Free will or lack of.......

[WesD]

I think this really deserves its own thread space rather than growing the numbers on Brit Girls - Fat. 

 

That title really doesn’t do the content of free will any justice and visa verca. 

 

Anyhow so far @the village idiot has done a great job of handling all our thoughts or more to the point our sub conscious thoughts on the subject of free will however let’s move on a touch. 

 

If you may how do we meditate?

 

That may seem an obvious Q but how do we let go and meditate when the purpose of letting go is to question our subconscious and look at ourselves from within so to speak? 

[stihlmadasever]

Ive had too many beers to be able to deal with this thread...maybe tomorrow when im sober 

[the village idiot]

6 minutes ago, WesD said:

I think this really deserves its own thread space rather than growing the numbers on Brit Girls - Fat. 

 

That title really doesn’t do the content of free will any justice and visa verca. 

 

Anyhow so far @the village idiot has done a great job of handling all our thoughts or more to the point our sub conscious thoughts on the subject of free will however let’s move on a touch. 

 

If you may how do we meditate?

 

That may seem an obvious Q but how do we let go and meditate when the purpose of letting go is to question our subconscious and look at ourselves from within so to speak? 

WesD you are amazing!

 

I was beginning to think (Vesp and maybe mesterh aside) that the topic was going to be too inpenetrable. It is possibly the most unintuitive proposal imaginable and no surprise that it is mindboggling. People can also be somewhat disturbed when you start claiming that the self they believe themselves to be is an illusion. It feels threatening. If you come to realise that this is in fact the case it is certainly startling but it is not fatalistic. In fact it opens you up to very significant opportunities for very positive change.

 

You obviously feel that there is good reason to explore this further and that is great. You are right, and also probably correct that we needed to move on from theory to practice. Practice helps massively with getting to grips with the apparent craziness of the concept.

 

But enough waffling. I'll collect my thoughts (hopefully the mischievous brain cells will cooperate) and give some starting advice on the practice of meditation.

[Vespasian]

The Village idiot..

 

I've looked at loads of vids covering free will, but this one had the greatest effect on me..   you should watch it..    took me an age to find it again as it didn't pop up in my history feed..   anyways its worth the time to take a look at it..

 

 

[the village idiot]

Excessively long post alert!!

 

 

Mindfulness meditation is brain training.

 

To be mindful is to be aware of what is occuring in conciousness.

 

Our minds are capable of being in a variety of different states. Almost all of the time the mind is in thinking mode. It feels very much like this is all there is but in actual fact, whilst we are awake, there is a constant unchanging state below this constant stream of thoughts. This is concious awareness (or pure conciousness).

This is the state that some of you snowboarders and motorcyclists have acessed automatically for short periods. I don't need to tell you that this is a very pleasant place to be. People can also access this state whilst praying or taking certain psychedelic drugs.

 

Mindfulness meditation trains the brain over time to access this pure awareness state more readily. This has the benefit of increasing your time in this pleasant state, but it is a kind of side effect bonus. The real goal of spending time in pure awareness is to give you the necessary detachment to 'observe' your thought patterns as opposed to identifying with them. Identifying with your thoughts (automatically attributing them to a self or 'you') inevitably sweeps you off into repeating patterns of very often debilitating nonsense. When you have the ability to simply observe your thoughts you realise how completely bonkers you are.

 

So far, so understandable. The really important insights come when you realise that all there actually is are automatically generated thoughts occuring in pure unchanging conciousness. There is no 'you' thinking these thoughts. The sensation of there being an 'I' is actually an illusion. I can go into how this illusion develops, and why, in later posts.

 

The importance of coming to understand that you are not your thoughts is that it provides you with a little window of pure awareness space after thoughts arise to let them waft on by without getting ensnared. Without this insight we spend almost all our lives riding these often unhelpful thought waves instead of truly experiencing what is actually happening moment to moment. The little pure awareness window also gives you the opportunity to run with the constructive, positive automatic thoughts, so long as you stay mindful of when they go astray.

 

Let's take the example of Wes or Bolam owning their way down the off piste slopes. I think the fact that they experienced pure awareness states in fresh powder is telling. They are flying down the slope, they are well practiced so their brains are able to perform the necessary actions without thinking. They are focussed but not judging. Because the brain has got so good at this activity it is not second guessing, no error correction thoughts appear in conciousness. Because there are no thoughts to identify an 'I' with, conciousness is liberated. It feels as if there is only snowboarding, no 'me' snowboarding, and this feels great. They become accutely tuned to their senses and this pure experiencing mind state is wonderful.

  Now imagine their eyes suddenly fall on another snowboard track in the snow. If the brain is not trained to be mindful of thoughts this visual input will invariably trigger the thinking brain into unstoppable overdrive:

'I' wonder who left that track?

'I' wonder if they're a better snowboarder than me?

They got here earlier so they are probably more dedicated than 'me'

Why can't 'I' get up that early?

'I' reckon he's probably a right bell end, spending all his time snowboarding and neglecting his family.

'I' wonder what he had for breakfast?

What shall 'I' have for breakfast?

Oh shit, 'I'm' at the bottom of the slope!

Their brains have continued to take care of the snowboarding but their conciousness has been automatically filled by an automatic stream of inconsequential nonsense which their brain has attributed to 'them' and they have not been present for most of what could have been the ride of their lives. They did it but they missed it. This is 'us' almost all of the time. Imagine if you had the focus, not to stop the thoughts (this is impossible) but to instantly 'see' them for what they are, not engage with them and have them float harmlessly through pure awareness, being a small part of the ride but not your whole experience of it. Even better if they don't see any tracks and the whole descent can be bliss!

 

Mindful meditation and the associated detachment from the illusion of self can get you there. Not just when you are snowboarding but also when you are doing the washing up.

 

A level of detachment from the illusion of self can also have other very significant psychological benefits, especially if you are prone to depression or self criticism/over analysing. This is probably most of us, right?More on this to come.

 

 

Right. I am extremely self concious that I still haven't managed to tell you how to meditate. Onto the next post!

[Billhook]

Everyone on this thread "seems" to me to be a different individual, with a series of insights and thoughts that I do not think that I could have conceived.

So because you all "seem" to be different selves. why should I not be one too?

[Rough Hewn]

Everyone on this thread "seems" to me to be a different individual, with a series of insights and thoughts that I do not think that I could have conceived.
So because you all "seem" to be different selves. why should I not be one too?

I'm not.
[emoji12]

[Stubby]

Im gonna get my Mum to knit me a different self .

[the village idiot]

3 hours ago, Billhook said:

Everyone on this thread "seems" to me to be a different individual, with a series of insights and thoughts that I do not think that I could have conceived.

So because you all "seem" to be different selves. why should I not be one too?

Have you watched the Sam Harris video on the Brit Girls thread?

 

There is no contention that you are an individual Billhook. You have a body, a brain and mental processes that absolutely make you an independant individual distinct from everybody else. There is no suggestion that any of these are not real.

 

The argument is that the sense of self, or you can call it the ego or a 'thinker of thoughts', is an illusion, a construct developed in early childhood and constantly reinforced throughout life. It might be easier to think of it in terms of the feeling of being a 'me' riding around in the head, pulling the strings, is real but not true.

 

The illusion is incredibly persistant and pretty much everybody (me included) live life in it's thrall pretty much all of the time. It is our default state and it can be very helpful. What this particular thread is going to be about is showing ways to demonstate that it is an illusion that can be broken through if desired, and that the benefits that can be had from having this insight and ability are life changing.

 

Without wanting to desend into a political discussion, many of the dangers of over identification with the ego are clearly demonstrated in the current American president. Imagine if he realised that, but for the false narrative of himself that he has attached to in his head, he is essentially (biologically) on a par with every other human being on the planet. Yes, his ego got him into holding the most powerful post in the world, but I strongly suspect that if he now started a dedicated meditation practice and became more mindful, then by the end of his tenure, he would be remembered by the world as perhaps the greatest all round president America has ever had. Whatever your thoughts on Trump, I think it is pretty clear that the vast majority of the world's population do not think this scenario at all likely at present.

 

Perhaps we can leave that thought as 'just my opinion'. I don't want to distract too much from the purpose of this thread. I was just using it as an example of what I believe the benefits of mindful meditation could bring.

[the village idiot]

14 minutes ago, Stubby said:

Im gonna get my Mum to knit me a different self .

She played a very big role in knitting together your current sense of self Stubby, so why not?