“I believe the crux of today’s Middle-East problem is laid in Obama administration policies and the Saudi interference in Syrian crisis. When Saudi clerics fallaciously claim they represent Islam and they side with cutthroats in Syria; thus they give the radical groups a plausible excuse for their heinous crimes against innocent civilians,” AFP quoted the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader as saying.
“…several times I importuned President Obama to end his catastrophic support for Saudis and their terrorist proxies in the Middle-East but my appeals fell on deaf ears,” said world’s most famous exile. (Source)
Category: Buddhism
Triggers and microaggression
I greatly dislike the way these two words—trigger and microaggression—are currently being used.
Trigger implies that something inevitable will follow while microaggression outright claims that the other person is at fault.
I much prefer my own neutral term for those small stimuli that might cause emotional discomfort.
My term is psychological morpheme, which is defined as:
The smallest meaningful unit of a psychological response. It is the smallest unit of communication that can give rise to an emotional, psychological, or cognitive reaction.
I strongly believe psychological morphemes exist and that they arise at distinct moments and that these moments can be perceived by the owner of them and that that owner of these moments can and must learn to control them, analyze them, learn from them.
It is a huge mistake to automatically blame another person for our own psychological morphemes. From a FIML point of view, there is almost nothing worse.
The reason this is a really bad thing to do is you are very likely wrong.
Even if you are wrong only one out of twenty times, the consequences of your mistake can be very large. I guarantee you are wrong much more often than that.
I say this after doing years of FIML practice during which I have discovered in myself and my partner hundreds of wrong psychological morphemes, most of which were connected to subjective networks that had grown large over many years.
Most psychological morphemes arise due to habits of subjective interpretation.
Rather than let these subjective interpretations have their way, a far more profitable and much wiser course of action is to stop that process at the initiating morpheme. Stop it before it gets going and fills your mind.
If you can stop it at the psychological morpheme and analyze it with the help of your FIML partner, those morphemes will not become mindless triggers that you wrongly interpret as microaggression, but rather opportunities to see and understand how your brain is actually functioning in real-time.
Psychological morphemes are also commonly misinterpreted as signs that reside in the other person of boredom, anger, contempt, arrogance, insecurity, optimism, happiness, pleasure, and so on including as many states as you can imagine.
man and TV
The persistence of nonrational social norms
Very concrete examples of persistent nonrational social norms can be found in consumer science.
For years, we received medical advice on fats and salt that had little scientific backing. Yesterday, an article appeared showing Medical benefits of dental floss unproven.
I had had my suspicions about the fat and salt though I did lean toward reducing intake, but the lack of evidence for dental floss surprised me.
Imagine tens of thousands of hygienists and dentists repeating the advice to floss over all those years. Dental floss is a multi-billion dollar industry.
I don’t blame hygienists or dentists. They were faithfully doing what they were taught—transmitting a social norm that seemed to be science-based (but was not).
That’s how societies hold together. Common beliefs and norms are typically transmitted by authority figures at the top. After the authority figures, come parents, news media, teachers, etc. in a long chain of transmission. Each in turn repeats what they have learned.
Could be about dental floss or it could be about keeping the sun in the sky by cutting out people’s hearts.
You can see something similar at an individual level. Much of human psychology is based on habits transmitted internally from one day to the next in long chains that sometimes can be traced back to infancy.
Much of what we think and feel is nothing more than habit transmitted faithfully from one moment to the next.
Psychological habits, like social conformity, work according to rules that we can understand in terms of reason but that often are not themselves reasonable.
Decision-making mental states
Pretty sure most of us have deep mental states wherein significant personal decisions are made.
I am thinking especially of significant psychological decisions, life decisions, and social decisions.
An example of such a deep state might be being drunk.
Some people make important decisions about themselves and others when they are drunk.
Often those decisions are dark, even immoral. And often the drinker forgets making them though the decisions remain in effect.
In subsequent days, those decisions may seem to be obvious truths, not conclusions they reached while drunk.
This sort of psychological alcoholism—depending on the drunk state for decision-making though not otherwise alcoholic—can be very destructive because it fosters self-deceit and bad decisions.
Dark plans occur while drunk that are capably acted on while sober and unconscious of them.
This is a very effective form of self-deceit and may even be selected evolutionarily due to that.
I know someone with a strong trait like this and several others with milder versions.
OK, so that’s one thing and if you look, there is a good chance you will know someone who does this. You may even do it yourself.
Now, the second thing is I suspect there are a lot of deep decision-making mental states, not just the drunk one.
Some of them are dark and bad like the drunk one. Some are good. Some are idealistic. Some moody, some effective. Some analytical.
If you can see the drunk one, you can probably see others.
It’s interesting that we seem to reserve some mental states for deep psychological positioning or repositioning.
And like all things human some of those states are used for good, some for bad.
Some are inherently bad for making decisions (being drunk, over-confident, etc.) and some are inherently good.
The seriousness of lying shows in alcoholism
About a year ago, I posted an essay suggesting that not lying may be the most important of the five precepts of Buddhism (guidelines for lay Buddhists).
In that essay, Buddhist morality and signaling, I said that the precepts can be understood as signals coming from the mind and that as such the morality of the signals themselves is of paramount importance.
If you don’t lie, you won’t kill, steal, do sexual misconduct or use alcohol irresponsibly because breaking any of the other five precepts will cause you to conceal what you have done or lie about it.
Yesterday, I saw a meme on alcoholism entitled part of being an alcoholic is making it seem like you are drunk less often than you really are. Here’s the meme:
It’s a long, bad, slippery slope from there on. I would hate myself if I did that.
When I mentioned this meme to my partner this morning, she said that she had read about an alcoholic who started lying to her family about her drinking.
The first time, the woman said, her lie made her feel a little distant from them. Before long, she felt so far away she couldn’t even remember where they were anymore.
This illustrates the power of the mind. If you are willing and able to accurately monitor your mind and report on it truthfully to your partner, you won’t even start down a bad road like the author of the meme or the woman who chose booze over her family.
Alcoholics are notorious liars because the condition all but forces them to lie to their most intimate companions. The booze itself causes the lying. The yeast that makes alcohol is like an off-site parasite that gets food from its “hosts” by forcing them to buy the waste products of its metabolism.
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Note: I put up a fair amount of stuff on alcoholism on this site because I have witnessed the devastation of this condition up close with several friends. I also post on this subject because I know that the condition is greatly worsened by its being very hard for most people to identify during its early stages.
Alcoholism often starts in the mid to late teens, sometimes earlier or later. Normally three stages are recognized. 1) the early stage during which the future addict is just drinking a lot but may not be addicted yet; 2) the middle stage where the addict is addicted and knows it and is probably lying about it; 3) the last stage, which is the stage everyone recognizes.
In this last stage, the alcoholic typically is unhealthy, sloppy, and no longer conceals their drinking (which is less than before because their livers are damaged).
I think that if I had known more about alcoholism and how it progresses, I would have been able to help several people who were becoming alcoholic. I would also have prevented at least some of the harm they did/do to others.
I honestly feel bad about not having recognized the symptoms of early and middle stage alcoholism. I mistook it for good times and sensitive, artistic natures just going a bit too far. What I was actually witnessing was good people gradually turning into abusive drunks.
Listeners are different from speakers
A listener’s state of mind is different from a speaker’s.
It is more dreamy, often more visual, and has a wider range of associations in play.
For this reason, listeners often react more to their own minds than to what the speaker meant.
An example of this occurred recently.
While my partner was speaking, she referred to someone as a “douche bag.” She meant to distinguish that person from someone else with the same name (who is not a douche bag).
As she said “douche bag,” a strong image rose in my mind of the person in question being pushed into a region of darkness.
In response to that image, I protested “he is not a douche bag”; not so much to recover his honor or reputation as to keep him from being pushed further into the darkness.
She changed her wording and the conversation went on. I completely forgot the incident and the image that had arisen in my mind.
The next morning my partner brought the subject up again and explained in FIML detail why she had used “douche bag.” The memory came back to me.
It’s a good example of how a speaker’s mind differs from a listener’s.
The illusion of culture
Cultures have illusory “grammars” that outline what can and cannot be said.
Culture wars, essentially, are battles over what can and cannot be said, done, signaled, thought, believed, valued, etc.
A few days ago in You can’t say what they don’t already know, I said:
Cultures demand constant authorization and reauthorization from their members. To stray from established norms is to weaken group authorizations.
That’s how it works for all cultures with more than a few members. Cultural bonding and affirmation involves nothing more than authorizing and reauthorizing the basics of the culture.
It even works that way in groups as small as two people. This because two people speaking together typically do so in a larger cultural context that is defined and accepted by both of them.
Just as most people do not make up their own words or jokes, most people do not make up the bases of their culture(s).
Even committed couples speaking in private typically do not leave their shared cultural script(s). This happens because they do not know any other way to speak to each other.
A profound and rich world of subjective insight and perception eludes them because they are afraid they might stray too far from the established script.
Culture becomes deeply illusory at this point. Its tenets are held not due to thought and insight but only to stabilize or maintain a rote communication pattern.
You can change this by using a functional communication pattern instead of rote cultural grammar that has been imported into your mind from outside.
As an experiment, try not feeling anything about the basics of your culture. Do FIML from this point of view and see what happens.
Buddha’s skull bone discovered?
A “skull bone” of the Buddha was supposedly discovered in a temple in Nanjing China, according to a livescience report: Ancient Shrine That May Hold Buddha’s Skull Bone Found in Crypt.
Here is another story with more photos: Engravings say the skull belonged to Siddhartha Gautama.
It is unlikely the bone actually belonged to the Buddha but not inconceivable.
One of the things that makes Buddhism different from many other religions is the great importance traditionally given to relics. When relics are considered to be of primary importance, the religion can be transplanted more easily than if its authenticity is based on geography.
Intellectual intimacy
My partner said today that she thought many people ignore or avoid intellectual intimacy.
“They’re either afraid of it or don’t understand it’s possible,” she said.
I agree.
We know we exist, have minds, perceptions, emotions, thoughts. And we also have language. Shouldn’t many topics of conversation involve our intellects probing and sharing these rich areas of subjectivity, idiosyncrasy?
Anxiety and fight, flight, or freeze
I suppose we all know what the fight, flight, or freeze response is.
In the wild, the freeze response is extremely valuable. You see a bear in the near distance and freeze. While you are frozen, you decide what to do. Quietly pull out the bear spray if you have any or just stay still in the hope the animal will leave.
The freeze response gets bad PR when we think of it as only the “deer in the headlights” response. That happens to deer because they do not understand that your car is moving at 60 MPH. If it were going at walking speed, the freeze response would protect the deer by giving it a few more seconds to consider more options.
It might be better to call the “freeze” response the “neither” response, or the “neutral” response or the “neither and keep thinking” response. Fight, flee, or do neither.
Rather than panic and run at or away from the bear, we do neither. Just stay still and consider our options. Time often dilates in such situations and most people probably have at least a few memories of making a very good decision during that brief time dilation.
In the human social realm—the realm of human signals—anxiety is often a sign of a stalled fight-flight response.
What I propose is that the next time you feel anxious about anything, consider the “freeze” or “neither and keep thinking” response rather than fight or flight. Call up and explore your freeze response. It is a very rich and useful response.
You can practice on a small anxiety-inducing incident, even manufacture one.
Do something that normally causes you to feel slightly anxious, but rather than feel anxious choose the “freeze” response instead. If the incident is small enough you will be able to engage in a cool, neutral brain state that greatly resembles beginner’s mind of the Zen tradition.
This technique moderates our instinctive response to a stressor by adding a layer of metacognition that guides it to what we want it to be.
It makes us mindful that we have more options than simply feeling anxious. Since we are social animals, human social stressors very often induce outsized responses that get stuck in a panic mode.
With just a small push from a metacognitive vantage, we can transform counterproductive anxiety into a more open and creative “freeze” response.
Dalai Lama says ‘too many’ refugees in Europe
BERLIN: The Dalai Lama said in an interview published Thursday that Europe has accepted “too many” refugees, and that they should eventually return to help rebuild their home countries.
“When we look into the face of every single refugee, especially the children and women, we can feel their suffering,” said the Tibetan spiritual leader, who has himself lived in exile for over half a century.
“A human being who is a bit more fortunate has the duty to help them. On the other hand, there are too many now,” he said. (Source)
This statement shows the beauty and wisdom of Buddhism. What the Dalai Lama said is obvious and true, so he said it. That is right speech. ABN
Edit 5:55 PM: Compare to the Pope’s comments on this subject a few weeks ago.
A good essay on framing, reading, and thinking
The essay A Framework for Reclaiming Reality is a great example of good reading on the Internet today.
The author, Jonathan Revusky, skewers a good deal of what passes for thought and analysis in modern society. Whether you agree with every point he makes, his case is a strong one and surely mostly correct.
A lot of the fun of articles like Revusky’s comes in the comments section. For essays like this, I usually read most of the first comments plus all of the author’s replies, but skip a good deal of the back-and-forth between commenters.
Revusky is concerned with macro-societal-and-history-level BS and he nails a lot of it. A good deal of what he describes is the same as what I often describe as “public semiotics,” political positions (and others) which function more as social signals than real thought and that often are dead wrong.
If you can see Revusky’s point on the macro scale, you should be able to also see that we all do a lot of that sort of thing on the micro and meso scales of interpersonal communication and belief.
I have categorized this post under “Buddhism” because I believe a good deal of what the Buddha meant by delusion is falling for BS public (and private) semiotics.
Wise compassion
The highest virtue in Buddhism is wisdom, not compassion.
Unwise compassion—that is compassion that brings harm rather than good—is bad.
I think the Pope’s talk as described in the following article is an example of unwise compassion.
Francis reprimands European leaders, forcefully asking continent: ‘What has happened to you?’
The Pope tried to highlight Europe’s “strengths” with his lofty rhetoric, but I think he revealed some of its deepest weaknesses.
Identifying a temptation to “yield to our own selfish interests” by “putting up fences here and there” to stop the flow of migrants into Europe, the pontiff said: “I dream of a Europe where being a migrant is not a crime but a summons to greater commitment on behalf of the dignity of every human being.”
I probably shouldn’t say any of what I have said and what I am going to say next: Each of the major Abrahamic religions suffers from the flaw of holding some word or law or ideal above human wisdom.
Belief in a self isn’t what gives force to judgement, it’s what blocks it
The West seems to find it very difficult to understand how recognizing that the self has no true existence doesn’t stand in the way of determination, strength of mind and action in the slightest. Instead it opens our eyes wide to the causes of happiness and suffering. It’s a recognition that makes action very precise. Belief in a self isn’t what gives force to judgement, it’s what blocks it. If our actions aren’t always clear-sighted, courageous, lucid and effective, as you say, it’s because we are the plaything of our attachment to the self. It’s said, ‘the viewpoint of the sage is higher than the sky, and his discernment in terms of cause and effect is finer than flour.’ You can’t rebel against what you’ve sown yourself, but you can build the future by knowing how to distinguish between what leads to misery and what liberates you from it. That’s very different from fatalistically espousing an inevitable future. ~ Jean-Francois Revel and Matthieu Ricard, from “The Monk and the Philosopher”
American Buddhist Net 