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Saturday, January 11, 2014 - 6:43pmSanction this postReply
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I have meditated for about 4 or 5 years in the ‘90s in a Soto Zen sangha but I in no way consider myself an authority on the subject but I will attempt to convey my impressions, thoughts and observations.

Some people will never “get” meditation just as some people will never “get” the messages from Atlas Shrugged. And I can’t “get it” for worship of a deity and belief in an afterlife. Either it fits into your personality and experiences, or not. Reading Atlas Shrugged had an immediate and profound effect on me as it seemed that, at some level, I had already known the premises but it took the genius of Ayn Rand to make them available to my consciousness. Similarly, the first experience of meditating evoked a sense of “something’s going on here and I’m not quite sure what it is, but I like it.”

I liken the process of meditation to the annealing of sheet steel. When first rolled the crystals form a brittle and hard material but with reheating and very slow cooling they become reoriented and “relaxed” so that it is more amenable to shaping. I think that what goes on in the brain with meditation is that the conditioning that it has undergone with a lifetime of experiences gets, at least, partially undone. We couldn’t survive without our conditioning to cope with physical necessity of learning to walk, withdrawing our hand from a flame, etc. but there are all sorts of biases perceptions that are encumbering our mind.

I am impressed with a study that was carried out with a group of seasoned meditators. It seems that when subjected to a somewhat disturbing, repetitive sensation such as a dripping faucet the meditators didn’t become inured to the sound as non-meditators did. Instead, according to EEG records, they processed each drip as a new experience. They didn’t get conditioned to it. Although I haven’t come close to experiencing kensho or satori my interpretation is that all the unwarranted conditioning instantly disappears and reality becomes apparent in new way for which words are inadequate. Mountains and rivers are still mountains and rivers but it is as if one sees them for the first time.

Newbie meditators are told to empty the mind and just let discursive thoughts go. In other words, “try without trying.” I believe that it is in this state that allows all that good stuff to happen. You’re not in a stupor but instead you are highly aware, with the mind being “still.”

Sam


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Sunday, January 12, 2014 - 7:05pmSanction this postReply
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Sam,

Brain waves are said to be four.

First, we have that of the cerebral cortex, which can double in Hz when we think a lot. That means consuming lots of oxygen.

Next, we have sleep, which basically cleans our brain of biotoxins caused by the consumption of oxygen. That there are said to be several levels of sleep is interesting, but a definitive fixing of Hz into discreet levels remains problematic, at best. 

Then there's the core, involuntary 'medulla', which hums along at a low frequency, keeping us alive.

Lastly, there's the pulse of the thalmic center--- optic-, hypocampus, amylglada, et al...rather complex. This is said to control our emotions.

Meditation is a technique derived by Buddhism to do just that. This is because Buddhist theology believes that we should release ourselves from desires, as such (See 'Fire sermon' for more.).

In this regard, what some research has found is that meditating lessens the Hz output coming from the amylglada. Moreover, because we (somewhat) understand that emotive states do influence cerebral output, it can be fairly said that meditation influences thought in ways poorly understood.

While not overtly hostile to the notion that meditation ('transcendental' or otherwise) may act to the betterment of some thought, all that I've read suggests radically to the contrary. I will moreover say that my future research on the individual and learning will emphasize, empirically, precisely how much a stimulated emotive state assists in learning.

My hypotheses, in fact, is more or less construued to demonstrate how emotive suppression lessens the possibility of learning ,thereby decreasing the development of individualism. In other words, even in plain daylight, all meditative cats are grey.

On a theo-philosophic level then, I would say that the buddiks are simply wrong. This is hardly surprising, since the Christian, Moslem, and Hindoo are equally wrong, too, equally mumbo-jumbo. 

It's therefore only of interest on a social-psychological level of the type done by mom that many Americans cut the wearers of the saffron bathrobe an enormous amount of slack. Perhaps it's that zen coach Jackson, meditating away while Kobe, Shack and Jordan slam dunk the unenlightened into the oblivion of losing. Or the wonderous words of C.Turlington, chain-smoking bimbette supermodel who discovered, upon the development of emphysema, that tobacco was un-karmalike.

And then there's Hollywood....

Yet assumed by anyone who has actually had to think, the process of thinking requires an emotive stimulus. This is accomplished because, when emotively stimulated, the thalmic center sends a command to the adrenal gland to kick in, to produce.

That the use of all this adrenlin might serve to scream the Lakers on to victory--as opposed, say, to reading Kahneman and Tversky--is of no biological consequence. This is simply how we're rigged up.

Therefore, western traditions win, asiatics lose, big time. What we're about is to take the emotive as a given, and then ask, 'to what uses are our faculties best employed? For more, I encourage a reading of Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche, and Deleuze. among countless others.

What 'eastern thought' is about is suppression, pure and simple. But in a large scale ethical sense, this emotive dis-engagement is positively deadly. In horrible times of human strife, war being te best example, the only possibility of respecting the lives of innocent civilains comes with the emotive engagement of empathy: how would I feel to be in these shoes?

While war crimes have been committed by everyone, most perpetrators apologize. When I was in Crete, stories were told as to how ex-German soldiers returned to beg forgiveness for the events of 1941 ('So your great -granfather was here?' 'Uh, no I'm an American!").

Except for the Japs, who because of their zen, possess absolutely no remorse. Rather, murdering everywhere, with a sense of detatchment, they felt nothing : such was their meditative state, or beliefs thereby. No apologies are forthcoming

Lastly, we do have a Tibetian buddist house on campus. Once, last spring, my now- ex boyfriend took me inside, I for giggles, he more seriously to 'learn'. A big argument ensued in which was called "culturaly insensitive." Imagine that!

Eva

(Edited by Matthews on 1/12, 7:13pm)


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Post 2

Sunday, January 12, 2014 - 8:00pmSanction this postReply
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Whatever you say.

Regards

Sam



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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 1:49amSanction this postReply
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After 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, researchers on post-traumatic stress disorder had new data to work with. PTSD really only affects about 25% of those in a mass casualty event. Of those in a mass casualty event, unmarried couples in their 30s fared worst. Asian men over 65 recovered best.


Stress and Psychological Effects
Bernard H. Levin and Joseph A. Schafer
Levin, B. H. and Schafer, J. A. (2007). "Stress and psychological effects". In Schafer, J. A. and Levin, B. H. (Eds.) Policing and Mass Casualty Events. Washington DC: Federal Bureau of Investigation, pp. 128-140.
The authors of this article submit that the commonly held views of heroism and stress response are both inter-related and misplaced.

Online here -
http://www.policefuturists.org/pdf/207.Vol3.Mass.Casualty.Events.final.21mr07.pdf

Eva - Hitchens make similar points about Buddhism in god is not Great. On the other hand, here on RoR we have read about Cardinal Messier the 19th/20th century scholastic. We do not abandon reason just because a priest also used it.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 1/13, 3:32am)


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 6:11amSanction this postReply
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Michel,

I
I'm trying to find some on- thread comment to which I might respond...okay, here goes...

You wrote: >>>>here on RoR we have read about Cardinal Messier the 19th/20th century scholastic. We do not abandon reason just because a priest also used it.<<<<<

What you're referring to is called "rational basis' which, of course, I accept, your inference to the contrary not withstanding.

So of course, religious people can do science, philosophy and art outside the parameters of their beliefs.

Within said parameters, however, what is/is not 'reasonable' becomes a matter of debate--although the principle itself of 'rational basis' stands as valid.   

What this means, in practice, is to ask whether or not their reason-able discourse rests upon an assumed belief in god.

A good example of this is Spinozan determinism, which states that 'free will' rests upon a spiritual, non-material assumption that there is a 'special' part of us that's not determind by material, hence causal, forces...for him, utter nonsense, un-reasonable.

Likewise, zen meditation assumes that a state of mental stillness is achievable, that thought can somehow become object-free. Moreover, that it's possible for us to release ourselves from our biologically-based desires.

This assumes that there is a spiritual entity to mind/consciousness that's beyond the biological; so by what standard might this notion be called 'rational'?

What's true by virtue of neuro sci paints an entirely different picture. To the extent that we can auto-repress our emotive network (which is all that 'meditation is), we repress the possibility of thought itself.

What's tragically disgusting is that non-productive half-wits in saffron bath robes wander the streets of asia, begging for food and taking 'charity in order to plaster their temples with gold. This passes for 'spiritual' wisdom --the absurd notion that 'higher truths' might be obtained by the ability to think about ...nothing at all...

Now I can't imagine anything more anti-objectivist than this!

Eva


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 6:34amSanction this postReply
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Eva, Do you think our reality's continual changes are entirely caused by previous state and its causal mathematical transformations (deterministic)? What are your thoughts on "free will"?

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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 7:38amSanction this postReply
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Dean,

Of course, if you take a given brain-wave Hz you can watch it evolve with respect to stimuli: coffee, adrenline, etc...

Likewise, sleep with or without blue cheese , likewise the thalamic-emotive system either relaxed ('meditative') or active.

The mathematical plotting is an easy 'transform', as it were.

As to what this has to do with 'reality' would, I suppose, depend upon what reality is said to be.

In any case, a mathematicized transformation of any state would depend upon the quantitification of states, however, defined.

For me, 'free will' is a heuristic that drives our notion of 'responsibility. Legally, it assigns 'guilt'.

As an epistemology, this means that its definition coheres, because we're better off with than without.

OTH, it's utterly without foundation.

This lack, IMHO, should drive issues of punishment towards a far more lenient, curative position.

Eva

(Edited by Matthews on 1/13, 4:07pm)


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 7:44amSanction this postReply
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Eva:

What has the process of meditation got to do with religion?

Sam

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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 9:11amSanction this postReply
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Eva,
To the extent that we can auto-repress our emotive network (which is all that 'meditation is), we repress the possibility of thought itself.
This would depend upon what the meditative change is in the particular individual which depends upon what they are using it for. Some individuals are plagued with high levels of anxiety, which interfere with clear reasoning and using meditation gets them to a place where they can think more clearly. Some emotions get in the way of thinking clearly. Meditation is also a way to practice the exercise of controlling the consciousness. Those people who practice it, and not because they are required to do as part of group, like monks, wouldn't be likely to continue without there being some benefit they receive.
-------------
...non-productive half-wits in saffron bath robes wander the streets of asia, begging for food and taking 'charity in order to plaster their temples with gold.
And you thought we were bad for calling Krugman an idiot :-)

p.s., I'm not an advocate or practitioner of meditation. I do like Buddhism better than the other major religions (including Progressivism) but not as well as no religion at all.

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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 2:05pmSanction this postReply
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Eva,

OK, definition time!

A reality: A fully self consistent system. Such as Plato's chair. Or the equation 1+1=2. And, I propose, the system that includes us.

Our reality: The reality that you and I our a part of, and including everything that you and I interact with (including electromagnetic and gravity interactions). Unless we are talking about the multi-verse, "reality" refers to the reality which we are a part of. Other realities are entirely separate non-interacting fully self consistent systems.

Information: is a collection of energy/matter that are arranged relative to each other within space-time. Information is intact if the relative arrangement does not change within the time between when they were arranged (written) and when they were observed (read). Such an occurrence is an instance of uncorrupted storage.

One reality can exist as a subset within another reality in the form of information. (This is integrating Plato with Aristotle.)

Our brains for example store information, perform operations on information to create more information, can both recall and record information.

Each individual human within our reality may have a different world view of what our reality is (a world view is information)... but our reality never the less exists as it really is even if people's world view is not consistent with what our reality is (not true).

True: Information that is decoded into information that is consistent with sensory information. Sensory information is simple physical transformations (deductive) of interactions within our reality.
False: Information that is decoded into information that is contradictory with sensory information.

Not that the above are the words of Objectivists... but I do think Objectivists would agree with the above.

====

Without directly answering my question, it sounds to me like to do believe our reality is fully causal/deterministic.

"This lack, IMHO, should drive issues of punishment towards a far more lenient, curative position."

I disagree with some Objectivists who claim that morality and justice depends on that there is "free will". "Lenient & curative" would be the expected position of one coming from a psychological background... but might I suggest that given that a life form has goals and limited time and resources to attain those goals... leniency and curing may very well not result in increased goal attainment of this given individual.

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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 3:18pmSanction this postReply
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Dean:

"Each individual human within our reality may have a different world view of what our reality is (a world view is information)... but our reality never the less exists as it really is even if people's world view is not consistent with what our reality is (not true)."

I concur. One's individual concept of "mountain" is the aggregation and integration of all our experiences of hiking, seeing pictures, reading stories and so on concerning mountains which is, by definition, different from everyone else's. I contend that the process of meditation strips all that baggage from the concept by rewiring the brain at a more basic level so that a person that experiences satori sees the mountain in its pure, unadulterated form much as the new sound of the repetitive dripping faucet is as heard for first time. The effect of satori fades with time as the mind is filled with new, biased experiences but the innumerable accounts of satori all denote an experience of total joy and wonderment at being able to see the world in a new light.

Sam

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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 6:08pmSanction this postReply
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Sam,

Meditation without 'transcendental' is nothing more than relaxing enough to let the adreneline level drop. The you're calm again, because what caused the mental agitation was the...adrenline.

Re "transcendental" and religion: Buddhists have been trying to dodge this bullet for the last 2500 years or so.

Well, to begin with Kant:
*Yes, the mind creates imaginary objects, which is self-evident when doing math.
* It also creates the idea of freedom
* It also creates the idea that god exists.
* Yet, in the end, Kant stressed that imaginary objects are always attached to something finite;
* to say that transcendence is 'un-attached spiritual' is complete nonnsense.
* To do transcendental meditation, then, is to meditate on said imaginary objects.
* Kant's refutation of god was to demonstrate that he/she/it is nothing but a mind-generated imaginary object.

Because all religion is based upon a belief in the existence of an immaterial world, or the 'spiritual', it's a bit silly to say that one believes in spiritual entities that have no viable source: if not brain-generated, then where do these spiritual entities come from?

Unlike its father religion Hinduism, Buddhists are Buddhists because they neglect to investigate this obvious question.

Eva


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 6:29pmSanction this postReply
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Steve,

All people have trouble controlling the emotions for two reasons:
* Biomedical problems
* Day- to- day stress.

Assuming we have sufficient knowledge of the first (we don't!), or a life is at stake, there's always medication.

* Daily stress can be handled in two ways:
---face to face counseling
--- relaxation, which means, simply, cat-napping for twenty minutes to let the adreneline that caused the stress die down.

Labeling  relaxation as 'meditation' adds a confused semantic twist to an otherwise valid behavioreme that obtains a favorable biological outcome. I therefore oppose its use as creating  confusion, if not outright nonsense when 'transcendetal' is added.

Re 'consciousness': ditto.

Monks do it because they're 'spozed to, as a part of their superstition that chanting, humming, or blanking the mind will permit them to arrive at a higher plane thanthe rest of us. that's what religons do, hence its toxic nature.

Eva


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 6:49pmSanction this postReply
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Dean,

You wrote:  "it sounds to me like to [you] do believe our reality is fully causal/deterministic.

No, it isn't. Otherwise we wouldn't need science to associate cause with things and events that we understand as 'real'.  In other words, 'real-ness' as a fact of life anticeeds cause.

In other words, real-ness, in the Humean sense, is a habit.

In the Deluzian lexicon, BTW, the 'real' is called the 'doxa', or received wisdom. By virtue of this, it's the 'actual'.

By contrast, we have the 'virtual' world that involves doing art, philosophy, and science; all three are involved in challenging received wisdom in their own way.

A good example, to loop back, would be the rather self-assured habit of asserting that transcendental meditation has something to do with 'states of consciousness'. Well, not.

What we have is only one of a thousand different ways that homo sapiens has employed to calm the mind down in times of stress. It has, therefore, no particular status. TM without the nonsensical 'T' is nothing more than resting twenty minutes on the couch, in silence.

Eva


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 7:03pmSanction this postReply
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Eva:

You keep dancing around the issue of whether meditation is necessarily associated with religion. You implicitly deny that radical enlightenment, satori, exists and state, without evidence, that meditation is merely relaxation and avoidance of stress.

"Because all religion is based upon a belief in the existence of an immaterial world, or the 'spiritual', it's a bit silly to say that one believes in spiritual entities that have no viable source: if not brain-generated, then where do these spiritual entities come from?"

Pray tell, what "spiritual entities" are generated by meditation?

You seem fixated on associating all your opinions on the fact that some religions use meditation. Zen, in my opinion, is not a religion in the conventional sense that it requires a belief in a deity to be worshipped, and an afterlife. The meaning of "Zen" is merely "meditation." It is a practice. Just because it had its origin in Buddhism doesn't mean that it shares the same belief structure as Theravada Buddhism in southeast Asia.

Transcendental meditation is Zen "lite," presented to a popular audience and didn't require the considerable discipline of full blown Zen. Nobody ever claimed that satori was attainable by TM. To some extent, your comments on relaxation are appropriate here, but not entirely.

May I refer you to to "Zen Meditation and Psychotherapy" by Tomio Hirai, M.D which can be downloaded at
http://www.muebooks.com/zen-meditation-amp-psychotherapy-PDF-2373756/
It Is highly technical with copious EEGs gathered during a variety of metal states.

Sam




(Edited by Sam Erica on 1/13, 7:12pm)
(Edited by Sam Erica on 1/13, 8:14pm)


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 7:08pmSanction this postReply
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Joseph,

My apologies for not having answered you.

I oppose the use of 'states of consciouness' because the term is subject-dependent. In other words, the claim of 'states' or changes thereof, depend entirely upon the claims of the subject, and are therefore to be investigated.

To this end, most all states that are said to deviate form a 'normal' are said to be bad. Perhaps the best example of this is the old 'brain on drugs' commercial.

As cited, high Hz levels are obtained in the cerebral cortex when locked in deep thought; corresponding high thalmic Hz levels correspond to emotive stress.

Sleep may or may not have discernable states, depending upon how the data is read. What we do know, of course, is that thalmic and cerebrall high Hz levels inhibit sleep....

All talk of 'consciusness' belabors the term. It adds nothing to a subjective claim that he/she entered a state that's measurably different.

 Or rather, was it just the imagination that suggested a 'different state of sonsciousness' because that's what those funny-looking guys with the shaved heads and the saffrion bathrobes say...

Eva


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Monday, January 13, 2014 - 8:04pmSanction this postReply
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Sam,

You wrote: >>>You implicitly deny that radical enlightenment, satori, exists and state, without evidence, that meditation is merely relaxation and avoidance of stress. <<<<'

No, I'm explicit: without proof on your part, enlightenment of any kind does not exist, except as a metaphor for learning, circa 1720 Europe. So I'm just a null- hypotheses sort of gurl--live with it.

BTW, I thought "satori' was Indonesian for 'roasted chicken ona stick'.

>>>>Pray tell, what "spiritual entities" are generated by meditation<<<<

As cited,  'transcendent' means 'spiritual' because the meaning of the word is to 'transcend the material' . Again(!), meditation alone--without the 'transcendental', is just a fancy word for 'relaxation'.


>>>The meaning of "Zen" is merely "meditation<<<<

If that's all it means, , then why are all these guys wearing such funny costumes on campus? In any case, Wiki is clear that 'transcendence' is the sanskrit tail wagging the japanese dog.

>>>Zen, in my opinion, is not a religion in the conventional sense that it requires a belief in a deity to be worshipped, and an afterlife<<<

i've made cristal clear my objections to what you refer to as 'conventional sense'. All belief in spiritual entities is utter nosense. This includes religion in the conventional sense Now, is that better?

Finally, 'spiritual' as defined in a meaningful sense, means 'thought', which ostensibly 'transcends' what is known at any particular moment.

Eva


 


Post 17

Monday, January 13, 2014 - 8:36pmSanction this postReply
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Eva:

"No, I'm explicit: without proof on your part, enlightenment of any kind does not exist, except as a metaphor for learning."

It is a subjective experience. What would constitute proof? Do you just discount the innumerable accounts as delusions or outright lies?

"If that's all it means, then why are all these guys wearing such funny costumes on campus?"

If there are such people on your campus they're not Zen practitioners.

You're just getting silly.

Sam

Post 18

Monday, January 13, 2014 - 8:47pmSanction this postReply
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Sam,

>>Do you just discount the innumerable accounts as delusions or outright lies<<<<
No, just wishful thinking.

>>>>they're not Zen practitioners<<<<
Yes, they run the Tibetian monestary just off campus.

Yeah, mumbo-jumbo versus 'silly'....

EM


Post 19

Monday, January 13, 2014 - 8:57pmSanction this postReply
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Please educate yourself on the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and Zen.

I agree with many of your comments about Tibetan Buddhism.

Sam

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