Selective Awareness
My experience has been that there seem to be an infinite number of thoughts, impressions and fragments of thoughts 'floating' around in the ether just beyond my ordinary conscious awareness. The conscious awareness selectively notices particular thoughts and impressions and develops and follows conscious lines of thoughts based on this selective noticing and choosing.
This is similar to ordinary awareness of the environment and physical senses. In waking awareness, there are an infinite number of possible sense impressions on which one can focus. For example, with our peripheral vision, we can see and process the entire panorama. However, we focus on specific 'things' and this is what forms our conscious awareness, and subsequent memories (although our minds also subsequently distort the visual impressions, creating memories not necessarily based on actual physical experiences).
So as these infinite thoughts, thought fragments and thought combinations swirl around in the 'sub' conscious mind, we selectively notice particular thoughts and consciously develop them further.
Why do we 'choose' the thoughts we choose to follow?
posted by Anatman @ Monday, July 31, 2006
13 comments
13 Comments:
Not sure what sort of answer you're looking for. A couple that spring to mind are:
Because it is our nature to do so.
and
Because at some level we prefer them.
I've heard of evolutionary theories of mind which describe the selection of thoughts in similar terms to that of natural selection.
There's an article where Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this here. You can probably find out more about some Buddhist perspectives on this phenomenon by googling for "alaya-vijnana".
Because there is a reward for doing so. Nobody does anything if there isn't a reward. It is sometimes hard to determine what the reward actually is - for example, a child behaves in a very irritating manner, intentionally, to upset her parents. Why? The reward is power, feeling that although being small and seemingly lacking in power, by making the parents angry the child feels she has power over them, she has control. That is the reward.
Why do people who know 'right from wrong' choose to do wrong? What is the reward?
Why do we 'choose' the thoughts we choose to follow?
I firmly believe we do so based on a pre-thought filter mechanism. That is, the thoughts are chosen and only after that choice is made do be become aware of it. Most of the time I doubt that there's even the consciousness that there WAS a choice in the matter.
I also believe firmly that zazen allows us to become aware that there are such choices to be made and that we are making them all day every day. I don't know how much control we ever can have over this choosing, but simply becoming aware that there are choices to be made can be, for lack of a better word, enlightening.
The basis on which we make these unconscious, or rather pre-conscious choices exists in the same sliver of present time, that as-it-is-ness that exists before duality slams down and creates subjects and objects in our conscious thought. What, exactly, that basis is, is probably undefinable, but I'll steal from Robert Pirsig's idea of quality because I think he was on the right track.
Knowing that these choices for thought exist allows us to treat life as a art form. What is art if not choice? This color of paint, not that color, this view, not that one, this word, not that one. Good art is based on good choices. What if you lived your life like you create your art, making good choices?
That, I think, is the ultimate act of zen.
I was contemplating this after having a discussion with a friend that suffers from anxiety. His anxiety is preceded by thoughts of violence or irrational action. For example, he will be driving across a bridge and will think, "What if I jerk the wheel to the right, smash through the rail, and drive off the bridge?"
If he has other people in the car, he will obsess on the thought, and then become anxious and fearful that he might actually do this.
I've told him that through meditation, I have learned that I have what seems like an infinite number of thoughts and impulses racing through my mind at any given moment. It seems as if my mind is processing innumerable possible courses of action and reaction to any given situation, but the majority of these thoughts normally come and go without conscious attention to them.
If I notice a thought like he describes (the bridge scenario), I usually dismiss it as comical, and insignificant. He, on the other hand, is shocked to notice such a thought, and therefore "worries" it, like a Labrador wrestling with an old shoe.
My theory is that if he can release the thought immediately upon noticing it, the anxiety will not follow. But the key is acknowledging that we have innumerable thoughts, and none of them are more significant or substantial than others. Thoughts only have power and "substance" if we build upon them.
db I really like this:
Knowing that these choices for thought exist allows us to treat life as a art form. What is art if not choice? This color of paint, not that color, this view, not that one, this word, not that one. Good art is based on good choices. What if you lived your life like you create your art, making good choices?
That, I think, is the ultimate act of zen.
is that Pirsig, paraphrased? or your own? It's nice.
anatman, your solution for your friend's anxiety sounds nice and simple... but it won't work.
I suffer from anxiety. The problem is that by the time I perceive an anxious thought, it is already too late. Anxiety triggers the "fight or flight" response in the amygdla (sp) part of the brain. So, for your friend, just seeing the bridge might trigger the anxiety, before the thought of crashing arises as a conscious thought. It is already too late. It happens subconsciously. And it doesn't make sense. We have these irrational thoughts, and realize that they are irrational, but the anxiety still happens. It is very strange. Kind of like a mental computer virus.
We anxiety sufferers just have to notice it when it happens, tell ourselves, "It is just anxiety... it will go away"... and let it ride out. The more we pay attention to it, the worse it gets. It is a feedback loop.
The good news is that zazen really helps with anxiety. You might want to tell your friend about that.
In fact, I wonder if anxiety might be a "thinking" problem? Basically, the mind/brain over-thinks.
And zazen and Soto Zen is all about "not thinking". It is a "philosophy of Action", as someone we know keeps saying.
There is a good website called OCDonline that has articles that describe "pure O" OCD. This is what I experience. And it sounds like your friend does too. The articles there really helped me.
anatman, I owe you an apology. I misread what you said. Your idea is correct.
Sorry about that.
But your friend should still check out that website. ;)
No apology necessary, Eardrum -- thanks for the feedback. I will forward the link to the article, which is interesting stuff.
If these thoughts have been going on for a long time, your friend might want to consider therapy instead and/or as well.
me said "is that Pirsig, paraphrased? or your own? "
It's probably mostly Pirsig, filtered through me I suppose. To put it another way, it's my interpretation, but the idea and the credit belongs to him.
here's something funny. How is it that someone could register any of the phenomena not noticed in a given moment? It never happens in our personal frame of experience.
me,
I don't think any of this is an option that we select and to think of it as a means to a reward implies that we are totally concious of what our reaction is going to be as we select our noticing (which I don't think we do). I know that I'm not that aware.
As for our noticing and selecting phenomena for attention; I don't think we have any control. One mental phenom follows the next. Occasionally a phenom will trigger the 'now noticer' and we'll be in the moment. The part that I find tricky is relinquishing the sensation of control and allowing phenomena to be as it is. I think this is why that exercise is built into so many practices of all traditions.
Dharma all seems to be this way, changing the funny habits we have to ones that react to reality. It doesn't happen alone, you have to have the luck to even happen across that path.
Addendum:
The only saving grace we have in changing the emptiness of our self is awareness and the present moment.
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