Big Mind, Little Mind and Reality

There are different terms used to describe the dynamic between Big Mind (i.e., the true self, Atman, witnessing conscience) and Little Mind (i.e., the ego, monkey mind, chattering mind) and that which is real. "Reality" is a vast blank slate from which seemingly limitless data is derived. It seems that Big Mind is usually one step removed from perceiving reality directly. This one step is Little Mind, the commentator on reality. Big Mind can choose to perceive reality directly but tends to use the Little Mind as an intermediary. It is a question of what Big Mind chooses to focus its attention on. Big Mind can focus on reality itself or on the often distracting Little Mind. This dynamic suggests that Little Mind is not all bad as seems to be the rap that Buddhism gives it (at least as far as I understand it). It suggests that Little Mind exists as a helper for Big Mind so perhaps there is some useful role for Little Mind to play. However, for most of us (I assume) this relationship is out of balance. Big Mind has abdicated too much of its role to Little Mind. Put another way, Big Mind is sleeping and Little Mind is running the store.

Kaizen Post One

At this very moment I am sitting at my computer trying to force out a blog post and nothing is coming to mind. According to the Kaizen approach (as I understand it) the very act of writing this post is establishing new neuronal pathways which will allow me to circumvent the mental block in the future. The act of doing even on a very small and seemingly insignificant level works to break down resistance to acting. In that way it is effective.

Kaizen

I've recently read a short book entitled "One Small Step Can Change Your Life - The Kaizen Way" by Dr. Robert Maurer. In the first chapter Dr. Maurer talks about how the fear of change or making big decisions is hard wired into the brain's physiology. Furthermore, when fear takes over, the creative process shuts down. The amygdala is primarily responsible for this dynamic by generating the "fight or flight" response. When this response is generated the creative part of the brain is shut down as non essential. Unfortunately for some people (myself included) the amygdala is stimulated under circumstances which do not necessarily warrant a fight or flight response. This blog happens to be an example of this. I have recently experienced a block in terms of generating daily blog entries. However, at a certain point that intention became less of a hobby and more of an obligation. Something about that dynamic aparrently stimulated my amygdala and shut down my creative process. What would happen is, I would sit down to write an entry and nothing would come to mind or I would be very easily distracted by something else. Briefly, the Kaizen way of circumventing the amygdala's fight or flight response is to take steps so small that the amygdala does not notice them. An example of a small step vis a vi this blog might be to take five minutes out of the day to write or perhaps only write one sentence or even one word. This not only circumvents the fight or flight response (so says the theory) but it also lays the neuronal ground work for bigger steps down the line. I will now test this theory by making blog entries daily. They may be very short at first but I will make them none the less.

Goals, Guarantees and Absolution

(Taken from an old journal entry dated Thursday November 17, 2005)

I'm going to leave the "goal / guarantee" topic for now and think about forgiveness... There are so many things, embarrassing moments, that I constantly think about. These things I have done in the past. Sometimes the remote past that I cannot let go of. I need absolution bit I don't know how to get it. I need to absolve myself but I just can't seem to be able to do it. Perhaps meditating on this will give me some answers.

(Taken from an old journal entry dated Friday November 18, 2005)

Do goals, guarantees and the need for absolution all relate in some way? Goals and absolution relate in that they both are concerned with the self and making the self better. I suppose there are no guarantees that goals will be achieved or absolution will be attained. The link here is the nagging doubt of life (aka suffering or existential anxiety).

What can be done about it? I guess I hold out hope that meditation will open some doors. I don't know.

I'm beginning to think about Lent. One vow I'm considering is to wake up at 5:00am and either exercise or work on TT. Of course this will be in conjunction with not drinking. I'm also considering reading Aquinas...

Commentary:

Reliving embarrassing moments is not as much of a problem as it used to be. I think I can attribute this to being more aware of my mind and how it functions. Embarrassment is a form of anxiety usually centered on past events or the present situation but in both instances there is a perceived awareness of the disapproval of others. At this point I am better able to distance myself from those thoughts or observe them and this seems to have robbed them of most of their power to recycle themselves and generate more anxious feelings.

The absolution I spoke about had to do with forgiving myself. In these situations my embarrassment and related anxiety were a form of self punishment for the wrongs that I had committed. I had to forgive myself in order to stop punishing myself. I've often thought that the Catholic confessional was a ritualized way of allowing the self to forgive the self. Many things about Christianity seem to be external metaphors for internal truths. Perhaps these metaphors are easier to digest than the actual reality of the situation at first. That is of course if the metaphor is true. I'm not entirely sure about that but it is of interest to me.

Finally, I see that there are glimmers of hope for me to escape these prisons I have created for myself. One is meditation and the other is Lent (which in a way is really a drawn out period of meditation). These seem to be the keys to the prison somehow. At least I am drawn to them as such. The jury is still out on that one.

Guarantees

(Taken From a Journal Entry Dated Tuesday November 15, 2005)

There are no guarantees in life. Even that statement is not a guarantee - because I suppose under certain circumstances there are. Let us say that as a general rule there are no guarantees. But sometimes there are exceptions.

So what is the next step? I suppose it is to make the best out of what you have. I am not ready to give up on success. I don't think that's what this is about. You have to do what you like doing. Let's define success as doing what you want to do.

I meditated for 20 minutes on the concept of no guarantees. Hughey barked at something. Part of me was frustrated that he broke my concentration. Part of me tried to treat it as a learning experience. That is, there is no guarantee that I will have 20 minutes of peace and quiet to meditate.

I did a few minutes of yoga un-timed. It felt good. I would like to get back into that routine. This gets us into the goal dilemma. How do goals relate to guarantees?

I have several goals. I want to be healthy. I want to be creative and productive. I want to be a valuable part of a team. I want to be successful and financially secure. Right now I do not feel like discussing how to achieve those goals.

Commentary:

This entry (as memory serves) was inspired by a meditation seminar I attended while going through my yoga training. The instructor made a point of emphasizing the fact that there are no guarantees in life and (I suppose) to the extent we expect them and they do not materialize we suffer. Interestingly, I made a connection between goals and guarantees. I think goals are a type of guarantee we make for ourselves. If only I can achieve this goal then I will be happy. That may or may not be the case. But then again, is having no goals a better alternative? Perhaps it is in the way we approach our goals. It is the mindset, or what we perceive is hanging in the balance depending upon whether the goal is or is not achieved.

Another observation I made while reading this is how "in my mind" I was when I wrote this. This is particularly evident to me in the third paragraph. I was trying to achieve something by meditating. Hughey was getting in the way of that somehow. I'm not sure I was aware at the time of what it was I was trying to achieve. I think that now I would say I was trying to achieve "mindfulness" or a higher level of awareness of how in my mind I was at the time. However, being so in my mind I was not able to see this. And yet, I still meditated. What a long (and tiring) unfolding process this has been.

Progress With Meditation

I've recently reached a point where I can better observe my mind in action. It is difficult to explain in words but it seems significant. There are points during the day that I become embarrassed for different reasons but I can now sort of observe this happening with the mindset of "oh, there it is again." Previously, I would have become enveloped in the embarrassment and that would have been my state of mind. But now I am to a certain degree insulated from it. Of course this does not encapsulate the subtleties of the experience but it points in the right direction. It is not a pleasant experience necessarily but is certainly more pleasant than experiencing embarrassment. More as it develops...

Addendum:

I've been mulling a specific example of the embarrassment I have been experiencing lately. I have been reading a book entitled "The Joy of Living" by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. The book is a basic instruction on Buddhist meditation as well as the philosophy and science related to the practice. I typically read this book on the train going to and from work. The cover of the book has a picture of the author dressed in his Buddhist monk robes. Recently I have become aware that I tend to hide the cover from the other people on the train by holding the book such that the picture is facing the floor or my body. The impulse to do this is strong. Now, when I observe myself doing this, my intellectual response is "there's no need to do that because there's no reason to be embarrassed about it." Yet I do it just the same. Upon further reflection, I think the reason behind my impulse is something along the lines of the other people on the train will see the picture of the monk and me reading the book and have one of several reactions. One reaction could be that they will see me, a Westerner, reading a book about Eastern philosophy and disapprove or think I was some "New Ager". Another reaction might be that they would see me reading the book and question my sincerity or say to themselves what right do I have to reach for enlightenment? Another reaction might be that I am somehow trying to impress others by my eclectic choice of reading material (this is their thought I am describing - actually it is my perception of their thoughts - Yeesh). Of course, on their face, these thoughts are ridiculous. I am perfectly entitled to read what ever I want and there is nothing so terrible about other people being aware of it. Unfortunately, the urge remains regardless of whether I am intellectually aware of it or am observing it in a meditative state. The interesting thought is that I am reading a book on meditation and meditating on my ego associations related to reading it in front of others. (At least I thought that was interesting.) :)

Therefore I am Bad

There is a tendency in my thinking to observe "things" about myself and then to arrive at the conclusion that I am deficient and therefore should feel bad about myself. I used the word "things" because that word is sufficiently vague to cover the various categories of "things" to which I am referring. For example, a thing could be an embarrassing memory, a bad habit, recent performance, prospects for the future or the various aspects of the state of my present life. The list is endless. But the point of this post is to recognize this dynamic. I observe these things and then I conclude that I am deficient and should therefore should and do feel bad about myself.

I've recently been reading a book on Buddhist meditation. This is not the first time that I have exposed myself to the Buddhist mode of thought. However, like most learning experiences something is not fully appreciated at first glance but rather appreciation deepens with each repeated exposure. So, even though the material in this book is familiar to me, the experience of the material this time around has deepened and specifically has allowed me to witness this dynamic rather that be swallowed up by it.

Now let's return to the thought tendency I described in the first paragraph. By taking a step back from the thought rather than immediately feeling bad upon experiencing a "thing" I now see that there is something akin to a choice which is skipped over. I don't have to feel bad after experiencing the thing because the badness I attach to the thing is exactly that. It is badness that I attached to it. In reality (define as you wish) the things are neither good nor bad but merely things. It is the inability to see this that has kept me imprisoned within this tendency. Hopefully this realization will facilitate my liberation.