What Chuck Does

Affliction - The Cycle of Conditioning Part II

In Affliction - The Cycle of Conditioning I posted a diagram of the Cycle of Conditioning that I never explained. It’s been a few weeks but I’m going to explain the diagram via an example. Click on the diagram to see a larger image.

Contact: At every beginning of every “cycle”, all that exists is a pure and independent stimulus. Something “happens” (for lack of a better description). For example, this stimulus could be your taste buds coming into contact with some Haagen Dazs chocolate ice-cream. Nothing else occurs here except for this single experience.

Cognition: The next step in the cycle is that you become aware of this stimulus. This step is usually fleeting and follows immediately after the point of contact. However at this point you don’t know what has happened, you only know that something has happened.

Judgments: This step follows cognition of the stimulus. Milliseconds after one recognizes a stimulus, your brain assesses how the stimulus makes you feel and assigns a judgment to it. If you’ve experienced the stimulus before, then this step occurs very quickly. In our example, if you’ve had Haagen Dazs chocolate ice-cream then you remember that it tastes good and therefore reassign the judgment of “pleasant” to the experience. If you have never had this experience before, it will take a few moments for your brain to assess all this information. When the brain has finished processing all the signals that result from cognition of the experience, you then (for example) conclude that the experience was “pleasant”.

Here is when things start to really accelerate. Since the ice-cream was a “pleasant” experience. You will decide that you “like” Haagen Dazs chocolate ice-cream. Since you “like” the ice-cream, you will “desire” the ice-cream meaning it’s something you want. But all of this is still safely within the confines of a non-cyclic interaction between you and the ice-cream. It really isn’t until the next step that there’s a problem…

Clinging: This is when we get ourselves into trouble. Essentially what happens is that a switch gets thrown in our brain where (in our example) we say, “I can’t get enough of this stuff! I want more! Hell, I want more right now! I want more all the time!” At this step of the cycle, the interaction ceases to be about the stimulus really, but becomes how it can make you feel. Hence “clinging” to a pleasant experience is not the same as “desire” in the judgment step. Desire is thinking “I would like to have this experience again” immediately after tasting the ice-cream. Clinging is thinking to yourself hours after the experience, “I can’t stop thinking about how Haagen Dazs chocolate ice-cream makes me feel! I want some more right now!” This is how greed and cravings are created.

This part of the cycle is a loop of its own. Clinging to an experience is self-propagating and feeds into itself. It is the ultimate step that defines the Cycle of Conditioning because it is the impetus for recreating the experience. When clinging leads to a new stimulus (usually the same experience), the cycle is complete and thus repeats itself.

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Now you see why it’s called the “Cycle of Conditioning”. The suffering caused by craving and greed (or opposite anger and hatred) are learned behaviors. We learn that Haagen Dazs chocolate is incredibly delicious and thus we must have it all the time. We condition ourselves to repeat this cycle so that we can experience the same feelings of euphoria. We learn that we can accomplish this over and over again, but the problem is that it is perpetuated by greed and cravings.

Now you might say “I like Haagen Dasz chocolate ice-cream” but I don’t crave it like that. To that I say, there are different levels of intensity for the Cycle of Conditioning. Furthermore the ice-cream was just an example that you can replace with something you have a strong liking towards. For you, maybe you crave smoking? Maybe you can’t stop gambling? Maybe you can’t stop chasing the unrealistic body-image you have in your mind? Everyone clings to something different and furthermore at different levels of intensity. What’s important is how these cycles are destructive and furthermore are perpetuated not by the stimulus itself but how we loop this cycle without even thinking about it; and often without even knowing it.

There’s more to be said about this, but lets start with acknowledging it exists.

Affliction - Cycle of Conditioning

I wanted to post this diagram first for future reference. Don’t worry about the stuff written in pencil, just take a look at the core diagram.

Click here for larger version.

Affliction - Aversion

“There are many techniques that give temporary relief. When you become miserable you divert your attention to something else. Then you feel that you have come out of your misery, but you are not totally relieved.

If something undesirable has happened in life, you become agitated. You cannot bear this misery and want to run away from it. You may go to a cinema or a theatre, or you may indulge in other sensual entertainments. You may go out drinking, and so on. All this is running away from misery. Escape is no solution to the problem and indeed the misery is multiplying.

In Buddha’s enlightenment he realized that one must face reality. Instead of running away from the problem, one must face it. He found that all the types of meditation existing in his day consisted of merely diverting the mind from the prevailing misery to another object. He found that practising this, actually only a small part of the mind gets diverted. Deep inside one keeps reacting, one keeps generating saṅkhāras (reactions) of craving, aversion or delusion, and one keeps suffering at a deep level of the mind. The object of meditation should not be an imaginary object, it should be reality—reality as it is. One has to work with whatever reality has manifested itself now, whatever one experiences within the framework of one’s own body.”

- Vipassana Newsletter

I’m posting this section from the newsletter because I want to address the issue of aversion in our daily lives. Reflecting on my own life, I often use avoidance and suppression as a tool for dealing with aversion.

In 2003 my car broke down. I made many attempts to fix it but to no avail. It wound up in my mechanic’s garage waiting for my mechanic to get around to fixing it. As a means of avoiding the problem, I let it sit in that garage for 9 months collecting dust.

For me this car brought back so many memories that it was emotionally painful for me to personally resolve its mechanical issues. In fact, I got so good at avoiding the issue that prior to sending it to my mechanic’s garage, I paid someone else to manage the repair process. Yes, this person’s sole responsibility was to troubleshoot the issues and schedule the repairs but not actually do any of the repairs. This was something I could have done but could not bring myself to do.

Ultimately, my mechanic decided he needed his garage space back and forced me to pick up the car. Still not being able to deal with the emotional heartache, I decided to donate it to charity. In retrospect it was still the best decision however the remnants of aversions to the emotions (connected to that car), still remain.

I realize that I did myself no favors by avoiding the issue. Because even though the car is no longer in my possession, the pain and suffering that I experience is still mine. As the Vipassana newsletter above mentions, “Escape is no solution to the problem and indeed the misery is multiplying”. In order to truly extricate myself from the emotional turmoil of these experiences, I must examine them. I need to examine them as my professor used to say, “gently and with lovingkindness”. To first gain intellectual insight to why they caused me so much grief and then to gain perspective to realize them for what they really were, just experiences.

When I can differentiate my own sensations and reactions from the absolute truth of those experiences, I can free myself from the misery and the suffering. I must end the reactions of aversion that are constantly being generated from within me by my mind.

It’s true. You can run but you can not hide from your own suffering.

Affliction - Why Americans Love Yoga

Around here, yoga classes and yoga studios have been popping up like Starbucks over the past decade or so. Many that practice yoga swear by the positive effects and the peace they’ve achieved by routinely doing yoga. While I there are many physical, demographic and cultural reasons for why yoga has become so popular, here are 3 reasons why I think modern day Americans love yoga.

1. Americans Don’t Breathe

It sounds absurd, but most Americans don’t breathe deeply from the bottom of their stomach (or from the lower “dan tien”). As a function of being an anxious and stressed society, Americans takes short and shallow breaths. Shallow breathing (or chest breathing) causes a constriction of the chest and lung tissue over time, decreasing oxygen flow and delivery to your tissues. Deep, rhythmic breathing expands the diaphragm muscle, the cone-shaped muscle under your lungs, expanding the lung’s air pockets, invoking the relaxation response, and massaging the lymphatic system - Source. If Americans learned to breathe deeper throughout the day, they wouldn’t be so intrigued with classes that force people to breathe deeper. The problem with Americans not breathing deeply is primarily a lack of mindfulness of the self and more importantly the body…

2. Americans Don’t Listen to Their Bodies

This sounds ludicrous too, but Americans are so bad at listening to their bodies that Ergonomic injuries represent the fastest growing category of injuries in the United States today. They are now the leading cause of Workers’ Compensation claims, and even unreported cases are accompanied by pain, loss of function, and the potential for permanent disability - Source. Now, if you are even half paying attention to your body, you should quickly realize when you’re putting yourself in a compromised physical position within minutes, much less years! Americans love yoga because yoga exercises forces one to stretch the muscles thus providing a release for pressure and pain. More importantly however, these exercises provide Americans an opportunity to listen to their bodies to find out where their aches and pains exist early. Part of the solution to listening to one’s body lies in cultivating mindfulness…

3. Americans Live at a Frenetic Pace

The average American lives at 100 mph. They try to do too much in too little time. Then they try to make up for “lack of time” by sleeping less. This makes them tired, so they ingest substances (like coffee) to keep themselves awake. But these chemicals are unnatural and have side effects like increased anxiety. So on weekends they turn to substances that make them relaxed (like alcohol). Because their lives are in a constant ebb and flow of ups and downs, highs and lows, they never find balance. And they never stop to question their cycle of imbalance and self-destruction. They never reflect on what they are doing something life-altering happens. Yoga forces Americans to slow down and stop for a minute to reevaluate everything. For that one hour, Americans are forced to reflect on their lives and question the inconsistencies between their espoused values and how they really live. If Americans could cultivate mindfulness and find time throughout the day to perform a little reflection, they would not be so enamored with yoga.

By no means am I attempting to put down yoga. I think yoga is one of the great saviors for American culture and society. I merely suggest that many of the benefits that come with regularly attending yoga class, can be had with a little self awareness, mindfulness, and reflection. You can achieve all the benefits of yoga every hour of every day without having to go to that 7 o’clock class tonight!

Affliction - Why Do We Fight?

fight [fahyt]

–noun, verb

1. a battle or combat.

2. any contest or struggle: a fight for recovery from an illness.

3. an angry argument or disagreement: Whenever we discuss politics, we end up in a fight.

Why do we fight? This question is designed to search deep into the assumptions of our actions, thus the answer lies not on the surface. For example, the answer is not “because I was pissed off” or “because he/she attacked me”. Regardless of physical or emotional confrontation, what I am getting at is that we fight to protect ourselves. Protect ourselves from what you ask? Or why do we protect ourselves? If we examine the fundamental level of the motivation of why people “fight” you’ll find a theme of answers. People fight for their own interests, self-esteem, self-worth, self-concept, values, honor etc. If you follow these motivations back to their single source you will find that people fight to protect their existence. Interests, self-esteem, self-worth, self-concept, values, and honor are all extensions of our ability to “exist”, of what it means for us to be alive. So while we have evolved from mere cavemen and now rarely fight because our physical existence is threatened, we now fight because we perceive variations of threats to our survivability.

But when we fight, how many of us are actually aware of what we are fighting for or why we are fighting to begin with? In the heat of the moment, where are we? Are we in the fight? Are we present? Or are we in our own minds reacting to our perceptions? Or even worse, are we looking for the right “program” in our memory banks in order to react to the situation? Thus we see that “fighting” or defending our so-called existence is merely a game of the lowest evolutionary level. While it rarely now involves fists and teeth, the execution of our actions is the same. Identify threat, select response, and eliminate threat. While the situations are no longer 1) See caveman invade territory 2) Decide to attack caveman 3) Hit caveman with fists; our thought processes are the same 1) See ignorant driver cut me off 2) Decide to retaliate 3) Give ignorant driver the middle finger plus some expletives. As humans, we have evolved thousands of years and yet we are still enslaved by the same thought processes of our less intelligent brethren of the past (read: caveman). If you think about it, most of our reactions are misplaced and pure anachronisms. The ignorant driver that cut me off did not really threaten my physical existence, did he/she? Of course not! He/She merely threatened my values of common courtesy. So why do I react as if he/she sucker-punched me in the face? Therein lies the dilemma and the start of the reactionary process (automatic behavior/cycle of reactivity)

So we conclude our first step. Understand and question our assumptions. Why do we fight? We fight to secure our existence. If that is true, then why do so many of our altercations have nothing to do with our physical existence and instead more to do with values, greed, self-expansion (validation of our own self-worth, self-esteem, existence, etc.)? Yes they are extensions of our existence but they no longer require an outright elimination of the threat. They no longer require the type of reactions necessary to secure our survival. The threats no longer require that we kill the opposing caveman. If the threats and reasons for why we fight have changed over evolution, shouldn’t our reactions to these impulses change as well?

Affliction - Series of Articles

I’ve decided to combine my series of posts regarding anything related to the human condition under “Affliction”. This will include old material and new material and will hopefully provide some insight on affliction (the human condition) and hopefully how to cope with pain and suffering.

To start all of these articles will be titled “Affliction - [Subject Title]” and I will go back and retitle some of the articles that I have already written for searchability purposes.

This series of articles might also affect the future and direction of this blog, more on this later. For now I’ll focus on generating content and grouping them together.

Affliction - Achilles Tendon

If you’ve read Larry’s post, then you know that his roommate Allen completely tore his Achilles tendon from his heel. My boss had this happen to him during a softball game running from 1st to 2nd base. Anyway so I invited him over to our house over the weekend since Larry’s in New York and he’s basically immobile. The cast is practically up to his knee, he’s still on pain-killers, he needs to have his leg constantly elevated on a pack of ice, and he can’t drive since it’s his right foot. This is all normal since he had his surgery on Thursday morning but basically he’s bed-ridden until the pain goes away and he is farther along in the healing process. I’m guessing at least another week before he can comfortably get around on his crutches because as of right now it hurts to even use the bathroom.

My main consideration for an injury of this magnitude is the psychological damage. Being young (26 years old) and active, this kind of an injury has psychological implications that need to be recognized and dealt with. Doctors estimate the physical healing process takes 4-6 months but don’t say anything about the psychological healing of being bed-ridden, complete change in lifestyle, acknowledgement of mortality, etc. For those reasons I believe the emotional challenges are far greater than the physical recovery. Part of the psychological damage comes from the self-loathing that occurs during the healing process. You start to wonder if this will ever end, why this happened to you, how useless you are, etc. Cultivating a greater sense of compassion particularly for oneself is critical during this period of recovery. Getting mad at oneself for being injured only makes things worse and lengthens the time it takes to recover. This is obviously easier said than done. Keep those spirits up Allen!

Affliction - Within The Looking Glass

On my way to work I was trying to gain a greater understanding of Jazz by listening to Ray Charles, when a recurring thought popped into my mind that said, “Maybe I should go get jazz piano lessons?”. That triggered a flurry of thoughts. One of them was my brother telling me that rather than spend time taking [piano] lessons, I should spend time composing music. Then Peter Block (The Answer to How is Yes) popped into my mind to remind me that the answers are not “without” but rather within. Suddenly the visual world seem to open up and I felt relaxed, knowing that I would always have questions, but once I stopped looking outside myself for answers, I would be more “complete”. And my mind turned to the Christian radio channel I listen to and how people are always asking God for answers, thus triggering the images of Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty saying, “People want me to do everything for them. What they don’t realize is that they have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.”

Am I yet a miracle? No. But I have the power. I have the power… Or do I?