My biggest impression from this first day of the Mind & Life conference is that sometimes it’s better to buy the album than shell out for the concert.
DAR Constitution Hall is not the Dalai Lama’s living room, and the presentations that occurred there today were not conversations among equals as much as Neurobiology Lite, packaged and dumbed-down for your inspiration. I had hoped that the ticket price bought the opportunity to eavesdrop on a sparkling discussion of current research and an exchange of insights into how Buddhist understanding informs modern health and neurobiology. Alas. Those who shared my conceit are trudging home sadder but poorer tonight.
Very little new material was presented, and those who prepared—as I did—by reading the book-versions of previous conferences, found much of the material to be repetitive, shallow, or both. What was new and interesting were His Holiness’ contributions, which were infrequent and hard to understand, and would have been more easily digested by reading this year’s book than by actually sitting through the proceedings.
To be honest, His Holiness has a cold, and the sound of him blowing his nose reverberated throughout the hall in a most bizarre manner. It’s a testament to his skill, and the rather poor sound quality, that his expositions in Tibetan were more satisfying than the translations. But the poor man looked like he needed a rest. He’ll meet with the president tomorrow, followed by Condoleezza Rice. Seems to me he'll need some strength to face the architects of one of the greatest sources of suffering in the present age. (NB: that the war in Iraq is a source of suffering is an objective observation rather than a political statement. Whether or not you think it’s worth the suffering is where politics comes in.)
Of great importance to me as I contemplate whether another round in the academic realm is right for me: the contrast between meditators and scientists was striking, and it didn’t flatter the scientists. Onstage, the various Buddhist practitioners, all of them people of long practice, spoke and moved in an unfettered way that seemed completely natural and balanced. It would have seemed unremarkable had they not been paired with stiff, posturing, pontificating scientists.
For me, taking a path apart from practice was never an option, but now I’m seriously doubting that I’d want to work in a lab every day. Perhaps some well-adjusted researchers will turn up tomorrow. And perhaps I’ll find my grail: a researcher for whom practice is the foundation of life, rather than a utilitarian add-on that lets them tolerate more stress. Sadly, just being a scientist-meditator is apparently not sufficient to make one a sane person: one such individual, who I've long worshipped from afar, seemed like a combative jerk; I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt—perhaps he was infuriated by the sound system too–but he seemed quite arrogant. Pretty disappointing.
There was plenty of content of merit. Some of it was familiar, but very nicely-stated. Ajahn Amaro and Mathieu Ricard both expounded the teachings with a lovely freshness and openhearted ease.
Points of note:
Ways in which the Buddhist view of mind has been modified by science:
1. Brain, not heart, as the seat of consciousness
2. Basis of sensory experience is in the brain and does not reside in the sense organs themselves
Mathieu Ricard:
True mental health may be more than the absence of mental illness/Our normal state of mind is an epidemic
Meditation is not a hobby involving going limp: just as in science, there is a therapeutic goal of addressing needs common to all humanity.
Ajahn Amaro:
Dukkha= the capacity of the mind to lose balance and become emotionally distresses.
Four noble truths are presented in the form of a classical Indian medical diagnosis:
1. symptom
2. cause
3. prognosis
4. method of treatment—a threefold prescription of ethical behavior, mental cultivation, and insightful understanding
The Buddha said that any path that contains these three elements will surely lead one to peace and liberation, but if a discipline lacks one of these elements, it cannot do so.
Ajahn Amaro & Fr. Keating: (Father Thomas Keating was a big hit. Articulate, heartfelt, and very wise, he earned several rounds of applause. The plan for the future is to have more representatives of contemplative traditions in attendance.)
Two kinds of suffering
1. unavoidable, endemic physical and emotional pain, “the central suffering of a limited universe” which you can’t do anything about.
2. Adventitious suffering: what the mind adds on; fretting, anxiety, etc.; eradicable and treatable
It is possible to be at peace whilst being subjected to great physical and emotional pain.
Although basic suffering is innate, so to is the capacity to focus attention, and to investigate the nature of experience, including our responses to suffering. These must be cultivated.
Uncontrived state of mind= pure awareness
Robert Sapolsky:
Dopamine is released not upon reward, but when anticipating a reward. Anticipation itself is what’s pleasurable: that wondering if you’ll get what you want.
In the short term, stress heightens attention, improves memory (improved hippocampus-dependent memory), raises your energy level (elevated blood oxygen and glucose), and feels good (dopamine). Chronically, these are all exhausted, and the opposite is true. Plus amygdala (fear response area) function is increased; it becomes larger and sprouts more connections—you are literally trapped by fear.
Some types of stress are pleasurable (roller coaster; scary movie) while others cause extreme health problems. Lack of control in a hostile environment=profoundly stressful. Chronic activation of (healthy, adaptive) stress responses leads to stress-related medical disorders.
Key distinctions between fun stress and killer stress are: predictability; perception of control; hope for the future; friends; and availability of someone to bite (if a rat).
Some people are not traumatized by extreme stress, and whether stress is manageable or traumatic seems to depend on one's perception of her environment. Is it benign, or threatening?
Creating a benign environment. Alan Wallace quotes the Buddha, “The Sangha is the whole of practice.” And indeed, living in a community can be a tremendous source of support, as well as a boundless field of challenge and opportunity to watch the self arise and have opinions.
50% of mammalian violence is caused by proximal stress, often “passed-on” abuse from another individual: you beat me up, then I go kick the dog. As humans, we have a biological predisposition to spread violence, and the moral imperative to train our minds not to.
No correlation between intellectual intelligence and moral compass. Level of intelligence does not predict a person's altruism. Those who perform incredibly heroic acts were often taught from childhood about right and wrong. They do not report reasoning about their selflessness, rather “The next thing I knew I had dived into the river.”
People are notoriously bad at predicting what will make them happy. Marriage doesn’t do it for long; widowhood doesn’t destroy it for long; and being wealthy doesn’t do it either.
A recurring theme was that experienced meditators have increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, the area that controls decision-making and emotional expression. This may explain moderated responses to unsettling stimuli, as well as greater emotional equanimity in daily life.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Post a Comment