Loving and Hissing...

[Tony]

From time to time we all get angry. We are sentient after all, and we are not vegetables...we are living, loving...hissing things!

When we hear, or see something we don't like, it is bound to produce an emotion. Negative emotions are, after all, part of our make up - it's all right. It actually shows intelligence.
The problem comes when we justify the negative emotion, and then it becomes negative negativity.
The illusion just became a delusion. We build a story and elaborate, which we then defend and use to attack.

This is the normal run of the human condition...fight, flight or freeze = confusion.
Wait a minute...isn't that the reptilian brain at work? Are we not constantly falling into a trap?

“Oh my giddy aunt!...some dots have just joined up...!”
Those three F's are the very three poisons Buddhists keep on about (desire, aversion and ignorance). They are also the three elements in every atom (attraction, repulsion and inertia)
They are also the three wisdoms (emptiness, consciousness and compassion).
I'll have to sit down with another cup of tea and think about this!

(this is an excellent example of stuff just coming into the mind, especially when one knows that one does not have an original thought in one's head!)

Anyway, where was I? One could see this illusory world as real...it is a 'real illusion'!
In the seeing that it is an illusion is reality!
This is not just mucking about with words - it is true.
Everything seems to have its opposite, its dark side and its light side.

Let's go back to anger.
Something inside us (our perception) looks out and sees something outside which it judges to be wrong (thoughts are also outside our pure perception).

Here we have to wind back a little, as there was much going on before that which went unnoticed.
That very first instant of noticing is our wisdom essence. However, this essence generally goes unnoticed. The mind immediately jumps to its prepackaged past concepts and judges to fit in with our version of reality.

We all have our personal version of reality, as we all still partial (not enlightened yet). So, holding on to our personal version can create aversion to another's views. This can explode into uncontrollable anger.
This is also the cause of our suffering! So we now see our suffering - and the cause of our suffering.

So where is the light in anger?

I'm glad you asked. The light is in that very first instant - Pure Perception! Merely seeing.
You do not have to do anything with it.
Just be, and no karma is produced.
At this moment, you can then try and put things right if it is of benefit to the situation, but you are not now reacting to it from your past pattern of experience, and thus imposing on it.

Remember, you cannot put the world right - only yourself. The world will continue to run on the three F's, but now you are not.
Once you understand then maybe you can help others...but then again, maybe not.
It all depends on time and place.

As long as long as we remain open.
First realise love - love for no reason.
Do not expect reptilian brain to respond to that.

[sshenry]

Here we have to wind back a little, as there was much going on before that which went unnoticed.
That very first instant of noticing is our wisdom essence. However, this essence generally goes unnoticed. The mind immediately jumps to its prepackaged past concepts and judges to fit in with our version of reality.



Oh, but how many cannot pull this moment into full awareness? Even those who know it is there.

this is why it is SO important to become aware of our emotional 'triggers', for they hold more true wisdom about who we are and why we are than most anything else. They are direct routes to our IS-ness, and becooming aware of them can tell us volumes about what lies beneath the surface of our perception :)

thanks for this :)

[Tony]

Here we have to wind back a little, as there was much going on before that which went unnoticed.
That very first instant of noticing is our wisdom essence. However, this essence generally goes unnoticed. The mind immediately jumps to its prepackaged past concepts and judges to fit in with our version of reality.



Oh, but how many cannot pull this moment into full awareness? Even those who know it is there.

this is why it is SO important to become aware of our emotional 'triggers', for they hold more true wisdom about who we are and why we are than most anything else. They are direct routes to our IS-ness, and becooming aware of them can tell us volumes about what lies beneath the surface of our perception :)

thanks for this :)

The answer is always right under our nose, but we get distracted. There is a very fine line between over sensitive about ourselves, and not sensitive enough to what IS going on in the mind. It is all about distraction. Mara lies in ambush enhancing our likes and dislikes!

Tony

[Davidallany]

love for no reason.
Indeed, love for no reason. But if you can't yet, find one and there are so many reasons to love. One reason is whatever you put out goes in a circle and return to you my friends, where is your photo Tony?

[ViralSpiral]

The illusion just became a delusion.

I like that!
But then why? Why do we feel the need to justify our negative emotion?
Perhaps its because in doing so we have shown judgement and may have hurt somebody. But what then, is this "hurt"?

illusion = delusion?


Thanks Pie, the squirrels in me noggin are very busy with this.......




p.s. yes, where is your photo?

[DNA]

I don't know why the reptillian brian gets all the bad press.
The cerebellum controles movement and coordination and the medulla oblongata regulates unonscious breathing.
A fine mess we would be in without them. :)

If you need to find a bad guy it would probably be the part of the brain that is in control of speech, like the Brocas area or the Wernicke area.
If you ask me, these are the areas that have been over devoloped in mankind and have ran rampent if you will.
The activation of these areas is necessary, kind of like an army is to a sovergn nation, but, as is so often the case with sovergn nations, the army wants total control if not kept in check.

Shamans offer several ingestible solutions to this problem, and it is a shame that most modern cultures see such solutions as some kind of exercise in debouchery or excess, because that is just silly.

William Burroughs mentions some of this in his stream of consiousness style writing.

Language is to the brain as the tapeworm is to the intestines. Even more so: it may just be possible to find a digestive space free from parasitic infection, but we will never find an uncontaminated mental space. Strands of alien DNA unfurl themselves in our brains, just as tapeworms unfurl themselves in our guts. Not just language, but the whole quality of human consciousness, as expressed in male and female is basically a virus mechanism

This is why over thinking matters tends to lean towards mental masturbation in terms of spirituality.
Because the enemy IS the spoken word.
The only true experience of spirituality is the experience of self without the limitation of internal talking.
To free one self of the endless chatter of the interior is to place yourself in the realm of God.

[Tony]

The expression of essence is in communication and action, it is all in the intention.

[DNA]

The expression of essence is in communication and action, it is all in the intention.

The expression of essence is "being".

The vehicle for percieving this takes more than your physical ears.

Just my take.

[ViralSpiral]

The expression of essence is in communication and action, it is all in the intention.

Great teaching Pie, how effective is it though, when unexpectedly confronted by one of those "repulsions"? How easy is it to step back quickly and create a different intention?
It has become easier. Doesnt mean its still not tough.




I wished I lived in the woods..... :)

[Tarka the Duck]

Because the enemy IS the spoken word.
The only true experience of spirituality is the experience of self without the limitation of internal talking.
To free one self of the endless chatter of the interior is to place yourself in the realm of God.

Interesting ideas, DNA. Is this a quotation, or your own thoughts?

I can't understand how the spoken word can be the enemy. On the path I have followed, I am incredibly grateful for the spoken words I have heard from many fantastic teachers. I would not have the understanding or experience that I have now (limited though it is) without having heard those words.
Of course, as you say, the time for words must come to an end. Having heard the words, you then need to be in silence to integrate and absorb them in order for wisdom to hopefully take root in you.

Or am I missing something?

[DNA]

Because the enemy IS the spoken word.
The only true experience of spirituality is the experience of self without the limitation of internal talking.
To free one self of the endless chatter of the interior is to place yourself in the realm of God.

Interesting ideas, DNA. Is this a quotation, or your own thoughts?

I can't understand how the spoken word can be the enemy. On the path I have followed, I am incredibly grateful for the spoken words I have heard from many fantastic teachers. I would not have the understanding or experience that I have now (limited though it is) without having heard those words.
Of course, as you say, the time for words must come to an end. Having heard the words, you then need to be in silence to integrate and absorb them in order for wisdom to hopefully take root in you.

Or am I missing something?

Hi Tarka
Those are my words, the italics above them are the words by Burroughs.

It's one of those areas where we would be lost without words, I agree. The point I am trying to hint at is that we let the spoken word take control, and this is a shame in my opinion.
Spirituality can be talked about, but, in order to be experienced in my opinion, one must live in the now, if only for the few moments you wish to experience the spirit, the self, the essense of being if you will.

When one is talking about something, one is disengaging from the now.
It takes practice, but when your mind is without words, the world is no longer the same, it is amplified, it is mysterious, it is beyond words.
There are several methods for attaining this, I could PM them to you if you want. :)

[Tarka the Duck]

@DNA

It seems we do see eye to eye about the immeasurable importance of silence!

Not sure that anyone is saying otherwise on this thread...

[Tony]

The expression of essence is in communication and action, it is all in the intention.

Great teaching Pie, how effective is it though, when unexpectedly confronted by one of those "repulsions"? How easy is it to step back quickly and create a different intention?
It has become easier. Doesnt mean its still not tough.




I wished I lived in the woods..... :)

I too wished I lived in a wood or mountain top! The answer to your question is practise and become familiar with your true being. But the unexpected do suddenly turn up, to provokes us, so we can either explode or use it as the symbolic teacher. There is no right or wrong, just level of confined space to unconfined space.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, "If you get angry, go home and punch a pillow!"

[Tony]

The expression of essence is in communication and action, it is all in the intention.

Great teaching Pie, how effective is it though, when unexpectedly confronted by one of those "repulsions"? How easy is it to step back quickly and create a different intention?
It has become easier. Doesnt mean its still not tough.




I wished I lived in the woods..... :)

The answer of course is practise, to be familiar with our natural state. But the unexpected does pop it's head up to provoke us! We can either react ( because we are not stable enough yet) or use it as a symbolic teacher. His Holiness the Dalai lama said, "If you get angry, go home and punch a pillow!"

You are right, it is tough, and living in a wood in solitude would be beneficial...but maybe there is faster progress in hostile company...it all depend on what karma throws up!

All the best
Tony

Whoops, it's gone out twice, though this is an improvement!

[Sierra]

<snip>
When one is talking about something, one is disengaging from the now.
It takes practice, but when your mind is without words, the world is no longer the same, it is amplified, it is mysterious, it is beyond words.
There are several methods for attaining this, I could PM them to you if you want. :)

Oh rats, why PM? Others want to know too ...

[Davidallany]

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, "If you get angry, go home and punch a pillow!"

His most holi Lord Sidious said "Power! Unlimited power!" which is exactly what meditation can give a practitioner. Thank you Lord Sidious for the bottomless wisdom, hallowed be thy name.

[DNA]

<snip>
When one is talking about something, one is disengaging from the now.
It takes practice, but when your mind is without words, the world is no longer the same, it is amplified, it is mysterious, it is beyond words.
There are several methods for attaining this, I could PM them to you if you want. :)

Oh rats, why PM? Others want to know too ...

:)

This may sound silly, but it had the most immediate results and is just amazing in my opinion.
Find a small rock, something about the size of a marble, depending on your eyesight, you want something that is just big enough to give you a viable target to focus on.
If it's too big your eye will have a tendency to wonder.
Place in the sunlight and stare at the shadow of the small rock.
That's right, the shadow. I've never done it in artifical light, so only sun light at first.

The goal is to keep your eyes focused on a single area. What ever part of your brain that rebels at the thought of losing control even momentarily, will issue the command for your eyes to move and thus begin internal chatter.

There is something about the shadow of a small rock that gives immediate results.
Some folks claim success with the flame of a candle, but I find the candle flame moves too much and causes my eyes to switch in their focus.

For me personally,,,,the shadow is profound, and symbolizes what you are looking for,,,the hidden area of yourself if you will.

When one gains experience and finds success in this area, I suggest moving on to small pebbles of rock. I like pebbles of granite, maybe it is their crystaline nature.
I find they work wonderfully.
About the size of a pea should be good, maybe slightly smaller, play with what works.
Gaze at the rock.
The rock will absorb the energy you are projecting through your eyes, and eventually pulsate with what I call the morphogenic field of consciousness.
If gazing at the rock at first is difficult it will ussually cease to be so after it has soaked up enough of your energy to enter this phase.
Meditation and internal silence are easilly gained once you have reached this phase.

[Sierra]

Thank you VERY much DNA! :hug:

[Tony]

Distraction.

In Huxely's 'Brave New World' the foetus is grown in a test tube, which travels along a conveyor belt, having certain DNA put into it at intervals to designate its position in life. At different stages of its development, words and phrases are suggested to it. This continues until the child grows up and is ready for work. It has learnt to love its servitude, through the constant propaganda it has heard all its life. This is the soft approach.

In Orwell's 1984 is also a view of the future, that focuses on deception with the use of 'newspeak' and violence.

The thinking behind these two authors is evident today.

Today we have the media at all levels, which spreads like a virus. So everyone around us is merely repeating it or their versions of it. It is all about being programmed. We in our turn in an effort to conform maintaining this programming by programming ourselves.

So a lot of effort is going into distracting ourselves. This distraction is keeping us in a dream-state.
In distracting ourselves we inadvertently distract others. And so the whole planet is kept busy, it this dream-state... asleep! The primitive brain, is being kept active, attack, defend or be servile.

We have to look at the intention and motivation behind the information we receive.

[Tony]

In developing our workshops on sustainability (for example, MASH), SSC has emphasized connections at many levels: with each other, with what sustainability means, and to a larger context. We have found information about the brain's anatomy and function offers an explanation of why these connections are so critical to our understanding as well as how we present them.
Current research on the human brain by Dr. Paul MacLean, evolutionary neuroanatomist and senior research scientist at National Institutes of Mental Health, has revealed that the human brain consists of three parts which have distinct, but interrelated, functions. MacLean dubbed it "triune," tri for three, une for one, the Three-in-One Brain.


Three Brains in One

Neocortex - Thought (including planning, language, logic & will, awareness)
Limbic System - Emotion (feelings, relationship/nurturing, images and dreams, play)

Reptilian Brain - Instinct (survival, breathing/swallowing/heartbeat, startle response)

These three parts of the brain intermingle and communicate, sometimes like a contentious committee. The Neocortex likes to think it is in the driver's seat, but the Limbic System and Reptilian brain exercise a lot of power. The Reptilian brain, by far the oldest and simplest, is responsible for our survival, but its choices are limited.

Instinctual options when confronted with a threat to survival:

Fight
Flight
Freeze (only recently recognized along with the first two)
When any living being experiences a threat to its survival, the organism generates enormous physiological energy to mobilize in response to the threat. When that energy is not used, it can become locked up or frozen in the nervous system. Medically this is known as trauma. You might also know it as burnout or psychic numbing. Trauma impairs the healthy and creative functioning of living beings.
Research on animals in the wild shows that they frequently encounter threats to their survival, but they don't experience trauma. They discharge the energy through physical movement and through re-playing, literally playing, the events of the threat and their escape. Unfortunately, humans seem to have trouble discharging our energy in the face of danger.

Why don't we humans discharge our energy after a threat and avoid trauma? Perhaps because the threat seems unceasing and ever increasing. Perhaps it is because cultural messages have conditioned us to believe that "fight" is the only heroic option and have shamed us into believing that flight and especially freeze are cowardly. Psychological research shows that trauma is more likely to occur when the intense emotions accompanying threatened survival are linked with a sense of powerlessness, helplessness and/or humiliation.

Why does this matter? Many in the Sustainability movement believe that the current state of affairs on our planet poses a threat to our survival as a species which has caused many people to become frozen and overwhelmed. MASH incorporates cutting edge trauma research as a tool for unfreezing energy and ending the paralysis of cultural trauma.

The Trauma Vortex and The Counter Vortex of Healing

In his book, Waking the Tiger, Healing Trauma, Peter Levine (Ph.D. in medical & biological physics (UC Berkeley) and also Ph.D. in psychology) uses the metaphor of a river flowing between two banks to describe our life energy. A threat to survival causes a rupture in the river bank, and water (life energy) rushes out, creating a whirlpool or what he calls a trauma vortex. The trauma vortex diverts life energy that might otherwise be available for all manner of productive, enjoyable activity. Luckily, Levine asserts, nature has an antidote and will set up a counter vortex for healing (essentially, a whirlpool spinning in the opposite direction). The counter vortex provides positive feelings and images to the traumatized individual, whose task is to gradually integrate positive energy with the trauma energy, weaving back and forth to bring the centers of the two energy vortices together and cancel them out so life energy can return to normal flow and survival needs can be met.


The Trauma Vortex

For more information on trauma healing, see the Foundation for Human Enrichment website.

Unfreezing Trauma, Empowering Action

The MASH workshop is a work-in-progress that is evolving to take advantage of all aspects of our triune brain, to awaken and harness all the possible resources each of us may bring to the task of healing our Earth, consciously or unconsciously, intellectually, emotionally and instinctually. We encourage participants to approach the workshop with an open mind, to experience it, not just watch it.
The MASH workshop speaks to the neocortex with information on The Natural Step and the Ecological Footprint, on Cultural Creatives and The Great Turning. The workshop engages the limbic system through games, feelings exercises, imaginative visioning and even singing. Gently weaving back and forth between trauma vortex and healing vortex, the MASH workshop offers participants an opportunity to look at the threat to our survival and also generate positive healing images and feelings so that the Reptilian brain is not overwhelmed and frozen.

 

[DNA]

Distraction.

In Huxely's 'Brave New World' the foetus is grown in a test tube, which travels along a conveyor belt, having certain DNA put into it at intervals to designate its position in life. At different stages of its development, words and phrases are suggested to it. This continues until the child grows up and is ready for work. It has learnt to love its servitude, through the constant propaganda it has heard all its life. This is the soft approach.

In Orwell's 1984 is also a view of the future, that focuses on deception with the use of 'newspeak' and violence.

The thinking behind these two authors is evident today.

Today we have the media at all levels, which spreads like a virus. So everyone around us is merely repeating it or their versions of it. It is all about being programmed. We in our turn in an effort to conform maintaining this programming by programming ourselves.

So a lot of effort is going into distracting ourselves. This distraction is keeping us in a dream-state.
In distracting ourselves we inadvertently distract others. And so the whole planet is kept busy, it this dream-state... asleep! The primitive brain, is being kept active, attack, defend or be servile.

We have to look at the intention and motivation behind the information we receive.

I agree, and those who have the courage to stand in opposition to what the media states are deemed heretics of a sort.
Look what happened to the Dixie Chicks when they didn't tow the line with the conventional 911 propaganda.

It used to be you only had to worry about stating a opinion in favor of something as controversial as say UFOs, but now it seems like anyone who has REAL insight into what is going on is deemed inapropriate for public consumption.
When was the last time you heard a comedian saying anything remotefull meaningfull like say a Bill Hicks?

Check this out, Frank Zappa was the man. Nanoo Nanoo sent me this.
Frank Zappa hit the nail on the head when he stated that everything that was taking place with the Reagan administration was sending america heading towards a fashist theocracy.

I wonder what he would have said about the whole bush cheney regime when 911 took place had he been alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc

[DNA]

Fight
Flight
Freeze (only recently recognized along with the first two)
When any living being experiences a threat to its survival, the organism generates enormous physiological energy to mobilize in response to the threat. When that energy is not used, it can become locked up or frozen in the nervous system. Medically this is known as trauma. You might also know it as burnout or psychic numbing. Trauma impairs the healthy and creative functioning of living beings.
Research on animals in the wild shows that they frequently encounter threats to their survival, but they don't experience trauma. They discharge the energy through physical movement and through re-playing, literally playing, the events of the threat and their escape. Unfortunately, humans seem to have trouble discharging our energy in the face of danger.


This is really good stuff your quoting here Pieneal, you should give a link or something. Awesome stuff. :)

This really helps to back up what I was talking about earlier. That the devoloped part of the brain in charge of speech takes over our awareness.
The reptillian brain isn't the problem here. Animals have just as devoloped a reptillian brain as we do, and they have no problems dealing with the impulses given that help them survive.
They don't suffer the stresses from fight or flight that humans do.
It's the part of the brain that is in control of speech in my opinion that is the problem.
Just as I stated earlier that the part of the brain devoloped for speech use, the brocas area was like a necessary evil, kind of like an army for a devoloped country sort of thing but had to be put in check or it would take over.

This is the same sort of thing.
In the language of the folks you are quoting.


Three Brains in One

Neocortex - Thought (including planning, language, logic & will, awareness)
Limbic System - Emotion (feelings, relationship/nurturing, images and dreams, play)

Reptilian Brain - Instinct (survival, breathing/swallowing/heartbeat, startle response)



The "Neocortex - Thought (including planning, language, logic & will, awareness)" is the part that makes us different from animals, and it is so power hungry, that rather than give up control to the reptillian brain in a life or death situation, it would rather short out our nervous system and cause us to freeze, literally risking our very life for the sake of retaining control.

That is where you get the trauma for the disruption in chi flow the author is talking about later in the essay.

[Nanoo Nanoo]

aaah Zappa .. he would have made a great ambassador for freedom today. Long live the Zap Man !