What are you serving?

Often when we think we're doing good in the world, we're just covertly feeding our egos under the guise of goodness. How can you tell which you're doing in any moment?

Call to mind someone who maybe isn't literally evil, but sure acts like it sometimes. Perhaps there's a CEO who makes self-serving excuses for his company's rotten behavior. Or a politician whose views and policies are so abhorrent that she must be stopped.

Do you believe that it's possible for this person to undergo a catharsis, in which they realize that they've been serving the wrong master (for example, money instead of conscience), repent deeply, and are permanently transformed by it (even a little)? Don't worry if such an event seems unlikely; just think whether it's possible for this person. (If it's not, maybe go back to step one.)

In such a moment of catharsis, doesn't it seem like there's a good person buried deep inside who is probably immensely grateful for at least briefly "seeing the light" and being free of an unhealthy burden? Such a "good person" lies at the core of each of us (though what's going on with sociopaths, don't ask me). But for most of us, it is caked over with a lifetime (or lifetimes) of parasitic sludge that serves neither the host nor others. Yet this facade

When you're interacting with a difficult person, are you talking to their facade? Or are you talking to the inner "good person" about their facade and whatever problems it is causing? In one case you'll probably feel some self-righteousness or smugness for putting a nasty person in their place. In the other, you're more likely to feel love, and trust that your message may get actually past the defense mechanisms that normally deflect such threats. Such messages are genuinely dangerous to the facade, after all.

It is only genuine love that can plant the seeds of transformation deeply enough. This is as true for ourselves as it is to others. Regardless of what actions we take (even if we need to use physical force), it matters what intention it is guided by. Self-righteousness and love may both feel like good intentions in the moment, but the road to hell is only paved with one of them.

The planet and our species are in crisis right now, being assaulted from many fronts. This darkness will persist for as long as we hide ourselves and each other from the light. Fighting other facades has the benefit of making us feel like we're doing something brave important, but only by offering each other an invitation out of darkness can such crises be genuinely solved.

I bow to the light within you. Or, as they say in Sanskrit, namaste.

"Former pharma CEO pleads guilty to bribing doctors to prescribe addictive opioids"

It is easy to read a headline like that and immediately feel disgust. Obviously this person is evil, and if there were only fewer people like that, the world would be a beautiful place, right?

I maintain that this is not just false, but dangerously false. Even after we lock him up (and I agree we should), someone else will fill his shoes, because we have collectively designed a system which encourages the kind of mind he has. The critical question we need to be asking ourselves is: what kinds of conditions could turn me into a person like this?

If your answer is "there are no conditions that could have been applied (to even baby me) that would make me do that," you haven't introspected carefully enough. Nazi Germany was possible because of conditions, not because of inherently evil people.

Until we turn away from the cycle of constant outrage and disgust, and toward understanding the darkness in our own minds, we will never solve this problem.

The Great Mystery

Okay, so once upon a time our ancestors attributed everything to god:

Equivalently, they considered "god" to be the cause of everything:

Today we're smarter than that. We know that things happen for a reason:

Wait, but how does the electromagnetic force work? As the inimitable Richard Feynman explains, we can't really explain it in terms of anything simpler:

This applies to basically everything:

For any statement, you can ask the question "why?", and there are only two possible outcomes:

1. Why?
 a. Because X.
   ii. Why X?
      => Goto 1!
 b. We don't know!

In graphic form:

In other words, ALL the leaf nodes of any "why?" diagram must be "???", because for any other node, we can keep asking "why?" until we cannot get an answer. It is the only base case in this recursion.

Even if we discover a new fundamental force, the situation is the same:

But we can of course invert the diagram as before:

Now, you might object to this inversion: the details of "???" may not be the same in all cases, so why are we treating it as if they were?

Well, we're not saying that the same unnamed thing is responsible for everything we see in the world. We're saying that existence is, at its root, mysterious. No matter how many boxes and arrows we draw, we can always trace them back to the place where we simply don't know. 

Often this sense of mystery is hand-waved away, by explaining that as science makes progress, we'll figure each of these things out. But this misses the point: as each of those things is figured out, they just create more arrows back to "???", not fewer! Far from "closing in on the answer", we're ever-expanding the scope of the great mystery.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

"If you try and penetrate with your limited means the secrets of nature, you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious." 

-- Einstein 

‘The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.’ -- Werner Heisenberg

  

"The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute.The good news is there's no ground." -- Chogyam Trungpa (Buddhist master)

If you don't like the word "God," feel free to substitute "???" or "the great mystery." It may not explain anything, but if it tickles your sense of profound awe, it has served a great purpose.

(Relatedly: awe is the emotion most directly linked to compassion.)

TPJ and empathy

Already known:

• The amount to which a person can understand others' intents and beliefs is correlated with how altruistic they are.
• Activity in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) is correlated with the ability to understand others' perspectives.

Confirmed:

The size and activation in the TPJ correlate with altruistic behavior.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-individual-differences-altruism-brain-region.html

If you ARE outraged, you're not paying enough attention

Have you seen this bumper sticker before?

Not only do they get it wrong, they get it completely and utterly wrong. Let's look at the definition of outrage:

Definition of OUTRAGE

1

: an act of violence or brutality

2

a : injury, insult  outrages on silly women or poor passengers — Shakespeare>b : an act that violates accepted standards of behavior or taste  outrage alike against decency and dignity — John Buchan>

3

: the anger and resentment aroused by injury or insult

 

Even assuming they mean definition 3, it's just plain wrong. Resentment? That's never a healthy emotion. There seems to be a popular sense that the only way to make a positive change is to have a fiercely negative emotion driving it.

I've written before about why that's just not true. Here I want to add that the assumption that it is true is probably the cause of many of the problems than the sticker is trying to get us to pay attention to.

Solutions that are arrived at from a place of resentment are inferior to those that come from a desire to improve the world. A true desire to improve the world, not the half-assed kind we kid ourselves into thinking we have when it suits us.

A crazy thought

When we unskillfully try to reduce our own suffering, we turn to entertainment, diversions, distractions. When we do it skillfully we seek our own liberation.

When we unskillfully try to manifest compassion -- to reduce the suffering of others -- we apply bandaids that solve the proximal causes of suffering. Hunger, pain, etc. When we do so skillfully, we try to point others toward their own liberation.

We do require diversions until we are "strong" (or lucid) enough. And helping others in conventional ways is a fantastic and important thing to do.

But perhaps, just perhaps, suffering and compassion are actually blessings in disguise, to help us restore ourselves to our true nature.

This really belongs on my other blog, monktastic.blogspot.com, because of the pontificating. But I'm putting it here because (1) it's an (unconventional) answer to the question "why empathy?", and (2) trying to hide my crazy ideas is just another form of ego clinging. Might as well out myself while I have the courage to do so.

(And, of course, I think this is a useful post, which is the bar I use to decide whether or not to post on either blog.)

Depression: Just Get Over It?

Came across this nice advert (look at me trying to sound all British and fancy) at JFK yesterday:

I think it has a good message, but makes a shaky comparison. At the bottom, it asks "So why do some say that about depression?"

Clearly, one can not just "get over" depression. It's a devastating illness, and it's silly and counterproductive to blame someone for being depressed, or to pretend there's a magic button they can press to turn it off.

On the other hand, there is an important difference between cancer and depression: there exist purely mental (e.g., mindfulness-based) therapies that have a large impact on the latter, but the mind seems to have almost no ability to affect the former (other than with acceptance).

The argument that "the mind is just the brain" (i.e., just a physical device made of neurons and neurotransmitters) doesn't help even if it turns out to be true, because our whole model of moral responsibility is based on the idea that we still have some say in the matter (even if the "we" is physical).

So the message to not blame those with mental disorders is a great one. But it's important not to swing the other way and suggest that we have little or no mental power over own recovery. That can be disempowering in a subtle but powerful way.

(For a stronger argument, just see studies where manipulating a subject's belief in the existence of free will affects how hard they try to accomplish the given task. This should be something even reductive materialists can sink their teeth into.)

Stages of patriotism?

After reading this piece by Jonathan Haidt (whose work I admire), I must say I disagree with his conclusion about patriotism being clearly positive. Here's my stab at progressively increasing views on it:

1) The Curmudgeon: doesn't take pride in being American, but that's because he hates everyone else. Displays an American flag: no.

2) The Patriot: doesn't particularly dislike non-Americans, per se... but okay with them losing out a bit, particularly if it means more of the pie for us. Displays an American flag: hell yes.

3) The Budding But Misguided Empath: feels that preferring fellow Americans necessarily demotes others. Decides that this is not the way to true empathy. Displays an American flag: no.

4) The True Empath: does not prefer the wellbeing of any one person or group over another, but recognizes that displays of camaraderie can be healthy for communities -- and can be a net positive even if it does foster the unhealthy some-more-equal-than-other mindset of The Patriot. Displays an American flag: depends on the environment.

Perhaps most people who love their country also love all other countries and their citizens just as much, but that sounds a tad optimistic.

How empathy?

Why does meditation enhance empathy? A few reasons:

• You notice that much of your "bad behavior" (e.g., snapping at people when you're hungry and irritable) happens when you're subject to anxieties / insecurities / a generally turmoiled mind. Settling the mind reduces the occurrence and potency of those states (your hunger is less likely to manifest as irritability, and you're more able to de-identify with the irritable part of your mind).
• You also note that this turmoil and bad behavior (both being irritable and snapping) doesn't feel good for you.
• You suspect that everyone else is going through the same thing, i.e.
• Their turbulent minds are the most immediate cause of their "bad behavior", and
• Their "bad behavior" is typically causing them as much pain as they're inflicting (this also softens the black-and-white victim-perpetrator divide; see below for more).
• One of the common effects of meditation is to help you respond instead of react, by giving you space to observe your emotions before acting.
• In immediate situations (e.g., being cut off while driving), you can give people the benefit of the doubt (which prevents the startle from evolving into road rage).
• In larger contexts (e.g., considering how to solve the problems of the world), it helps you broaden your focus beyond the immediate and obvious causes. When we're told that person A harmed person B, a common instinct is to blame person A, and direct malice his way (and sometimes mock everyone else as "tree-hugging liberal hippies" or similar), and forget to consider a whole host of causes and conditions that were involved.
• When you're told that Andrea Yates drowned her 5 little kids, your first instinct may be to feel some rather nasty things about her, and forget to ask yourself if there's more to the story (there is).

In short, a calm and introspective mind is naturally imbued with more empathic qualities (and of course meditation assists with generating a calm, introspective mind).

What is boredom?

Boredom is nothing more than the inability to stop fighting a reality that you have decided is insufficiently interesting to you.

If you're a fan of personal growth, realize that this is never a good thing. Complaining to a friend that last night's opera was sooo boring is basically bragging that you're sooo incapable of handling your own mind.

Makes for good small talk, but hardly something to be proud of :)

The Empathy Gap

I'm reading a book by J. D. Trout called The Empathy Gap. The most poignant sentence I've read so far, that captures a lot of how I feel:

It is just too easy to make people look personally responsible for bad outcomes when, in truth, all of their realistic options were bad ones.

See also: The Fundamental Attribution Error and The Lucky Effect.

How to detect that someone is a sociopath

No, I'm not talking about that old, silly psychopath "test" involving the woman at the funeral.

After even a minor mishap, most people seem to apologize or look embarrassed almost immediately, even if it's unnecessary. I'd bet that the presence of this response is good evidence that the person is not a sociopath.

Like pain, embarrassment causes a clear physiological response, and one that should be hard to fake - - at least consistently.

Psychopaths can and often do imitate normal pro-social emotions, but to do so quickly and consistently, even in the most minor circumstances, should be hard. The opposite, to quickly and consistently suppress a response should be easier (and monks seem to be able to do this, at least for negative reactions).

So whenever I see someone blurt out a sheepish "oops!" when opening a door into me at work, I mentally check him or her off the "possible psychopath" list. Everyone else is still on it ;)

Compassion is not pity

Maybe I've written about this before, but I'm too lazy to go check. I think it matters a lot, so I'm even fine saying it again: compassion and pity are different things.

A group of young people on the street laugh at you and call you fat and ugly. Why not just remind yourself how those poor, miserable dolts probably didn't get enough love as a child, and pity their ignorance?

Because you can instead remind yourself how these unfortunate kids may actually not have received enough love or guidance, and you can wish that they do get on track before it does them and others more harm.

Okay, so maybe it takes some practice to get from the first response to the second, but it sounds worth it. Do you really want to cultivate condescension?

Daydreaming is a downer

I'll be giving a talk about roughly this subject soon, but here's one to mull over:

Snap out of it! That daydream you're having about eloping to the Bahamas with Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie is leaching away your happiness. In a new global study, researchers used iPhones to gauge the mental state of more than 2000 volunteers several times a day—even when they were having sex. The results indicate that, if you want to stay cheerful, you're better off focusing on the present, no matter how unpleasant it is.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/11/daydreaming-is-a-downer.html

Original paper here: http://scholar.harvard.edu/danielgilbert/files/a-wandering-mind-is-an-unhapy-mind-killingsworthe-ma-science-2010.pdf

Hens and chicks

One of the most common reasons I hear for why it's "okay" to eat factory-farmed chickens is that they're not very bright.

They may be brighter than you think. Chicks several days old can "add" and "subtract." And mothers do indeed feel empathy for their young ones.

The limits of willpower

Should have posted this long ago (when I first was made aware of the study), but it's one of my favorites. The following quote sums it up:

"The theory that willpower is a limited resource is interesting, but it has had unintended consequences," Dweck said. "Students who may already have trouble studying are being told that their powers of concentration are limited and they need to take frequent breaks. But a belief in willpower as a non-limited resource makes people stronger in their ability to work through challenges."

The researchers manipulated belief in unlimited willpower in their subjects (that is, they suggested to some that it is limited, and others that it is unlimited); those who believed that it is unlimited went on to demonstrate more self-control.

Article about the finding here.

A post elsehwere

I'm going to resurrect my old blog so that I can occasionally take off my science hat without feeling bad. I'll try to post more science here, more pontificating there.

http://monktastic.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-and-future.html

A post elsehwere

I'm going to resurrect my old blog so that I can occasionally take off my science hat without feeling bad. I'll try to post more science here, more pontificating there.

http://monktastic.blogspot.com/2011/04/past-and-future.html

Why meditation? As a psychological defense.

When you're meditating and a thought pops up, what happens? Well, you may return to your object quickly, but, especially if you're new to practicing or the thought is particularly captivating, it may grab ahold of you and whisk you away for a joyride for some time before you remember to eject. It is the quality of awareness during this interlude, and not the contents of awareness, that signal what I will call "distraction."

It's the state that ends with "oh crap, I'm supposed to be meditating." It's the quality you commonly experience while daydreaming, or any time your default network is active. And it's a state that negative emotions are great at sucking you into.

While you're meditating and trying not to generate thoughts, still they arise. This should make it clear that "you" are not the originator of all of your thoughts. When you're off-cushion and a particularly strong negative emotion happens your way, chances are it will do some damage before you gather your wits and evict it. In a mild case, the damage may simply be a mild unease for some minutes or hours. The longer you let it sideline your mind, though, the more thorough the roots it will lay down, and the harder it is to escape cleanly from.

One reason to practice nondistractedness (aka meditation) is that you'll be more frequently on your guard during the day. And don't scold yourself for every thought that distracts you on the cushion, for every return to your object strengthens your ability to "snap out of it" when in the clutches of any experience you'd like to escape.

It's 9 PM. Do you know where your mind is?

People often ask what meditation is like, or what they're supposed to be experiencing or doing. During my retreat, I thought of a few analogies. I just remembered one of them, and I thought I'd share it briefly.

Have you ever had the experience while reading where you have to re-read a sentence (or whole paragraph) because you weren't really paying attention for a few seconds? Maybe your mind wandered off to what you're going to eat for dinner, or maybe you were just thinking about the last paragraph. The point at which you realize that you've been distracted is where you typically regain mindfulness. Mindfulness is about knowing where your mind is right now.

Had you actively chosen to think about something else while reading, you wouldn't have had to re-read the sentence, because you would have known to stop reading. There would be no sense of "oh crap, where was I?" In colloquial terms, perhaps consciously choosing to think of something else could be considered "distraction," but in the context of meditation, it is not (necessarily). It is said that "when there is mindfulness, there is meditation; when there is no mindfulness, there is no meditation."

When beginning meditation, it is often suggested that one object (usually the sensation of breathing) be kept in mind. One reason is that if you make an agreement with yourself to pay attention to just one thing, it's more obvious when you're distracted. So when you start thinking about your plans for the weekend, either you're willfully breaking your agreement with yourself, or you're distracted. It's easy to tell which.

Once you get the hang of it, you might move on to practices where thoughts are not banned. Sometimes they're even active supports. If you think meditation has to be boring, you may not have spent enough time yet watching what incredible acrobatics your mind is capable of.