grist to the mill

Grist to the mill of mindfulness

George G Clark, 18 June 2009

 

This morning I noted that the phrase 'middle class wanker' was lurking in consciousness and that it linked to the phrases 'elders and betters' and 'the good and great'. I also noted an associated feeling of dis-ease that seemed to have roots in anger, shame and disappointment concerning recent shocking revelations about MP's expense claims in the UK.

Existential Jujitsu Whatever turns up in mind whether good, bad or indifferent can be used as fuel for mind training. For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, the more powerful the thought and the stronger the emotion then the greater its potential as an aid to turning your mind around. http://www.srds.co.uk/begin/jujitsu.htm

Then I realized that these thoughts and feelings would make excellent grist to the mill of mindfulness. There could be a bout of existential jujitsu (see box).

Then I felt moved to dive beneath the shallow, intellectual understanding of things. This called for a matrix dealing with two main issues: (a) it is easy to be seduced by head stuff (thoughts) and thus to ignore the heart stuff (feelings) or vice-versa. But subjectively there cannot be one without the other - it is all mind stuff; and (b) there are causes and conditions for both conscious and unconscious aspects of mind stuff. But the dividing line between the two is sometimes misty and there is ongoing movement to and from the attention centre.

Grist to the mill of mindfulness
	Conscious - in the attention centre	Margin - on the misty edges of attention	Unconscious - not available for attention
Thought - Head stuff	1	4	7
Feeling - Heart stuff	2	5	8
Thought/ feeling - Mind stuff	3A & 3B	6	9

 

It would be tedious and not very enlightening to detail my ongoing story about 'hegemony' and 'elegant power' in terms of the nine boxes in the matrix. Some generalisations might, however, offer food for thought.

Those who are not involved with mindfulness and meditation are largely confined to the tip of the iceberg that is consciousness (1, 2 and 3). The concept of 'conditioned robot' springs to mind.

Those who are relatively new to mindfulness and meditation become increasingly aware of stuff at the misty margins of consciousness and of the influence it has on the conscious material. It soon becomes apparent that pure head and heart stuff do not exist and categories 4 and 5 enfold into mind stuff (6). The mind has a mind of its own!

Those who are well practiced in mindfulness and meditation intuitively grasp that 7 and 8 are non-categories and that there is an enormous amount of mind stuff that is not commonly available for attention (9). The goal of mindfulness and meditation is to still the mind such that the chatter of 3 and 6 is reduced and the promptings of 9 might be intuited.

We can think of mind stuff in the attention centre as having two forms - 3A and 3B. The former is the conditioned robot and the latter is what bears quiet witness to it. 3B can thus enable creativity and originality by heeding the intuitions from 9 - from your 'muse'.

SO - Will the greedy 'good and great' (1 & 2) take up existential jujitsu? Will they shift to wise and compassionate generosity by moving from 9 through 6 to 3B? Here's grist to their mill!

lamplight of we

the lamplight of we

George G Clark, 16 June 2009

I noticed many thoughts and feelings passing through my attention centre this morning. There will have been causes and conditions for all of them but these will have been multiple and complex. And each thought and feeling will have had a neural correlate.

A key democratic question is the extent to which conscious (or unconscious) thoughts and feelings can feedback on their neural correlates. Can we, by taking thought, change our thoughts and feelings and thus their neural correlates and the world?

BUT … is that really a key question? Is it not the case that the lamp which is the neural correlate (the tangible thing) is intimately linked to the light which is the thought and feeling (the intangible thing). If there is no lamp then there can be no light. But also if there is no light then there is no actual lamp (only a potential one). The lamp and the light are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.

BUT … neither lamp nor light is unchanging. They are not so much 'beings' as 'ongoing becomings': not so much static products as dynamic processes. They come into existence (from where?), hang around in the mental churn for a while (where does the light exist?) and then pass out of existence again (where do they go?). So how long does a lamp/light last? To the extent that it can be hypothesized as a tangible thing, can it exist for more than a tiny fraction of a second - a thought moment?

SO … might we consider thoughts about tangible products (things) to be illusions of consciousness that were useful for a time during the evolution of 'intelligence' in the universe? We might! But evolution has moved on.

There is now consciousness of consciousness and it is emergent. No predetermined blueprints; no central planning committee. Instead we can conceive of dynamic churn generating the variations that feed the process of natural selection at cosmic, biological and cultural levels. (Think of the invisible hand controlling(?) the freemarket!)

SO … we return to the key democratic question. It boils down to figuring the extent to which human consciousness in its totality is or can be a deliberate and considerate agent of evolutionary selection under conditions of domestication. It would be nice to think that it can be. But this begs the question of socio-political process in these globalised times. If we accept that by taking thought we can be an agent of change in the world - then how are we to conceive of 'we'?

"since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed"
http://www.icomos.org/unesco/unesco_constitution.html

 

"The mind, indeed, is never seen by anyone,
and, therefore, whether it can know or cannot know itself,
just like the beauty of a barren woman's daughter,
this merely forms the subject of a pointless conversation.
[Shantideva - 8^th Century]