Perspectives on our Left-Brain-Dominated Culture

     Psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist painstakingly uncovered how most of us today, swept along by popular culture, are unknowingly left-hemisphere dominant. This has profound effects on every aspect of daily life, and our future.  
     Some aspects of left-hemisphere dominance is generally very useful (science & technology); while others, not so much (conflict, aggression, impatience, loneliness, disorientation, meaninglessness, despair, degradation of the environment, etc). McGilchrist argues for the urgent necessity to re-balance the influence of the two hemispheres: http://www.johnlovas.com/2019/11/control-chaos-and-our-hemispheres.html

      From our ancestral right-hemisphere dominance, the pendulum has now swung to the extreme left - "hyper-rationality":
     Hyper-rationality is the unquestioning faith in the efficacy of reason. This is something of an irony, since those who take the hyper-rational approach to reason are violently opposed to "faith" of any sort. They (rightly) condemn "faith" as "irrational," but they then go to the opposite extreme of making reason supreme. In so doing, they inadvertently turn reason into a sort of surrogate god, to whom they must pay homage at all costs ("yet another form of partisanship"). This is rationality carried to the extreme, beyond rational limits, hence the term "hyper-rationality.
     In his book Descartes' Error, Antonio Damasio has amassed an impressive body of neurological evidence to show that at the biological level of brain processing, reason cannot, and does not, function on its own. Emotions are inextricably interwoven into our most 'rational' decisions and thoughts."
       Michael Mendis http://bigthink.com/articles/hyper-rationality

      Isn't it entirely reasonable to assume that there's an appropriate 'time & place' ie context for EACH of our ways of perceiving & knowing: logical reasoning, contemplation, intuition, spirituality etc?
     Isn't it optimal to intentionally cultivate, resuscitate & integrate ALL of our powers of perception & knowing, in a balanced, harmonious manner?

      "Contemplation is a third way of knowing – a missing link – that complements & enhances the rational & sensory. The contemplative mind is opened and activated through a wide range of approaches – from pondering to poetry to meditation – that are designed to shift states of mind in order to cultivate such capacities as deepened awareness, concentration and insight. Historically, the contemplative has been used throughout the wisdom traditions as fundamental for developing interiority and understanding the most essential knowledge, yet it is almost entirely absent from contemporary education." 
     Tobin Hart. "From Information to Transformation. Education for the Evolution of Consciousness." Peter Lang, 2009. 

Hindrances to Clear Perception

     The Buddha explained that it is the five hindrances that distort perception and corrupt our thinking. He called the five hindrances the nutriment that feeds delusion. 
     The first hindrance, sensual desire, selects what we want to see, hear, sense, and cognize. It often embellishes the truth. It presents to our consciousness the product of wishful thinking. 
     The second hindrance, ill will, is the negative impulse that blocks us from seeing, hearing, sensing, or cognizing what we don’t want to know. It blinds us to what is unpleasant, and to what is contrary to our view. Psychology knows the second hindrance as the process of denial. 
     The third hindrance is sloth and torpor. This does not distort what we see, hear, sense, or cognize; rather, it buries it in a fog so that we are unable to discern clearly. 
     The fourth hindrance, restlessness and remorse, keeps our senses on the run, so fast that we do not have sufficient time to see, hear, sense, or cognize fully. Sights do not have time to fully form on our retina before the back of the eye has another sight to deal with. Sounds are hardly registered when we are asked to listen to something else. The fourth hindrance of restlessness, and its special case of remorse (inner restlessness due to bad conduct), is like the overdemanding boss in your office who never gives you enough time to finish a project properly. 
     The fifth hindrance is doubt, which interrupts the gathering of data with premature questions. Before we have fully experienced the seen, heard, sensed, or cognized, doubt interferes with the process, like a cocky student interrupting the teacher with a question in the midst of the lecture. 
     It is these five hindrances that distort perception, corrupt thinking, and maintain a deluded view.

     It is well known among serious students of Buddhism that the only way to suppress these five hindrances is through the practice of jhana. ... for those who do not attain a jhana, the five hindrances (plus discontent and weariness) invade the mind and remain. Anything less than jhana is not powerful and lasting enough to suppress the five hindrances sufficiently. So, ... if the five hindrances are still active at a subconscious level, you are not seeing things as they truly are; you are only seeing things as they seem, distorted by these five hindrances. 
     Thus, ... in order that “in the seen will be merely what is seen, in the heard will be merely what is heard, in the sensed will be merely what is sensed, and in the cognized will merely be what is cognized,” the five hindrances have to be suppressed and that means jhana!

       Ajahn Brahmavamsol. "Degrees of Seeing." Lion's Roar magazine. March 17, 2017. https://www.lionsroar.com/degrees-of-seeing/?utm_source=Lion%27s+Roar+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6cdead9e7c-WR-Mar-17-2017&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1988ee44b2-6cdead9e7c-21110717&mc_cid=6cdead9e7c&mc_eid=9d27166e2a

Emily Carr

Buddhist Meditation: To See Things As They Are

     “… Buddhism has literally dozens of meditation practices, and each meditation may develop through several distinct states and stages. A Buddhist practitioner may therefore cultivate scores of ASCs (Altered States of Consciousness) during training. 
     … the classical contemplation of Buddhism, which is called Vipassana or insight meditation, is an awareness practice. … Vipassana meditation cultivates fluid attention to all objects. All stimuli, both inner and outer, are examined precisely and minutely. The aim is to investigate the workings of the mind and thereby cut through the distortions and misunderstandings that usually cloud awareness. ‘To see things as they are’ is the motto of this practice, and the seeing can become very sensitive indeed. 
     … According to both classical and recent research, Buddhist insight meditators can cultivate perceptual sensitivity to remarkable levels. 
     … attention moves fluidly between objects. … insight meditators gradually develop greater calm. 
     … the Buddhist meditator’s microscopic awareness becomes so sensitive that it dissects the sense of self into its components. Thus the meditator perceives not a solid unchanging ego but rather a flux of thoughts and images that compose that ego (transcending ‘personal symbolic consciousness’). This is the classic Buddhist insight of ‘no self,’ which sees through the illusion of egoity and thereby frees the meditator from egocentricity. 
     … awareness becomes so sensitive that all experiences are eventually broken down into their components, and the meditator perceives a ceaseless flux of microscopic images that arise and pass away with extreme rapidity. 

     ... contrary to many claims, shamanic, schizophrenic, Buddhist, and yogic states are clearly distinguishable.”

       Roger Walsh. “The World of Shamanism. New Views of an Ancient Tradition.” Llewellyn Publications, Woodbury, Minnesota, 2007. 
 

Ways of Knowing - Depths of Perception

     “In the early part of the twentieth century, IQ became the big issue. Our intellectual or rational intelligence is what we use to solve logical or strategic problems. Psychologists devised tests for measuring it, and these tests became the means for sorting people into degrees of intelligence, known as their intelligence quotient or IQ, that could allegedly signpost their abilities. The higher a person’s IQ, the theory went, the higher their intelligence.
     In the mid-1990s, Daniel Goleman popularized research from many neuroscientists and psychologists showing that emotional intelligence (EQ) is of equal importance. EQ gives us our awareness of our own and other people’s feelings. It gives us empathy, compassion, motivation and the ability to respond appropriately to pain or pleasure. As Goleman pointed out, EQ is a basic requirement for the effective use of IQ. If the brain areas with which we feel are damaged, we think less effectively. 
     Now, at the end of the century, an array of recent but so far undigested scientific data shows us that there is a third ‘Q’. The full picture of human intelligence can be completed with a discussion of our spiritual intelligence (SQ). By SQ I mean the intelligence with which we address and solve problems of meaning and value, the intelligence with which we can assess that one course of action or one life-path is more meaningful than another. SQ is the necessary foundation for the effective functioning of both IQ and EQ. It is our ultimate intelligence.”

        Danah Zohar. “SQ - Spiritual Intelligence - The Ultimate Intelligence.” Bloomsbury Paperbacks, 2012. 

Direct Perception

The hearing that is only in the ears is one thing.
The hearing of the understanding is another.
But the hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty, to the ear, or to the mind.
Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties. And when the faculties are empty,
then the whole being listens. There is then a direct grasp of what is right there before you
that can never be heard with the ear or understood with the mind.

Chuang Tzu

How We Experience Complexity

     "ideas that are complex metaphors to the erudite, are literal for the laity."

        Jay L. Garfield PhD, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor of Humanities, Yale-NUS College, Singapore - from the New York Times interview by Gary Gutting "What Does Buddhism Require?" http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/gary-gutting/

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin


       “The poet and painter William Blake said, ‘As a man is, so he sees.’ He meant that the way a person sees or understands him or herself deeply conditions the ways he or she sees and understands objects, others and the world.”

       Rupert Spira. “Presence, Volume I: The Art of Peace and Happiness.” Non-duality Press, Salisbury, UK, 2011.

 

cand1d   www.dpreview.com

Quality of Awareness & Perception

     "By bringing non-conceptual, naked attention to whatever you are feeling or sensing, the impermanent nature of your perceptions is revealed. You witness the dissolution of that which appeared solid."     Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

       Buddhadharma: The Practitioner's Quarterly, Fall 2012

All Exclusive   www.dpreview.com

Choose Now: Fresh or Stale?

     Each and every moment we choose how we perceive this moment - fresh or stale?

     This very moment is completely new, never-before experienced, unique. We ourselves are, in each moment, completely new, never-before experienced, unique. Each millisecond of life is a brand new dawn of creation. Accurately perceived, we live in the miraculous flow of endless creative change.
     To see accurately, we first must let go of our "me, myself & I": self-talk ("narrative focus") and all our many forms of self-absorption (egocentricity). We either see things as they truly are, or see ourselves projected onto the external world.

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     Sadly, most of us don't even realize that we have a choice in this matter. The momentum of our lives, our story lines, our baggage, is so great, that we spend much of our lives completely lost in it. And when we get a brief glimpse of freedom from this psychic swamp, it scares us, and we feel completely unequipped to deal with this (to us) strange landscape of bright consciousness. Sadly, many of us quickly retreat back to the swamp we know (and hate). BUT INSTEAD, WE CAN CHOOSE TO BE FREE ...

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/10/keeping-this-moment-clean-train-to-be.html

Photo Sonia   www.dpreview.com

Perception and "the Gaining Mind"

     "When a thief sees a saint, all he sees are his pockets." Sufi saying

     “one’s understanding of the self, the world, and others, when fully perfected, leads to actions whose moral qualities are commensurate with the level and depth of insight or ‘vision’ of one’s mind. That is, the greater one’s intellectual penetration into the fundamental nature of reality, the greater the virtuosity of one’s actions. In short, moral action is the fruit of intellectual insight … the Buddha and Socrates seem to share the view that lack of vision or insight in the realms of epistemology and metaphysics leads inevitably to failure in the moral sphere.”   

       Laumakis SJ. An introduction to Buddhist philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2008. 

     “Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you anymore.”              Franz Kafka

 

Photo Source: http://www.quick-good-fortune.com/Health-Wellness.html