Psych & Spirit Exam III

Enlightenment (large)

An experience in which our entire world view and values are radically transformed. A permanent shift in perception, awareness and knowledge.

enlightenment (small)

Insights and epiphanies that change our beliefs in small ways. Often prepares us for large “E”

Enlightenment

Wisdom, Truth, God, Revelation, Inner Peace, Transcendence, Insight, Reason

Feels like:

1. A sense of unity and connectedness

2. An incredible intensity of experience

3. A sense of clarity and new understanding in a fundamental way

4. A sense of surrender or loss of voluntary control

5. A sense that something, one’s belief, life, purpose, has suddenly and permanently change.

Enlightenment for Men

Focus on the world, the universe, consciousness. More globally “large scale” oriented

Enlightenment for Women

Focus on God, love, relationships, children. More “community and family” oriented.

The 7 Primary Cognitive Operators

Holistic, Abstractive, Quantitative, Causal, Reductionist, Binary, Emotional Value

Holistic (Primary Cognitive Operator)

• Allows us to view reality as a whole, giving us the big picture.

• Resides in the parietal lobe in the non-dominate hemisphere

• Allows us to apprehend the unity of God or oneness of universe.

Reductionistic (PCO)

• Allows us to look at a whole picture and break it down into an analysis of parts

• Resides in the left parietal lobe

• Probably responsible for our scientific, logical and mathematical understanding of the universe.

Causal (PCO)

• Permits us to view reality in terms of cause and effect.

• Left frontal lobe and left orientation association area.

• Allows us to question why we exist, why something works the way it does

Abstractive (PCO)

• Permits the formation of general concepts from the perception of facts.

• Left inferior portion of the parietal lobe

• Allows us to understand religious belief in its many forms.

Binary (PCO)

• Allows us to see reality in dyads.

• Left inferior portion of the parietal lobe

• Allows us myth: binary oppositions

Quantitative (PCO)

• Permits abstraction of quantity from various elements.

• Left inferior parietal lobe near the binary and abstractive operators

• Allows counting and quantifying

Emotional Value Operator (PCO)

• Limbic system, Hypothalamus, Thalamus, Amygdala, Hippocampus

• Necessary for the development of culture, society, and belief systems.

Deafferentiation

Experience of no space, no time.

6 Levels of Awareness

Low to high: Instictual awareness, habitual responsiveness, intentional decision making, creative imagination, self-reflective awareness, awareness

1. Instinctual Awareness

• Begins the moment we make up

• Mostly unconscious

• Governed by pain vs pleasure reactions

• Survival oriented

2. Habitual Responsiveness

• Developing new skills, which are embedded in long-term memory.

• Building a repertoire of habitual behaviors to achieve many of our goals.

• Usually unconscious

3. Intentional Decision Making

• Everyday consciousness

• Related to our short term (working) memory

• Usually involved in problem solving, moment-to-moment decision making.

4. Creative Imagination

• Usually involves the relaxation of both body and thought processes

• The mind begins to wander and daydream, often a “gateway” to enter the higher states of awareness leading to the path to enlightenment

5. Self-Reflective Awareness

• Mindfulness, which makes someone aware of one’s different levels of consciousness.

• Causes substantial increases in activity in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula.

6. Transformational awareness

• Possible life-changing insights

• Can permanently change the way the brain functions

• Involves the same brain areas discussed in previous chapters.

Trance

An altered state of consciousness. Intense form of creative mind wandering (level 4)

Practitioners seek information or insights that are not accessible through normal forms of conscious activity (level 3)

Reverend George Hensley

• Begins the snake handling tradition in America in 1910.

• Reportedly bitten over 400 times.

• Died on July 24, 1955 at 75 years old from a rattlesnake bite.

Appalachain Snake Church

• Over 5000 people regularly attend serpent handling services

• Usually incorporated into healing rituals.

• 100-120 deaths.

• 10-15% of congregants handle the snakes.

• Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia

Explanations for Snake Bites

• Mark 16:18: “They shall take up serpents;”

• Acts 28:1-6

• Punishment, a sign that the person lacked faith

• Test by God to see if handlers will deny their faith.

• An opportunity for God to work a miracle.

• A sexual symbol? A symbol of death and rebirth?

Terror Management Theory

• Overcoming the fear of death?

• Increase self-esteem?

• Increase worthiness?

Archetypal Synchronistic Resonance (ASR)

The activation of primordial ideas or universal models that are hypothesized to be native endowments of the prepersonal or collective unconscious, according to Jungian psychological theory.

• Inspiring, Uncanny familiar, Edifying, Numinous, Ineffible

Psychological Archetypes

Unconscious, inherited possibilities or ideas activated in response to relevant stimulating events.

• A definite grouping of archaic character containing, in form as well as meaning, mythological motifs.

Rebirth Archetype

The myth of someone, usually a god or hero, dying and subsequently being restored to life, often in a glorified form.

• sleeping beauty, the frog prince, beauty and the beast, a christmas carol, the secret garden, etc

Synchronicity

A meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved.

Resonance

Experience of likeness, affinity, identification, or otherwise deep empathic familiarity with another.

• Reincarnation can be understood as signs of archetypal-synchronistic activation, manifesting in uncanny impressions of a kinship, resonance, or identification with a long-deceased individual.

Mishlove Example

1. In the late 1980s, Mishlove was put into a hypnotic trance wherein he encountered a man wearing a toga who identified himself as Seneca, who told Mishlove to study his life.

2. Seneca’s life resembled the “hero” archetype

3. Mishlove heard from two independent psychics that he may have been Seneca in a past life.

Engen Example

1. In 2005, Engen was brought to a trance-medium who told him that in a past life, he was a devoted student of Seneca. He was told he would meet Seneca again.

2. He watched Mishlove’s BBC program “Thinking Aloud”, and contacted Mishlove while he was about to vacation in Cordoba.

3. By chance, Engen had purchased a book that was previously owned by Mishglove in Walnut Creek.

Apophenia

The mistaken ascription of meaningful connections to coincident occurrences that are unrelated or accidental.

• You basically have no way of knowing whether your experience was ASR or Apophenia

The Four Noble Truths

1. Dukkha

2. Samadha

3. Nirodha

4. Marga

• The first two describe our current situation, the last two describe our potential for growth.

Dukkha

The truth of suffering. Affliction is a reality of existence, a fact of life

• Bad states of mind.

• Suffering is noble and takes courage to face. It is not to be avoided or escaped from. It becomes the building block of a noble life.

• The practice is enlightenment and enlightenment is the practice.

Samadha

The cause of suffering

• Craving, lust, attachment, selfishness

• Requires self-control.

• The fire of desire: pleasure-seeking (greed and attachment), seeking a different life (hate and aversion), seeking oblivion (delusion and escapism)

Nirodha

The cessation of suffering. Confinement

• A cure is possible, but not easy

• Inner stillness and inner fire co-exist. In the stillness we may be able to look inside and see what we are escaping from.

Marga

The path to the cessation of suffering. 3 paths.

• Sila: ethics, Samadhi: pure mind, Prajna: wisdom

• Path 1: Ascetic. Give up all worldly things

• Path 2: give up trying to do anything

• Path 3: The Middle Path: enables one to go on being effective without feeling deflated. Dai lai lama

The Mind in Buddhism

The ultimate goal of studying the mind is complete freedom from suffering.

• transcend the concept of the self

• 2 parts: Basic consciousness and constantly shifting mindstates

• Main minds: the general mental experience

• Mental factors: different aspects operating within that basis of mind.

Main Minds

The general mental experience.

• Passive, 6 types.

• The main mind is the screen itself. We never really see the screen because we are preoccupied with the stories projected onto it.

1. Visual

2. Auditory

3. Olfactory

4. Gustatory

5. Tactile

6. Perceptual/conceptual mental main mind

Mental Factor

Different aspects of operating within the basis of mind.

• Active, 51 types.

• Mental factors are the images projected onto the screen of the main mind.

• Always present, object ascertaining, wholesome, main, derivative, variable mental factors

The 5 Sensory Main Minds

Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Gustatory, Textile

1. Apprehending condition - the object

2. Immediate condition - the preceding moment of consciousness

3. Empowering condition - the organ

Always-present Mental Factors

• Contact - the first occurrence in a mental process

• Discernment - note the characteristics of an object, identify it, memorize it.

• Feeling - once we identified the object we have one of three feelings about it; attracted, neutral, repelled.

• Intention (volition) - coordinates and directs activity of the other elements of the main mind with respect to the object.

• Attention - focuses on the object to the exclusion of other objects.

Object-ascertaining Mental Factors

• Aspiration - moves us towards an object of attachment/away from an object of aversion; serves as a basis of enthusiasm.

• Appreciation - seeing that the object has qualities that are worthwhile

• Recollection - ability of the mind to return to the object

• Concentration - consciously willed activity

• Intelligence - ability of the mind to examine an object and determine its value.

Variable Mental Factors

• Sleep - Consciousness continues whether we are aware of it or not.

• Regret - which is not guilt (ego), but virtuous when we feel strong regret for the negative things we have done.

• General examination - the mind that explores an object but not in a deeply analytical way

• Precise analysis - exploration of an object in a detailed way.

Unwholesome Mindstates

Negative feelings, thinking, and actions.

The 3 Main Mental Afflictions (First Zone)

1. Ignorance - One of the origins of suffering.

• Intellectually acquired ignorance, which comes from culture, environment, religion, or training.

• Innate ignorance, the fundamental confusion leading to our seeing things as permanent or independent.

2. Attachment - can arise in relation to any object and manifests throughout all three zones. Finding objects that are a source of happiness and we desire the object, although it only brings partial/temporary happiness.

3. Aversion - an exaggeration of an object that arises from the fundamental ignorance of the way self and things exist. The object “harms” the self’s notion of permanence.

First Zone - Buddhist Psych

Deep-rooted mindstates; the main drive behind the functioning of all other negative mental states. Possessed by all unenlightened beings; their existence and functioning do not depend on the physical nervous system or brain.

• Ignorance, Attachment, Aversion

Second Zone - Buddhist Psych

Mindstates are more gross in terms of their existence and functions. Some can only occur depending on certain beliefs. These mindstates act as a bridge between the first and third zones.

• Selfish concern, grasping discontentment, agitation/anger

Third Zone - Buddhist Psych

The mind states we are most familiar with, arranged in 5 categories by ignorance of the gross relationships of the law of cause and effect.

• derived from attachment, ignorance, anger, attachment/ignorance, all 3

Dealing with Negative Emotions/Anger

Buddhist psychology suggests that negative emotions are natural and should not be suppressed or ignored. Anger and discontentment are deep-seated in our minds.

• Negative emotions should be defused and meditated on.

• Know its origins/root cause, know the logic of anger, use analytical meditation, develop equanimity, patience, love offer victory to others.

Epistemology in Buddhism

Aimed at bringing the seeker of knowledge an understanding of how sentient beings can overcome their problems and eventually experience liberation - the cessation of suffering and its root causes.

Conception - Buddhist Psych

• The mind accesses its object indirectly

• The experience in which the mind relies on another mind to access its object

• Subjective representation not directly connected to reality

• A fiction projected onto an object or event and depends on socially shared assumptions.

Perception - Buddhist Psych

• A discrepancy between the world as it actually exists and the world as we perceive it.

• Engages in its object positively by affirmation, as it is, a real object, accurately, without providing integrative content.

• Objective Perception = focus on the object

• Subjective Perception = focus on the awareness of perceiving object

Wholesome Mental Factors / Eightfold Path

1. First zone: nonattatchment, nonhatred, nonignorance/ right thought, right view

2. Second zone: Loving-kindness, compassion, altruism, calm abiding, constant mindfulness of body, speech and mind, constant application to long-term goals/ Right mindfulness, right concentrations

3. Third zone: Confidence, optimism, joy, equanimity, friendliness, calmness, mindfulness, correct understanding of cause and effect / Right effort, right action, right speech, right livelihood.

The Eightfold Way

1. Right View - Total attention. Stillness, wholeheartedness, a willingness to look and listen. Divestment in the ego.

2. Right Thought - Recognize both sides of our nature and not expect to be too good. (radiant, innocent, creative / murderous, hateful, greedy)

3. Right Speech - Using words that are well-chosen and come from the depths (compassion, love, etc)

4. Right Action - A clear morality, beginning with self-restraint.

5. Right Livelihood - Finding the lifestyle which will further the great work. A balance between what you give to yourself and what you give to others.

6. Right Effort - Tuning into the mind to prevent unwholesome states of mind, promote/sustain wholesome states of mind.

7. Right Mindfulness - Keeping in mind the possibility of transcendence.

8. Right Samadhi - Concentration, rapture, the vision of the purpose of life. Enables each person to find their light.