Memory and Creativity

In learning something complex--like language, a particular art form, a type of business or career position, etc.--we collect and organize a lot of pieces of information over a long period of time. Having learned quite a lot, we become increasingly able to to pay attenion to the present moment with some of our attention while drawing on that relevant history with some of our attention. Usually the history part is/feels less conscious. Eventually, as we feel competent with some particular arena, we have creative moments of flow where we spend very little attention on long-term memory functions because they are well-integrated with our intention and actions in the present moment. But this whole process usually takes a good deal of time, which is part of why top level physicists usually aren't ballerinas and decathlon athletes as well.

So most of us work towards competence in some field of endeavor, and then possibly into creativity and flow. There are certain prodigies in any field who need less time to process well in the present moment, but for most of us at most complex things, it takes time to learn, practice, and increase familiarity before we gain a sense of competent or expert ease. It seems that there are relatively universal processes of memory, integration, and application that take at least up to 6-7 years.

People like Leonardo Da Vinci who are interested in developing expertise in more than one field usually have a convincing sense of discipline in doing things such as (with Leonardo) using both hands for equal manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination. For those of us less practiced at expertise in multiple fields, we are less likely to become familiar and flexible with developing and pplying expertise across various domains. In other words, some folks--besides developing expertise in, say, painting--also recognize that they are simultaneously practicing expertise itself.

Meditation, then, functions in a few different ways as far as clearing cobwebs from one's brain. In the same way that someone expert across many fields (like Da Vinci) becomes familiar with expertise itself (as opposed to expertise/famliarity/flow in a particular field), meditation can function as familiarity with openness or acceptance (eventually) regardless of one's external situation. As one trains in allowing openness into one's conscious mind, we build a history of conscious openness, peace, equanimity, concentration, etc. Over time, not only do we develop equanimity while seated in meditation, but we also identify our experience and self as connected to, allied with, or part of equanimity. We might look to develop a sense of self as a profound or open self at the same time (in the course of years here) that we try to align our actions with that same developing sense.

Now, because of how our brains develop, meditation can take on stage-specific functions as well as this more consistent function of aligning oneself with openness, acceptance, profundity, and spontaneity. In late adolescence to early adulthood, our prefrntal brains hit a growth spurt. This area of the brain is connected with "executive functioning"--basically wisdom and a much-improved (potential) ability to direct one's attention AS ONE CHOOSES. Mindfulness practice is particularly relevant for learning to direct one's attention. Mindfulness practice is one of the building blocks of consistent, creative flow across domains. This practice is directly supportive of being able to consistently practice fundamentals--like dribbling a basketball, changing diapers, etc. (think of the drudgery involved in your line of work)--and, at nearly any time chosen, to shift one's attention to qualities of awareness such as acceptance (of drudgery, intensity, enjoyment, etc.). Without the willingness to practice fundamentals and a certain degree of competence in concentration, we do not develop or embrace the building blocks of expertise. If one is not born with this sort of concentration or drive, t can be developed along with mindfulness.

Consistent inspiration is more likely to develop when one is able to direct one's attention based on intention rather than force. Mindfulness practice is the fundamental practice for doing this, and our brains are prepared for this in late adolescence/early adulthood in the same way that they are prepared for abstract functioning sometime in early adolescence. The flexibility that mindfulness and inspiration allow is different from the wisdom that experience and profundity and expertise allow. Although they tend to be correlated, these different conceptual categories emphasize different states of brain functioning.

When one is ideologically willing to direct one's attention in accord with one's situation (which usually occurs in time with the recognition/experience/wisdom that such willingness is valuable), rather than pushing for what one wants primarily based on survival instincts, status motivations, or reactive emotionality, one is prepared for embracing mindfulness practice. When one practices mindfully, one is preparing the ground for consistent inspiration. Consistent inspiration is similar to becoming expert in multiple fields. When this occurs, one consistently feels as if one is drawing curiosity and energy and benefit from nearly whatever situation one finds oneself in.

Chogyam Trungpa said that spirituality is a process of wearing out all expectation. As one becomes expert in curious spontaneity, a personal sense of happiness, authenticity, meaning, and connection is no longer stuck to one's expectations or psychological securities. If we do not think of ourselves as global citizens, if we practice neither intentional global citizenship nor balanced openness, we will be much less likely to develop a sense of inspiration concerning global humanity and ourselves as part of it. If we develop a sense of global citizenry over the course of many years, and if we pair a sense of mindfulness and openness with global citizenry, then like Da Vinci we will be much more likely to creatively and functionally engage our phenomenal human potential. If we rush to be better than we are, we will simply stress out before completing the process. If we ignore the process for fear of failure, it will not happen.

As is, mindfulness is the foundation for consistent inspiration concerning one's own and our common human potential. It is also, by whatever name, the practice for bringing that inspiration or potential into everyday lived reality. We learn to simultaneously rely on experience, the situation we find ourselves in, equanimity, inspiration, curiosity, and openness.

Resilience

It seems to me that one of the reasons psychologists to date have not generally accepted a broadly accurate and applicable understanding of resilience is that the usual conceptual structurings of self-identity are either too simplistic or not directed to a biologically-derived, adaptive system of phenomenal potential. Maybe these constructs have been generally functional in the past, but I personally find them lacking (involving potential improvement). As times change, it is helpful to develop one's ideas adaptively and progressively

What resilience is and how it works in people is hard to recognize and benefit from if we do not have adequately functional self concepts. In such a situation, our concepts may be sometimes as harmful as they are sometimes helpful. Although we can say that the four levels or collections of self I described in the essay "Self Identity and Globalization" don't really exist in one sense, they work in a certain way. By looking at self concept from this perspective, we can see that there is something traditional cultures do not DO in an adequate way in a global situation. From this perspective, we can begin to recognize that--often with the best of intentions, and with phenomenal possibility for growth--traditional cultures and the families we were raised in are not sufficient for meeting our aspirations. Not only is this the case in general for most people who are significantly exposed to globalizing influences, but this is not a problem or criticism if we accept these circumstances with a certain equanimity and sense of aspiration. In other words, absurdity or 1950s French existentialism is simply uninteresting and we are dealing in an attention economy.

Psychologists have accepted genetic and physical problems influencing unhappiness (my level 1--"nature"). They have accepted negative emotional patterning and low self-esteem as influenced especially in early childhood (level 2--"nurture"). They have not yet directly and forcefully incorporated cultural disorders as analogous to personality disordering (on an individual level) and familial dysfunctionality (on a small-grop level).

Just as personality disordering can occur due to one's individual beliefs and attitudes as well as a toxic family environment, "cultural disorders" can occur due to internal structures or external (between-society) situations. As long as people are unwilling to recognize cultural disordering, we end up denying the potential for cultural improvement within any given society and denying potential for real improvement between societies. This is where it becomes helpful to consider a singular global "culture" as evident of the vast array of human potential as influenced by history to date. My personal limitations affect what I believe is possble for anyone and everyone; my culture and my awareness of past and current problems affect what I believe is possible for anyone and everyone. Just as it is difficult to do successful therapy with a child who goes home to an abusive family environment, it is difficult to "become the change we want to see" when we are unwilling or unable to recognize the social characteristics that need to change in order to allow the progress we believe in.

While some of us are born with more or less genetically-based, physical resilience; while some of us are born with a more or less healthy and supportive family environment; all of us are raised with more or less adaptive and healthy cultural assumptions. Trying to be the change we want to see without recognizing cultural influences is like trying to become a happier individual by taking drugs rather than by addressing emotional thinking and habituation that we picked up from our families of origin. When we can't adequately conceptualize the problems or limitations we encounter, rather than trying to design or choose ways beyond those limitations, we will tend to either push willfully (try harder in a hopeless manner) or give up hope.

While many people like to use their politicized versions of religious tradition as a justification for continuing various conflicts between societies, those claims are always tied to social limitations based on cultural disordering. In this case, fourth level spirituality-language is hijacked by second level ambitions that are driven by first and second level emotionality. (Ken Wilber has written about this clearly.) By separating self concept into the four levels I have outlined, we are able to discuss and understand ourselves more clearly by delineating (relative) cause and intention of social actions more clearly. By improving understanding and communication of intention, we improve the likelihood of living how we would choose to live together. As Eckhart Tolle pointed out, when we can see things clearly enough, we can choose between a habitual pull towards drama or an intentional movement towards peace. As he also pointed out, when difficulty arises, then, someone who is adequately intentional already will be drawn to becoming more conscious by adversity while someone who refuses intentional progress will be drawn to a more habitually reactive, less intentional, less satisfying life. Working at a functional conceptual structuring allows us to simplify our momentary decisions to intend towards either some sort of health and peace or towards emotional reactivity.

Joriki and Tariki: Intention Revisited, Sleepily

One of my friends and fellow students remarked that I seemed more easily inspired than most people he'd known. Rather than being a compliment or a comment that deprioritized my intentional influence on my moods (including the work I've done in the past), I think this was just a description. I wonder a lot about whether something like this might be true. Is inspiration something like height, weight, intelligence, etc.? something that has mostly to do with genetic characteristics and physical influences? And, perhaps most importantly, how can that be tested?

One way to come at it (a way that by itself is certainly incomplete but when compared with other ways might add depth or feel) is to consider what goes into inspiration. It seems that having an abundance of mental energy--while I don't know what that might mean exactly in a neurological sense, it is easy for any of us to recognize when we feel like we have a lot of mental energy, a good sense of focus, etc.--is an important input. Now, I have noticed times when this sort of abundance of energy feeds into itself, as in meditation, and so it becomes more of a feeling of abundant clarity or bliss or peace than a pushing energy that goes somewhere or achieves something (more of a moving out from itself). But that more outward sense of application and achievement can also feed a sense of continued excitement, novelty, and progress that feels inspiring as well.

Living alone, or at least sleeping alone, allows me to sleep very deeply. This is one noticeable and pretty consistent difference between my friend and myself. It may be that I am more likely to seem inspired when I am more likely to have an abundance of energy and I am more likely to have that feeling of abundant energy due to sleeping soundly quite often. It certainly seems to me that my thinking is much more productive, peaceful, clear, AND enjoyable when I have slept soundly.

Having slept well for much of my life, I have developed an often nonconscious expectation of good sleep and the subsequent abundant mental energy. Like I am entitled to my inspiration since this abundance is easy and natural for me. A good amount of deep sleep, then, allows me to dream more lucidly and easily, allows me to think more quickly and completely, supports me in feeling peaceful and focused in my meditation, and makes it easier to enjoy being around others. In other words, sleep sets a good foundation for unintentional joriki--self power or concentration power. In this area, then, I have always been somewhat lucky without necessarily counting my blessings. My friend was good enough to point out my often-unrecognized fortune.

With starting a relationship, sleep has changed. It's common for people to not sleep as well with someone else in the bed than when they sleep alone, and this is my experience as well. Parents of newborns get the crash course in dealing with sleep deprivation, and more power to them. Partially because I expect that abundant mental energy to just be there for me, I've slipped into a measuring mental mode concerning inspiration. The unreasonable expectation works this way: if being with someone reduces what is rightfully mine (deep sleep and abundant mental energy), then something (namely, the other person involved) about our relationship should compensate me in kind. These kinds of assumptions can be funny or have tragic results.

Besides a sense of personal concentration-power (joriki), the Japanese (or at least Japanese Buddhists, I don't know) also talk about something I've seen translated as us-power: tariki. Tariki is a fascinating animal, hard to pin down like Winnie-the-Pooh's Hephalumps, like Mr. Snuffleupagus (for the other fans of Sesame Street). Even if joriki sounds like a strange word, it is easy enough to have a feeling for the thing. Tariki is as easy to feel or notice, but it may be harder to think about since it is often ignored in our culture. I don't know if there is an English word for it specifically. This seems to be one of the most enduring criticisms of "modern, Western" culture--not the lack of a word but what that lack signifies.

So here I am, only semi-conscious of being a conceptual elitist, thinking that uninspired conceptualizing in general is "half-assed" (in the parlance of our times), and waking up feeling sleepy, unfulfilled, and mentally half-assed myself. My entitlement has come home to roost.

These rare moments of humility seem to be connected with tariki. While the drive to achieve is often laudable, it tends to foment dissension between people when the shit hits the fan. In contrast, humility tends to encourage group action or a sense of helplessness, sometimes both. Being individually incapable of succeeding here (or at least incapable of succeeding brilliantly--thinking well this morning), I end up needing to look to others in one way or another. When that's done habitually, unconsciously, and from a sense of entitlement, I end up limiting tariki when I most need to rely on tariki (feeling grumpy and/or cheated and sometimes expressing that). I might, then, try to push harder on my own--which means that I might be likely to turn away from or try to escape the very people who can help me. That method, belief in applying or increasing one's joriki or personal power or concentration-ability, certainly has its place. And working on one's own concentration ability can be a very consistent path to personal actualization.

But there is also a strong emotional truth in my feeling that I should be compensated for my loss of deep sleep. Rephrased less selfishly, the feeling is a semi-conscious recognition that what I am used to cultivating within myself (intentional or concentration-power) is just as readily available between-within myself and the folks around me. Feeling my entitlement and expectation allows me to become aware of the limitations of this particular entitlement. Becoming aware allows me to question how I want to come at this desire for more inspired thinking and connection. Retaining the desire for inspiration encourages me to find ways, or allow ways, of noticing and sometimes actively cultivating tariki.

The Importance of Understanding Internal States

In his book BLINK, Malcolm Gladwell offered a popular presentation of how the thinking mind, moving at the speed at which verbalized thought-structures are created, is often mistaken as well as slower than nonconscious processes. In my opinion, Guy Claxton in HARE BRAIN, TORTOISE MIND presents a more accurate and complete presentation of some of the differences between when the thinking mind is effective and when the nonconscious processes are better. Besides the super-fast instinctual-emotional processes and the everyday speed of verbalized thinking, there are also all of the circumstances that feed into long-term contemplation.

Part of what I speak of as intentional control of attention, then, rather than involving just trying to stop any of these processes, often involves selecting which of these speeds to follow with one's conscious focus and privilege at any given time. For instance, during contemplation, the nonconscious processes still occur, the verbal processes occur for part of the time, and the more amorphous contemplative processes often seem to faze in and out of awareness. But, understandably, if you have to quickly react to an oncoming car that is out of control, you don't take weeks to contemplate your response.

If we think about intentional control in this context, we can see that intention and attention are different than emotions. Very intense emotions may drive someone into an instinctual-emotional state unintentionally. Habituation will often lead one into repetitious thinking spirals or rumination unintentionally. Verbalized thinking is also effective for things we'd like to practice and understand as well as part of habituation and repetition. And while contemplation is a "natural" enough state, it may take a little practice or learning to figure out how to apply contemplation consistently in a valuable manner. (Of course, these different influences on one's attention are not completely separated--emotional compulsion can influence rumination, resulting in obsessions, and verbal thinking is an important part of contemplation and eventual insights.)

Emotions, then, can be experienced as particular types of energy. These energies are noticeably different from intention. When one's intention is clear and one finds emotion-energies of different types acceptable, then it is easier to influence what one does without being oppressive with one's own feelings and desires. Rather than fighting against or being overwhelmed and directed by emotions, one accepts emotions for what they are and INTENDS one's actions. If we can conceptually and experientially distinguish intention and emotion, we can find a fitting place for will. Without having a sense of intention as fairly distinct, we often use will to dominate and override emotional feelings and impulses rather than finding a fitting type of attentional deployment that works with rather than against various emotions. When we are able to distinguish intention, attention, emotional energies, and will, we can practice being effective, strong, and flexible with a sense of agency.

Emotions that are not accepted and enacted tend to spiral and stagnate in some way, becoming repetitive habits or moods and shaping some form of intrapsychic conflict. When one intentionally accepts a variety of emotional energies, especially accepting the current emotional influences, one's emotions becomes more pliable and it becomes more likely that one will be able to direct one's attention as one chooses. When we are able to direct attention as chosen and do so in a way that is in accord with a variety of emotions, we align our energetic impulses with our intention and feel more integrated and alive in what we do.

When this happens, will and concentration lead into an artistic application of attention. With meditational techniques, we can learn to concentrate and stabilize a variety of emotional states and attentional strategies. Initially, practice may involve a consistent type of discipline--in order to learn the fundamental attentional skills or abilities--but eventually one applies stability as centeredness and flexibility. While variety is a natural part of being emotional beings, there is a difference between vascillating emotions and intentional flexibility. Maturation, then, involves the wisdom of recognizing how to choose what to do attentionally and the experience of willingly accepting emotions as well as an artistic/effective deployment of attention. With a feeling of artistry and stability, clarity is almost inevitable.

Singleminded, Fluid, Eternal

If we rule out the possibility of psychological avoidance being a desirable attentional strategy, it seems that the best choices can narrow to a set of three. So, in any situation where I notice dissatisfaction, I can put my intention into being singleminded in the moment (forcefully focused), fluid, or aware of eternity/immanence.

Singlemindedness fits when we're in a situation where we can "be the ball". When one is able to do this in meditation, it stabilizes attention and leads to bliss (and perhaps more for advanced meditators). This tight focus lends itself to tranquility because everything that is peripheral is deprioritized and unattended to--including worries about myself. The result is tranquility, and bliss often arises of that tranquility.

Fluidity fits better when it is necessary to go somewhere with one's attention, to incorporate movement. If you focus in in one moment and allow training to take over, let's say you hit the pitch, then in the next moment as you hear the crack of the ball on the bat or notice your swing as it goes beyond the plate, you shift your focus to notice where the ball is going, how long it will take a defender to get to it, the direction to move in towards first base, etc. This type of focus may be very tight, then, but it is different than singlmindedness. Familiarity with moments of singlemindedness, though, can prepare one for flow. If I can stabilize my awareness, I can then also give it room to move. Without learning to stabilize, mind moves as is its nature, and I may not feel fully identified or nonattached to the movement, I may feel somewhat separated from how my mind is working and moving. That distracts one from singlemindedness and flow.

Eternity is a little different, too. Some people get their sense of eternity from faith in God, others might feel eternity when the mind and heart open unexpectedly. The first time people realize that they have found someone or something which they are powerless not to love is a great example of eternity--a different sense of totality than singlemindedness. Eternity is often more open than singlemindedness, and singlemindedness often feels very condensed because one's intention and intensity in maintaining singlemindedness is important. Eternity is different than flow because there is always some hint or aspect that feels totally untouched by time. Parents will love children as long as humans exist--it's timeless, a quality or characteristic of who we are. That timelessness comes home for an individual the first time that they realize that they love their child fully, with everything.

So in any given moment, does it work best for me to focus in and stabilize my attention? focus but include more than a single point, flow? open myself to a sense of timelessness and immersion in reality? Each moment provides a different situation and gives rise to a new answer. In some moments the question is totally unnecessary to begin with. What happens then?

Stages of Change: Contemplate to Clarity

I've been thinking about how to get people started in meditation/contemplation in a way that encourages consistent motivation. I like that this endeavor affects me directly too. In David Rock's book, QUIET LEADERSHIP, the relevant chapter is called "Dance Toward Insight". He uses the term "reflection", but this is generally the same as contemplation. In hectic lives, this important sort of introspective state often gets lost in the hubbub.

Rock makes the point (p106) that illumination is most often preceded by turning one's attention away from external stimuli towards what is occurring internally. Eugene Gendlin (focusing.org) has interesting and applicable commentary on this as well, a few good descriptions of HOW to do that when one chooses to. How many times when we are looking for some breakthrough insight do we just try to run faster or do more? The flipside of this mistake is to believe that trying to stop all internal "chatter" or thinking will result in what we're looking for. Somewhere between a silent meditative state and a hectic mode of pushing forward lies this fertile ground for contemplation and insight.

In my experience, practicing focused meditation has helped me be able to actually step away from the hectic mentality when I've wanted to, but it's not quite the same as brainstorming or contemplation either. While a focused or balanced state of meditation removes my sense of being connected to or limited by whatever problems are current, it doesn't necessarily help me solve those problems or connect to other people. It just creates the space to allow those possibilities.

I believe that most people are less interested in meditation than they are in solutions, insights, and the inspiration that insights bring. If this is the case, then figuring out how contemplation works to remove mental-emotional obstacles to insight fits easily with a "Stages of Change" model of progress. The Stages of Change model developed by Prochaska and DiClemente provides one way of situating how contemplation and insight relates to meditation. In comparison to an easy and profound stillness, contemplation fits with a sense of desired progress and inspiration. Particular types of contemplation can focus on removing the particular emotional obstacles and misleading beliefs that stand between us and an invigorating sense of motivation or passion.

Familiarizing oneself with internal awareness and insight makes us less likely to be impulsive and sporadic in our sense of inspiration and seems to be a key component of feeling alive and brilliant as opposed to feeling confused and worn down or strung out. With the right personal technology, we can learn how to removes obstacles, embrace clarity, and apply that sense of meditative clarity to whatever we do.

Easing into Meditation

I'm very curious about how different people get started with meditation. There's the crowd that has some sort of significant existential drive or need, and when they come across a certain philosophy or tradition, or when they find the right people, they jump right in. Then there is another group that seems to ease into it a little more.

I began taking meditation seriously about ten years ago when I had cancer, and my interest with what can happen has shifted all over the map since then. About four of those years have been influenced by significant back pain and spasms, and one with a significant focus on rehabilitation. I first picked up a copy of ZEN MIND, BEGINNER'S MIND and a book on dream yoga. I was fascinated by the idea of working on personal progress while I slept.

For the past eight or nine years, learning more about dream yoga has taken a back seat to other types of meditation, philosophy, psychology, travel, etc., but I've recently started feeling mindful during dreams. This is different than the feelings of lucidity and creativity that were predominant ten years ago. These dreams are similarly characterized by situations that are interesting or challenging, but rather than trying to benefit from imaginatively utilizing the magical-fluid-bright feelings and actions that dreams allow, I've recently been very careful, focused, and realistic about these dream situations.

Last night, a hillside where I was hiking began slipping away from under my feet. "Normally", I'd just fly wherever I wanted to. Instead, in this dream, I took a real interest in the rocks closest to me as well as looking at what occurred with the hillside overall. The closer a focus I took on what was happening near me, the less everything shifted. Eventually, the hillside solidified into a steep cliff face. Rather than trying to avoid being swept along in a landslide, I faced the challenge of carefully climbing off the ledge I was on.

These recent dream seem novel or new for a few reasons. The first is that the sense of time has changed. I focus now for what seems to be a very long time. In the past, when I tried to retain this degree of focus, I'd wake up from the effort. The second is the creativity and magical quality. Rather than imaginatively escaping or succeeding, I've been focusing closely on taking realistic steps. The third is that this all seems easier and more natural than getting into the more imaginative options I've dreamed before--but it feels no less fascinating than flying, intentionally changing the speed and direction of dreamtime, reading the minds of other characters (that one makes me laugh!), etc.

All in all, I still can't say I have a disciplined or consistent meditation practice but I'm not sure I'd want to. So many different things can come out of what we do with our imaginations, intentions, attention, and abilities that I think I mostly just continue to marvel at the variety and feel of what occurs. With back spasms as a consistent part of my history, it has often been easier to get focused while lying down. This has given me a slightly different experience than most beginning meditators who have done much of their practice while sitting, walking, or standing. While that has increased my awareness of how easy it is to get sleepy, it has also proven to me the value of engaging your muscles for a straight-but-relaxed posture and for learning how to remain focused when I feel very energetic AND when I have low energy.

I may have a different emphasis than many people I've met on what makes a meditation session feel "good" or "better" than the sessions that seem like they don't go anywhere in and of themselves. Anyway, I am glad to have communicated some of the differences between my own experiences and others'. It seems impressed into my body and mind just how unique everyone is, each path as well, and it is becoming simpler if not easier to notice this unique quality as well as unique aspects of each different moment.

It is very interesting to notice how the barriers between dreaming and waking states seem to break down--dreaming becoming more realistic and focused, waking being more fluid and bright. It seems that having an open heart and a degree of comfort or security in this present relationship has helped create a context for further explorations. There is the feeling that I am "knocking on the door" to awareness in the deep sleep state and that the profundity and stability of this state is often "knocking on the door" of my consciousness fairly regularly when I am awake. More than looking for one form of measurement of actualization or another, it is really just fun to notice all these changes.

Virtual Mindfulness II

I've been reading Thomas Friedman's THE WORLD IS FLAT. In the chapter on everyone in the world being potential paparazzi now ("What Happens When We All Have Dog's Hearing?"), Friedman passes on the phrase "continuous partial attention". This describes what it is like for those of us who are always plugged into the Internet, talking on a cellphone, listening to an Ipod, etc. In this chapter, he lists some of the difficulties and problems involved with interactive virtual technology.

I am personally fascinated with the possibilities. With longterm meditation, it is often an explicit goal to develop continuous attention. I am curious about how being often connected to media affects the ways in which experience streams. It seems to me that sleep is a reasonable check on the continuity of partial attention. By that I mean that if we don't get any deep sleep, we noticeably suffer for it, we'll avoid continuous partial attention if we can be aware that lack of sleep is a significant cause of stress. But a significant amount of time spent with near-continuous partial attention could end up with helping mindfulness IF a sufficient amount of mindfulness training is included in one's life.

In dreaming, as I noted before, attention seems to be more fluid, more amorphous, more flexible. The same occurs when we are continuously paying partial attention. It can be harder or less likely to be mindful during dreaming, but if one practices, mindfulness eventually leaks over into (or shows up during) dreaming. In other words, mindfulness can be experienced in relatively discrete or "solid" moments, but it can also stream or flow. I don't think that near-continuous partial attention necessarily has a negative effect on one's likelihood of being mindful or on one's development of consistent mindfulness. But to be mindful in multi-tasking, we do have to be mindful of this fluidity. This is a different definition or expression of mindfulness than what is often given I suppose.

With dream yoga, the purpose is to take intention and mindfulness into the dreaming state. Once we are practiced or familiar with being mindful when we are dreaming, we are also more likely to be able to be aware during deep sleep. I'd say that being mindful in the normal waking state is similar to being mindful in chunks, like mindfulness as a solid. Mindful dreaming is like mindfulness as a liquid. The experiences that I'd say are like mindfulness in deep sleep are like mindful awareness as limitless or formless space. I'm not sure it is even possible to have partial attention in this sort of state. It does seem that familiarity with a fluidity of awareness prepares one for being able to notice this more subtle spacious awareness.

While the mindfulness itself is not different in various states, the overall experience changes. One of the things I notice as I spend time at my keyboard looking at a monitor is that it is often quite easy to slip out of awareness of my body. While this is not mindfulness, when I am intentionally aware of this slippage or flow, neither is it necessarily unmindful. While the body is an important object for mindfulness practice, feeling not limited to one's physical body is an important part of various states of oneness. It seems to me that we might give up something in oneness or stabilization of attention but gain something in flow. Just as normal waking consciousness needs a little tweaking to include mindfulness, near-continuous partial attention may not need much more than a little tweaking to include different types of personal actualization.

While this virtual universe is definitely a threat to tradition--if people want to perceive it as a threat--I don't think that virtual reality is a threat to mindfulness training.

Psychological Economy

I put up a new essay on attention and a psychological economy. Basically, the point is that we can be better about where we invest our attention, and improving what we do with our intention and attention has broader effects. The essay "Wisdom" is somewhat supportive, fleshes out the topic a little more, and I'll eventually write another companion essay called something like "Personal Mindfulness" and get that posted as well. There are some real and unnecessary problems that arise from trying to make mindfulness an abstract concept or trying to begin from doctrine rather than personal experience. A personal grasp on and exploration of mindfulness is important when one actually begins paying attention to psychological economy.


The Psychological Economy: American Zen in a Wonderful World

Personal Mindfulness

For Kristin (She's My Baby)

Referring to the "third collection" I wrote about in the essay "Self Identity and Globalization", Kristin asked me what to do with that third level of self identity. At the time, I was new to thinking about the idea and hadn't really worked out what to do with it, hadn't worked out how recognizing the importance of seeing these different levels or connections really functioned. The real question here is, "How does my history affect where I am in the world right now in such a way that continues to encourage the fulfilling development of my uniquely human potential?" The different parts of the question are important because the way they break down and interact is the answer to this question in the same way that most enduring questions about humanity are answered by delving directly into that humanity.

I'm writing this out this way because I like her unique humanness.

I've talked about the first collection or level as nature--genetics. That's part of our history, part of what ties each of us to humanity as a whole. We usually experience the second collection or level as personality, personal history and also personal description or what tends to be thought of when people say "self identity". (But our selves are so much more than nature, nurture, and history.) We don't really feel vitally alive if we don't get into how that history, how those first two levels of self-identification, affect a sense of fulfilling development. So a big part of that is mindfulness, paying attention to where I am right now, the people and world around me. We can't avoid our way into happiness. If people are going to be happy and feel alive, they have to pay attention. That's how it is. "In such a way", then, means: engagingly, mindfully, vitally, with passion and curiosity, etc. Most people do not connect mindfulness--paying close attention to ANYTHING--as being so closely connected to a sense of vitality, but it is. When we avoid noticing ANYTHING, we shade our selves, our psyches, we diminish the light of our attention. There is no good enough reason to diminish your own spirit. None.

The rest of the process is really about how all the parts of this question tie together. If paying attention to everything about me and everything around me helps me feel alive, how does it continue to support fulfilling development? Because lots of people are paying attention to a lot of stuff but they aren't necessarily very happy about it or fulfilled by it. So we need something more than JUST mindfulness. Since we're thinking beings, it can help to understand. The third level is all about process, fluidity, growth. So the ways that we can describe our history in chunks don't really describe us as living beings. The challenge is to find out how we can flow, feeling connected but not constrained by connection. Because we can only think about so many things at once, it's helpful to have some sort of focus. That's part of why I wrote the essay "Six Aspects". When we are unhappy about something, we can look at where we are and ask ourselves: which of these aspects do I need to be incorporating more directly or completely to be satisfied with what I am doing right now? What am I not seeing in others? There is ALWAYS something that can be done, something more to see. But when people don't learn to think of themselves beyond the first two levels, they can't necessarily see what it is they can do. When we can't know ourselves beyond the first two levels, we think of ourselves as sort of pieced-together-objects and it's hard to fit together the ways people describe us or the ways we describe ourselves with our lived experience. The third level is all about what we do but also what we see, what we are capable of imagining, discovering in ourselves and others, creating, and sharing. We create social reality by what we do; there is no one else to blame whether people want to praise a god or not.

In other words, to have even somewhat accurate self-descriptions, we HAVE TO include our potential, we have to include how we are not only from our families and cultures but how we are fantastic examples of humanity which our families and cultures cannot fully appreciate. Because more growth is always possible, it is impossible to know ourselves by only looking backwards. And because we can't be certain of what will happen in the future, to have accurate self-identities, we have to include a sense of knowing openness. I know that I can grow, I feel it, I am sure of it even though I don't know how I will grow. This is equally important as my genetics and my history, my culture, etc. But most people don't give it equal attention.

The last collection or level has to do with moving beyond the limitations not only found in my personality or my past but those found in humanity as it is currently. If every single person always has room to grow and things they can do in each moment to choose and feel that growth, then the same must be true for us as a whole. In the same way that we don't know the future about our individual growth for sure, we don't know the direction of human growth for sure, but we will not be able to feed into it very strongly if we do not feel openness about humanity. Every religion I've come across has described what I see as openness or potential. Every meditator has felt this openness or potential. We just don't always know how to bring that potential into reality right now, we don't always know how to bring openness into our interactions with one another all the time. But it's possible.

Until now, people as a whole have not seen this possibility as clearly (that's not it--I should say "as comprehensively") as we see it now. So we have all these ways of hinting at potential without necessarily having expert ways of bringing it out. But because we bump elbows and everything else with more people more often than has ever occurred in history, in our past, we run into more of our own possible actions than ever before has occurred. We get new ideas and new feelings from the abundant diversity of interactions IF WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO FEEL OPENNESS. Now, if we don't include intention and agency in how we bump elbows, we can allow genetics and history to set the course, to affect how we interact with one another and how we think of ourselves. But I, for one, believe in the human spirit that history shows as well as the human spirit that has yet to unfold. I am absolutely certain that we have not yet fulfilled our potential, reached our limits, come to understand ourselves. We are shot through with openness from beginning to end. This openness, this space for development and change, characterizes who we are as human probably more than any other single aspect. This has been described as adaptability, as if we are simply the most cunning creatures around. From a first or second-level perspective that is a good enough description. How do I know that description by itself isn't accurate? "Good enough" isn't good enough for me. That's how I am. How are you?

Rest, Relaxation, Balance, Equanimity

I've been thinking about the difference between ease and profundity. It seems like a lot of these things are often thought about as nouns but they also fit as verbs, especially when people intentionally DO them. Rest is something that we get or have naturally enough, like when we feel tired and sleep, but we can also choose to rest.

I think "rest" and "relaxation" fit together, that rest is often unintentional (but welcome) while relaxing can be understood as something we do on purpose, intentionally. Balance and equanimity might be different from one another in a similar way. When we feel like things are going pretty well, we might feel balanced without putting effort or intention into it; when push comes to shove, in order to keep that feeling of balance, we may need to engage an intentional sense of equanimity. At the very least, there is a difference between when we feel balanced or competent or in control without putting any thought into it and those moments where we feel stressed in some way.

It seems that balance is supported by general types of health--good sleep, diet, exercise, relationships, etc. A more intentional sense of equanimity seems to involve some degree of identification with profundity, like the feeling that when shit hits the fan, we might still feel solid, stable, deep. This profundity or the equanimity that seems connected to it feels different to me than strength (especially meaning strength of will). I would say that the equanimity and profundity can occur in awareness with intention that does not require forceful effort whereas strength of will involves both intention and effort.

While strength of will or amount of effort may be comparative, I don't know that equanimity involves comparison. Like being a lady. When you feel equanimity, there may be no reason for saying so or making a claim. When people feel a sense of comparison and superiority or inferiority, they seem lacking in psychological balance and equanimity to me. It strikes me that most people's assumptions involve comparison so thoughtlessly that this sense of inferiority in ourselves and others tends to be protected or courteously hidden (in conversation and interactions) rather than being seen as a sign of competitiveness (people who are unhappy about feeling inferior are unhappy about their own sense of comparison). We are all willing to see superiority as a sign of competitiveness. But I wonder that we have not generally done the same with inferiority. It seems to me that, when equanimity is included, inferiority is neither good or bad in any sense as much as it is simply unnecessary. Anyone judging it as good or bad may still be competing.

I guess that my point today is that if we cannot see inferiority when it occurs and for what it is, it will continue to remain as a weapon in the thought-police arsenal. As I intentionally realign myself more with equanimity, rather than seeming good and bad in various ways, arsenals more often seem simply unnecessary in most cases. When I find myself in a situation that is challenging enough to test my balance, I am more often just competing to win or embracing equanimity rather than giving attention to superiority/inferiority. The claims and feelings of superiority and inferiority matter less and less, while the competition hasn't necessarily changed at all. The point of winning, though, rather than being zero-sum and excluding losers, has something more to do with overall or inclusive progress. In such a case, it becomes harder to "lose" and the meaning of "win" changes. The "winners" end up leading progressive change in any given moment and the rest of the people end up following up with progressive change. Rather than losers in a zero-sum competition, then, we can often have a zero-loser equation involving inclusive progress. But someone will likely end up leading. This seems to happen more often when thought-policing and resentment/inferiority are not privileged in the equation.

Virtual Mindfulness

Mind streams. Even when we sleep, a bunch of stuff is going on in our brains. When we dream, we notice dreams have a certain amorphous or fluid quality. When we are awake, most of us have a running commentary that we often don't pay attention to, but it's there. Mind streams.

Digitized information flows stream as well. Sometimes we are not tuned in to various streams, so we aren't picking up anything meaningful. At other times, the information comes in faster than we can handle. This analogy between digitized technology and "information biology"--the ways our nervous systems and brains work--fascinates me.

Marx brought up the interesting relationship between humans and their modes of production. Essentially, we shape how we do things, and the ways we do things shape us in turn. In a little over one hundred years in America, we have moved from a primarily labor-based agricultural mode of production to industrialized to consumer-oriented to information production. We are currently working on moving into a more integrated-virtual sense of what is going on economically and socially.

As modes of production changed, training for jobs has changed, and management styles have changed. Management used to focus on getting the most out of unskilled agricultural laborers, then training workers to mechanical means and streamlining the mechanized processes, then to integrating a consumer focus, and most recently, the business writers are talking about "knowledge workers"--workers whose primary output has less to do with their physical activity and more to do with training and know-how. As modes of production have changed, workers' needs, demands, and desires have changed as well. What do knowledge workers need in order to do well? What increases functionality and innovativeness in brain functioning and productive output? It's fascinating in its complexity. How are you, your company, your nation doing with information biology and cultural technology (the insides of technological change)?

With information management, we are especially dealing in selection, organization, presentation, and communication. How we do that is important for knowledge workers, and this has been recognized from the beginning. With increasing virtual access and integration, not only are we dealing directly with massive amounts of information and people with similar areas of specialization to ourselves, but we increasingly have to integrate specialized work in one field or area with specialized information in another field. The human or cultural technology of collaboration is now being economically driven in advanced areas of the economy. So how do brains and people function best in collaboration?

While these massive amounts of increasing streams of information (various fields of expertise) can seem like intimidating Goliaths, the interaction changes when we stop trying to slay Goliath and learn how to work together. As an enemy, no one wants to fight the giant. But as collaborators, giants are good to have around. These streams of information that are fields of expertise are no more or less threatening or fruitful than what happens in your own mind constantly. The fact that we tend not to be aware of all that potential for good or harm does not make it more or less relevant. (What would it take to send you into a panic attack or a catatonic numbness? We don't usually fear these things, but most people don't understand them either. What could happen if you worked near optimal mental-feeling input and output every day of your life?)

I've diverged into at least two topics now--collaboration/communications and virtual mindfulness. Back to mindfulness. While mindfulness has been described in many ways, I prefer to see it as a quality of awareness that exhibits a balance between focus and relaxation. I disagree with the idea that mindfulness is the opposite of multi-tasking; focus is the opposite of multi-tasking, but mindfulness is not just focus. Mindfulness can be applied to one thing at a time. When this happens, it may feel like focus. But we also eventually become aware that mind streams, and it is quite possible to be mindful of that streaming. When we can remain focused on this stream as a singular thing, I would call that mindfulness as well. People often talk about being in "flow" or "in the zone", and this can happen more or less mindfully.

When people watch TV, they veg, not flow. That's fine, relaxation is good for everything that lives. But when we deal in interactive mediums, we have a sense of centeredness or self or purpose that allows a mix of passive receptivity and action. What's more, with digitized, electrical media like the Web, we can feel a little space from our own emotional reactions and comparisons with other people if we choose to. The ability to remain focused without a massive amount of effort--which usually happens when people are interested in what they're doing--is that balance between focus and relaxation that I mentioned. Usually, positive emotional energy feeds psychological performance, and avoiding negative psychological energy outputs can also feed performance.

The potential for virtual mindfulness to increase in a collaborative context is fascinating, and this could only happen with a massive amount of options. If there were less options, less information involved, people would spend less time focused on what interests them in the moment. What we do know, concerning innovative knowledge "production", is that people need a rich context to draw from and a sense of personal interest. When interest wanes, attention suffers, production suffers, people get bored or agitated.

In dealing with information coming over the Web, we recognize that it may be coming from a computer, a person like us or different in impressive ways, child molesters, hackers, nearly anyone. This encourages a certain deliberate point of view where we take the information basically at face value and decide whether we can create with it. Rather than face-to-face emotional reactivity and status/power comparisons, we can more easily try out a balanced point of view. Virtual reality becomes an interesting practice arena.

Intention's Centrality

Think about how influential search engines like Google are. My parents don't have much idea of what is available with tools like this, but when they use these tools for the few uses they can imagine, they're generally happy with the results. New options are created daily or almost daily, so much so that I can not say that I am much closer to using the full potential of all this available information even if I am ten times more adept, informed, and creative about it than my parents.

Mining the full potential of the Web is like trying to mine our full human potential. We each have more potential than we can much more than skim in a single lifetime. Think about how many languages you are capable of learning if you focused on them--there are hundreds or thousands of languages that any kid can learn but no one of us has the time for all of them. Besides languages, there are things like dancing that we could all be better at, sports, academics, etc. I will never be quite the car mechanic I might have been if I'd only focused on mechanics earlier in life, and if I start learning now, I will be able to keep learning about mechanics for the rest of my life. There are thousands or millions (or more) of such possibilities.

Because attention is limited, we have to choose somewhat where we want to focus, but our options are phenomenal. The teacher-to-student method of education involves a lot of discipline. Dominating types of discipline, as opposed to self-directed types of interested focus, create all sorts of negative aftereffects. The possibilities that were offered by TV (to Generation X) showed kids other things to focus on besides school-based curriculums. More recently, the possibilities offered by interactive mediums offer something other than passive or receptive options.

The same is true of "therapy". While it has often been modeled on human weakness (potential we have not fulfilled), much of this unfulfilled potential, much of the difficulties and motivational ambiguity people experience, comes from the aftereffects of dominance. In comparison to mutual innovation and the inspiration it creates, dominance is boring from a more powerful position and from a less powerful position. Dominance is a lot of work, and it continues to create a perceived need for more dominance by creating resentment and resistance. The same is true when we model our understanding of human beings on ideas of weakness or sickness (existential or medical); in such a case, we create a perceived need for therapy.

When people learn to dis-identify with domination methods and the aftereffects, they open up to innovation and inspiration. We replace what used to be called "delayed gratification" with intentional focus. When that happens, the purpose of education and what used to be thought of as "therapy" end up looking like a common "development of human potential".

Within the recognition that we (individually and globally) have more potential than we can bring out in one lifetime, we end up considering not only the breadth of choices, but also depth or profundity. When individual intention is included, we begin to recognize the importance of clarifying intention. By clarifying intention I mean learning intentional focus as well as liberating ourselves from the debilitating aftereffects and methods used in dominance idioms. In a hundred different ways, we learn to not only free our minds but also to interact in a clearly focused (inspired) manner with the world around us. When we all have the same information available, the quality of how we use it stands out as more important than the quantity each person has because quantity is relatively equal. In such a context, what you can do remains very important, but what you can intend to do becomes definitive. What WE can do is very important, but what WE intend to do is definitive. With these changes in technological mediums and increase in availability of information, we become increasingly known by our intentions. It becomes very important, then, to question how we can improve our ability to intend and the wisdom with which we develop and deploy this ability. Human development--with education and therapy as subsets of human development--become increasingly organized around intention and potential rather than around forms of dominance and aftereffects of dominance.

We increasingly interact in more informed ways through increasingly rich and diverse social networks. As overwhelming as this can seem, as we familiarize ourselves to the opportunities, we improve in applying our intention and energy to selecting and innovating opportunities. With a progressive psychology, we begin to more fully and adequately explore the possibility principle with mindful appreciation. Rather than lauding the ideological benefits, this sense of progress is experimentally verifiable through neurophysiology, economic growth, and political process.

Progressive Psychology

Just as Gutenberg's invention of the printing press radically changed the world, the World Wide Web is radically changing the world. The psychology that is currently taught, though, is still modeled on Gutenberg's printed medium even though efforts have been made to dress up that medium and its accompanying forms of thinking as something younger, hipper, and faster than what they actually are. It is impressive to see how ridiculous those well-intentioned efforts have often seemed to people my age and younger, and I look forward to being seen as ridiculous in similar ways by those younger or just more up-to-date than myself.

The major problem with changing primary mediums of exchange, including mediums of communication, is that the experience and social power is usually in the hands of elders while the familiarity with the new mediums is experienced by the up-and-coming punks of the next generation. Large scale innovation ends up being a messy but exciting business.

The biggest problem I've experienced in my education has been in wondering: how does all that move? How do you take all the archaic experience and let it live, let it found or base future endeavors rather than hold them back (like an oversized anchor)? How do we take these information chunks and not only let them stream, but swim that stream successfully? Essentially, the way psychology has been taught to me is like trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. Well, most institutions are usually behind the times. (Some things don't change I suppose.)

Here's the outline of what might as well be called progressive psychology:

Information management through

stages of change

in a psychological economy embedded

within a stream of social reality based

in a changing physical environment.

Each of those phrases represents an important, distinct-yet-connected contributing aspect to a psychology that lives. The point in writing this out succinctly is to show that a general outline does not need to be phrased so that only experts can use it. It is possible, with a minimal amount of familiarity, to recognize what these aspects are and how they generally interact.

It's true that almost everything I needed to know I could have learned in kindergarten. But we all know that there are all kinds of fun to get into as adults that kindergarteners don't know anything about. The field of psychology is only now moving beyond its kindergarten stage. There is a lot out there ahead of us.


http://mertzian.googlepages.com/progressivepsychology

Translators of Human Potential

It's exciting to have a forum where I can mostly focus on excitement. I've always tried to learn about what I find most interesting at the time, and that has made my personal studies fascinating. Blogging allows the same with expression of ideas--rather than spewing whatever uninteresting stuff may be going on in any given day, I can write when I feel that good-vibes daemon and get to know myself as an excited person by looking at what I (choose to) post. I think it's easy enough to miss out on that aspect of ourselves, but it's helpful to see a bunch of this stuff together, this material that involves excitement for me.

In arguing with my cultural diversity and women's studies professors, and in speaking congenially with a few forward-thinking feminist scholars, the point kept coming up that identity politics are interesting but a real sticking point concerning personal and cultural progress. Part of what keeps coming around is that, as people lament the loss of culture and languages around the world, more and more is offered for us as individuals to interact with. The complexity that people were used to seeing in old-school identity politics terms (nations, ethnicities, gender, temperament, etc.) is increasingly recognized to be internal to various groups of people and individuals. In other words, instead of only comparing myself to women, I can get to know my "feminine" qualities to the extent that they're there and could be developed; then they become me and mine rather than "feminine". The same is true with my "Chinese" qualities, although we haven't really used that sort of word choice much. I really appreciate a certain amount of traditional Chinese values, a certain amount of social(ist) cohesion, and an interest in maintaining China's unique place in the world.

My generation was the first in the history of the world to basically have available in book form almost every religion, easily accessible since we were born. We assume that availability. Now, you don't have to go to another country, you don't even have to buy or borrow the books and lug them around in your backpack if you have access to a computer. The next couple of generations will witness a further degree of universal language development (software code and fiber optic communications along with digitization).

When societies bump into one another, cultures get exchanged like glances eye to eye and then bodily fluids as things heat up. Eventually, something new is created. For the last couple of centuries, this happened mostly in a colonial competition. Now, if we can avoid nuclear or world war, it happens economically and technically.

Just as one society may assimilate aspects of another when those aspects are shown to work better, companies do the same. With companies going multinational, or with multinational companies becoming more influential, the interactions of various aspects of differing cultures are no longer primarily resigned to diplomats and armies between potentially warring societies. The interactions are no longer so much about benefiting oneself AT ANY COST to the others involved. It's an important change that even the Bush Administration is capable of recognizing. Why have we not attacked or at least completely ostracized North Korea? It doesn't work.

With the general reluctance to destroy one's competitors that came about with the rise of liberal humanism, the competition changes. You no longer sneak in, commit genocide against your competitors, steal what you can and go home. There is no separate "home" to go back to, and we all know this now. If we shit the bed, there is nowhere else to go to sleep. This world is pretty much it, at least until we can learn to live on Mars. While the USSR and the USA were willing to line up against each other based on ideological differences, destruction was still a major part of the equation, but this competition made the choices obvious to us for the first time--we can destroy each other (and ourselves at the same time) or try something else. The same is true with terrorism. Just try destroying all terrorists and see how long that "war on terror" lasts. You create your enemy with every move you make in that sort of game. Yes, the terrorists create THEIR enemies the same violent way; terrorism is the flipside of perceived oppression, so it can result from genuine oppression or also from entitlement and resentment. It gets interesting when rich, entitled Saudi kids become terrorists and rich, entitled American kids become Presidents.

Violence is bad for business and also for intentional assimilation. It's harder to pick out the positive aspects of Islam when the Muslims you interact with are shouting and shooting (the same is true from the Muslim side). But, in order to do something other than engage in this tribal sort of silliness (and it is silly and unnecessary now more than tragic or horrible, although it is tragic and horrible too), it is necessary to recognize that your opponent/competitor MAY actually do something better than you already do, that they may know something you don't. I am willing to admit that the Muslim countries in this world may do some things better than I do (and it's reasonable to want to see proof).

Companies in competition more often seek to improve themselves than to destroy their competition outright (it's better to assimilate successful competitors than destroy them); this has only come about to the extent that innovations, once developed, will last whether the person or company who created them is destroyed or not. In other words, destruction is no longer the best business, and that is THE ONLY EFFECTIVE REASON for convincing people to limit their competition. There are plenty of other supporting claims, but this is the only one that has been effective throughout history. As long as destruction pays, people will destroy because it takes less creativity and effort to come up with a fuck-you response than getting to know foreigners. Getting to know foreigners can be uncomfortable and difficult, and the economy of psychological motivations comes into play. If I can get away with greater comfort for myself, even if it means destroying others, I just might do it; if I can't remain comfortable and benefit from their destruction, I may as well not--it's distasteful.

So business competition is less extreme or violent than that between colonial empires, but the same cultural assimilation occurs with companies as with adventurers. The amazing thing is that, the less I have to fear about others trying to destroy me, and the less attention I put into devising ways to destroy others, the more I focus on the business at hand. The business at hand has always been and will always be happiness.

The less attention that goes into destruction, the more attention can go into creative improvement. Multinational companies are learning cultural lessons that countries have learned and forgotten since time immemorial. It's better to be creative, easier to sell your products, if everyone involved benefits. In order for that to happen in a functioning, competitive, international marketplace, we have to find out how "creative destruction" applies to business and culture. The best way to understand the psychological economy that drives business interactions and cultural exchange is to understand how creative destruction affects oneself. The better one is able to understand how creative destruction applies to one's own attention and awareness, the more prepared one is to make personal, business, and diplomatic decisions in a globalized setting. At this point in history, every social and ecological setting is a globalized setting.

The flipside of creative destruction (knowing what to let go of and how to dismantle it) is population control. Without population control, every human society contributes to straight ecological destruction.

As people mirror societies and companies, and as different cultures become increasingly more available to individuals from beyond the geographical boundaries of those societies, individuals sample from and introject aspects of those various cultures. Two things happen. The first is that the individual or company or whatever (administration, maybe?) becomes more internationalist, less particularist, more global, more HUMAN, less xenophobic. The second is that the internal possibilities become more diverse. When that diversity is overwhelming, people oversimplify--making the choices seem superficial, stripping culture and experience of its richness--or they fuzz out from not being able to hold all that diversity in mind. But when that diversity can be embraced and engaged, it fills out so much of one's own rich, human potential--much of which is ignored or denied by one's culture of origin or prescribed gender, class values, etc. (prescribed limitations). When that happens, rather than being weirdos in our own cultures or groups, we end up being examples of some strange and fascinating human potential that is largely foreign to our group. We become translators of human potential. This is what every individual and society is--translators of human potential. What are you focused on?

Pitbull Serendipity: Don't Eat My Balls

I can't believe I got a good night's sleep last night. Yesterday, I drove from central Pennsylvania to southern Virginia to pick up a stray dog from Alabama. She was so friendly that when a doctor found her on the side of the road, although she couldn't keep her, Dr. Sue couldn't help but adopt her, get her spayed, and send out a Mayday to Emily, her friend in Vermont. Emily forwarded that note to practically everyone she knew, and because I knew my sister (Greta) was looking for a four-legged companion, I forwarded Dr. Sue's request for love. Greta decided that if she could name the dog Bella, and if I'd pick her up, she'd love her forever.

This sounds like a joke: how many Americans does it take to love one skinny pitbull?

Her head is gigagntic, and she eats a lot--still pretty skinny. She's untrained but surprisingly smart. And she listens, trying to figure out what I want even though I don't think she really knows the words like "come", "sit", "no". Even though she slept all day in the car, we woke up after sleeping a good ten hours (she snores quietly and peacefully), stepped outside for a moment, and got some breakfast: dogfood for her, coffee for me. When she plays, she's got the pitbull instinct to latch on with her huge head and jaws and swing her whole body back and forth for as much leverage as she can get, like the rest of the body in full motion almost matches the power (and size!) of her head. She's a ball of energy, but even though we didn't play much this morning, when I decided to sit down to write, she calmed right down too. Little does she know that once her food's digested a little more, we'll head back outside for some real fun!

Same as other pitbulls I've met, she's quite a lover, and I'm sure she can't wait to meet Greta later today and finally settle into her new home. You can tell she'll take to training like a fish to water. Well, for as much frustration as this new technology can create, some of the connections make it worthwhile, too. Now if only I can find where she hid that tennis ball...

Traumatization and Psychotherapy

I've thought twice and three times about whether to put this on the Web. The likelihood of getting more out of it than what I risk may be disproportionate, but as they say, "Fortune favors the bold." As I say, I've met too many fearful and hesitant therapists to want to join the ranks of the fearful and avoidant.

In considering what this new virtual web forum may provide, I keep coming back to traumatization as a topic because it is so important, so complex, and so misunderstood. One psychologist that I asked estimated that only approximately 1 in 7 working therapists were familiar, competent, and prepared to handle traumatization. I can say that less than that many students in my masters program were prepared--myself among them. (In case this seems like only criticism on my part, the field is moving in a number of hopeful directions concerning trauma recovery.) And the majority of folks I've met who have seen therapists for trauma recovery have been sorely disappointed.

Now, this is partially because of where I've been and who I've met. I believe there are some (1 in 7 or so) who are doing a better job than the field in general. But I also believe that the field in general needs to do a better job in communicating how to prepare future therapists as well as doing a better job in preparing clients to face the full-on impact of traumatization. Here's my question: is psychotherapy the best milieu for dealing with trauma recovery? Think about this. I don't know that the answer already exists. A parallel question exists for me: what is psychotherapy in different forms best at?

Having trained in a well-respected graduate program, and (I believe) having done fairly well in that program, I found my preparation wanting and the state of the field unsatisfactory. What I found most odd is the nature of terror and the avoidance of terror.

With the types of traumatization that are caused by long-term or chronic influences, we may be more likely to end up dealing with what is currently diagnosed as "personality disorders". But with shock trauma, our willingness to face being overwhelmed is very important, it's scary, and it's hard to get a handle on without the right approaches. I believe that Peter Levine's (author of WAKING THE TIGER) insistence that trauma is primarily physical is correct, at least concerning shock trauma. If this is so, part of psychologists' avoidance and fear of trauma may involve the basic fact (if this is a basic fact) that traumatization is not primarily psychological. It may simply lie outside their current area of expertise.

But I seriously wonder about terror as an avoided or hidden or deprioritized aspect of traumatization and recovery. Having worked with states of oneness consciousness that are not normally included in graduate school education, I feel pretty safe to wonder about terror. My experience is that there are many states that are overwhelming, but I've survived all of them so far and benefited from most of them--as unsettling as they might have been at the time. I wonder how much of trauma recovery is either intentionally or unintentionally centered around a client's willingness to face terror. Now, this is never easy to do, and it's not a popular topic of conversation, but it seems like good trauma therapy involves building the psychological tools it takes to find this willingness and skillfully--not brashly--"go into the breach".

Too many people just try to jump right in, feel pushed in, or try to avoid it altogether. Interestingly enough, the path taken by graduate students often mirrors that brash, jump-in-with-both-feet, approach. If this were a recipe for failure, I think you'd bake an award-winning cake every time. Unfortunately, more is on the line than cakes and awards. Prospective therapists end up going through similar experiences (of being overwhelmed) as their unprepared clients do through a phenomenon called "emotional contagion". Unskilled students--who usually receive almost no direct training in trauma per se--find themselves immersed in various situations where they are often dealing with the most extreme client cases in the field. This occurs partially because the better-trained and more experienced folks move themselves into more comfortable positions.

Now, it makes sense to me to move into better positions as your career advances, but it does not make sense to me to avoid the centrality of traumatization in therapy. It seems to me that a little more transparency and group effort may be called for and eventually effective. Part of the difficulty lies in the nature of trauma and that of research. It is impossible to run genuine experiments involving trauma because you might actually lose "subjects" to suicide or just to horrible experiences if your experimental method is not all that successful. So we can't fully apply the scientific paradigm.

But it seems to me that a focus on the pathological aspects may remain largely because it has been difficult to collect the wisdom and understanding of those who are resilient, of those who have faced potentially traumatizing situations well, those who have come through perhaps a little weathered but feeling whole.

There is a constant underground dialogue going on concerning what has worked for whom and what does not work. I wonder: what is the best situation for addressing traumatization, what needs to be included? How do people face adverse situations without being traumatized? Is the willingness to face terror actually central? What needs to be known about emotional contagion before our preparatory programs actually prepare students to face trauma and succeed--rather than just preparing them to face trauma? Is it possible for the public to provide more complete answers sometimes when the academy must focus on specifics?

Solid, but Nimble (It's All Very Curious!)

Very peaceful today. As my understanding of what mindfulness is is really coming to fruition (years after beginning to work on it), the solidity of understanding fits with the balance and clarity (which mindfulness supports) to relax a lot of unnecessary personal agitation. Whereas I knew how to relax before, I didn't really get it that soothing or relaxation can occur--which is better than just being stressed out--but without necessarily building towards progress the way mindfulness does. I had a hunch before, and it's coming clearer now.

Working with the book MAHAMUDRA THE MOONLIGHT: QUINTESSENCE OF MIND AND MEDITATION (kind of advanced, a better introduction to Mahamudra is MIND AT EASE), the differentiation between a gradual path and an immediate or lightning "path" came to the fore again. I've always wondered--if IT can happen immediately, why wait, why go slow? You run into all these sectarian disagreements, too, about what's the best way to go about personal progress or, in more Buddhist terms, what's the best way to go about something along the lines of enlightenment or insight into anatta? Besides disagreements, there are also warnings: "The great medicine for seekers of gradual illumination becomes a poison for the seekers of instantaneous illumination. The great medicine for seekers of instantaneous illumination becomes a poison for the seekers of gradual illumination." (From the AHAPRAMANASAMYAK, quoted on p.145 of MTM).

So somewhere between true self and no-self, there's poison from both sides, but illumination if I just happen to get lucky?! Pick your poison, right? I just want to know what works! Ha, ha, ha!

Here's how it seems to me now. If you learn to relax a sense of agitation when you notice agitation, that's intentional relaxation. But if you just try to focus by avoiding agitation or applying an antidote to agitation, you might get sleepy, distracted, or bored. This is where a lot of people have a hard time meditating or feeling motivated to meditate, and plenty of folks get led down the back alley of the confusion around, "Should I want something out of meditation, should I expect something or have goals, and what's my motivation to begin if there's no goal?" That's basically a red herring, evidence of a lack of understanding (which is different than transcendental insight). It's the same as not knowing how to drive to Colorado State University from wherever you are--not evidence that you can't read a map or find the way on your own or figure out if you want to go.

Everybody needs a different amount of understanding, a unique proportion between understanding (along with curiosity, delight) and meditative stabilization (centeredness, groundedness, acceptance). With an emphasis on understanding, you can seem to cover more ground quickly. Problem is, when the going gets tough, you may feel like you KNOW how to handle things without being able to actually do or apply what you know. Other folks focus more on just concentrating and using good concentration to stabilize a sense of attention into tranquility or samadhi. The problem on that side--if it is overemphasized to the exclusion of understanding or fluidity--is that it's easy enough to feel solid but immobile. In that case, people start to feel attached to meditation and may avoid other aspects of their lives--which is fine for monks and nuns, not so healthy for the rest of us.

It seems to me that both (understanding-into-insight as well as samadhi) are very valuable, but both (as superficial conceptualization or, alternatively, as immobility) are also poison. Well, what then? If I don't want to go slower than necessary AND I don't really want to poison myself one way or another, what then? Really letting this question sink into my life and mind has helped me move towards a solid experience of mindfulness's application and value.

The A-ha! energy of insight is light and quick, but it can feel somewhat sporadic or thin when we don't know how to fully or thoroughly engage with it, when we haven't deeply established ourselves in/as it (as nonseparate with it). The essential lesson of nondoing that feeds into the stabilization can lead to immobility if we aren't sure how nondoing is not separate from doing. While there are various ways to break through, avoid, or crush this apparent dilemma, the suggestion to mindfully observe allows consistency in how one faces and begins to resolve it. With either enough insight or stability, the dilemma does not need to be engaged, but if it feels like a dilemma, something needs to happen!

An unskillful answer to the problem of insight's apparent inconsistency is to insist on stabilization, and an unskillful answer to the problem of stabilization's apparent immobility is to "lighten up", just be "spontaneous", or learn. With a limited perspective, someone could just stabilize their reliance on conceptualization (stay too conceptual or superficial) or "lighten up" about immobility being a problem (and stay unmoving). Those options won't work without complete commitment. (Maybe this is obvious to some folks, but I'm glad I've come to realize this.)

Mindfulness is an important part of both the ability to continue meditating and to take in new conceptual, sensory, and emotional material. Because it is central to both "paths", it is one solution to the dilemma. Rather than trying to slow down fast folks or speed up slow folks, rather than trying to work against someone's temperament like that, mindfulness encourages a shift from quantities (like fast/slow, insight/concentration, etc./etc.) to qualities of attention. You can't make curiosity or vitality faster or slower than someone's experience of it--can't force or insist about your own or someone else's meditation.

Previously, I've described mindfulness as a balance between focus and relaxation. But it's been really helpful for me to add the SENSE of mindfulness as a single stream of consciousness. Working with that has brought about the reconciliation of focus/stillness and movement. This way, I can experience the centeredness or groundedness of concentration along with the quicksilver brightness of movement or flow. While it's still new, not matured or thorough in me, knowing it very clearly, having it formed conceptually, gives me the foundation for certainty (and the requisite scientific or experimental polishing/adjustments as appropriate) and the space or time to keep working on it (playing with it) without being rushed or hesitant.

In all this, Ajahn Brahm's work has been excellent and complimentary to the Mahamudra and Madhyamika that I seem to have a greater affiliation for. Ajahn Brahm's teacher, Ajahn Chah's comments have seemed insightful and vital since I first came across them, and I am glad that all these folks took up their own paths and decided to share some of what they've found.

Procrastination, Procrastination

Ha, ha, ha! Today is funny--I'm getting a better grasp on mindfulness. The idea has come around again that putting off one thing puts off others as well, that when I'm missing something I want it's usually because I'm avoiding something I don't want to do.

My girl told me yesterday that I'm patient with her, and I thought, "Really, how to know something like that?" I guess that at a relatively elementary level, patience is like forcing myself to not be impulsive or pushy or frustrated. One step up, being patient is supported by realizing when being pushy isn't helpful anyway; sometimes that conceptual justification helps. One more step up, though, and we get to mindfulness. The nature of "patience" seems to change with mindfulness, when waiting becomes an opportunity to appreciate peacefulness in the moment. So most times, I don't FEEL patient with her, I feel like I'm paying attention to what's going on with us at the time, and I'm happy to be there with her. It's only when I'm not feeling mindful that I have to push myself to TRY to be patient.

But I've been spending a lot of time with reluctance lately, too. Reluctance feels like the opposite of this willingness which allows mindfulness. Because she's my girl, it's usually easy to feel mindful about being with her. I want to pay attention, I'm willing to be present. It's harder sometimes to do that on my own, to be mindful about myself.

The interesting thing about it is that mindfulness on its own never really attracted me much. It works nicely that way, that it is something that is hard to want--it's unsatisfying just to think about it. Being hard to want on its own makes it like an open window or view onto what is actually happening. Instead of wanting the window glass, we can look through that clear glass and recognize the spaciousness outside; when we do that, there is a response inside that feels like opening.

So I notice that when I feel reluctant, it's usually because I don't feel spaciousness. I often make the mistake of thinking there is no spaciousness in the part of the world I'm in at the moment, no room to move in the things I should be doing. (Some people try to get rid of "shoulds" altogether, and that's funny to me to--you shouldn't shit where you sleep.) Mindfulness, though, is like that window into spaciousness but I have to check whether I'm willing to look "out", whether I'm willing to admit openness. The willingness is itself the openness, on the inside, and when I look with openness, I see openness. That's the type of world I want to live in. When mindfulness is present, the reluctance doesn't have a place to land. It has no cause, no power, where is it? Where has it gone? Ha, ha, ha! When mindful appreciation is present, why go looking for reluctance?! No sense "shitting" where I could be peaceful.

That sense of peaceful openness, and the accompanying mental energy no longer tied up in some sort of frustration, are themselves the possibilities I wanted to experience. The inside action-energy to the outside forms I want to see. Why put off feeling that energy in openness?

Insight with Balls

I had a beautiful experience this morning while reading in MINDFULNESS, BLISS, AND BEYOND. While Ajahn Brahm's writing is a little doctrinal, it seems technically very good ("seems" because I'm no expert here). In reading about the jhanas this time around, I realized there were a few reasons why I didn't find deep absorptive types of meditation trustworthy. One partial reason is probably the existential fear that many proponents cite, the fear of losing my sense of self. But I've found the same basic problem in politics and psychology as well. In politics, it looks like humanists who can't understand or admit the necessity of military applications. In psychology, it looks like therapists who are very sensitive but afraid or unable to face traumatization and deal in trauma recovery.

When it comes to meditation, then, it is most often seen as the difficulties involved in translating these wonderful systems of meditative actualization from the convent or monastery into everyday life for us non-celibates. It's all about insight with balls.

(I'm going to throw out some religious/sectarian language along with what I have to say, but I think you'll be able to follow my gist even if you're unfamiliar with terms like "Mahamudra". I'll include the terms in case anyone wants to run down these valuable leads.)

The Mahamudra approach does a great job of describing the interaction between tranquility and insight. This relationship runs through samatta meditation--a focused kind of meditation that involves stabilizing one's mind, which results in tranquility. When tranquility is applied to adequate analysis, insight results. Without tranquility as the basis of analysis, opinionation and sectarian ideology result. This is a very reliable, steady approach to meditation. (Mahamudra also includes descriptions of the lightning path or immediate path, as well as much much more.)

Brahm's presentation is a nice challenge or addition to my understanding of this interaction between tranquility and insight. It asks the question, "What about delight?" Brahm has called himself a "meditation junkie", and he begins his instruction in this book in mindfulness and the joys of meditating. Joy is good, right? He makes a very interesting point that Buddhist meditation centers around bliss, presenting the jhanas as the way in which bliss is stabilized. In my own terminology, I've said that the center or inertia of one's motivation eventually moves "up" to inspiration and flow. Bliss is very important here, and I'm happy to see that Brahm also puts mindfulness as the doorway into bliss and also somewhat of a balance or fulcrum for further movement.

My hesitation has concerned developing subtlety or some sort of transcendental nice feelings without being able to apply those states and motivations in everyday life. Do these various systems have the balls to make it into and through war? What about thirty years of physical labor? Seeing the pictures of monks immolating themselves in protest of the Vietnam war encourages me to answer that yes, the power is there, but I also believe we have a little more translating to do--translating the bliss into balls without losing the tranquility and insight. Who's out there?

Rejection and Reluctance

With figuring out how to situate and work with bliss types of absorptive meditation, a few things came clear on rejection and reluctance. I've also been thinking a lot about translation, like how nonduality tends to be experienced at different stages. (I may eventually end up doing research on how to keep beginners happy with a sustained program of various types of meditation--now that I've done a reasonable job of facing my own reluctance around research and discipline, etc.) Anyway, I'm excited about doing a type of meditation where the focus is on what you (whoever) are capable of noticing. It's fun to experience how it begins with trying to imagine what might be going on, move into glimpses, and develop a fuller awareness. With as serious about it as so many folks have been, I've wondered whether or not to encourage other people in their own sense of humor, curiosity, and desire. I think, yes, aboslutely. It's crazy to see how this became somewhat of an overloaded question historically.

This essay is pretty much the extended punchline to the question, "How is conflict in the Middle East like potty training?" (Just breathe, son, don't clench.) Oh, and this sort of approach fits nicely with easing into agency and emotional openness around traumatization. I know at least Wade and I are familiar with how relaxation can open the door to sorrow and some other potent emotional experiences. It's amazing how much can be done by focusing on having a sense of confident and skillful agency in concentrating and relaxing.

http://mertzian.googlepages.com/rejectionandreluctance