#529 Keep On Waking Up

     During meditation we're trying to notice, as early as possible, each time we slip away into one of our basic story lines or daydreams. 
     Why do we compulsively keep escaping from the here & now? It's very important to carefully notice how we feel immediately before the urge to escape arises. 
          • How does it feel immediately before we run to the fridge (when not hungry)?  
          • How does it feel immediately before we check our smart phone (though there's nothing important going on)?
          • How does it feel immediately before we jump up to go somewhere (though there's nowhere in particular we need to go)?

     Does compulsive avoidance work - get us where we need to be? And if not, is it time to let it go?


       Compulsivity is a tendency to repeat the same, often purposeless acts, which are sometimes associated with undesirable consequences. http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/impulse-control-disorders/understanding-differences-between-impulsivity-and-compulsivity

#397 Wise Behaviour Only Arises from Wisdom

     From birth we're conditioned to act in ways that please our parents, families, then friends, teachers, then bosses, co-workers, and the rest of society. Whether we did or did not accomplish an act is clear, easily judged. How well we did it is much more difficult to judge, and is somewhat subjective. Our attitude & intentions while accomplishing the act are very difficult for someone else to judge.
     So based on a lifetime of conditioning, many of us live our lives tightly governed by external approval of our actions. We become compulsive doers, "overachievers", "terribly busy", to the detriment of our attitudes, intentions, emotions - our inner life.
     Many of us literally fear peace, quiet, tranquility, stillness, self-reflection, meditation etc assuming that these might somehow competitively inhibit our ability to act (loss of external approval). We become anxious when we have even a bit of free, unstructured "down time".
     Indeed a part of us (brain stem) is conditioned to react with an approach-avoidance reflex to (societal & other) stimuli. However, the most highly evolved part of our brain (prefrontal cortex) is the seat of our executive function, mature judgment, meaning, values, attitude, intentions, quality (vs quantity), long-term goals ... our vitally critical inner life that should be directing our outer life.
     Civilized mature human beings should be intentionally cultivating their ability to operate with their FULL mental / human capacity. Meditation is an important means of achieving this for oneself. Universities must assume leadership to ensure their graduates are WISE, not simply reacting to societal pressures via primitive reflexes. 

#391 Comfort-seeking Moves and our Full Human Potential

     Sitting meditation is an ideal laboratory for studying ourselves. Under these controlled conditions of (external) stillness and relative (external) peace & quiet, we clearly observe a stunning array of inner activity.
     We see how we're continuously exerting energy to seek comfort. This constant automatic striving shows the pervasive dominance of the brain stem reflex. 
     The most obvious sign of this during meditation is the inability of most people to sit completely still for even short periods of time. They feel that it's impossible. As soon as they become uncomfortable, they "have to" move to a more comfortable position. When their nose gets a tickle, they "have to" immediately scratch it to become more comfortable. They assume that there's no choice in these matters - if one feels discomfort, one immediately has to react - brain stem reflex.
     A less obvious, but equally pervasive sign of this constant automatic striving towards comfort is the compulsive habit of "living in the past" or future. A large part of the time when we're (supposedly) awake, we're actually in the past - dreaming of the good old days, or wallowing in some miserable past experience; or in the future - fantasizing, or catastrophizing. Wallowing and catastrophizing are less obviously comforting than daydreaming about positive experiences, but these nevertheless do seem to provide something that's hard to let go of. 
     Perhaps the present moment is never perfectly comfortable - physically or emotionally (hedonic concept of happiness), and therefore our brain stem judges it unacceptable to inhabit continuously. So escaping the present moment is reactive, automatic (brain stem reflex) rather than a conscious decision.
     There are huge reasons for choosing to be fully conscious: to explore, embody & enjoy our full potential as evolved human beings (eudaimonic concept of happiness); and to avoid repeating & try to repair the horrors (wars, genocides, ecological devastation, Ponzi schemes, etc, etc) we've been inflicting on each other, animals and the rest of the universe in our long history of behaving far below our potential. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/09/hedonism-eudaimonia-important-concepts.html
     Sitting still in meditation, observing our urge to move, scratch, or otherwise react to a wide variety of mild discomforts, we practice accepting these without acting on these primitive urges. As surely as steadily practicing a musical instrument invariably produces a competent musician, meditation practice gradually and progressively rewires our brains so that we become less & less reactive, and increasingly conscious wise human beings.
     

Balzac's Cafe, Toronto, Distillery District, 2013

#389 Trance & Unfiltered Reality

     "People are not simply in or out of trance, but are constantly moving from one trance to another. We have our work trances, our relationship trances, and our parenting trances. Some of these states are useful and appropriate; others are not." Bandler R. Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation: How to Harness the Power of Hypnosis to Ignite Effortless and Lasting Change. HCI, 2008.

     The first two sentences are supported by research:
     "studies on attentiveness show that people are only briefly and unpredictably attentive. Attention habitually diverts to unrelated thoughts and feelings, leaving any task at hand to be managed 'on autopilot.' These studies suggest that mindlessness ('mind wandering,' 'zoning out,' 'task-unrelated thought') is 'one of the most ubiquitous and pervasive of all cognitive phenomena' and that it often occurs unintentionally, without awareness, occupies a substantial proportion of our day, and leads to failures in task performance."        Lovas JG, Lovas DA, Lovas PM. Mindfulness and Professionalism in Dentistry. J Dent Educ 2008; 72(9): 998-1009.

     However, involuntary trance is no more "useful and appropriate" than being addicted to drugs or to any other constant filter between people and reality. I say 'involuntary', because clinical hypnosis is a powerful and very useful therapeutic intervention - as is the short-term use of narcotics for acute pain. But who (besides an addict) would normalize, or especially advocate, daily use of narcotics as a way of life?

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/fear-avoidance-ineffective-existential.html

Award-winning photo by Stuart Gibson