In the Mood

George G Clark, 07 March 2008

When I am in the mood for something I do it effortlessly and with good grace. This contrasts with doing things with a grudge because I have to. So what might it take to avoid the drudge of grudge and be more often in the mood?

There is work and leisure. Work can be paid or voluntary. In either case I sometimes feel put upon by the agenda of other people (the boss). To use philosophical terms I am alienated from my labour and acting inauthentically with false consciousness. But I bite the bullet and get on with it because, for various social and cultural reasons, I feel that I 'should'.

Some of those feelings cross over into leisure where I have 'pursuits'. There are options for 'doing' and thus for avoiding the beast which is boredom. There are also options for 'being' but this is a tough call because "the devil finds work for idle hands to do". Given my cultural conditioning I am something of a workaholic and thus tend towards being a slave driver and control freak. But I sometimes rise above those things.

"When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt." : Henry J. Kaiser (1882 - 1967)

There are work and leisure times when the muse is in the zone and there is effortless flow. There are times when there is no self awareness and it is as if time and space had vanished. At such times normal waking consciousness is shut down and the unconscious is in the driving seat. Rational, linear thinking is replaced by intuitive, parallel thinking and feeling. There are times of being "lost into the Oneness of it all".

But the experience is rarely that clean cut for long. There is often a jumping from one mind state to the other. 'Mind Mapping' offers an example. This begins with a free flowing, unconscious stream of ideas which are then rationally categorised and linked: with many mini iterations along the way.  (This post was written using this mind mapping process: the hand written draft is very rough!)

So how might it be arranged that the muse is in the zone and 'I' am in the mood?

Intellectually and consciously there has to be an acceptance that these different mind states exist and that there is nothing (or at least not much) to fear from the unconscious. So reading and thinking about it well help to fill in the concept map.  But the map is not the territory. There is a need for down time and for stillness. Time to let the mud of the intellect settle so the clarity of the unconscious is exposed.

I have two main obstacles in making this transition which is not yet complete! There is the fear that the demons of the unconscious will be unleashed (reference Freud and most of the psychiatric movement). But it turns out that, for me at least,  the demons' bark is far worse than their bite. Nature has programmed me as a social animal and my nurture in the NE of Scotland has laid a foundation of working class Puritanism. These mental formations can be observed, smiled at and dismissed. They are not the bogeymen they are cracked up to be. Their dictates can be overridden.

The other main obstacle is seemingly getting something for nothing. I find it hard to get my head around  new poems, songs or blog posts 'arriving' thanks to 'the muse'. This still has a ring of 'magic'. But I am getting easier with the notion that my nature and nurture provide the causes and conditions for whatever turns up. The unconscious thus has much the same dynamics as consciousness except that the illusory and constraining 'I' concept is not as noticeably involved.

So: all that is needed to avoid the drudge of grudge is to sporadically exit the conscious, egoic  state and leave things  to unconsciousness. Harness the muse and you will automatically be in the mood.

"It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life." : Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, 1990

How do I mean?

George G Clark, 05 March 2008

I see the world as meaningful but so do other people and it may not be meaningful in the same way. So how do I come by my view of what it all means?

Meaning exists in my mind. So how did it get there? An obvious route is through my sense organs which send signals to parts of the brain which are hard wired to interpret them in particular ways. But the meaning is not part of what is sensed: it must be added afterwards.

Since birth I have been exposed to 'culture' with sub-cultural and class-based features. This culture has a predetermined but dynamic world view which finds expression and continuity through rituals and a particular pattern of living language. These conspire to make me, in large part, a creature of my time and place.

The process of enculturation can be viewed as brainwashing. This raises the question of the extent to which I am free to choose 'my' system of meaning. To what extent might this be independent of, and unconditioned by, my time and place? And what might that involve?

Some people (the existentialists) reckon that I am condemned to freely choose my own pattern of meaning. They reckon I am responsible for my own world and that I have to work to realize the potential of my existence in my own terms. But, despite extensive time spent in other cultures, I remain in large part a recognisable creature of my time and place.

Other people (the structuralists) reckon that I am pretty much moulded by my culture  and language. In this view I am a robot most of the time although there is space for chance (?) to spark acts of creativity. This works through metaphor and metonym (see box) : the process works for both intuitive poets and rational scientists, and indeed for anyone at the cutting edge of meaning systems. And this means all of us? But some of us more than others?

So … how do I mean?

It seems that the process may be part hard wired, part due to culture and language, and part due to the chance quirks of my poetic, scientific and day-to-day stirrings. This is good news for the bit of my meaning system that rejoices in people not being total robots.  Nature and nurture can interact in creative ways. There would appear to be a sausage machine: but it leaks.

 

A metaphor is a thing that is used to represent another thing. For example, if we say, "TV is a thief of time," "thief of time" is a metaphor for TV. Metonymy is the use of a term to mean something associated with it. For example, if we say, "I love the open road," "open road" is a metonym for the idea of travelling.

 

[This post was delightfully informed by reading Jay Stevenson (2005) The Complete Idiot's Guide to Philosophy; ISBN 1592573614]

elephant mind

Taming your wildly active mind

-Henepola Gunaratana, Mindfulness in Plain English
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book
http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_676/dailydharma/4415-1.html

 

Ancient Pali texts liken meditation to the process of taming a wild elephant. The procedure in those days was to tie a newly captured animal to a post with a good strong rope. When you do this, the elephant is not happy. He screams and tramples, and pulls against the rope for days. Finally it sinks through his skull that he cant get away, and he settles down. At this point you can begin to feed him and to handle him with some degree of safety. Eventually you can dispense with the rope and post altogether, and train your elephant for various tasks. Now you've got a tamed elephant that can be put to useful work.

 

In this analogy the wild elephant is your wildly active mind, the rope is mindfulness, and the post is our object of meditation, our breathing. The tamed elephant who emerges from this process is a well-trained, concentrated mind that can then be used for the exceedingly tough job of piercing the layers of illusion that obscure reality. Meditation tames the mind.

 

 

Our unsubdued mind

- Geshe Kelsang Gyatso, Meaningful to Behold
from Everyday Mind, edited by Jean Smith, a Tricycle book

http://www.tricycle.com/issues/2_675/dailydharma/4414-1.html

If we let a wild elephant loose in a populated area it will cause massive destruction, but the uncontrolled wild mind can cause much more harm than such a crazed beast.If the deluded, wild elephant of our mind is not subdued, it will create much suffering for us in this life and will cause us to experience the sufferings of the deepest hell in the future. In fact, if we investigate we can see that the creator of all the sufferings of this and future lives is nothing but our unsubdued mind. To subdue this wild beast is much more important than bringing a jungle elephant under our control.

 

Many benefits follow from taming our mind. If we take the rope of mindfulness and tie our elephant mind securely to the post of virtue, all of our fears will swiftly come to an end

 

If we do not develop mindfulness, our meditations will be hollow and empty. There will be nothing to keep our wild elephant mind from running back and forth in its customary,uncontrolled manner between objects of attachment, anger, jealousy and so forth.

 

 

 

 

deliciious stillness

 

Delicious Stillness

George Clark, 3 March 2008

A little while alone in your room will
prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given you.
(Rumi)

Most days I make time to just sit. I use the mobile phone to measure 20 minute sessions. I usually have two or three of them at a time.

Sometimes the sessions are noisy and full of worldly chatter and there is no escape from what might be thought of as normal, free-flowing, ego-besotted consciousness. The wild beast that is normal mind.

Sometimes, however, there is a move to stillness and a great peacefulness. This is best described by saying what it does not involve. It is free of I, me and mine thoughts with their associated cravings and aversions. It is free of the past and future and abides in a sense-less present that is independent of time and space.

But there are still some thoughts and feelings. The dynamic churn of the unconscious is still there; but the mental stuff it presents to consciousness is flimsy and in a light mist. It flows past like dry leaves on a peaceful river. Clock time is condensed and the 20 minutes are soon over. The wild beast has been tamed.

So what is such a mind good for? Two main things.

I find that (a) it offers a welcome break from the ego-besotted, time-framed, roller coaster ups and downs of the normal mind and (b) sometimes useful new ideas emerge spontaneously from the stillness. These might otherwise have remained buried in the unconscious. (This story is an example of such an emergence.)

'Just sitting' is a form of mindfulness meditation. There are many variations on the process of stilling, stopping and taming the wild beast which is normal mind. I have recently found it useful to 'aim and sustain' attention on half a breath at a time. This is an easy way to gain the encouragement of quick wins and to keep attention centred on the breathing.

Aim attention at the in breath and keep it there.
Aim attention at the out breath and keep it there.

Once the wild beast has been tamed it is safe to let go of the breathing and to rest in that delicious aspect of mind which is peaceful stillness.

Our purpose is not to follow the heart;
It is to train the heart.
(Ajahn Sumedho)

Is this the light?

George Clark, 02 March 2008

After the meditation session on Saturday we were wondering about different states of mind and about whether or not they are 'enlightened'.  We noted different conditions while at work, during meditation and in between the two. There follows a tentative sketch of the various places our minds might go during our waking hours. There is reference to "no awareness of self nor of space and time". Is this the light?

 

There are at least two options while at paid or voluntary 'work'. On the bleak side you may be half hearted and unable to focus. You are dithering, unwilling and awkwardly self conscious. The work will eventually get done but it is a chore.

On the bright side you may be one-pointed and focussed. If you are an athlete you are in the zone, if you are a creative writer you are in flow. The 'muse' will have 'taken control' and it will be as if the work does itself. There is no awareness of self nor of space and time. Effortless action.

When in between jobs there is slack time. The tone might be elated, depressed or neutral: and the motivation might be to hold on to, avoid, or to seek distraction from, the present  situation. The goal is to maximise pleasure and minimise pain. There are two ways of dealing with  this.  

The bad way promotes anxiety and selfishness while the good way promotes peace and compassion. A mind conditioned by cravings will water bad seeds while a mind that is beyond craving will water good seeds. A craving mind will inhabit the phenomenal world. A mind that has gone beyond craving will experience the numinous where there is no awareness of self nor of space and time. Infinity in a grain of sand.

There are also different mental states during formal meditation. Sometimes the waterfall of thoughts and feelings is robust and noisy and completely captures attention. At other times the witness appears to observe the waterfall and create distance from it. Letting go becomes a viable option. Attention can be pointed to the breathing and it will stay there.  There will be no awareness of self nor of space and time. Only breathing.

But there can be more. Once stillness has been achieved the anchor which is the breathing can itself be let go. There is then the oceanic feeling, the experience of being co-extensive with the Oneness. There will be no awareness of self nor of space and time. InterBeing.

But there can be more.  After the stilling (Shamantha) comes the insight (Vipassana). With a clear mind you will know the 'real reality' and thus be able to engage with the world in a beneficial way. We are back with the effortless action which is 'flow' where there is no awareness of self nor of space and time. Is this the light?