mode of being and not of being itself.
Second, the first noble truth doesn’t say “everything is suffering”. It says that life as conditioned by clinging (upadana) is pervaded by suffering (dukkha). It’s a statement about a process (clinging to the five aggregates), not a condemnation of pure sensory experience itself.
Eliminating the ‘knots’ (craving/clinging) is not like trimming a tree branch by branch until nothing is left. It’s like untying a knot in a hose. Once the knot (the obstruction) is gone, the water (life, energy, consciousness) can flow freely, without distortion or blockage. The goal isn’t to stop the flow; it’s to remove the distortions that cause the “painful pressure” and “blocked functionality”.
Third, the Buddhist path is about cultivating positive qualities, not just negating negatives (even more so!) The four noble truth, the noble eightfold path is a training in skillful action, not inaction. It cultivates: wisdom (prajñā), ethical conduct (śīla) and meditative absorption (samādhi). These states represent a re-orientation from “scratching itches” (craving-driven action) to skillful, compassionate and clear engagement with the world.
Last, on present day Extinctionists R is right to dismiss them. Extinctionism mistakes the problem (suffering born of craving and ignorance) for the vehicle of experience (life itself) and seeks to destroy the vehicle to solve the problem. The Buddhist solution is to repair the flawed navigation system of the driver (the mind), not to crash the car.
Your dialogue beautifully resolves the issue. The ‘knots’ metaphor is perfect. We aim to untie the painful, self-reinforcing knots of craving and aversion so that the muscle of our being can be strong, flexible, and capable of healthy, responsive tension—not perpetually knotted up in suffering, nor limp and atrophied in a pseudo-nirvana of inaction (stupor really).
The goal isn’t the extinction of life but the transcendence of a specific flawed operating system (the ‘itch-and-scratch’ or ‘knot-forming’ system) and its replacement with one of wisdom and compassion. That is the opposite of extinctionism, it’s about making life actually work.
This is a crucial question, thank you for asking it! It challenges the model’s boundaries and forces us to be precise about what we mean by ‘suffering’ (dukkha) and ‘craving’ (tanha).
Short Answer: The model does not necessarily deny the existence of such pleasures (they would be in a different category though, more on this later). It invites us to inspect them more closely. Are they truly free from the mechanism of ‘scratching a sore’, or do they contain subtle elements of it? The framework suggests a spectrum rather than a binary.
Distinguishing dukkha (the ‘sore’) from acute pain. First, it’s important to clarify that dukkha in the first noble truth is not just gross pain or misery. It encompasses a subtle, pervasive background of unsatisfactoriness, instability, or ‘dis-ease.’ This can include:
- boredom: seeking stimulation (music, study)
- existential restlessness or meaning-seeking: pursuing beauty (art) or truth (mathematics)
- a sense of incompleteness or lack of accomplishment: the drive to create
If the activity primarily functions to relieve that kind of background tension, then it fits the ‘scratch’ dynamics, even if the activity itself is sublime. The pleasure is, in part, the relief of that subtle lack.The concept of ‘non-craving joy’ (pīti, sukha). Buddhist sources themselves acknowledge states of joy that are not born of sensual craving. In deep meditation (jhāna and samadhi), one experiences rapture and happiness that arise from stillness, concentration, and letting go, not from fulfilling a lack. This is closer to the ‘no-sore’ state manifesting as positive affect. This is what Nāgārjuna means by “more pleasurable still”, abiding in this state is pure joy.
Could listening to Bach or contemplating an elegant proof trigger a similar non-acquisitive non-lacking joy? Possibly, if it is experienced with a mind free from craving—free from the ‘itch’ to possess it, to use it for status, to escape something else, or even to prolong the experience itself. The pleasure then is not a relief from a negative, but an appreciation of a positive that arises in a still mind. Then it should be called joy, really.The model itself might serve as a litmus test. To distinguish between pleasure and non-contrived joy one might ask:
- is it addictive? Does its absence create a craving or a sense of loss? (Suggests a ‘scratch’ dynamic.)
- what is its emotional aftertaste? Does it lead to contentment and release, or to a craving for more? (The former suggests satiation; the latter suggests the ‘sore’ remains.)
- could I enjoy this equally if no one ever knew I experienced it? (Helps isolate it from the ‘sore’ of social validation).
Creating great art or mathematics often involves immense struggle (a ‘sore’), but the moment of breakthrough can feel like a transcendent release from that very struggle. Yet, the appreciation of the final product by a still mind might be different—a pure non-contrived joy.
Therefore, the model doesn’t automatically categorize all pleasure on the same level (there is a non-contrived joy which is beyond the scope of pleasure). What it does: it asks us to discern the underlying mental state. A huge portion of what we chase is relief-driven (‘scratching’), and that a state of peace (‘no sore’) is superior and can itself be profoundly positive. So the pleasures you list could sit anywhere on this spectrum between pleasure and non-contrived joy. The final litmus test is whether there is craving or not.
Thank you for this comment! It’s an excellent response that gets to the heart of the matter. You’re absolutely right to focus on the metaphor, as its validity determines the model’s usefulness.
Let me clarify the intended meaning, because I think we use ‘pleasure’ in two different senses, which is exactly what the metaphor is trying to reveal.
Distinguishing ‘pleasure’ from ‘well-being’. The claim isn’t that the sensation of scratching is less intense than the sensation of neutrality. The claim is about the overall state of the system.
In a ‘scratching state’ the system has a problem (a sore/itch). The scratch provides a high-contrast relief from the negative state. This relief is intensely felt and is certainly ‘pleasurable’ in a hedonic sense. But the system’s baseline is compromised.In a ‘no sore state’ the system has no problem. There is no negative state to relieve, so there’s no high-contrast ‘pleasure event’. Instead, there is a steady unobstructed peaceful functionality. This is what Nāgārjuna calls “more pleasurable still”, not in terms of peak sensory intensity, but in terms of well-being and the absence of background suffering.
The metaphor argues that what we often chase as ‘pleasure’ is the first kind: the intense signal of a problem being temporarily solved. The second kind—the peace of a problem-free system—is quieter but constitutes a higher quality of existence.
A way to test this: would you choose to have a mild chronic itch in order to enjoy scratching it? Probably not. The pleasure of scratching 100% depends on unpleasantness of the itch. The pleasure is fundamentally parasitic on the problem. If you could magically have no-itch state, you would certainly choose that! This reveals that at a meta-level we value the problem-free state more, even if scratch provides a momentary peak experience of pleasure.
Translating this to worldly desires: the model suggests our worldly cravings often work the same way. The pleasure of satisfying a craving (for food, distraction, status, etc.) is often most intense when it relieves a background state of lack, anxiety, or boredom (the ‘sore’). The point is not to never scratch an itch—that’s impractical, the insight is:
To recognize the itch. In other words: is this craving arising from a genuine neutral need or from a background ‘sore’ I’m trying to pacify?
To aim to problem-free state. Prioritizing movement to ‘no sore state’ (by insight, resolution of conflicts, etc.) over optimizing for the most efficient ‘scratching’ routines.
So you point is valid, if we equate ‘pleasure’ with raw hedonic intensity. The model invites us to consider a wider perspective of well-being, where freedom from the need to scratch is superior (if less intensive) outcome.
I also would like to clarify a point about mindfulness meditation and insight practice (vipassana). As they are sometimes mixed together. And while insight practice works, mindfulness, a stripped down version of it, doesn’t.
I’ll start by referencing a paper mentioned in the post, namely “Meditation experience is associated with differences in default mode network activity and connectivity.” [7] There the authors have shown that Theravada monks clearly shut down the DMN by what they call “mindfulness meditation”. And describe three methods of mindfulness meditation: breathing meditation, Choiceless Awareness (the term coined by Krishnamurti Jiddu), and loving-kindness (metta) meditation.
That might confuse things a bit. But let’s look at the basic source for monk’s training—Pali Canon. The basic instruction for insight and concentration practices in the tradition of Theravada is Satipatthana Sutta and Anapanasati Sutta which are unfortunately translated as “The Foundations of Mindfulness” and “Mindfulness of Breathing”. The word “sati”, which is translated as “mindfulness”, literally means “recollection”. And it is a term there that is used in developing concentration.
What do those texts say about practice? Is it only recollection of breathing and awareness? No. They are clearly set to contemplate the Four Noble Truths, the Five Hindrances, the Seven Factors for Awakening and so on. So they are loading contradictions in thinking to contemplate upon (e.g. “I suffer” / “Freedom from suffering is the goal”, “I feel desire” / “Desirelessness is the goal”, etc.). I would suggest that those act as koans to contemplate during practice. So both concentration is developed (samatha) and insight is cultivated (vipassana). In one practice!
So what does it say about the monks from the paper? First of all, they have selected monks who are awakened (who can switch off the DMN). Knowing the protocol of their practice they most likely have come to awakening through insight and concentration practices. And after that they can naturally abide in this place by just about any stimuli. But for the monks “mindfulness” means long-long years of vipassana and samatha practices. While for researchers it means the stripped down version of it (without accounting for the details how they reached that state)!
Long story short, mindfulness practice as noticing thoughts and sensations and coming back to awareness on itself seems to be not enough to shut down the DMN. It has to be full scale insight and concentration practices as described in the text (i.e. going through all the truths, factors, contemplating them, releasing attachments, etc.). And that’s what monks from the paper supposedly did.
There is a good video with one illuminating comment (pinned), Does Mindfulness Lead to Persistent Nonduality? In the comment it is said that the traditional vipassana practice by itself has a missing component:
He [the Dalai Lama] essentially gave his blessing to the Goenka retreats but said he felt that there was a missing element. He advised practitioners to look back and try to find the one doing the meditation.
So basically the Dalai Lama recommended self-inquiry practice on top of vipassana.
Why I decided to articulate those nuances? I feel like most of the time people confuse mindfulness meditation with insight practice and do it for years (I did so myself). I hope that clarifies things a bit.
I consider some processes like a festering wound. Is a festering wound good or bad? Ultimately it’s neutral, just a natural process at work, but we still would like to be free of it. Otherwise, it leads to dire consequences. So processes with intention to harm another is like festering wounds. If not taken care of, they escalate and lead to more serious consequences.
It’s only as a rule we solve such processes unskillfully by isolation and liquidation of the person who is making the harm. What would a skillful process look like? I don’t know, but it seems to me that prescribing psychedelics (psilocybin and DMT to be precise, as they were proven to shut down the DMN temporarily and proven to work on people with addictions to alcohol, e.g. a good read about psychedelics, Drugs Without the Hot Air by David Nutt) in order to shift the perspective of the person would worth a try, also trying other anti-psychotic medicines, perhaps even experimental. As most issues of such kind are due to neural imbalances of sorts. So it’s not just about reprogramming the rider, it’s about rewiring the elephant. And we even have tools at our hands we just stubbornly avoid using them. But it’s a difficult topic to handle for a layman as one tends to generalize un-generalizable. The direction which seems to be promising is experimental medicine, not just plain old isolation.
Comparison is more evil than it seems as it involves division. And the divided mind is more confused not less so. What I meant by having examples who had different relations to the world was something akin to emulation, rather than imitation. What’s the difference? In imitation we compare and imitate behavior. In emulation, we reverse-engineer the processes down to the principles and then apply the principles in our life. Which may even lead to completely different behavior than that of the example, taking into account our conditions. A good example doesn’t come to mind. But I think one can deduce what I’m trying to express. It’s not comparison that works, but underlying principles behind the behavior. One can say that’s a way to initially gamify one’s experience and potentially transcend it.
Ok, here is a weak example, I don’t eat meat. Many sages didn’t eat meat as well and prescribed sattvik diet. Is is imitation? No. I don’t eat meat not because sages didn’t do it and I’m trying to imitate that behavior. I don’t eat meat because I cannot eat something from which I personally cannot take life. It’s a principle which I came upon in reflection and which feels right to me. As I don’t think anyone should follow this principle, but only those who resonate with it, I don’t expect people around me to follow the same rule. So I don’t compare people who eat meat with sages who didn’t eat it and allocate respective judgements. I believe it’s a personal business of an individual and it doesn’t by itself reflect “the level of malice” of individual. As a person may not have ill intentions towards living beings, yet follow the rules imposed to him by surrounding society and circumstances. So it’s not the comparison that works in that case but reverse-engineered principles. It matters that a person comes up with ahimsa out of personal reflection and not just parrots what sages did. So in my case it works only because I came up with it myself. And I don’t think it should be applied as a universal rule (about eating meat).
You see, I don’t think that traumatic events strengthen the mind at all. It’s true that strong mind will come through them more easily. But comparing them to exercising the muscles seems odd to me. First of all, exercise is a feasible controlled challenge, overcoming which gives one a pleasure. While traumatic events are unpredictable uncontrolled shocks that shutter the nervous system. They introduce an unsurmountable contradiction, “I love her, and she is gone.” Which starts up the cycle of self-rumination (in which the DMN is prevalent) which saps up all the energy from the constructive channels. It’s true that one has to learn to overcome that grief, and eventually some process will shift the network from the default self-ruminating mode to the tasking mode. But the shock divides the mind through contradiction and will in one way or another sap its energy (even when one seemingly shifted from the initial shock).
An example. Having a psychotic break after an existential shock doesn’t make you stronger by any means, it even makes you more prone to more psychotic breaks. That is like uncontrolled entropy growth. And one cannot reverse that process so the feedback-loop is degenerative. It makes one more vulnerable to vicissitudes of life and doesn’t teach anything of value. It’s a lose-lose situation. The only upside of such an event can be the understanding that one has no control over life and attempt to cut the dispersion to different directions of thinking, i.e. simplification. But whether it’s healthy or not in a highly complex environment it’s hard to tell.
Yes, there is a nice paper on this, Hunter-gatherer networks accelerated human evolution. Which basically states that small interconnected groups solve puzzles more quickly than one big group would.
Yes, that’s a difficult topic. The only solution that I have found to work when you are in such conditions is turning inward instead of outward. That is, all the time it is possible to do it. That’s also why I believe spirituality works, as one’s odds of success are miniscule and one is basically operating on faith alone.
It’s funny that I think that the very process of meaning-making (if meaning taken as intrinsic) leads eventually to nihilism. When one is thwarted and doesn’t get what one wants, the very meaning one was invested in turns against him and feeds life-denying attitudes. The only solution that I found to this is the Buddhist middle way, which basically denies intrinsic meaning, stating that all meaning only made up, i.e. relational, local. In that model I tend to de-emphasize the meaning making apparatus. But that’s not nihilistic, as relativized meaning is accepted. It’s like saying, it works, but don’t forget that it’s only local and not absolute.
Positive here. But I don’t despair, because all the conditions and circumstances seem to direct me in the direction of liberation. Everything else will not suffice. In games’ jargon, only epic win will suffice, everything else is half-measures that would not hold ground. I’m certainly not guaranteed of that, but it creates a somewhat healthy dynamics.
It’s not a problem if one takes it to be only a role. But deeply is not identified with that role. Some people used to call me a mathematician or a programmer, but those were just functions I performed, not what I am deep inside. I am neither limited nor defined by those functions. All I can say, I, indeed, simply am.
You seem to want to build a theory of mind (a good read on the topic by Joscha Bach, Principles of Synthetic Intelligence). And it may serve a valid purpose. But what I try to share with those questions is deep inborn childlike curiosity (that I myself get from them). Granted those questions may not be “your” questions and you may resonate with different set altogether. It’s actually good that you don’t have such a theory of mind, as you feel unprepared for their rawness! They are not meant to be answered by the mind, they are to lead the mind into impasse from which it cannot move, where concepts cease and silence prevails. That silence (albeit temporary) is the goal. It’s the data-point that the mind learns after asking such questions. Once it gets enough data-points of silence, it starts to prefer that state over the default one. For some it may take few months, for others—years of practice. There is a good post by Gary Weber that uncovers this process, Self-inquiry vs the egos/Is—How it works—the neuroscience.
Actually, from the theory of mind perspective self-inquiry is meant to get rid of the SRIN. So if one is tired of incessant self-talk one will look for any means to stop it. But the “I” will never agree to that deal as that would mean its own dissolution… Therefore the process of self-inquiry is itself paradoxical. You are either attracted to it or not. That includes any koan, not just self-inquiry as the aim of koans is the same—to get rid of the SRIN (which is by some tantamount to awakening). Only a peculiar “I” will agree to that deal. But Gary in Myths about Nonduality and Science says that cognition in the result is much higher. He gives a comparison by Hood’s mysticism scale, where nonduality/liberation scores higher than sex and psychedelics. A worthy read/watch, if you are into hacking your perception.
Ha-ha-ha! In some way “it’s too late” as you’ve already started contemplating over those questions. But don’t worry about that, they say that awakening is not directly linked with anything we do with our minds. If you are destined to awaken—you will, whether you want it or not, whether you’ve heard something about it or not, whether you do some practices or not. Contemplating these questions (or other koans) just makes one “prone to accidents” more. I think your mind is too curious not to ponder over some unanswerable question or another so you are not liberationproof.