"Actual Freedom" within a larger context

I was going to stop posting on this thread but I see that Ruyguy asked four questions that I think deserve answers, so I'm going to try give answers from my experience:


"If it's good to be unstuck, then wouldn't it also be good to do away with the causes of stickiness?"

Absolutely. This requires us to understand the mechanism that causes the stickiness. That mechansim is, essentially, mind.


"If the panoply of emotional life is a symptom of suffering, won't working to get unstuck eventually result in the complete loss of the affective faculty?"

This construction is putting the cart before the horse and is based on a misunderstanding the definition of suffering. Emotions are not suffering. Emotions, like chairs, like thoughts, like the sense of self, are objects. Suffering is a kind of disconnect between what we expect and what we actually get. Suffering is a sort of unwarranted affiliation with or attachment to objects. A very simple construction would be to say that suffering is caused by wanting more of "good" and wanting less of "bad." A person can be in the throes of horrendous anger or fear and not be suffering.

If, however, we believe emotions are suffering then yes, we might conclude that we have to rid ourselves of emotion in order to stop suffering. But since that's not what suffering is that's not what we have to do to stop suffering.

"If the panoply of emotional life is not a symptom of suffering, what is it?"

Emotions are objects that convey information. It's really pretty simple. They are not you. What the mind does after these objects are perceived is what can cause suffering. If mind attaches to emotions as opposed to letting them be just what they are, when they are, where they are, then that's the recipe for suffering. We could have a lengthy discussion about why emotions exist and that could go on for decades. It could include information from science, philosophy and religion. But since emotions are objects and they aren't the mechanism of suffering itself we don't have to do that unless we just want to have an interesting conversation.


"If unstuckness from the affective faculty is the goal, then why would one care one way or the other whether the affective faculty (which one is unstuck from) remains or ceases?"

Great question that gets right to the heart to the matter! My answer is that I want the information and the engagement that the affective faculty provides, but that's my answer. That may not be true for others, and to a large extent AF's utility depends on your perspective. I'd refer back to the comments Alex Weith made yesterday to see an excellent description of the difference between the Buddhist answer to this question and the AF answer. They are diametrically opposed.

"Say that, pre-enlightenment, people tend to have an experience with properties X,Y, and Z, and call it an emotion. Post-enlightenment, they now have an experience with properties Y and Z only. Is it an emotion? Is it not an emotion?"

It is still emotion. It is an object and recognized as such. Awakening does not change reality. It changes the way reality is perceived and dealt with.

But if emotions regarding a single situation depend from person to person, what exactly is the content of the emotional information? Isn't it just "oh, I react to this situation in such and such way"? E.g. "I am sad when a bull dies in a bullfight," or "I am thrilled when a bull dies in a bullfight." I mean, how does emotion inform you of something else besides your own habitual mental process?

I'm asking because I honestly haven't found a completely satisfying answer, and Oh Boy I want those answers

A few proto-answers I have found where:
- emotion also informs you of other's mental processes, through empathy. Furthermore empathy is a way of synchronizing two minds, which is very nice. Although one can certainly ascertain other people's emotions without empathy.
- emotion is a good general gauge of other things, such as physical health, how interesting one's life is, etc. Of course this is again information about oneself.

Also, an emotion is a way of perceiving reality (as is evidenced by emotional bias, positive and negative), it isn't an "intrinsic part of reality" which is to be perceived. So getting rid of emotion also just "changes the way reality is perceived and dealt with." (Again let me emphasize I'm just playing devil's advocate here)

"But if emotions regarding a single situation depend from person to person, what exactly is the content of the emotional information? Isn't it just "oh, I react to this situation in such and such way"? E.g. "I am sad when a bull dies in a bullfight," or "I am thrilled when a bull dies in a bullfight." I mean, how does emotion inform you of something else besides your own habitual mental process?" -- BrunoLoff
.

Bruno, what do your emotions do for you when you watch the bull die in the bullfight? Do they make you want to go to more bullfights? Do they make you want to become a matador? We could make this very complicated if we wanted to but in my experience it's really very simple. To whit:

If I watch a bullfight and see the bull being killed for entertainment purposes and in a cruel manner, the emotions that arise tell me something. In my case they tell me that I don't want to watch bullfights and maybe even that I should actively try to stop bulls from being killed in bullfights. When I lie to my wife my emotions tell me something about that action and how to deal with such situations in the future. Guilt. Sadness, Anger. Joy. Love. They all tell us something about how we react to experience and how to deal with experience in the future. I'm pretty sure your emotions work that way, too. So emotions are one source of information about ethical conduct, are they not? That explains the BUddhist teachings about morality, right? If you act in an ethical manner you might have fewer troubling discursive thoughts and be able to benefit more from the meditation, and so on, in a virtuous cycle.

So emotions are conveying information, not just about how you feel but also about how to act, how to behave, how to live.

"Also, an emotion is a way of perceiving reality (as is evidenced by emotional bias, positive and negative), it isn't an "intrinsic part of reality" which is to be perceived."

What do you mean by "intrinsic reality?" Is it "outside" of "you" or "inside" of "you?"

Hint, hint, hint....

one useful way to think of emotions is that they are (in part) the mental activity associated with certain structures of the limbic system and endocrine system.

also, to really cut to the chase, check out lesion studies of what happens when a person or animal truly loses amygdala function. Just google it.

Well, I used to feel that way, but frankly, after my initial depression, it became fairly obvious that stuff could just be triggered "on its own" regardless of surrounding circumstances, of whether my actions where ethical or not, etc. They really felt like gratuitous excretions of meaningless pain. My suffering benefited no-one, in fact it screwed up quite a few good things I had going in my life.

At the time I concluded "If I am feeling bad, everything goes to hell, if I am feeling good, I can turn any bad situation into the best possible outcome." Rather than "if i'm in hell, I feel bad, and if I'm in heaven, I feel good".

By "intrinsic" I basically meant that the bull got killed regardless of how one feels about it. I think that the idea that "one is part of the universe" makes perfect sense, but I find it absurd to extend it to "everything happens inside you." Yes, the bull dies outside of you, and then inside of you you feel an emotion, but Trent, for instance, wouldn't. And I mean that in the most common-sense way possible. As Nigel mentions, we can measure this in your brain (and supposedly we would measure something else in Trent's).

Of course, it wouldn't have been killed if everyone felt the same way as we do about bullfights, so what happens in one's brain indeed causally influences what happens outside of one's brain --- sometimes in incredible ways, and, some claim, in magickal ways.

I am very curious about this buddha mind thing, and I'm going to check that out for myself as my practice goes further. But regardless of whether you believe that awareness in buddha-mind is phenomenal or not, the ability to "experience" it comes from specific phenomenal changes ("meditating, surrendering," etc).

Following Nigel's suggestion to Google loss of amygdala function, I found this:

"Electrical stimulation of the amygdala in humans usually creates fear or anxiety, not aggressive behavior. When the amygdala is removed from laboratory animals, they show no fear. A rat with its amygdala removed 'will walk up to a sleeping cat and even nibble on its ear' (Barinaga, 1992). The amygdala is connected by large neural pathways to areas of the brain responsible for defensive behaviors (Blanchard & Blanchard, 1988). Anderson and Phelps (2000) write, 'A growing body of evidence from humans and other animals suggests the amygdala may be a critical neural substrate for emotional processing.'"

"When the amygdala is damaged in humans, they lose their sensitivity to stimuli associated with strong emotions. For example, Adolphs, Russell, and Tranel (1999) found that a patient with 'complete, bilateral damage restricted to the amygdala' was able to tell when a face was sad or happy, but he had lost his ability to discriminate between different levels of emotional arousal. He could not tell a slightly sad face from a very angry face: they all just looked 'unhappy' to him. He had the same problem with happy expressions: he could not tell the difference between a face that showed very mild happiness and one that expressed great joy."

bit.ly/bS4AhT

Is AF the art of consciously suppressing amygdala function?

This would be my solution -- put the existential angst on hold as much as possible and practice, assuming that practice will be that which reveals the nature of what you are and provides answers and some peace.

Edit -- this reply was to Bruno, as Kenneth slipped in and I didn't notice 'til now.

"but frankly, after my initial depression, it became fairly obvious that stuff could just be triggered "on its own" regardless of surrounding circumstances, of whether my actions where ethical or not, etc. They really felt like gratuitous excretions of meaningless pain. My suffering benefited no-one, in fact it screwed up quite a few good things I had going in my life.

...

But regardless of whether you believe that awareness in buddha-mind is phenomenal or not, the ability to "experience" it comes from specific phenomenal changes ("meditating, surrendering," etc)."

Hey Bruno, for some reason I feel like saying (and I see that Chris has said something similar) that it's good to hold off conclusions about causes of depression/angst as much as you can and keep going... Having a "on its own" reason for why something happens can sometimes lock you into a sense of fatalism that might prevent a whole hearted commitment to naturally changing and evolving over time. My own experience is that it happens from having expectations that don't mesh with the complex nature of the world and then solidifying that into some kind of personal character flaw. Some weird kind of identity gets built around that. And it sets up it's own negative feedback loop... and then depression is kinda locked in. Conversely, as you get more distance, you can see that they do have a cause and and they aren't just gratuitous excretions... and then you avoid the causes and sometimes even a new positive feedback loop sets up. This is just my experience, for what it's worth.

Another little thing: a lot of these practices ("meditating, surrendering," etc) seem like phenomenal >things< but they are actually much more like openings that are walked through. Like doors that disappear when you step through. The experience is more of a dropping away of something but not another thing that gets added on.

Kenneth:

I was reading something about this two days ago too but in a totally unrelated way. It was in a wikipedia article on meditation

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation_in_Health_Science

"One theory, presented by Daniel Goleman & Tara Bennett-Goleman[17] suggests that meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.[18] In very simple terms, the amygdala is the part of the brain that decides if we should get angry or anxious (among other things), and the pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things (it is also known as the inhibitory centre).
The prefrontal cortex is very good at analyzing and planning, but it takes a long time to make decisions. The amygdala, on the other hand, is simpler (and older [19] in evolutionary terms). It makes rapid judgments about a situation and has a powerful effect on our emotions and behaviour, linked to survival needs. For example, if a human sees a lion leaping out at them, the amygdala will trigger a fight or flight response long before the prefrontal cortex responds.
But in making snap judgments, our amygdalas are prone to error[citation needed], such as seeing danger where there is none. This is particularly true in contemporary society where social conflicts are far more common than encounters with predators, and a basically harmless but emotionally charged situation can trigger uncontrollable fear or anger '” leading to conflict, anxiety, and stress.[20]
Because there is a gap between the time an event occurs and the time it takes the amygdala to react, a skilled meditator may be able to intervene before a fight or flight response takes over, and perhaps even redirect it into more constructive or positive feelings.[citation needed]"

"I thought it was more like:
1. "I am not that."
2. "I am that." (meaning "that is what I usually call I")
3. "This is it."

I'm finding that kenneth seems to be onto something when he makes an analogy between AF's PCE and his own third gear (particularly when one ignores all the talk about emotion and focuses on AF's main conclusion "I'm part of the universe"). Hmm... But it is not at all clear to me how to get to third gear! Oh well..."


Yeah, the 3rd gear - PCE analogy makes perfect sense to me, intellectually and based on my "fake it until you make it" attempts at both.

And maybe "this is it" fits better for some. : ) I like "that is that" though, because it challenges the reader linguistically to abandon a sense of alienation from "that". After all, just because that isn't an "I" doesn't mean I'm not that. Quite the contrary.

: )

"
"If it's good to be unstuck, then wouldn't it also be good to do away with the causes of stickiness?"

Absolutely. This requires us to understand the mechanism that causes the stickiness. That mechansim is, essentially, mind.
"


Ah, yes, this makes sense. Especially when mind is noun, adjective, verb, and adverb all at once.

"
"If the panoply of emotional life is a symptom of suffering, won't working to get unstuck eventually result in the complete loss of the affective faculty?"

This construction is putting the cart before the horse and is based on a misunderstanding the definition of suffering. Emotions are not suffering. Emotions, like chairs, like thoughts, like the sense of self, are objects. Suffering is a kind of disconnect between what we expect and what we actually get. Suffering is a sort of unwarranted affiliation with or attachment to objects. A very simple construction would be to say that suffering is caused by wanting more of "good" and wanting less of "bad." A person can be in the throes of horrendous anger or fear and not be suffering.

If, however, we believe emotions are suffering then yes, we might conclude that we have to rid ourselves of emotion in order to stop suffering. But since that's not what suffering is that's not what we have to do to stop suffering.



"


Hmm...let's see.

Jumping off an analogy of yours (please bear with me, I think this might actually be rather insightful, for all its indirectness):

The path weakens the operations of the chair factory, making it easier to deal with chairs, because there are fewer of them, meaning that someday there won't be any chairs. Chairs are the heinous product of a heinous factory, and so the disappearance of chairs is a cause for celebration, because a) they're all gone, and b) this suggests that the factory has closed up shop for good.

Or, we could formulate a different scheme in which the factory keeps operating, but is in fact more functional, hence the chairs are no longer defective once the factory's been fixed (i.e. mind keeps happening, it's just not creating problems anymore...hence emotions are better than fine, coming out of a newly unproblematic process).

"Or, we could formulate a different scheme in which the factory keeps operating, but is in fact more functional, hence the chairs are no longer defective once the factory's been fixed (i.e. mind keeps happening, it's just not creating problems anymore...hence emotions are better than fine, coming out of a newly unproblematic process)."-Ryguy913

Right! I must say, I do love a good metaphor. Thanks, Ryan.

I can't say I understand why you say that scheme is the right one, but proposing both was very helpful for me, and so I'm glad for those efforts. May I one day overcome ignorance, confusion and doubt, knowing for myself the truth.

On that note, I'm going to leave this thread alone for a while and go practice!

"I can't say I understand why you say that scheme is the right one..."

Because the factory keeps pumping out chairs. Good chairs. Chairs that are just chairs. Chairs that are sat on but don't pinch the arse

Using the path we advocate here we're not trying to get rid of emotions (not trying to stop making chairs).

Well, this has been quite an interesting read.

A few thoughts:

1) Being in a state of practice flux myself, it is hard to draw completely firm conclusions, so I will largely retrain from too much commentary. I appreciate Kenneth's advice to let me see how this thing settles out, as that's what I want also, and that may take some time, and given that even weeks are an eternity in the world of hot topic discussion threads, all this may have changed in many ways before then.
2) I think the whole bugaboo of Richard saying this is definitely new in all respects should be ignored, as it is just a reaction to his writings, which I generally find pretty painful, and yes, very narcissistic, and his pseudoscientific stuff also some mix of irrelevant and likely inaccurate, and his analysis of the various traditions he reacts to seem superficial and inaccurate most of the time, at least when he takes on the complex ones, like Buddhism, which is vast. Perhaps these are my own projections, perhaps it is just the way he writes. I don't know, as I haven't met him. However, I consider him as a personality a relatively trivial issue, as I find practice more interesting, and I find Trent and Tarin far more interesting than Ricky, as I know them and respect them. Correlations with other traditions that few here have really studied well but may have read something of, as well as correlations with AF practice, which few here have done much of also, are just weak banter, or so I speculate. I could personally care less of this is stuff is new or old, and Richard's making such a big deal about that and everyone else arguing endlessly about it is just tiring.

3) I find it interesting that the reactions to the AF stuff happening at the DhO are so varied. Given that I founded the site, and have made space for those who wish to post there about all sorts of things, from Magick to Energetic Practices, Non-Dual Practices, Vipassana, Samatha, etc. it is strange that people lament that there is also AF discussion going on there. If that is what people are into discussing at the moment, and it can be kept at the level of the practical, respectful, clear, honest, helpful, inquisitive, and the like, then how it is that this is such a problem?

4) I find the correlations and reactions to AF very interesting, including:
a) It is a timeless variant of 1st Gear practice, both of which would seem good in the parlance of this community, but it is either bad or trivial, while timelessness and 1st gear are not trivial, obviously.
b) That it is somehow related to 3rd Gear practice, or Advaita, or Dzogchen, or something like that, all of which are deemed good and non-trivial, but somehow AF itself is either bad or trivial.
I am not in a position to comment easily one way or the other on these possible correlations without more clear phenomenological descriptions of exactly what those practices would look like and what effects they cause and how they progress, so if someone who knows enough of either timeless 1st gear or has mastered 3rd gear or Advaita or something like that well wishes to comment, that might help clarify these possible correlations.

Just my thoughts at this time.

Interesting discussion and worthwhile, I think.

"
"I can't say I understand why you say that scheme is the right one..."

Because the factory keeps pumping out chairs. Good chairs. Chairs that are just chairs. Chairs that are sat on but don't pinch the arse

Using the path we advocate here we're not trying to get rid of emotions (not trying to stop making chairs).

"

lol!

Lastly, I think that everyone, including me, who is a part of the communities should be allowed to benefit from the fact that we have here and at the DhO and OE groups of very accomplished, engaged, interested practitioners who will continue to grow, morph, explore and change, and I think that all of us, including myself, should be allowed to share their practice and interests as they unfold without it being some huge political deal, such that as practitioners and people we are allowed to be part of the benefit of the collective wisdom and not subject to artificial glass floors or ceilings or other barriers to being a part of the robust discussions and support that happen in these places.

I realize that because MCTB has my name on it that somehow if I say I am into whatever this can be some big deal, and while I am seeing that as it happens, I think that as Florian so kindly pointed out, this is not quite right and not particularly helpful to me as just another member of this vibrant community who is finding themselves compelled to explore whatever.

Communities that are too reactive to the inevitable vagaries of the practices of those who helped to found them will isolate those persons at the top or marginalize them to the side without allowing them to benefit from the same things that the rest of the members benefit from in the same way, which seems unfair to me and I think that we can all do better.

I had a long talk with Daniel on Skype tonight and came away feeling confident that his latest experiment is not only safe but is quite valuable and a good idea overall. In other words, he hasn't bought in to any belief system and is in no danger of joining AF or any other cult. Rather, he is continuing to do what he has done all along, which is to explore his own mind.

Daniel has no particular interest in what AF or anyone says about the so-called PCE; he just wants to experience it for himself. This is a continuation of the exploration he has been doing for much of his life. He is very open-minded about the whole thing and just wants to cultivate this interesting state and see where it leads. We had a great discussion about various ways to compare the state to other states we know and in fact we agreed that it is neither new (as in "never before known to contemplative traditions") nor is it unfamiliar to either of us. My hypothesis that it is none other than what Bill H. called "vipassana consciousness" seemed to resonate with Daniel. He pointed out that it is by no means an easy state to maintain, even for one as accomplished as himself with mind states, so he does not take seriously the idea that someone who practices it casually will get "stuck" there. He is reluctant to draw premature conclusions about where the cultivation of the PCE ultimately leads, but is not in the least worried that it will result in some robot-like or lobotomized condition; it's just a very pleasant and satisfactory perspective from which to experience the world.

We recorded the interview and have both agreed to publish it after some minor editing (removing the pleasantries at the beginning and ending), as it will probably serve to reassure our virtual sangha that we don't have to worry that he's lost his mind or is likely to do so anytime soon.

Kenneth

Kenneth, Daniel,

I'm looking forward to listening to that recording. I expect it to be at least as useful and inspiring as the Hurricane Ranch Discussion

Cheers,
Florian