Conditioned (Thought-mediated) Mind & Direct Knowing

“These are the moments when we define the self: 

          • I want this.

          • I feel this. (& judge as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral) 

          • I must do it this way.

This is the arising of the conditioned mind (marked by 'preferences'). There are other moments of direct knowing when we slip in and out of events smoothly, without conditioned mind impeding.

If it is a conditioned moment, we might inquire whether some fear is at its root, a fear that requires that I (behave) in this ‘particular way.’ ….

A good way to study the conditions in which we want things to appear or to not appear is through working with pain, the sensation of burning, throbbing, hot, stretching, tearing – however it is arising for you. What happens when consciousness dares to enter this throbbing, burning sensation? When you enter the shape of pain, you go past the shape in your mind; you go past the aversion and fear in your mind. This direct experience lacks aversion and fear. There is simply direct knowing.

When a part of consciousness isn’t holding out, saying, ‘Oh, do I have to do this?’ your whole being is hot, throbbing, on the verge. It’s on the threshold because you have entered the shape of pain in your mind. That experience goes beyond the appearance and nonappearance of conditions. You’re right on the margin, where your authentic life actually exists.”

Katherine Thanas. “The Truth of This Life. Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is.” Shambhala, 2018.

awakeningartsacademy.com

Healing, Healing, Healing ...

There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole ...

Rashani Rea

 

rashani.com

Public Gardens, Halifax, NS

Alleviating vs Curing Suffering

     "in certain Buddhist circles ... debate about the ultimate usefulness of assuaging temporal suffering is making the rounds. The topic is timely, given the commercialization of spirituality and the spread of the mindfulness movement. Most of us agree that the Buddha meant his paths to be curative rather than palliative. Shouldn't we be shooting for (enlightenment) rather than, say, 'stress reduction'?

     Although it can't magically wake us all up, Great Compassion can intervene by making our various situations just livable enough that we can shift our focus from pain, emotional overload, and warped coping strategies to the self-evident truths of the dharma: goodness, selflessness, and understanding lead to happiness; aggression, selfishness, and ignorance lead to suffering."

       Pamela Gayle White. "Alleviating Suffering. Can Working to Treat Pain Help Us Tackle the Fundamental Causes of Human Distress?" Tricycle, Spring 2015.                                www.tricycle.com

Gaudi Blues

Buddhism & Mental Health

      "To call something a 'fundamental principle of Buddhism' is only correct if, first, it is a principle that aims at the quenching of dukkha (pain, misery, suffering) and, second, it has a logic that one can see for oneself without having to believe others."

       Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. “Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree - The Buddha's Teachings on Voidness.” Wisdom, 1994.


     “The Buddhist premise is that by reflecting, by contemplating, and by understanding the common human experience (of suffering), we can transcend all the mental delusions that create human suffering.”

       Ajahn Sumedho. “The Mind and the Way. Buddhist Reflections on Life.” Wisdom, 1995.

Akos Stiller   www.stillerakos.com

Thriving at the Growing Edge

     "It is so easy to banish areas of pain from the warmth and love of my heart. Aversion to discomfort is a rejection of the pain. It also marginalizes a central part of the truth of what is happening. Opening to pain is a persistent practice, and at this edge I learn much. 
     I have found that it is vital to touch discomfort with an awareness that is forgiving, accepting, and loving.”

       Harrison G. “In the lap of the Buddha.” Shambhala, Boston, 1994.

emilyaharrington, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Easy to See Others' Problems, Self-knowledge takes Training

     Most people know that those who behave very aggressively ("tough guys") are armored due to a lot of personal pain issues - ie are overcompensating for a lot of unresolved fear & pain. On the other hand, people who are usually even-tempered, kind & considerate, are likely to be more emotionally balanced and healthy.
     So we health-care providers know this conceptually, like we know a lot of stuff "in our heads", but actually living this is ... different. Most of us have no practical training in connecting with our own values & embodying, living these vital guiding principles. Yet there is a widely available, evidence-based, easily approachable method for doing precisely this: mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). And there are 8-week workshops near you.
     In Halifax, Nova Scotia see: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/03/8-week-mindfulness-ce-course-for-health.html 

Words of Wisdom, Rome, Italy

Rapid-fire Words - Hilarious OR Hurtful

     An infinite number & variety of thoughts pass through our minds at a rapid pace - like a wind storm blowing dust particles through an open archway. Relatively rarely, we instantly verbalize one of these dust particles. Being unformulated, extemporaneous statements are "out of character" for the speaker, and can have surprising, unpredictable effects. Words, after all, can be powerful.
     At best, such spontaneous verbalizations can be hilariously funny, helped enormously by the rapidity with which they comment on an event. And precisely for the same reason, these can be devastatingly hurtful. In either case, there's no time to actually examine & filter what's being said - to consider it's effects.
     Unfortunately, once something hurtful is verbalized, those hurt by it may assume that the hurtful statement was intentional and encapsulates who the speaker is, what that speaker is "all about". But this is rarely so.
     Only after we ourselves commit such blunders AND actually realize it, do we start forgiving others, and realize that these usually are truly "out of character." People are far more complex, & far more decent than we tend to assume immediately after we're hurt by - OR we ourselves hurt others with - a few random words.

Recognizing & Transcending Fear

     “Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
      I would like to see you living
      In better conditions.”                                             Hafiz

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_a_baldwin.html#KQKea0dwqHKufJQi.99

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/james_a_baldwin.html#KQKea0dwqHKufJQi.99

      "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."

      “Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”                                                                                                                                                James A. Baldwin

     Listen to American meditation teacher Jack Kornfield being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey. They spoke at length about practice & mindful living:
http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/Full-Episode-Oprah-and-Jack-Kornfield-on-Mindful-Living-Video

Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com/

Suffering, the Hippocratic Oath and ... Meditation?

     The Hippocratic Oath is our vow to relieve suffering. Interestingly, the Buddha is claimed to have said “I teach one thing and one only: that is, suffering and the end of suffering.” Could there be synergy between Buddhist-inspired secular meditation practices such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and modern health-care? What effect might meditation have on medical & dental students' idealism & compassion as they weather the corrosive effects of the "hidden curriculum"? See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/11/432-i-try-and-i-try-but-i-cant-get-no.html

     "For Buddha, as for many modern spiritual leaders, the goal of meditation was as simple as that. The heightened control of the mind that meditation offers was supposed to help its practitioners see the world in a new & more compassionate way, allowing them to break free from the categorizations (us/them, self/other) that commonly divide people from one another."

     Researchers compared the reaction of a group ("meditators") who completed an 8-week meditation course, to those wait-listed ("nonmeditators") when observing a woman entering a waiting room, in pain, on crutches, finding no seats available. "... only 16 percent of the nonmeditators gave up their seats — an admittedly disheartening fact — the proportion rose to 50 percent among those who had meditated. This increase is impressive not solely because it occurred after only eight weeks of meditation, but also because it did so within the context of a situation known to inhibit considerate behavior: witnessing others ignoring a person in distress — what psychologists call the bystander effect — reduces the odds that any single individual will help. Nonetheless, the meditation increased the compassionate response threefold.
     Although we don’t yet know why meditation has this effect, one of two explanations seems likely. The first rests on meditation’s documented ability to enhance attention, which might in turn increase the odds of noticing someone in pain (as opposed to being lost in one’s own thoughts). My favored explanation, though, derives from a different aspect of meditation: its ability to foster a view that all beings are interconnected. ... any marker of affiliation between two people, even something as subtle as tapping their hands together in synchrony, causes them to feel more compassion for each other when distressed. The increased compassion of meditators, then, might stem directly from meditation’s ability to dissolve the artificial social distinctions — ethnicity, religion, ideology & the like — that divide us. 
     Supporting this view, recent findings by the neuroscientists Helen Weng, Richard Davidson & colleagues confirm that even relatively brief training in meditative techniques can alter neural functioning in brain areas associated with empathic understanding of others’ distress — areas whose responsiveness is also modulated by a person’s degree of felt associations with others. 
     So take heart. The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members and as-yet-unknown strangers by increasing the odds that you’ll feel their pain when the time comes, and act to lessen it as well." 

       The Morality of Meditation - David DeSteno - July 5, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html?_r=0

 

Child and Wave by John England   http://www.fogforestgallery.ca/bios/bio_england.html

Helpful, Effective Attitude Changes towards Pain & Discomfort

     Rapid relaxation (RR) is a brief (~2 minute) set of suggestions, given immediately pre-operatively (eg while applying topical anesthetic), to reduce anxiety during local anesthesia & subsequent minor surgical procedures. RR is recommended for managing mild-moderate pre-op anxiety, which is almost universal. RR combines elements of hypnosis, meditation & good basic bedside / chairside manner. It empowers patients by giving them an attractive, immediate alternative to stressful catastrophization AND can markedly improve the quality of the surgical experience for both patients & clinicians.

       Lovas JG, Lovas DA. Rapid relaxation - practical management of preoperative anxiety. J Can Dent Assoc 2007; 73(5): 437-40.

     Palliative care, which “includes consideration of psychosocial & existential / spiritual factors in addition to the physical domain,” has been shown to have the “counterintuitive capacity to support an increase in quality of life even when introduced only days prior to dying.”
       Mount B. Healing, quality of life, and the need for a paradigm shift in health care. J Palliat Care 2013; 29(1): 45-8. 
 

     Similarly to RR (top), briefly telling research volunteers a little bit about mindfulness - specifically that they had the option to be OK with the discomfort of heat - just before applying the (experimental) thermal stimulus, changed the experience. Both the pain ratings AND brain activity were significantly reduced. In general however, benefits are proportionate to the amount & quality of mindfulness practice - see Study 1: https://www.mindandlife.org/the-contemplative-path-how-do-we-learn/

     When options are clear & perceived need imminent, human beings tend to choose wisely. Under duress, we often learn that a higher level of consciousness, and an associated higher quality of life, is (and always has been) readily available. 

     Hedy Kober PhD describes their experiments at Yale in an excellent (19min) TedX presentation (in English):

Self-understanding, Healing Yourself - THEN You Can Help Others

     Celebrated performance artist Marina Abramovic, currently performing in Toronto, on the positive role of suffering & the road to real happiness:

     “Do you think that every ancient civilization’s sacred rituals ‘abused’ the body in order to become a shaman, or in order to go from childhood to puberty – when they send the kids into the forest & they have to survive in order to learn what loneliness means, what it means being in the wild, what it means getting food for yourself, or hundreds of other rituals where you almost have to face clinically dying in order to create a different state of consciousness? Why are we doing this? Why call this ‘abuse’? Suffering is good for us, IF we see the context, IF we see the concept, IF we see the idea behind it. We suffer because we are just temporary on this planet – the moment you’re born, you’re going to die. Just general human suffering that’s expressed in so many ways – the suffering of loneliness, the suffering of not being loved, not understanding the world, not understanding what the purpose of your life is, there are so many different ways. Just that kind of suffering - every human being has this.
     Pain is another obstacle – we’re so afraid of pain. But what I’m doing in my life, I’m staging painful experiences in front of an audience and using the energy of the audience I’m going through this experience in front of them and actually seeing how I can push my mental-physical borders. If I can do it myself, they can do it in their own lives. That’s the way I’m doing it. I don’t see this as abuse.

       Jian Ghomeshi: Do you think that the pursuit of happiness - that Americans have held to such a high standard – do you think that’s folly?  

     No, it’s so wonderful. Right now, you’re facing me, and I’m the happy person in this moment. It took me 40 years to come to that point that I actually feel happy. It’s been such a long journey, but it’s really about fully understanding yourself. You see the concept of happiness is not about having more cars, and having more money in the bank, and then go and take drugs, and drink like hell, and then suicide because you can’t deal with yourself. Happiness comes from fully understanding your own being – and this is such a long journey. And all these things, at least in my work I’ve been doing was going towards this transformation where actually you come to that kind of knowledge. And you come to that kind of knowledge, that type of happiness, you actually come to that point where you can help others to understand that."

       Marina Abramovic interview by Jian Ghomeshi on CBC Radio - starts precisely @ 0:25:35/1:09:03 see: "Eroding gay rights in Russia, Artist Marina Abramovic, Inventor Mick Ebeling 06/12/2013" http://www.cbc.ca/q/episodes/

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/03/approach-avoidance-dichotomy.html

     A true artist shows society what it can't see on its own.

Udayan Sankar Pal   www.facebook.com/UdayanSankarPal