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January 29 - February 7, 2022
image is only ink dots on paper, and seeing that pattern as a representation of the person we refer to as Brad Pitt occurs only in the mind.
what Rorschach had really discovered was that the pattern perceiver could always make sense of randomness and see something.
how the left brain created our sense of self—by seeing a pattern that isn't there. In other words, perhaps our pattern-perceiving machine looks within and finds a single point of perception, remembers a series of likes and dislikes, judgments, beliefs, etc., and creates the pattern of “me.”
One of the hallmarks of schizophrenia is seeing patterns that are not there, that is to say hallucinations.
When dopamine was increased in both groups, the skeptics started to make the mistake of seeing patterns when there were none.
“When committed beliefs are violated, people experience an arousal state that prompts them to affirm other beliefs to which they are committed.”
When the reality of one pattern is challenged, subjects would increase their belief in some other pattern to compensate.
In my view, seeing this triangle is like looking at your own individual self, because both are created in the same way: by inference.
The left brain has created this illusion of self by noticing a pattern of categorical differences between you and others and combining those observations with memory, preferences, and the perspective of the “pilot,” who seems to be steering the ship of the brain and body. Our definition of self depends in part on our difference from others. There is no “me” without “not me.”
the classic reversible symbol of Taoism: yang needs yin to define what it is.
the self must continue to think in order to stay in existence and therefore will always change the measuring stick—always adding a new “better” to fall short of.
Remember, to think is to think categorically, and there is no way around this.
Rather than embrace reality as it is, the left brain is hopelessly addicted to storytelling and interpretations about reality, which provide a short-term hit of purpose and meaning but an inevitable crash of suffering.
our self is continuously changing by way of ideas, perceptions, and feelings.
Sometimes I like to think of the singular “you” as a flip-book. If you take a stack of paper and draw a picture that slightly changes on each page and then flip through the pages, the still images will appear as a short animation. In reality, there are one hundred different pictures, but the mind weaves these together into one continuous story.
sense of freedom can emerge from the realization that you are under no obligation to be consistent.
Categories such as good/bad and right/wrong were experienced as a continuum rather than disconnected opposites.
The right brain was compassionate, nurturing, and eternally optimistic.
“you are already a buddha, you just don't know it.”
After all, buddha simply means “one that is awake.”
the goal is not right-brain dominance and certainly not to shut down the left brain, but rather to achieve what the Buddha called a middle path.
the left brain is the language center and the right brain is the spatial center.
This echoes the wisdom of the ancient Eastern philosophers, who said that the real world couldn't be put into words and anything put into words was not the real world.
called flow, using this term to describe the experience that someone has while being totally absorbed in the doing of something.
Louis Armstrong put it, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”
This begs the question, who is doing the watching? Could it be the right-brain consciousness?
Because our interpreter is so constant, we have to practice being mindful.
All of these examples of right-brain consciousness are focused on experiences in the present moment and in doing and being in a way that is beyond thinking and language.
Nisargadatta Maharaj: “In your world, the unspoken has no existence. In mine the words and their contents have no being. . . . My world is real, while yours is made of dreams.” To live in a world of abstractions—based on language, concepts, beliefs, patterns, labels—is to live in a dream world rather than reality.
the soccer field and reminded him that there was no soccer championship going on “out there,” there were no teams “out there,” no points were being scored outside of the collective fiction in our heads. The only thing “out there” was a bunch of little boys running around kicking a ball, and everything else made up our story about it. In the reality of the right brain, there are no winners or losers, no teams or championships, there is just being and doing.
Beyond the being and doing of boys kicking a ball on a field, it is all a story. Winners, losers, championships—these are all based on categories, labels, patterns.
To understand everything, is to forgive everything. —Buddha
Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
one study, subjects listened to music while half of them tried as hard as they could to be happy.5 The half that tried to be happy were less happy than the group that just listened.
Another study found that those who put a high value on happiness had more negative emotions.6 Of course, long ago the Buddha explained how desire leads to suffering; this seems to also hold even for the desire to be happy.
The truth is that no figure could exist without the background and the shape of the background is dependent upon the figure.
isn't a thing that turns one into two but rather the space between. A space between one creates two. I I And what is the difference between two and three? I I I Again, just more space. And what is four, but adding more space?
Things are intrinsically linked to space. Space connects. Space creates all things.
The yin-yang symbol of Taoism expresses this truth perfectly. The white is necessary to see the black and the black is necessary to see the white.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form Emptiness is not separate from form Form is not separate from emptiness Whatever is form is emptiness Whatever is emptiness is form
Without space no thing is possible, and without silence no sound is possible.
William James wrote about a nonsensory type of intelligence he called “fringe consciousness,” which according to James describes a vague “feeling of knowing” that doesn't seem to have a direct sensory or perceptual content to it.
This study makes sense in the context of the right brain seeing the whole picture rather than just the parts and being aware of things that aren't apparent to the left-brain interpreter.8 It then influences the choices of the left brain, even without the left brain being aware of why it's making these choices.
Daniel Goleman popularized the idea of emotional intelligence or EQ (emotional quotient) in his book of the same name.9 EQ is defined as one's ability to recognize, understand, and manage their own emotions, as well as recognizing and understanding the emotions of others.
In Goleman's more recent book, he looked at EQ and the brain and views EQ as consisting of four parts or elements: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
the left side of the brain creates an image of who we think we are (our egos), then the only way to reflect on this idea is from outside the system, which is the right brain. However, the right brain “speaks” only in emotions, so with self-reflection, we feel our way around thinking to find out what is true for us in a particular situation.
they have mastered their emotions because they do not fight them and in this way they are free from them.
The story goes that when the student expressed concern about his own bad temper to his master, the master said, “Show it to me.” Of course, the student couldn't and explained that it wasn't within his control to produce it at will, but rather it just happened. The master replied that if it wasn't within his control, then it was not part of his true nature. From that point on, whenever the student felt anger welling up inside of him, he recalled the master's words and his anger began to subside.
In Zen, there is no such thing as a wrong emotion, and therefore nothing to strive for or fight against.
