Life is amazingly complex and, like clay, can be manipulated in our minds just about anyway we want. If we go too far off the norm, people will call us crazy. Many of these manipulations can work to make us happy and achieve our goals but every manipulation will not not necessarily work for everybody. I am going to present things here as I have always done with my students, in a kind of Zen way of teaching what is. I am not interested in setting up THE way of understanding the world, but rather give you some basic ideas of how to become more mindful. This is something that humans have been doing since man became aware of himself.
We are all unique beings. Anyone that grew up in a large family will attest to that fact. Even identical twins have different personalities. As you will see we don't easily take in ideas that do not resonate with what we believe things to be. This is why I am taking this approach, pointing out some hurdles I have found on my path to happiness and a wide variety of ways of becoming more mindful. This will give you the opportunity to see what resonates with you and what doesn't.
We cannot control everything in our lives, but if we choose to, with some work, we can control what we are aware of, the choices we make and how we view the world and the things that happen to us. That by in large will determine just how happy we are. So look over what I have for you and do the work.
What Makes Us Happy?
5/21/18
One thing that makes us happy is when we feel like we understand things. Looking at the history of man and his struggle to explain things and to seek happiness it is clear that we all share similar basic concerns. It is also clear to me that there are many ways to find happiness and to explain things. There are lots of ways of creating happiness for ourselves and many ways to create suffering. So it would not be surprising if what I might say here may not fit into how you see things. Be open and not judgmental until the end. There is plenty of time to be judgmental. Why not explore some new ideas first and judge later? Perhaps some of it will resonate with you as we go along.
I would like to start with one of the most basic things that all human beings must deal with in their life.
From a scientific point of view, we grow up and place value on things and we try to see relations between things and similarities between things so we can better understand the world. We try to name most everything we see. We try to understand space. We try to understand as much of life as we can it gives us a feeling of security. One way we do this is through repetition, seeing the meaning of something over and over again puts it solidly in our heads. You see athletes doing this, repeating something over and over until it becomes a mindless habit no thinking involved.
It seems so simple that some people want to slough it off as being obvious. But we often don't appreciate just how strong our past everyday learning can cement in our minds the way we see things. We are so sure, on an unconscious level, of what we know that we can't see it any differently even when it's right in front of our eyes. Let's see how this works.
Take a look at this picture.
I challenge you to see, not just know, but SEE the tall man closer to the train as the same size as the small man on the far right of the picture. There are so many clues to space and size that we have seen billions of times and have interpreted them correctly, that to SEE these two men as the same size is a task not many if anyone can overcome. The more you validate your perceptions the harder it is to see reality, to see things in a different way.
If you still don't believe the two men and the two rulers are exactly the same size take you finger and thumb and measure one of them and then without moving your fingers slide your hand over to the other figure and see what you see. Now go to the link below which shows what parts of the picture make the illusion the strongest and more importantly why. With these pictures with less special clues you will have a chance to see how long you can see the two men the same size before the special clues force your brain into seeing them as different sizes again.
As we grow up we give meaning and try to find associations between related and sometimes unrelated or seemingly unrelated things. In the picture above we saw converging lines going up the page and going to a point. We see repeated objects getting smaller as they go up the page. Things are less contrasty in the background, and one of the guys is higher on the page than the other. Some things are overlapping. These are all clues that we have learned through observation and experience that tell us where things are in the space around us. When we make the same observations and associations over and over it makes grooves in our brain, which create knee jerk reactions and perceptions based on the repetition of similar past experiences. There are so many familiar clues to space, that even when we know they are wrong we can't see it the way it really is without some kind of aid and that only helps us to KNOW they are the same size, but does not help us to actually SEE it as it is. This is an interesting phenomena. How many things are so ingrained in our minds that we can't see what is even when we know what is?
Check out this picture.
What you see will depend upon what attributes you give to the various shapes and lines in the drawing. Whatever shape you recognize first as being something you're familiar with, your brain will ascribe appropriate meaning to the rest of the shapes in order to make sense out of your first observation.
If the first shape you identify is a big nose, then your brain will ascribe a mouth, a chin, an eye etc. in the places they should be in relationship to that nose. If you identify the line as the side of a face then your brain will identify one of the shapes as a neck with a necklace on it, it will see an ear where it should be. The line with a curve at its top end, turns into the jaw line. Our brain wants to make it an understandable image that has meaning according to our past experiences and our current expectations based on what we have identified. Faces have parts in particular places so if we recognize some part of the face we look for and expect to see the other parts of a face where they should be.
So in order to see either face it is necessary for us to ignore the other possible meanings of the parts. This is an illusion that capitalizes on how we tend to see things. However we do this all the time in order to create something that is familiar to us and understandable to our values and experiences. You see these kinds of things in politics where one group will characterize something in just the opposite way of seeing it than the way the opposing party sees it. If you don't think this happens, start looking for it. You'll see it.
We can't see both of the images at the same time because they share to many parts that have different meanings for each face, unless we look at it as purely abstract lines and shapes with no other meaning. Try seeing it as just abstract lines and shapes with no meaning. It's hard isn't it and you have to look at it in a way you don't normally look at things which is to identify things that we understand. We can however switch back and forth between the two women. So you might ask which one is right? In this case right can only be a preference. Which image you like the best or perhaps you can only see one image and will not let yourself see the shapes as two totally different things. But from a broader perspective, they are equal in importance or in "rightness." The abstract view of the whole picture as just abstract lines and shapes is not very appealing to us because we have no meaning to ascribe to it. Perhaps we should think about that. What ideas in your life could fit into this pattern and would we call the combination of those ideas reality? Could reality be above right and wrong? Could it be about being?
Let's look at another way of looking at this.
Making Associations
There are many ways to look at things. To keep things simple for ourselves we tend to pick a way that feels good to us or that we've been taught by our parents, friends, church, or the society in general. In doing this we feel better about our lives and understand how to act in accord with our beliefs.
This worked fine for us in the past where we were not exposed 24/7 to ideas that are not necessarily our own. However, in our modern world it doesn't take long for us to be confronted by ideas that don't fit our way of thinking. What do we do? We tend to pull back call them wrong, bad, etc. and snuggle in with our own group. A group that validates our point of view.
Let's take a look at this situation and see what we can learn from it.
In this case we are faced with another way of seeing the same thing that is just as valid as our way of thinking. What do we do? If we follow our normal way of rejecting things that don't fit into our way of thinking we miss a partial truth. I say partial truth because just about everything we think is only a partial truth. There are many different levels to just this simple problem which we will discuss in a moment.
The other thing we could do is accept the truth in what the other guy is saying by stepping over to take his view of what is. If we see the nine and we are familiar with what a six is we will see the truth in what the other guy is saying and he will become part of your group. You will have expanded your group and understanding of the world.
So now we have seen this from two different views and yet we have not explored all of the possible ways of looking at this object. What if we say it like this?
or this?
Now we are getting into an area where we don't have a particular name for these images. We can just experience these images as a young child that does not have the words to verbalize what she sees. We can just be with our experience. This lack of definition allows us to experience what is, reality as a whole and not as broken up parts.
If we came upon these images in our daily life we may or may not notice that they are a 6 or a 9 from the top view or from a side view. If we do not recognize either number then we could view it as an abstract shape as we did in the image above when we tried to see both faces at the same time.
If these were images printed in a magazine we could say that they were just a bunch of dots and of course that is another part of reality. If you want to understand what is we need to understand that there are many levels of reality and what we know at this moment is only a part of the whole. Just as we are only part of the whole.
What do you see here? Perhaps you see a bunch of shapes and colors that have some strong vertical and horizontal directions, a pattern?
Because we learn by what works for us, what makes us safe and happy, over the years we stop questioning if there might be other ways to learn and get information. We don't look for other ways because the way we do things seems to work and it makes us think that there are no other ways and certainly we don't seem to have any reason to try. In science we are always trying to see beyond our senses using specialized equipment that everyday people don't have. What if we are missing things? In the image above I see a very three-dimensional airplane flying diagonally across the page from right to left. Hummmmm. Am I crazy?
Consciously changing our focus of attention can change the information that is going to the brain. Let's think about what we typically do with our eyes to get information from a two dimensional image. The procedure that usually gets the information that is available to us on a 2-d surface is to focus our eyes on the surface of the page. That has worked all of our lives without a problem. However, if you do that to the image above, you will only see the shapes and colors on the surface of the paper.
But that is not all the information that could be available to us. In order to see the very three dimensional image you must do something that seems somewhat foolish and that is to focus you eyes past the surface of the image you can see on the surface. It requires some experimentation to find just where to focus your eyes. After all we don’t usually try to focus on a point that is behind an opaque surface. When you hit the “sweet spot” you will see the flat surface of the image melt into a very three-dimensional image of an airplane.
This is an example of where we consciously focus our attention will determine what we see and experience and what we don’t. Clearly we could walk by a magic eye picture and never see the three-dimensional image embedded behind the surface. No matter where our attention lies we will miss things. That is the nature of focused attention. This is important in terms of dealing with stress, as we will see later. It also points out the fact that we should be to open to things that might be diametrically opposed to what our everyday experience has told us. It doesn't mean we should automatically adopt them but we should at least give them consideration.
A moving image - you can make do things with your mind!
Which direction the young lady turning? Supposedly the direction you see is determined by which side of you brain is dominant while you are watching her. With some practice you can get the young lady to change direction at your will. What works for me, until I get the feeling for it, is doing things that one side of the brain likes to do. You can try reading. which is a left brain activity or experiencing space or body feeling which the right side likes. Once you brain gets fully into that mode you will see the young lady turn in the opposite direction. Brain dominance is a rather subtitle thing but if you pay attention to your feelings you will begin to be able to change her direction at YOUR will. Your brain changes back and forth in terms of dominance depending on what your are doing and which side of the brain does that thing best so if you watch her long enough she will seemingly change on her own.
If you can get a strong enough image in your mind, with your eyes closed, going which ever direction you want it to go and then open your eyes she will be moving in that direction, but it has to be a fairly strong image to work. You can also get it to switch back and forth without ever going all the way around. The illusion has to do with the fact that this is a silhouette so when body parts overlap you can't necessarily tell what is in front and what is behind. It's up to your mind to make that decision and what ever your brain thinks that's the way you'll see it. Just like everything else in this life.
There is a lot of stuff on line if you want to know more about what people think is happening here, just google :
If this particular gif spins fast. It seems to me it is a little easier to manipulate the figure if it is not going to fast. If you click on the above link you might find ad gif that rotates more slowly. Give it a try if you are having trouble with this one. There are also pages that show how it works by drawing on the image so you can tell what body parts are in front and which are behind.
From day one we want to understand our environment and the world. We get a great deal of information from what we see and learn from trial and error. The older we get the less we need to be aware of the meaning our brain is ascribing to things because our knee jerk reactions hold us in good stead. The following pictures will give you an opportunity to pay attention to how you ascribe meaning to things. As you view these pictures pay attention to your experience of seeing and what your brain is saying about the pictures.
With only one thing in the picture your mind will focus on it and ascribe some meaning to it. What would you say you see? Does that have meaning?
Now our brain works a little harder and wants to see if there is some sort of relationship between the two items in the picture. Your eyes go back and forth between the two images until you're satisfied you have seen it all and have ascribed meaning to the image. What does your brain say you are seeing? Do you get any other meaning than you did from the first image?
The next picture is even more complex and people tend to get another level of meaning from this image. Without trying just observe how your brain experiences this next image. What would you say you see?
Did you get more meaning from this image? If you did, see if your experience gets stronger in the next 2 images. Try to be aware when your experience changes or becomes stronger.
Is your experience changing in any way? Check out the last one. Again do it with awareness of your experience of understanding the image.
So when did you see the triangle? This last one is almost impossible to see as 12 Dots without seeing their relationship as a triangle even though the dots are just floating in space and do not touch at all. Our mind wants to create meaning and thus we group them up and see a triangle. If you did not see the triangle in the 3 dot image, go back and look at it again and see if you can see it without seeing it as a triangle now. It's interesting how much we cling to meaning once we think we see it or know it.
Being mindful can slow down the doing. Can slow down life. That may or may not be a comfortable situation for us. Living with our mindless knee jerk reactions to things allows us to have a spontaneous feeling about our lives, but if the reactions we have are poor choices or causing stress and discord in our lives, we need to create mental space between the stimulus and our reaction. That gives us a chance to think about the possibilities. Mindfulness practice makes a habit of creating that mental space. Becoming mindful in situations allows us to make more appropriate responses. As you develop you Mindful skills you will begin to see how you can get into the "zone" which is a mindful spontaneous flow of action and being.
Focusing our attention
This is great, because unless you've seen it you will be shocked to see what you missed even though it happened right in front of your eyes.
Even though what you miss in this video is not all that important it is very important for us to realize that every minute we are missing things, some of which may be important to us in terms of how we should react. Being mindful in each and every moment is so important for our happiness and for the happiness of others. Could others who do not agree with us see something that we don't see. Chances are that they may not see things you see too. I'm guessing it's a lot easier to see what the other person is missing than what we are missing. We miss a lot!!! Life is so much more complex than we would like to think. It's much more comforting to think we know everything.
Let's look at another example of what we miss. Please click of the link below:
Most of the time we pretty much try to explain the world in words and numbers, but can we really rely on these to give us the full information? Do the parts equal the whole. I'm thinking not. Before we continue we should note that words and numbers do the same things. They are both languages that try to describe our reality. Let's look at a couple of examples.
Zeno's Paradoxes
The Greek philosopher Zeno is said to have created a bunch of paradoxes. These paradoxes seem logical but there out come does not fit what we perceive as reality.
I am going to delve into just one of them, and here it is:
Say I am wanting to cross the street. This is something I've done many times and I know I can do it. Or at least I think I can do it. In order to accomplish this task I need to go half way across the street. With me so far? In order to get from half way to the other side I need to get to the halfway point of that distance. Now in order to get to the other side from there I again need to travel to the half way point.. etc. etc. etc. In other words I can never get to the other side because there will always be a distance I need to get halfway.
If you do this a different way you can't even start your journey across the street. If you realize that if you want to get to the halfway point you need to get halfway to that point first and if you want to get to that point you need to go halfway again and so on and so on . From that point of view you just can't get anywhere because all you time is taken up dividing space in half.
So what's going on here? Lucky for us we know we can walk across the street. Not so lucky for mathematicians when you add infinity into the equations it doesn't give you a reasonable answer. The job of math and science is to predict an outcome and have that outcome be verified in real life. So they have to mess with the way they do the math until it works with reality. I love the cartoon about the paradox. Their way of solving the problem is to show that a particular square has a finite area therefore as many time you want to divide it the area will always be the same, so when you get tired of dividing just use the total area and you're good to go. Of course that doesn't really solve why you can't get a realistic solution using infinity. But that's ok if you can get a realistic answer that's you job.
You can also watch the other video by a math guy and watch him wiggle.
Three men go to stay at a motel, and the man at the desk charges them $30.00 for a room. They split the cost ten dollars each. Later the manager tells the desk man that he overcharged the men, that the actual cost should have been $25.00. The manager gives the bellboy $5.00 and tells him to give it to the men.
The bellboy, however, decides to cheat the men and pockets $2.00, giving each of the men only one dollar.
Now each man has paid $9.00 to stay in the room and 3 x $9.00 = $27.00. The bellboy has pocketed $2.00. $27.00 + $2.00 = $29.00 - so where is the missing $1.00? The math is all correct. 3 x $9.00 = $27.00 pretty simple math, $27.00 + $2.00 = $29.00 again simple math, and $30 - $29 = $1. What's going on?
Here again it is you have to do the math the "right" way in order to get the correct answer. There are actually several ways to get the correct idea one way is to say the men paid $30 and $5 was taken out. Of that $5 the men got $3 and the bellboy got $2. So $25 (the cost of the room) + $3 ( amount the men got back) + $2 (the amount the bellboy kept) = $30 (the amount we started with)
In Zeno's Paradox we knew people could go from point A to point B and in the hotel problem we knew that the original total was $30 so we knew that there was a dollar missing using that math. If we hadn't known we would think that $29 was the right answer as the math individually is correct. So if the math is correct why wouldn't the answer be correct? And the answer is the numbers we choose and the way we put them together did not give us the correct answer
With this in mind it is prudent for us to be wary of what we think until we can see the proof in front of us. It is easy to say things that sound true but are not true in real life.
Don't take anything I say or anyone else says without exploring the truth, without trying things out for yourself and seeing if it works for you.
Remember that things can be seen in many different ways and both things can be correct as we will see next.
We can clearly see how people tend to cling to the ideas they have and not be open to new and different ideas. It's one thing to be skeptical and another to put on blinders.
People used to think the world was flat. It took a long while to change that idea, but even now apparently a small group of people still think of the earth as flat.
The method of science is to come up with a theory about the world and then using that theory to predict something will happen that no one had ever predicted. If it correctly predicts the event or whatever, then it is taken as "true" and used to predict whatever it predicts. But as with all theorys to date, they only go so far before the predictions they make are no longer correct. Generally someone will look at things a little different, make a new theory, and correctly predict what the last theory could not. Physics and Quantum Physics are somewhat like that. The world of sub atomic partials does not follow the same rules as we use in our everyday lives. This does not negate the predictions of regular physics, but it means we need something else to predict things in the subatomic world. Things like an electron can be both a partial and a wave. That doesn't compute in the world we know.
In order to explore the subatomic world scientists had to take a different perspective and throw out a lot of what we thought we knew. If they had not done this we would not have most of the electronic devices we have now along with many many more things.
Another theory that might necessitate us looking at the world in a very different way is the Holographic Universe. A hologram is a projection of a three dimensional object using a lazier light projected through a piece of film with a holographic image on it. You can not see the image on the surface of a holographic plate, but if you shine a lazier light through it you get a three dimensional image projected from the holographic film. One of the interesting things about a holographic film plate is that you can cut it in half and project light through one of the halves and it will project the whole image. You can cut it as may times as you like and it will still project the whole image. However the smaller the piece of film the more blurry the image will be. It has been proposed that our universe is a hologram that is projected from the outer shell of a black hole. If you are interested in exploring this further here is a starting point.
We experience life through making relationships, and the relationships we make add to our experience of life. Relationships imply some kind of difference. If there is no difference there is no relationship. An easy way of seeing this is to think about temperature. If everything in the universe were the same temperature we would not only not experience temperature but the word temperature would not even exist, as it would be meaningless. This is true with any pair of opposites and ultimately everything in the universe.
Between two appositives there is a continuum and loosing that perspective put us in a very uncomfortable position. Each end of the continuum has a truth to it. It may be a truth we don't want to hear but a truth never the less and that needs to be kept in mind. We can't ignore what is.
For an interesting discussion on how to balance extremes go to the link below.
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