July 26 Hou-Kouji temple, Japan
“Abstraction means stripping away unnecessary details to focus on an essential structure. The scientific method of abstraction is very efficient and powerful, but we have to pay a price for it. As we define our system of concepts more precisely, as we streamline it and make the connections more and more rigorous, it becomes increasingly detached from the real world.
The realm of rational knowledge is the realm of science which measures and quantifies, classifies and analyses. The limitations of any knowledge obtained by these methods have become increasingly apparent in modern science. For most of us it is very difficult to be constantly aware of the limitations and of the relativity of conceptual knowledge. Because our representation of reality is so much easier to grasp than reality itself, we tend to confuse the two and to take our concepts and symbols for reality. It is one of the main aims of Eastern mysticism to rid us of this confusion.”
-The Tao of physics
Importantly, this process of abstraction is not limited to us doing science. We also abstract from reality in our everyday perception. Normally, our sensory experience is rapidly organised into high level interpretations. These are complex conceptual constructions that come both from a mix of our biological programming and learning as we continue to process and integrate more and more worldly information. When light reaches our eyes, early visual processing first takes in basic information about edges, colour, and orientation. Features are combined into objects, which are quickly recognised if we have come across them before. Finally we judge, evaluate and sometimes react with emotion.
Neuroscience is slowly beginning to research how the effects of meditation can be explained using existing theories that attempt to explain how we normally process the world. Predictive processing is one of these theories and already holds many parallels with buddhism. Its core claim is that our entire perception is internally generated, a constructed model of reality in order to guide action. In ordinary experience, high level predictive models dominate our perception, and we rapidly categorize and attempt to interpret sensory information.
Most meditation research has focused on how meditation reduces the last stage of judging and reacting emotionally, as in meditation, the first thing that seems to happens is that top-down conceptual interpretation becomes less dominant. Modern neuroscience research is looking to research meditation beyond just the final deconstructive stage of judging and evaluating.
“Note that even seemingly direct experiences, like that of a teacup, demand a complex process of construction from past experience and include anticipation of possible changes in sensory input (e.g., proprioceptive and sensory changes related to drinking from the cup), which intrinsically relies on active inference and inferring oneself as a hidden cause of sensory input in the future.”
-Ruben Laukkonen
In our academic classes here in Japan, Peter has taught us about the way in which the states of mind cultivated in meditation progressively reduce the cognitive processes that normally construct our everyday experience of the world. These are increasing states of absorption and in buddhism they are known as the Jhanas. Most interestingly, in buddhism there is a trajectory for increasing expertise in meditation, which contrasts to how meditation is taught in west. I myself only recently realised this. In contemporary Western contexts, meditation skill is moreso understood as a cognitive skill involving the cultivation of awareness and emotional regulation. In contrast, traditional Buddhist frameworks often describe meditation as a form of mental cultivation that leads to progressively deeper states of absorption. In advanced meditative absorption, the meditator may experience a temporary ending of mental processes and even the processing of sensory information becomes extremely minimal.
From the earlier paper:
“Thus, if awareness rests only in the now, even very basic structures of ordinary cognition should logically fall away, including conceptualization, self-awareness and time perception.”
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During the silent retreat, I sat for 3 hours, which is the longest Ive ever sat continuously. Around 2 hours in, my experience transitioned into a state where it felt like waves or currents of energy were moving through my body. I noticed that while feelings of pain from sitting for 2 hours were still were present, they no longer seemed to bother me. I contemplated staying to meditate for longer than the 3 hours I had planned as I found I had entered a state of effortless concentration.
The following day, the intensity continued to increase. As I allowed myself to fall into absorption, the simplest way to describe the experience is that I began to feel as if I was transcending. Slowly, my breathing seemed to calm and I felt as though a vast open space had opened up before me. I felt a deep physiological relaxation while I felt I was resting in this empty space. There seemed zero urge to do anything. My breathing had fallen silent at this point and there were no longer any energy currents, I just felt as if reality was encompassed in this vast empty space ahead of me.
Outside of meditation I find I often worry that if I let go of myself I am making a choice to give up order and fall into chaos. However through my experience I realise that the default state of the mind is clinging, grasping, and attempting to minimise chaos. I do not need to choose to cling to or grasp for order. I don’t have free will, I only choose how I interpret the clinging and grasping that is always present. Even if I lost all sensibility, it seems my minds programming will work its own function. I realised I do not need to control as control will be done for me. I can only interpret whether I believe or not I am the controller.
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On one of the days in Japan, I joined a small group of students in a group discussion I facilitated in my workshop. One of the question prompts I had given them was, “What do you hope meditation will bring to your life?” I realised just how much has changed in regards to how I perceive meditation when I thought about my own answer to my own prompt.
Meditation allows me to observe my experience, including the experience of watching my mind construct my perception, and I find this arises a lot of awe and curiousity. I feel like a young child, noticing all the details that my mind had decided were not worth paying attention to. I feel as though I am exploring a novel world that is always in front of me. A good way to sum it up is that I felt I was asked what problem meditation solves in my life and I realised that it was no longer solving any problems, that that purpose was long in the past.
If I had to give an answer, I would say that meditation brings me clarity. However, I feel the clarity it brings is not an answer to a question I desire an answer to, but rather a gift I am often graciously surprised with. It is exciting knowing there is so much to discover simply by noticing. So much to learn, or more accurately, unlearn. It is like wandering into a peaceful, imaginary world while awake.
March 26 Oxford Buddha Vihara
The construction of functional mental states has enabled me to keep my practical life in order. What I mean by this is that, before attempting to undertake an action I desire to carry out but find difficult in practice, I focus not on the action but on moving myself into a mental state where the action comes with automaticity. Repeated construction of these mental states has strengthened them. It is like programming a machine. It is always fun to see what works and what doesn’t, and it is also beneficial when life brings stress.
There is always mechanistic causation for behaviour. I find that self observation (meditation being the most focused kind) allows me to zoom in on mental causation. When you see the sequence of events that lead to your own behaviour in finer detail, you learn to take each step one by one and watch it happen. I was reminded on retreat that motivation must be constructed just like anything else. If it does not appear to exist I don’t want to impatiently attempt to act without motivation but rather find a way to construct it first. A meditation book I read explained that step one of starting a meditation practice itself was preparation. What I am really doing is generating belief and purpose, which I feel more fulfilled by when my actions are built upon.
If I regretfully act without purpose, I should inquire myself. I must value any reason I find and come to understand that my decision served a purpose. It will no longer feel like a regret as I have acknowledged its purpose. Acknowledging the decision had a purpose allows you to find better ways to fulfil the same purpose.
We discussed the discriminating mind. This refers to the part of our mental activity that categorises, judges, and divides experience into opposites. I realised a lot of my restrictive behaviours exist as they allow me to value other aspects of my life that are less stimulating. They allow me to enjoy life holistically, rather than constantly living in wait for something more exciting than what’s in front of me. A life of waiting feels like a life of restriction to me. Ive realised I don’t want to engage in anything that actively devalues the other things in my life important to me by a significant margin. I want to look at things for not just what they are but how they relatively fit into my life holistically, as everything is relative. The discriminating mind is powerful, if something is good, something else must be bad. When you praise one thing you are always condemning another.
I have direct evidence that I am not my body as I found I could turn myself on and off by redirecting my focus during meditation. I could make the chatter in my mind immediately cease, yet I was still aware of the presence of my body. My body could exist without my internal narrative.
Speaking from a more scientific perspective, I moved more from thinking to raw sensing. Meditation research suggests my experience is explained by deactivation of higher order networks in the functional hierarchy and lower order networks involved in sensation predominated my awareness. Since my sense of self resides in higher order networks such as the default mode network, this makes sense. Lower order networks include sensory cortices and other sensorimotor areas that process raw experience without attaching a conceptual “self” to it.
I also found that by observing myself and asking “where am I?”, that the POV of observation felt localised in the brain, my body. There are different aspects of selfhood. The narrative self which involves stories about yourself is linked to the DMN. However there is also the embodied self, which is the feeling that you are localised, the sense of being a point of experience located in space. The very questioning of my location may have activated networks involved in situating myself in the world.
Before we left for the retreat one of my peers made a point that stuck with me. He explained that his mind never by default quietens, but through meditation practice he has learnt how to make the chatter cease on will.
While I was in psychiatric hospital, my friend who visited strongly suggested that the reason I had ended up in such a battle with my mind was because it was overactive. He framed this positively, and described it to be more that I had a powerful mind. Remembering this conversation while on retreat made me feel quite happy. The intensity of my thoughts and emotion have indeed driven much of my proactive approach to life and have resulted in a lot of growth to which I wouldn’t have encountered without the initial driving factor. Only when I feel purposeful towards what I’m doing do I focus hard on it, so I immerse myself and attempt to make all the work I do meaningful, to keep myself driven. I actively search for purpose and construct meaning. I allow myself to lead a meaningful life in order to work with my own mind. I feel blessed to have a tool I can do so much with.