Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
You Are Not Your Brain
Invincible_summer
Heavy Metal DhammaWe(s)t coast, Canada Veteran
Just heard about this book when my class was talking about neuroplasticity.
Apparently, Dr. Schwartz has "developed" a 4-step program designed to help people with OCD free themselves from their compulsive urges.
Here are the 4 steps (from a Psychology Today article):
I haven't read the book yet, so I don't know how much credit they give Buddhism or even Jon Kabat-Zinn (who many consider to be the man when it comes to using insight meditation in a secular, scientific way).
I think it's cool that mindfulness has become relatively mainstream... yet my ego wishes that Buddhism would at least get that nod, not some de-contextualized, secularized practice from it.
Apparently, Dr. Schwartz has "developed" a 4-step program designed to help people with OCD free themselves from their compulsive urges.
Here are the 4 steps (from a Psychology Today article):
Step 1: Relabel. Identify the deceptive brain messages (i.e., the unhelpful thoughts, urges, desires and impulses) and the uncomfortable sensations; call them what they really are.Sound familiar to anyone?
Step 2: Reframe. Change your perception of the importance of the deceptive brain messages; say why these thoughts, urges, and impulses keep bother you (it's not ME, it's just the BRAIN!).
Step 3: Refocus. Direct your attention toward an activity or mental process that is wholesome and productive - even while the false and deceptive urges, thoughts, impulses, and sensations are still present and bothering you.
Step 4: Revalue. Clearly see the thoughts, urges, and impulses for what they are: sensations caused by deceptive brain messages that are not true and that have little to no value.
I haven't read the book yet, so I don't know how much credit they give Buddhism or even Jon Kabat-Zinn (who many consider to be the man when it comes to using insight meditation in a secular, scientific way).
I think it's cool that mindfulness has become relatively mainstream... yet my ego wishes that Buddhism would at least get that nod, not some de-contextualized, secularized practice from it.
0
Comments
Yep, mindfulness and right effort. I do hope these people are paying the Buddha some royalties given they've pinched all his ideas.
That sounds like, well, duh :dunce: What grabs me by the short-hairs here is that Life expresses through trees, spiders spinning webs, starlings doing the 'murmuration' in flight, elephants painting pictures of themselves, all the way up the complexity ladder to sentience (aware of an *I* to be aware of). Maaaaaajor cool.
This is a silly personal thing too, so obvious but yet not; the brain is part of the body. In the west we artificially separate mind and brain (don't acknowledge the dependent origination) and then get really stupid and have a conception of the brain being separate from the body. Obviously that's because we smash the brain and mind together as conceptually the same thing (in the west).
It gets even weirder when you consider where the 'heart' fits in. They do it right in the east, where the heart and the mind aren't artificially separated. But over here in the west, we have people saying to each other 'Well my heart says one thing, my brain another." No wonder we are so confused!
Gassho
If you couldn't see the piano player because they were hidden then you would look at the piano and see the keys and pedals go up and down. You would see the parts of the piano inside and out.
The piano is like the brain having waves and MRIs and all those goodies. But without the player the piano cannot make a tune (consciousness). Thus the player is the mind. And the music dependently originates between the mind and the brain.
Sights, sounds, smells, taste, sensations and even thoughts are not yours. You are none of the above.
It's a good question to point out our conditioned attachments.
The tricky part of it all is started by the first word of the question...."YOU",
which implies the falsehood that there is something that is a "YOU".
Whatever you fill in the blank with will eventually prove you wrong.
The point of a practice is to stop trying to fill in that blank.
"The mind, a part of the human soul, has a profound influence upon the brain, the nervous system, the body, and all organs and glands. It is the mind that gives all of you the sense of cognition and a sense of beingness. The physical and the psychic are linked so closely together that one does not function without the other. The physical organs and the psychic organs work together in a harmonious relationship. There is a Divine Intelligence from above that orchestrates all of this. This intelligence is part of the Creator or God source."
This is the truth that I got from the article in regard to this thread, in italics. To me it means, not the same as, not different from.
The rest I can do without.
http://www.rense.com/general63/brain.htm
Neurones in the heart . . . whatever next . . .
http://sguforums.com/index.php?topic=30449.0
:wow:
I hope you have many more years of health before the illness gets the better of you, if that is what must happen.
Mind is somewhat different because it takes up no space but we still feel with it.
Mind and brain are not the same thing. Some say the brain is the creator of information but it is just interpreting and is itself nothing but information.
And this thread is sort of taking a different turn than I intended - instead of rehashing the same lessons on "non-self," can we talk about modern, secularized approaches to meditation?
It is not necessary for alchemy to be accredited with the development of chemistry, except historically. If you went to a doctor and they recommended yoga for back pain, they would not require you to find an ashram and worship Ganesh the Elephant.
Being pragmatic I find the approach of psychology can help with the ill, it does not require people to develop secondary delusions that come from ancient systems of wisdom.
Buddhism has a far wider approach, starting from the possibility of stability into higher wisdom and beyond. From a Buddhist perspective psychologists are not enlightened and many psychologists would question the 'use' or existence of such a mind set. Mystics who are studied by psychologists are often considered delusional. However many mystics are equally dismissive of those that study them rather than experience with them.
Just as psychology makes use of Buddhist mindfulness, there is no reason why Buddhists can not make use of the insights and research psychologists uncover. However in many cases some Buddhists have done so already, centuries ago and then some . . .
What is that Mr Cushion? Anyone who talks to their meditation cushion is crazy? You don't say, you don't say . . . :screwy:
I happen to be convinced that we cannot speak about 'Brain' and Mind' as being 'one thing'....
Can you find a link that categorically claims otherwise?
Threads go the way threads go. That's what happens in a discussion...
If that had been the point of your discussion to begin with, perhaps it would have been wiser to state your intentions and clarify more precisely.
As the written medium is all we have, it's actually quite important....
the computer program is just a set of bits set on the hardware - but when the compiler compiles it and then it runs, there is an experience which we feel like for example, when an OS runs and desktop comes. without hardware, computer program cannot run and without computer program, just with blank hardware, the experience of a desktop with applications listed on it, cannot come to us from the computer hardware.
i think that though it is a crude analogy, yet it gives some idea about the difference between brain and mind.
As an aside the lesson of realising non-self is an essential step in the approach to secular or non-secular meditation btw. It enables you to detach from the self-concept, which is the root of the problem. Isn't that what you are trying to achieve as a secular or non-secular buddhist.
Just a couple of thoughts on the matter, and hopefully bringing it line with your OP
Mettha
And isn't that zen perspective similar to the perspectives we have about our mind and brains?
From my Zen perspective, body & mind are one.
Much of our meditative practice bares witness to the underlining adversarial basis for such delineations and how it underpins the foundation of the Ego's structure.
I do understand the brain/ mind definition. I just am not as sure as others of how important they are to determining what this "Me" is that the OP's opening post referred to.
Actually, the mind may not be affected if we damage the brain even if the connection between them is.
What are we really talking about here? Mind-brain duality or body-brain connectivity - lets put this into perspective, the body is connected to the brain by peripheral nerves, and therefore it cannot be argued that if you cut or damage a nerve or part of the brain that supplies that part of the body such that affected part of the body is disconnected it will no longer work or at least will function less adequately.
Anatomists/physiologists/neuroscientists cannot disagree with this statement, because I am right! (And I don't have a smug smile - I have half a smile, ok a smug half smile, but the rest is just a smile because its smugly content)
Our mind and awareness are something else that require more careful consideration and examination or permission to be.
Mettha