Tag: Buddhist Practice

Sizes of social groups

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Social groups can be said to be of five sizes:

  • One person
  • Two people
  • A few people
  • Many people (all of whom know each other)
  • Many people (many of whom do not know each other)
  • New groups based on new definitions

Social groups can be defined in many ways. In this post we will loosely call something a group if it has some effect on the individual member. Comments will relate to Buddhism, human psychology, and how these relate to FIML practice.

One person

A “one person” group is one of the ideals of Buddhist practice. Milarepa is an example of a single person who lived alone for years until he became enlightened. The Buddha himself also spent years in solitary pursuit of enlightenment. Some monks and some recluses today live in one person groups. From a FIML point of view, a single-person group can work only insofar as the person doing it is able to reflect on FIML interactions they have done before or if they are unusually self-aware and honest. The problem with one person doing FIML alone is they do not have a second source of information; there is no one to check their work, and so they can easily delude themselves.

A single person working alone on anything will still have some sort of relationship with the semiotics of a larger group–be it Buddhism, some other religion, science, literature, music, etc.

Two people

Two people are the ideal number for FIML practice. Two people can still delude themselves, but this is far less likely than a single person practicing alone. Two people who care about each other and who care about what is true will have the flexibility and focus needed for successful FIML practice.

Two people will also be exposed differently to the semiotics of the larger culture(s) in which they live, providing a sort of parallax view of the society beyond them. This gives each of them a second pair of eyes and ears and a second opinion on what they encounter.

In the Buddha’s day monks generally traveled in pairs and gathered in large groups during the summer. Why did the Buddha have them travel in pairs? Is it not because this small unit is best for profound interpersonal communication and sharing?

A few people

Three or even four people could do FIML together, but in most cases it would probably be more difficult than just two people because it would take more time and be more difficult to balance all views.

Many people (all of whom know each other)

A group of many people who all know each other is becoming rare in the industrialized world, though it has probably been the most important group size in human evolution and history. Bands of hunter-gatherers all knew everyone in the group, as did (and do) peasants in small villages across the world. Small religious groups or communes in an industrialized society today might be able to do FIML very well if they divided into working pairs or small groups of a few people. These small divisions could easily share information with the whole group formally at meetings or informally as conditions allow. I would think that a commune or small Buddhist temple of 80 people or less might do very well with FIML practice.

Many people (many of whom do not know each other)

This is how most people in the industrialized world live today–within a huge group of people, most of whom are not known to us. Some examples of groups of this type are nations, religions, large religious groups, political groups, unions, professions, etc. People in groups like this can have varying degrees of attachment to the semiotics of their group. TV and news media create an illusion of group cohesion that can be, and often is, manipulated by the small groups that control these media. Economic, ethnic, and religious interests also determine the semiotics of many large groups. I don’t think that any large group would be likely to undertake FIML practice today. The day may come when FIML, or something like it, is taught in schools, but for now it is hard to imagine how any nation or large organization would decide to have their members all take up FIML practice.

Buddhism as a coherent tradition is a large group with many millions of members, most of whom do not know each other. This should tell us that all we can expect to get from “Buddhism” is its basic, or general, semiotics. The same will hold true for the large Buddhist traditions that are sub-groups of Buddhism. We can learn a good deal from Chinese, Tibetan, Theravada, or American Buddhism, but will always be limited at those levels to abstract semiotics. When and if we interact with smaller groups of Buddhists, the story changes to be roughly in line with what has been said above about smaller groups. It would be quite possible, and I think highly desirable, for a small Buddhist group to undertake FIML practice by breaking into smaller working groups of two or three people and discussing the findings of these groups as conditions permit. FIML is grounded in Buddhist ideas, and my guess is that partners would quickly begin to see many of those ideas in a new light. Emptiness, attachment, delusion, Buddhist ethics, and so on will take on new meaning when grasped with the dynamic tools of FIML.

New groups based on new definitions

The Internet has spawned a good many new groups that many people seem to be able to identify with in a way that was not possible in the past. Some of these groups with which members identify most strongly seem to be those that are based on medical diagnoses. There are many online groups centered around the diagnoses of autism, Asperger’s, ADHD, cancer, etc. To join a group like this you need the diagnosis or at least a strong suspicion that you have one of these conditions. Since these groups are pretty new, I don’t know enough about them to say how one of them might approach FIML practice. Personally, I tend to think these sorts of groups are a good thing. It is quite natural for people who perceive themselves as somehow different from the mainstream to want to band together and share their experiences. Notice how profoundly different group allegiance is in an online group formed around a medical diagnosis compared to a traditional ethnic, regional, or religious group. This comparison can tell us a great deal about the semiotics of all groups, how group identification happens, what it is based on, what loyalty to the group entails, etc.

Conclusion

From this short outline, I hope readers will see that as individuals we can understand and gain a good deal of control over how group semiotics influence our lives. If you are living in a huge anonymous group (a nation state, say), notice how much of your semiotics comes from TV and the news media. If you work in a large company, notice how much of your semiotics comes from the company. If you feel a strong allegiance to an ethnic group, notice how your group understands its own history and defines group traits. If you are a Buddhist, how do you see yourself as part of that group? How do you understand Buddhist semiotics? The ideal way to deeply understand all of your group attachments is to probe them with your FIML partner(s). FIML partners have the tools to grasp and discuss semiotics in ways that non-FIML couples do not.

Note: One reason I did this post is I want to show that some aspects of FIML practice are that way because that’s how people, language, and groups are. We form groups. One of the best group sizes for rapid and profound interpersonal interactions is two people. This condition can be used by larger groups to good effect if the large group is broken into smaller groups of two (or three) people. A very large group is not likely to undertake FIML practice. A single person living alone is unlikely to make rapid progress in FIML because they have no way to check what they are doing with someone else.

Pre-emptying

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

words 898

Pre-emptying means excluding something from consideration during a conversation. Anyone can use this term/technique, but it is especially useful for FIML partners who have come to realize that they are spending a lot of time trying to control how they are being understood. Whether they are indeed being misunderstood in subtle ways or not does not matter all that much because, as we know, if one partner even thinks they are being misunderstood, it is definitely best to do something about it.

Pre-emptying is used when one partner does not feel the need to do a full-on FIML query because they do not see anything serious happening. They are not very much concerned about any potential misunderstanding and do not feel a serious neurosis is involved. All they want to do is avoid some kinds of interpretations from occurring in their partner’s mind. They want to prevent the conversation from going in a wrong direction.

For example, you want to say something about a hot political topic but do not want to discuss that topic at length. You just want to point out that, say, so-and-so said exactly the same thing two years ago. To do that you say: I want to pre-empty my next topic of all political argumentation or further analysis. I just want to point something out and use that example to say something else. Your partner will understand that this is not the time to bring up other things about that subject. They will understand that you are going to say something with a special purpose.

Yesterday, we had a post about retroactive revision. Retroactive revision can be used in conjunction with pre-emptying to deeply rework a conversation so that it can conform more closely to your current understanding and not be held back by discarded ideas or the need to keep making small distinctions. An example of how to do this with a topic that has included material from your own life is this–just say: I want to retroactively revise what we have been saying about topic QRX and pre-empty that subject of all of the autobiographical examples I have used so far. I no longer think they apply and may be seriously misleading. So from now on, this topic does not contain any reference to the autobiographical statements I have made and statements that were made are now retroactively pre-emptied from it.

This may sound like a lot of verbiage, but it just takes a few sentences to say. The special terms will alert your partner that you are using a meta-control technique to reconfigure your conversation. With a little practice, you will both see that using this method saves a great deal of time and makes conversations much more interesting since neither of you has to waste time explaining and re-explaining the same things. The more meta-control you can gain over your conversations, the better.

On this site we have frequently emphasized the importance of catching small mistakes and identifying them as the first germs of a new neurosis or as a micro-instance of an ongoing neurosis. That is all still true, but experienced FIML partners will eventually come realize that some of their mix-ups are occurring simply because that is how language works. This meta-understanding arises from having successfully resolved enough FIML discussions that both partners can see the same sort of thing happening and neither partner feels any (or hardly any) emotional jangling regarding it.

For example, if I start to talk about a difficult relative and introduce the topic in a vague sort of way (which is very common/normal), my partner may mistake my intentions (which may be only vague in my own mind) and start talking about some aspect of that relative’s problems that will lead away from what I really wanted to say (which is coming into clearer focus for me only now). My partner’s misunderstanding of my vague conversational gambits are not neurotic. They might become neurotic if either of us fails to understand how they have arisen, but at this point in a new conversation, they are nothing more than normal potential associations on what I first said.

To forestall neurotic development and make everything much more pleasant and interesting, at this point, I need only say that I want to pre-empty the topic of anything that may lead away from what I was aiming at. In most cases, your partner will be quite willing to do that. If they see something else to say about it, there is no problem; just discuss it with them.

Pre-emptying, as with all FIML techniques, requires high levels of honesty and integrity from both partners. Partners who are in a stable relationship should not find it all that difficult to treat each other with honesty and integrity. To be clear, no FIML technique should be used to deceive or take advantage. Watch yourself carefully because the ego is biased and it is natural for all speakers and listeners to act from a self-centered position. Properly done, FIML can easily deal with those very normal aspects of being human.

Note: The term pre-emptying recalls the English word “preempt” and the Buddhist term “empty”. We are using a new term because we are doing something different from preempting or realizing the emptiness of something. At the same time, pre-emptying is sort of close to both of those concepts.

Retroactive Revision

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words 331

Retroactive revision means changing what you said. Anyone can do it but retroactive revision is especially designed for FIML partners. Partners can use it whenever they feel a statement they have made has boxed them into a corner or is making the conversation take a turn they had wanted to avoid.

For example, you say “I like XYZ cars the best.” What you actually meant is I very much like XYZ cars. Your partner starts talking as if you really mean you like them the best. This is a very simple example, but sometimes it can be difficult to keep things on track even with a simple mix-up like this.

If you feel your partner is wasting time talking about the good points of other cars to show you that XYZ may not be the best, just say you want to retroactively revise what you first said. Say: “I want to retroactively revise what I said. I want to change my initial statement to I very much like XYZ cars. I didn’t actually mean I like them the best of all cars; I was exaggerating, I guess.” Your partner will understand that you were using words loosely and that they need not take your original statement literally. They will change their tack and your conversation will become more in keeping with what you really think and feel.

Once learned, that technique will give both partners a lot of freedom. It’s relaxing to know you can easily change what you have said to be more in line with the thinking that has evolved in your mind since you made your initial statement.

As with most FIML techniques, FIML partners should do retroactive revisions the moment they feel a jangle that their partner may have misunderstood them. If it turns out your partner did not misunderstand, there is still a major benefit for both partners because the mistaken impression you had about your partner will not cause any further confusion for either of you.

How greed is mirrored in social groups

~ ABN ~ 1 Comment

In my last post, I introduced the idea of mirroring to FIML terminology. Language, semiotics, and mirroring (LSM) can be thought of as a fairly simple set of factors that can help us understand social situations.

Several studies done at UC Berkeley (Unethical Behavior More Prevalent In The Upper Classes According To New Study) have shown that upper-class individuals tend to behave less ethically than others. Of course, any good historian knows this is the history of the world–privileged classes always become locked in a self-referential world that gradually moves far from the reality of the societies that support them.

If we consider the UC studies in terms of LSM, we can say that those people are ensconced (or trapped) in a subculture that upholds a “greed is good” semiotic, that they will speak to each other (language) in terms based on that semiotic, and that they will mirror each others’ expressions and bodily movements. Of course there will be a lot of variety in how they do these things, but generally we can expect to them to act in roughly those ways.

It is not surprising that in a capitalist society attitudes toward greed would be a central marker of upper-class groups. In ancient China, the operative upper-class words might have been obedience (of others) or loyalty. In traditional India, it would be sticking to your caste.

Traditional Buddhism makes a distinction similar to LSM. As Buddhists, we speak of the karma of body, speech, and mind. In this context, body = mirroring; speech = language; and mind = semiotics. Not exactly the same, but pretty close.

We can also see in Buddhist terms how it is that people get locked into their groups and why we call that “karma”. It can be very difficult to go against any group (and especially the upper-class) in any of those areas of body, speech, or mind. You can’t speak against them or speak all that differently from them; you can’t hold ideas that don’t fit (greed is bad!); and you can’t stop mirroring their expressions and body language when around them. If you deviate too much from any group, you will find yourself becoming separated, even ostracized, from it very quickly.

FIML partners have an excellent way to observe these general truths in the microcosm of their daily interactions with each other. Almost all FIML queries/discussions will contain small bits of body, speech, and mind, or language, semiotics, and mirroring. After a FIML query has been basically answered and understood, it is a good idea to review these three aspects by asking specifically about them.

What sort of mirroring was happening? Was one partner using the mirroring (body language) of a subculture the other partner did not understand?

What sort of speech/language was happening? Did one partner use a word or term that sounded off to the other? Did someone’s tone of voice sound wrong? Why?

What sort of mind/semiotics was happening? Was one partner assuming something (greed is good) that the other partner does not believe? Does the first partner really believe that or are they just mirroring the beliefs of others?

Buddhist teachings can help us a great deal during discussions of this type. Ask yourself, am I being wise or stupid right now? Am I trying to understand more deeply or just trying to bs my partner? Is my state of mind conducive to learning and wisdom or not?

In the studies described above, we can see that some of those people have allowed themselves to act unethically based on unsound thinking. They have a mistaken view of themselves and the world. In FIML, we call this sort of view a neurosis. If a person who held views of that type were to do FIML practice, they would eventually see their views intruding on their speech or on how they listened to other people. In FIML practice, they will get immediate feedback, so it will become difficult to maintain those mistaken views. In real life, too many of those upper-class people never get the feedback from anyone, so their delusion drifts further and further from what is right and wise. Ergo, the current state of the USA, but that’s another story.

Being able to do FIML

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  • Being able to do FIML means that you have developed a skill or trait that did not exist in you before. The ability to do FIML is a functional “state of mind” that emerges from other states of mind–from consciousness, awareness, self-reflection, self-criticism, communication, language use, emotion, etc.
  • Doing FIML will change the way you communicate, especially with your FIML partner. It will change the way you view language and its uses.
  • Since FIML depends on real data agreed upon by both partners and since FIML can convincingly change how we perceive ourselves and our partners, it can give us new perspectives on psychology and/or any activity that depends on language/communication.
  • The use of a linguistic/semiotic vocabulary in FIML allows us to classify a great deal of human cognition, psychology, and behavior as lying on a spectrum of public—private semiotics.
  • This perspective allows us to broadly define many human behaviors, thoughts, and feelings as mistakes. For example, a private semiotic may be a “neurosis” and can be defined simply as a “mistaken interpretation” or an “ongoing mistaken interpretation.” Similarly, any public semiotic that can be shown to be wrong can be clearly identified as a mistake or an “ongoing public neurosis.”
  • What is “normal” in FIML is, thus, that which is not mistaken. Partners have great leeway to decide much of this for themselves.
  • Very often, the least mistaken view is one of doubt or traditional skepticism, the view that we may not be able to be certain about whatever is in question.
  • FIML practice accepts the basic scientific view that a scientific theory must be testable or falsifiable, based on experiments that can be repeated, based on verifiable evidence, internally consistent, consistent with what is external to itself, useful or practical, open to change, and parsimonious in its explanations.
  • New scientific theories should also say something new and interesting, something that explains data in a new way or that provides a new way of understanding old data.
  • FIML differs from a good deal of science in that it relies heavily on the experiences of two (or more) partners. FIML is a kind of subjective science that also relies on the objectivity of a truthful partner.
  • For the most part, partners alone decide what is true for them, though they cannot honestly do this without reference to other fields of science and thought.
  • FIML resembles Buddhist practice, art, or the work of early scientists in that the existential/ experiential data acquired by individuals is of great importance to those individuals and is central to what they are doing.
  • FIML can be scientifically falsified if many people do it and fail to gain any benefit from it.
  • Done properly, at a minimum, FIML practice should clear up most communication mistakes/ problems between partners. FIML also provides the means for partners to continue clearing up new mistakes as they appear.
  • By clearing up mistakes in communication between partners, FIML practice alleviates a great deal of emotional suffering.
  • By clearing up mistakes in communication between partners, FIML practice will also relieve partners of other mistaken ideas and feelings, thus relieving a good deal of more generalized emotional suffering.

Catching small mistakes leads to big payoffs

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A good way to think about FIML practice is to think of yourself as looking for the smallest communication errors you can find. These tiny errors might be called morphemes of error. A morpheme is the smallest semantic unit (meaningful unit) of a language. Thinking in terms of very small mistakes can help partners because these tiny morphemes of error are where larger errors originate. If we are able to observe a tiny error the moment it happens and fully discuss it with our partner, we will prevent a larger error from coming into being. If we fail to catch the small error as it arises, it will be much harder to correct the larger error later on because by then we will never remember when and where it started.

In the early days of doing FIML, I used to call the practice of looking for small errors “catching mice”. I took great delight in finding the next little mouse/error because I knew that the benefit of catching it would be quite large compared to the little thing I had caught. (Note: I was and am involved mostly in catching mistakes in my own mind. It is my partner’s responsibility to catch the mistakes made in her mind. It is usually the person who initiates a FIML query who is the one concerned that a mistake may have arisen in their own mind. And this is why it is so important to ask as much as you are asked.)

Thinking of yourself as catching small errors and discussing them with your partner may add a level of interest to your FIML practice. This approach also allows us to be very detail-oriented without feeling petty. I guarantee that after you have caught a few of these little mice and fully discussed them with your partner, you will see the benefits for yourself. Small communication errors are the basic units of FIML practice. FIML partners can work with larger units (generalities, psychologies, philosophies, etc.), but it is best to spend most of your time just catching the small errors that inevitably arise in all communications.

An interesting example of this happened this morning. The mouse I caught was not involved directly in my communication with my partner, though I told her about it right afterward and we discussed it extensively. What happened is this:

I have been trying to follow a low-carbohydrate diet, but somehow gradually always start eating more of them till I am back to where I began. Well, I started being more strict a week or so ago. Today I went into the refrigerator to get something to eat and saw some boiled potatoes in one bowl and some vegetables in another. In my head a small tug-o-war ensued. I chose the vegetables, but as I turned away from the refrigerator and put them on the counter, I noticed that I felt slightly guilty. What was interesting is I was feeling guilty for doing the right thing. But some part of my mind was telling me, almost subconsciously, that I was actually being selfish because the potatoes should be eaten, they are cheaper, and maybe my partner would want the vegetables.

I could go on about this but to keep it short, let me just say that none of it was true. I had nothing to feel guilty about. Just to be sure, I asked my partner if she wanted the vegetables and she said no, she had already eaten. So that little piece of false-guilt was a mouse. It was a mistake, an error that was occurring in my own mind, probably to satisfy that part of me that still craves carbohydrates. In catching it, I had caught the smallest unit of eating-too-many-carbohydrates that I had ever seen. This first success will likely lead to my catching this same mistake (or something similar to it) again fairly soon. (These small mistakes almost always occur more than once or twice.) After a few more successes at catching my own mind while it is making a small mistake about my diet, I may succeed in fully defeating that part of myself that reaches for carbohydrates when I know I should not.

I bet stuff like that happens frequently with people who are addicted to anything or who keep making bad or immoral choices when, for the most part, they know they should not. We can feel guilty without having good reason to do so. Some other examples of this might be soldiers who do what others are doing even though they know it is wrong; police who do the same; employees who do the same; Buddhists, psychologists, scientists, mechanics, carpenters, etc.–we are all susceptible to making moral mistakes because we will feel guilty if we don’t.

Hence the Buddha saying:

One is one’s own protector,
one is one’s own refuge.
Therefore, one should control oneself,
even as a trader controls a noble steed.

Dhammapada 25.380

Non-FIML sociology and Buddhism

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Non-FIML sociology cannot but be based on and imbued with vagueness and uncertainty. Individuals make their ways in this foggy social environment according to their upbringing, experiences, and the different ways they have learned to negotiate ambiguity. Each non-FIML individual cannot but conform to or accept a position somewhere on the spectrum of private neurosis-public semiotics.

This is so because non-FIML individuals cannot attain interpersonal certainty; they can only attain a semblance of interpersonal certainty that is necessarily made up of many erroneous interpretations of the world around them, their loved ones, and themselves. Their understanding of themselves and of others will necessarily be made up of either private interpretations (that are sure to be largely false and thus neurotic) or public/cultural interpretations that are similarly just as false and/or too narrow or generalized (science, mainstream psychology, professional societies, religious or ethnic allegiances, etc.) to be fully satisfying to the profound needs of the individual. This is not to say that many individuals living in conditions like that are not happy, but rather that their sense of who they are and what they are doing is false, utilitarian, exploitative, slavish, or otherwise limited in one way or another. Individuals in conditions like that cannot but offend their deep-seated needs for interpersonal honesty/certainty by compromising their individual understanding of what the world around them means by accepting either prepackaged public explanations (public semiotics) or making up their own (private neurosis).

Most individuals in the world are, thus, contorted in some way. Some are deeply unhappy because they can sense something is wrong but have no way to grapple with it. Others decide to make their way in the world as it is, fully accepting, even enjoying, their perceived “need” to deceive themselves and others, to manipulate others, to take advantage of them, etc.

I think the above roughly describes a big part of what is meant by delusion and suffering in Buddhism. Delusion and suffering constitute the first two of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth says unenlightened life is characterized by suffering or dissatisfaction. The second explains the first by saying, briefly, that people suffer because they become attached to delusions. Delusions can be egocentric, sociocentric, or both. They can be a private neuroses or the very public madness of a whole society, or both. However you look at it, individual human beings will suffer and experience discontent under these conditions because their core sense of what is true is almost constantly being violated.

In the Buddha’s day, you fixed this problem by becoming a monk. You can still do that today, or you can practice Buddhism as a lay person. My feeling is that if you only practice Buddhism and do not do FIML practice, you will make a lot of progress but remain unsatisfied. Societies today are so large and complex, it is nearly impossible not to be influenced constantly by them. If you can join a monastery or build a cabin in the woods, lucky for you. Most of us, though, will continue to live among unenlightened people and will continue to have deep needs for highly satisfying interpersonal communication with our loved ones and close friends. FIML practice fits in right there. Since so many monasteries today are burdened with the weight of their own semiotics, FIML practice probably would be a very good practice even for monks, if it can be arranged.

In the Chinese Buddhist tradition, there is a story about heaven and hell. In hell people sit at a dinner table to eat but are forced to use chopsticks that are so long they cannot put any food in their mouths, and so they go hungry and feel miserable. In heaven, conditions are exactly the same, but people there use their long chopsticks to feed each other, so everyone if well-fed and very happy.

FIML practice is like heaven. By doing it we feed each other and grow more satisfied as we come to understand what the real conditions of this world are.

Public semiotics

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This link is a good example of how public semiotics is maintained in the USA. Whatever you may think of Napolitano or the linked video segment, his popular show was almost certainly cancelled for his views, which are not mainstream.

I post this not so much for political reasons or to support Napolitano, but rather to illustrate how mass semiotics are manipulated by the corporations that control our news media. This is one aspect of the modern version of the First and Second Noble Truths. Delusion in Buddhism absolutely does not just mean being psychotic or “delusional” in the modern sense of the word, but also being ignorant or fooled by false information, manipulated into believing things that are not true. Modern Buddhists must have a sophisticated sense of where their news comes from and what the bases for their social/cultural beliefs are.

Mistakes and communication

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882 words

A fascinating aspect of FIML practice is it provides experiential evidence that a good deal of what we say and hear is mistaken. We frequently make mistakes when we speak and when we listen. A major part of FIML practice involves catching these mistakes as they happen and correcting them.

We have spell-checkers for writing and when they kick in most of us calmly–even gratefully–attend to the red lines under misspelled words. In speech, though, very few of us have the habit of even noticing when a mistake has been made, let alone correcting it. In fact, if one is pointed out to us, we might even deny it or try to justify it. Once we say something, we generally have a strong tendency to want to stand by our words as if we meant them even if we did not mean them, or only sort of meant them, in the moments just before we spoke.

What kinds of mistakes will you find through FIML practice? Pretty much any way you can think of to describe or categorize speech will constitute a way that mistakes can be made. A mistake might involve word-choice, tone of voice, pronunciation, a dramatic stance that doesn’t suit you or is misunderstood by your partner, not hearing, missing the main point, becoming distracted, using or hearing a word that carries an idiosyncratic emotional charge, speaking or listening from a point of view that is not well understood by your partner, and so on. Mistakes can and will occur in as many ways as you can think of to describe language and how it is used.

How often do mistakes occur? Often. In an hour of normal speaking you will surely encounter a few, if not more. Many of them are not serious and are of little or no consequence. That said, even small mistakes can have huge ramifications. If I misunderstand your respectful silence as indifference, my misunderstanding could start a division between us that is truly tragic because my mistake (however slightly I notice it) is 180 degrees off. If I see you behave that way again, I will be more likely to make that same mistake again and to feel it more strongly. It is tragic because I am interpreting what is in your mind good behavior as something that reflects negatively on me.

A speech act or an act of listening can lock our minds into a position that is dead wrong if we are not careful.

FIML practice prevents this from happening while at the same time providing a great deal of very interesting subject matter for partners to ponder and discuss. Speech can lock our minds into mistaken impressions, but it can also free us from limitations if we use it to do FIML.

In other posts we have called neuroses “mistaken interpretations” and generally used that definition in a context that supports the meaning of an ongoing mistaken interpretation. A neurosis is a mistake in thinking or feeling that manifests in listening or speaking and that almost certainly originated through speaking or listening. I would contend that many neuroses begin with nothing more than an innocent mistake. Once the mistake is made, it snowballs (especially in the mind of a child) until it becomes an established way of listening and speaking.

Whether that contention is right or wrong, only time will tell. For this post today, all I want to say is that FIML partners can and should expect to notice a good many small mistakes occurring almost whenever they speak together.

Generally, mistakes most frequently occur when we start a new subject or add a new factor to an old subject; when we want to say something slightly different from the norm; or when we want to add a slight nuance or qualification to something that was said. One reason this happens is a slight change in a familiar subject may not be noticed by the listener, leading them to misunderstand what is being said and react in ways that do not seem fitting. A second reason this happens is a new subject often causes both partners to call up different frames of reference, leading to confusion.

FIML will get you to see how common these (and other kinds) of mistakes are and it will help you correct them. As you do this, both partners will gain great insight into how they speak, listen, and perceive each other. Once you get going, it is a lot of fun. I cannot think of any other way to accomplish what FIML does without doing it.

From a Buddhist point of view, FIML can be thought of as a sort of dynamic mindfulness done between two people and using language. It is a very intimate and beautiful way to be deeply aware of your partner and yourself. Those who have practiced traditional Buddhist mindfulness for a year or more will probably find FIML fairly easy to do. I hope that Buddhists will also notice that doing active FIML/mindfulness practice with a partner provides a way of checking each other–someone else will have something to say about what you thought you heard or said. It takes you out of yourself and provides wholesome feedback about the mind you are being mindful about.

Contretemps and FIML

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In FIML practice, we use the word contretemps to indicate a mix-up of meanings between partners. When partners are thinking, speaking, and/or listening from incommensurate perspectives, they are experiencing a contretemps. This causes mental confusion and can quickly lead to emotional reactions that are out of proportion to the situation. As we have seen in other posts, when you do not resolve a contretemps to the satisfaction of both partners (and to the satisfaction of what is true), you will cause a division, however, small in your shared understanding of each other. You cannot fully resolve a contretemps without doing a FIML dialog about it.

Some of the common ways that contretemps are generated:

  • you are dealing with a new subject
  • you are dealing with a different aspect of a familiar subject
  • one of you is saying something close to but not the same as what the other is hearing
  • one of you out of curiosity wants to revisit a subject but to the other it sounds argumentative
  • one of you is not getting sufficient confirmation from the other about what you said, so the point gets repeated

Notice that the origin of all of these contretemps is mental; that is, not terribly emotional. Once the mind becomes confused, however, even if only slightly, it begins to mishear and misspeak, thus compounding the problem while adding emotional elements to it. This happens because interpersonal communication is a complex system. By complex system, I mean it is a system that changes very rapidly and which is characterized by initial starting points not providing sufficient data to predict later outcomes.

Once you understand these points, it should become clear why interpersonal relationships can be so difficult without FIML practice. In non-FIML speech, even very simple contretemps can, and often do, lead to deep frustration and strong emotions. Whether those emotions are expressed or not, they exist. Partners may feel resentment, anger, blame, self-blame and so on due simply to a mix-up of very trivial meaning.

Let me give an example. This morning I noticed that we had very few clean dishes (of a certain type) in our cupboard. They were all in the dishwasher. In my memory, that was the smallest number of clean dishes of that type I had ever observed in our kitchen. I felt curious about it and asked my partner why she thought there were so few. She said it did not seem unusual to her. I asked again, she repeated her answer and we went on to other matters. Sometime later, I became curious about the dishes again and asked her again if she knew why we had so few clean ones. This is where the contretemps began. When she answered, either she had an unconscious tone of impatience or I mistakenly heard a tone of impatience (neither of us is sure). Whatever the case, I thought she was probably feeling that I was blaming her and so my voice rose slightly with the vague intention of putting out a fire before it got going. I wanted to emphasize that I was just curious. Of course, that tone did not work at all but only made matters worse. At this point we began a FIML discussion and within a few minutes established a mutual understanding that was satisfactory to both of us concerning what had just happened.

The basic type of contretemps that led to that discussion was the second-to-last one of the bullet points listed above: one of you out of curiosity wants to revisit a subject but to the other it sounds argumentative.

I hope it is clear to readers that even small stuff like that can cause problems. And I hope it is also clear that you really have to take the time to figure it out with a FIML discussion. If you don’t, both of you will draw wrong conclusions from the incident or at least be vague about it. If we had done as most people do and just dropped the subject when it got a little out of control, I might have concluded that my partner was mad at me for being petty or blaming her for something when, in truth, I was only curious about a small domestic anomaly. She might have thought I was angry about something else and was using the dishes as a way to get in a dig. Even more to the point, neither of us would have had any way to be sure we understood each other or the incident in question. Most couples would probably go on about their day, ignoring the issue while waiting for positive feelings to arise again.

But that doesn’t work so well. It’s an OK way to go once in a while and for some situations, but if you do that a lot, you will develop deeper and much more serious contretemps in the way you relate to each other. In engineering, I believe, there is a saying that cracks never get better but only worse. In interpersonal relations, contretemps similarly don’t usually get better because they almost always lead to further mistaken interpretations. She is too sensitive. You are too argumentative. Etc. Fill in your own blanks. Once the contretemps develop and are not addressed through FIML practice, at least some of them will get worse.

To repeat: almost any particular contretemps is in itself trivial. But if we do not figure it out and resolve it, it stands a good chance of having deleterious effects on our relationship. Interpersonal communication is a complex system. It is dynamic and moves very quickly. We ourselves are often not aware of why we said something, let alone why our partner did. If we do not deal intelligently with those levels of communicative reality, we will run into problems, many of which will not later be soluble.

I can’t think of any other way to successfully deal with the complexity of interpersonal speech than FIML. Even if we have a video and a perfectly accurate transcript of what was said, when we play it back or read it, there will not be any way we can be sure of what was in someone’s mind as they spoke. The really deep and true—the most valid—level of interpersonal communication can only be accessed by quickly recalling the few seconds of speech that have just passed. Then, these few seconds must be discussed using FIML techniques. With practice, slightly longer time-frames can be accessed, and narrative and episodic memories can also be accessed and used, but that can be difficult and won’t work if the basic FIML technique is not part of your interpersonal foundation.

This is one area where I have a fairly serious disagreement with the way Buddhism is often practiced today—with it’s overly strong emphasis on being inoffensive when we speak. If I had done that when I became curious the second time about the dishes, I probably would not have said anything. But if I had not said anything, I would have not done so because I was falsely assuming my partner was overly sensitive and I would have been falsely assuming that my curiosity was somehow wrong or that I would not be able to make myself clear to her. That would have constituted a silent contretemps, a crack in our understanding of each other. On some later day, secure in my conclusion that my partner is overly sensitive, I might have widened the crack by withholding something else from her.

The preeminent virtue in Buddhism is always wisdom, not compassion, not being inoffensive, not necessarily being silent when you aren’t sure. I think FIML gives us a way to do wise Buddhist practice with our partners without resorting to external semiotics or judgements, or misapplied slogans.

By the way, the example of the dishes is a pretty good example of something that might prompt a FIML discussion. It was a trivial incident that, like so many others, might have seemed to be of no special importance. But it was also sort of a trap, one half of which was the incident and the other half of which was our, we humans, poor abilities at speaking, feeling, and thinking. If the incident is so trivial, it ought to be easy to figure out, right?

Are We Misunderstanding The Fifth Precept?

~ ABN ~ 3 Comments

Some years ago I wrote a piece entitled: “Are We Misunderstanding The Fifth Precept?” It was posted on our old site and I apparently did not save a copy when we took that site down.

The gist of the essay was that the Buddha clearly and precisely indicated alcoholic beverages in the fifth precept. He did not say anything about any of the other mind altering substances that were almost certainly available in his day. Those other substances included at least some of the following: soma, amanita muscaria, psilocybin, Syrian Rue, opium, and cannabis. There may have been others. I don’t think anyone is sure what was available back then, but we know that soma was highly praised in ancient Indian literature and that it probably was a psychedelic substance.

As far as I know, all of the Buddhist traditions accept the Pali version of the fifth precept as authentic. It says: “I undertake the training rule to abstain from fermented and distilled intoxicants which are the basis for heedlessness.” Or words to that effect.

A Sri Lankan Buddhist scholar and translator told me that his best rendition of the fifth precept in English is: “I take it upon myself to refrain from the heedlessness caused by fermented and distilled beverages.” Or “I take it upon myself to refrain from the irresponsible use of alcoholic beverages.” I may have words slightly off, but am quite certain that the essence is right.

Given the above, is it right to change the fifth precept to its more common modern form that often says something like the following: “I take it upon myself to refrain from all intoxicants.” Or “I take it upon myself to refrain from all intoxicants and all substances that may harm the body and mind.”

The purpose of this post is not to encourage the use of drugs or alcohol but rather to be clear about what the Buddha really meant.

Most of us know that the Buddha was a very careful and unambiguous speaker. Would he have said “fermented and distilled beverages” when he meant all intoxicants? Why then was he so careful to name both kinds of alcohol, but nothing else? Did he mean no alcohol or no irresponsible use of alcohol?

I am not going to answer these questions, but I will say that good practice entails thinking about everything and not just adopting rules someone has told us. By the way, if anyone has a copy of the essay I lost, please let me know. Thanks.

FIML and truth

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Truth can be defined as:

  • “best practice” or “very best practice”
  • “eliminative” in that we eliminate from consideration things that are not true
  • “relative” to something else
  • “pragmatic” or what works
  • “socially acceptable”
  • “best explanation/description”
  • “does not offend the conscience”

Mahayana Buddhism distinguishes “ultimate” from “relative” truth. I am honestly not sure if the Buddha spoke about ultimate truth in the Pali canon, but I don’t remember it being such a big deal in Pali as in Mahayana texts. If someone knows differently, please let me know. Anyway, in the Mahayana tradition ultimate truth is mostly sort of a positive description of nirvana, which in that tradition encompasses a full knowing of “ultimate reality”, or words to that effect. Nirvana, the term, literally means “blown out” or “gone out” and is used most basically in Buddhism to mean the extinguishment of “delusion”. Again, I just don’t remember how this word is used in the Pali canon, but I suspect the Buddha probably meant just that–that his teachings would lead to the extinguishment of delusion. What that state actually is in positive terms, he basically never said.

Modern science somewhat resembles Buddhism in this respect in that science, properly understood, never claims to have proved anything or to know anything with absolute and perfect certainty. A common metaphor used to explain this is the black swan. We used to say (Euro-centrically) that all swans are white because no one had ever seen a black one, though we now know they do exist in Australia. The point is that most anything could be true, but science reduces the probability of some occurrences to very near zero.

As human beings how are we to think of truth? I have always wanted to be a truth-seeker though I am aware that that expression sounds either pretentious or trite or both. But I don’t know of a better way to put it. Most American Buddhists would probably not object if you called them truth-seekers. As Buddhist truth-seekers, we seek nirvana or the blowing out of non-truths in our mind streams. We want to eliminate scientific non-truths as well as moral ones. We want to offend neither our reason nor our consciences.

Buddhists recognize that some of the most dangerous and egregious non-truths are immoral thoughts and behaviors; this means thoughts and behaviors that harm other sentient beings–killing them, stealing from them, sexually abusing them, lying to them, or getting drunk so much you can’t even remember where the lines between right and wrong are.

In modern psychology, a mental illness is pretty much defined as something that interferes so much with your thoughts and behaviors that you can’t take care of yourself. It doesn’t say much about morality or ethics. The problem with this sort of definition, for truth-seekers, is you can be a real shit and still be considered “normal” by most psychologists. As long as you don’t break too many laws and/or are part of a big group of powerful people, you can literally steal vast sums of money from the public and not only not get caught but actually be respected in many circles for your actions.

Psychologists themselves–our modern doctors of the mind–have been caught up in serious scandals in recent years. Isn’t this due, at least in part, to their definition of “normal” not including the basic ethical principles outlined by the Buddha? (The article linked here was just a quick find; readers who want more info can use Google to find many stories on this subject.)

Medical researchers and many scientists have the same problem. See Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science for more on this subject.

Any real truth-seeker knows you have to include your conscience in your pursuits. What good is my status as a scientist if it is based on bullshit? Or worse if it harms other beings?

The real scientific method, the true one that really works, absolutely demands that scientists be honest about their research. But in the modern world, honesty, in too many cases, won’t do the job because you also have to know how to kiss ass, get grants, play the game, form self-referential clubs that approve each others’ research. If you think I am being too cynical, please be sure to read Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science. The way science–our most powerful and profound modern truth-seeking enterprise–is actually conducted is pretty bad compared to what it could be if people consulted their consciences more than their greed, pride, status, fear, and other moral failings.

I hate sounding like a moralist, and fully admit to being a massively flawed human being, but it’s still true that nearly everything in the modern world is rotten with corruption and sleaze, and this includes science, medical research, academia, and of course, religion.

So how can we be honest? What does it even mean to speak the truth? How can anyone even do that?

You can do it with FIML. If you do FIML you will learn how to be honest with at least one other person. And I am not talking about just making some grandiose declaration but about how to do it. If you do FIML practice with the person you hold most dear in this world, you will be convinced through experience of the value and efficacy of honesty, of treating them right based on mutually agreed ethical standards. FIML will show you that anything less robs both of you of everything worth having. I do not see any other way to accomplish this except through FIML.

In the Buddha’s day, monks generally traveled in pairs for most of the year teaching the Dharma. I wonder if they did something like FIML. Did the long days with one other person for months on end produce similar results to FIML in that the monks were always able to say everything they wanted and always able to achieve a wise and calm resolution for any misunderstanding? Did their consciences always guide them toward the truth? Does yours?

FIML and memory distortion

~ ABN ~ Leave a comment

Here is a study that shows how quickly we distort our memories: Event completion: Event based inferences distort memory in a matter of seconds. The study concludes, in part, that “…results suggest that as people perceive events, they generate rapid conceptual interpretations that can have a powerful effect on how events are remembered.”

This study shows that our memories of events are dynamic and can become distorted very quickly. These findings well support FIML practice, which is based on quick interventions while we are speaking to capture sound, usable data that both partners can agree on.

Blogger Christian Jarrett writes about this study saying that “memory invention was specifically triggered by observing a consequence (e.g. a ball flying off into the distance) that implied an earlier causal action had happened and had been seen (Your memory of events is distorted within seconds).” Well-put. From a FIML point of view, we generate or maintain neurotic interpretations (mistaken interpretations) by believing we are “observing a consequence…that implied an earlier causal action had happened.” When we misinterpret an utterance during a conversation, we tend to do so in habitual ways; we tend to respond to that utterance as if it had meant something it did not; we tend to understand the “consequence” that happens in our minds as “implying” or being based on something that our partner actually had intended when they had not had any such intention.

This study illustrates very well why FIML practitioners want to develop their skills so that both partners are able to quickly disengage from their conversation while taking a meta-position that allows them to gather and agree upon good data that they can discuss objectively and rationally. When your partner denies that they meant what you thought they meant, this study will help you believe them.

As the Buddha said: “The mind is everything. What you think you become.”