Buddhist Psychology, Abhidharma, Qualities Crucial to Maturation & Wisdom

     "Buddhist psychology (Abhidharma) describes seven qualities or capacities that are crucial to fostering mental maturation and wisdom: the seven factors of enlightenment. These are composed of three calming factors (calm, concentration, and equanimity) and three energizing factors (effort, energy, and rapture), and a superordinate factor of mindfulness. 

     The calming and energizing factors need to be of comparable strength to balance each other and to avoid the disabling extremes of sleepiness and agitation. Moreover, when all seven are strong and balanced then there is the possibility of a major developmental leap: a leap into transconceptual awareness known as 'cessation' and its resultant transconceptual wisdom."

  

       Walsh R. The varieties of wisdom: Contemplative, cross-cultural, and integral contributions. Research in Human Development 2011; 8(2): 109-127.

Photo: Evgenia Arbugaena   http://pdn30.pdnevents.com/gallery/2013/index.php?contest=arbugaeva

Suffering, Mindfulness, Wisdom, Equanimity, Joy

     Mindfulness practice is a well-established, intentional path from suffering towards wisdom, equanimity and joy.
 
     Wisdom is “a developmental process involving self-transcendence. Self-transcendence refers to the ability to move beyond self-centered consciousness, and to see things as they are with clear awareness of human nature and human problems, and with a considerable measure of freedom from biological and social conditioning. This ability to move beyond a self-centered perspective is certainly an important component of wisdom. 
     Transcending the self is needed to move beyond ingrained, automatic ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, and to connect empathetically with the experiences of others.”
        Le TN, Levenson MR. Wisdom as self-transcendence: What's love (& individualism) got to do with it? Journal of Research in Personality 2005; 39(4): 443-457.

     "wise individuals evince less despair and greater equanimity because they (are) more likely to grapple with existential dilemmas and paradoxes that give life more meaning."
       Le TN. Life satisfaction, openness value, self-transcendence, and wisdom. Journal of Happiness Studies 2011; 12(2): 171-182. 

     "When we truly live each moment, what happens to the burden of life? ... If we are totally what we are, in every second, we begin to experience life as joy. Standing between us and a life of joy are our thoughts, our ideas, our expectations, and our hopes and fears.
      ... people who have been practicing for some time begin to have a sense of humor about their burden. After all, the thought that life is a burden is only a concept. We're simply doing what we're doing, second by second by second. The measure of fruitful practice is that we feel life less as a burden and more as a joy."
        Beck CJ. Nothing special: Living Zen. HarperCollins, 1995.

     See also: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/07/death-meaning-nature-of-cosmos.html

Photo: Car629   www.dpreview.com

Mindfulness - Letting Go of Negative Automatic Thinking

     "cognitive symptoms associated with anxiety and depression are typically characterized by worry and rumination, respectively, cognitive symptoms that have traditionally been regarded as automatic processes (i.e., perceived by the individual to be beyond his or her capacity for voluntary inhibition or control. In contrast, mindfulness has been described as a non-judgmental, non-conceptual, and accepting form of awareness of one’s mental, emotional, and bodily-sensory experiences. 

     Mindfulness Meditation-based Clinical Interventions (MMCIs) teach participants to regard their negative thoughts as passing phenomenological events that may momentarily capture attention but can then be let go of. Therefore a key principle of mindfulness meditation practice is to not react too strongly to thoughts, such as by ascribing too significant a meaning or importance to them, identifying one’s ‘self’ or ‘true reality’ with the content of one’s thoughts, or attempting to suppress negative thoughts. Consequently MMCIs seek to promote a form of awareness of negative thoughts in which qualities of acceptance, de-centering, and letting-go cultivate one’s inner capacity to reflect upon and influence one’s own cognitive experiences. This purposeful orientation toward one’s thoughts may promote affect regulation through cognitive flexibility. For example, Kabat-Zinn et al hypothesized that: ‘the insight that one is not one’s thoughts means that one has a potential range of responses to a given thought if one is able to identify it as such. This increased range of options is associated with a feeling of control... [that] is a feature of a cognitive pathway explaining’ the clinical efficacy of MMCIs for reducing anxiety and depression."

       Frewen PA et al. Letting go: Mindfulness and negative automatic thinking. Cognitive Therapy and Research 2008; 32(6): 758-774.

Photo: Knorp   www.dpreview.com

Softening the Anguish of the Hungry Life

      “Each hunger has an associated fear. The desire for pleasure has as its handmaiden the fear of pain, the hunger for being seen is shadowed by the fear of invisibility, and the hunger for escape brings with it the fear of engagement and intimacy. 
     At the root of all these fears is a terror of emptiness, the concern that this self – personal or social – will die in a cold nothingness. This terror is usually kept beneath the surface of consciousness, recognized only by its surface manifestations: an avoidance of being alone, the fear of being criticized, a pulling back from close relationship. 
     In all three cases, the fading of a hunger means the fading of its associated fear, and the fading of a fear brings the fading of its associated hunger. This is because the hunger and the fear are two facets of the same thing. 
     And when the meditative mind sees the root fear and meets it with acceptance, it begins to diminish – and all the hungers dissolve with it. With such fading, relationships cease to be powered by longing and desperation. The anguish of the hungry life softens.”

     Kramer G. “Insight dialogue. The interpersonal path to freedom.” Shambhala, Boston, 2007. http://metta.org/

 

Remainderless Fading of Hunger

     "What is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering? The remainderless fading and cessation, renunciation, relinquishment, release, and letting go of that very hunger."

     "Cessation refers to the lessening of toxic qualities in our lives: specifically, lessening of the hungers for pleasure, being, and nonbeing and diminishment of the unwholesome roots of greed, hatred, and delusion nurtured by the hungers. Ignorance about the nature of identification and impermanence also diminishes in this cessation. As these intoxicants fade, the quality of life improves. Part of the path of their fading involves the cultivation of certain qualities, such as clear awareness, compassion, wise attention, and insight. But fundamentally, the focus is on the fading. What remains is ease, goodness, wisdom, and joy."

       Kramer G. “Insight dialogue. The interpersonal path to freedom.” Shambhala, Boston, 2007. http://metta.org/

Photo: Jen003   www.dpreview.com

The Big Stuff is No Sweat! We Choose to Sweat the Small Stuff

     Walking along chatting with a friend, suddenly trip-falling face-forward onto the sidewalk. Everything in slow motion. Only thought "what?" Hands manage to touch sidewalk a microsecond before my face, more specifically, my mouth and nose, a bit off to the left side. Immediately I'm up again, physically and emotionally rattled somewhat. I notice my neck is stiff - must have braced for the fall, pulling back from the face-plant. Lower lip tastes of blood. I reassure my friend and passing motorist, who stopped & jumped out of his van, that I'm fine.
     This reminds me of an event many years ago when our car spun around completely three times on a busy, snow-covered highway. Everything then too was in slow-mo, very clear.
     Whether it's the sidewalk kissing you on the lips, or the highway playing spin-the-bottle with you and your family, direct engagement with physical reality is, quite surprisingly, simply interesting. A man who (remarkably) survived an attack by a large wild animal reported that he felt no pain, nor fear during the attack - very interesting indeed!
     These life-or-death events are just "interesting", while our comparatively humdrum daily anxieties can be emotional roller-coasters. Could it be that we try to evade our very real fear of death (existential terror) by distracting ourselves with non-stop soap-operas?
     Wouldn't dealing directly, skillfully with our existential fears make our lives less melodramatic and more joyful?

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Let Go of Everything To Embrace All

     "An existential crisis may occur in cancer patients when they realize that their death may be imminent. ... this (is a) crisis, in which the meaning of life itself is at stake. In dealing with an existential crisis, it is important to have the courage to confront the loss of meaning and security. Then, a new sense of meaning may emerge which is essentially a receptive experience of connectedness with an ego-transcending reality, such as mankind, nature, or God. This reduces existential fear and despair and leads to acceptance of 'life-as-it-is', including its finitude."

       Yang W, Staps T, Hijmans E. Existential crisis and the awareness of dying: the role of meaning and spirituality. Omega (Westport) 2010; 61(1): 53-69.

For details see: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/12/control-life-threatening-illness.html

Photo: Kivi   www.dpreview.com