Professor: Eleanor H. Rosch
Lecture 1:
Buddist psychology – looking at the mind from the point of view of someone who has a mind.
Psychology – looking at mind from 3rd person point of view.
Direct experience – knowing what is going on with you. • Alienated from direct experience by personal judgments.
3 major forms of Buddhism in the world:
- Teribata – speech of the elders
- Mahariana – great vehicle – china, vietnam
- Diamond vehicle – japan, china, tiabet
- Perhaps a 4th form: Shabala – incorporate wisdom of buddism. Incorporate other features from world. Say individual dev and enlighted society needed to happen at the same time.
Buddhism started in india. Earliest form spread to lower eastern asia.
3 yana approach: way of teaching. • Dev of historical mind (see what earlier buddist ppl saw). Each buddism form builds upon each other. • Like a fetus going through evolutionary stages.
Gave out a few short readings in different voices. Many articles, trying to get students to feel a connection with an article.
After death – nirvana. Don’t specify what nirvana is.
Legend in which man finds meaning of words. He doesn’t know meaning of words but thought he did. Went on a quest to find the meaning.
Buddism class does not interfere with other religions.
- Takes time for material to soak in.
Scientism – think science is right, set in stone, unchanging. An obstacle for buddism class, don’t try to analyze how buddism topics fit with other topics.
Kids come for an experiment. Some told will get a treat if good job, others not told anything. Kids later brought in and those who were in treat condition did not want to draw, while those told nothing still wanted to draw.
Ask self – what is my mind doing right now and is that true?
Lecture 2: summarized
Life of buddha. Some evidence that buddha was a real person in existence.
16 000 yrs ago. Indigenous ppl who may have done some meditating. Archealogists found evidence of shiela. Warrior tribe arose in germany. Had good tech, smelted copper. Made chariots very fast. Spread over much of europe. Himilaya, hindu, india. Conquered local ppl and then settled down. Became farmers and such. Develop castes in india. Religious organization of ppl. Kings, administrators, untouchable doing religiously dirty work. Iron smelting came into existence. Improved quality of life, created more leisure time, created more arts and such. Made more weapons, kingdoms became slightly larger. Made possible collection of taxes, created courts. Helped culture dev. Travel increased. Communication improved. Boats improved. Trade increased. Greeks and Phoenicians trading. War tribe had sky gods as their religion. Similar to greek. Greek religion due to war tribe. Bramans – kept religion in order, sang hyms to sky god while drinking substance. Many rival religious views. Many religions came into being and many faded. Buddha born around this time. He was suppose to be a son of a king. (In myths, most protagonists are suppose to be kings/princes/princesses or woodcutter/beggars.)
Little buddha was visited by a sage who prophasized something. Prophecy – either a religious leader or a universal monarch. • No families want their kids to be a religious leader, no family saves for that. King tried to keep everything at the palace perfect to try to make son monarch. Son very good at most things he does. Ppl like him, kept entertained.
Buddha falls in love with chief administrators daughter. They get married. Buddha had perfect life, but was not satisfied. Remained in palace grounds for all this time. King finally agrees, orders that city outside palace be cleaned up and made perfect. Day comes for buddha to go out, ppl are suppose to be in their best dress and throwing flowers.
In some versions of story, gods provide him with 3 visions. Other versions – can’t clean up human life so much. First thing buddha sees is sick man. Chariot driver explains to buddha what is wrong with the man and that everyone can get sick. Next thing – old lady. Chariot drivers explains that buddha will get old and so will evyone else. Finally, buddha sees a dead person be carried through streets. Buddha asks chariot driver and receives a similar answer.
Some versions, he sees a vision of a monk walking peacefully. Monk seems to be not part of whole thing.
Buddha goes back to palace and is disturbed. He leaves palace and studies with religious teacher. In each version, he attains what he was suppose. None of the religions worked for him. Does some meditation.
Evy religion says others are making mistakes.
Buddhism says that 2 types of meditation.
- 1 type is where you enter a state of ignorance about the quality of the world. Ignore problems, but think above world.
- Other about sterity, great discipline, achieve great power.
Buddha has found evything dissatisfactory.
Psyc: 2 basic motivations: motives/action tendencies/attractor principles. • Approach – want something. (grasping in early buddism.) Scientist in the crib starts that way. Buddism says it doesn’t work. Wanting things is a someone adversive state. Getting something doesn’t make wanting go away, wanting changes to a different obj. • Avoidance – don’t want something (can be fighting). If flee, then doesn’t remove fear. Destroying something makes someone more aggressive. Trying to get better. • Third: ignoring things. Not officially a psyc motive. Not considered in folk psychology as well. Type of meditation, buddha found it not effective.
All 3 of those^ like a carrot in from of a donkey. Buddha saw that human suffering inevitable.
Buddha sat under a tree until he found an answer and the tradition started.
Some proof that too much choice can be bad for ppl.
Experiences go through phases, at first very novel, then novelty dies – elenor.
Sit still and feel like what it is to be you for 1 minute. Premeditation.
Other one is ‘what is my mind doing’.
Lecture 3: summarized
Meditation is not learning a new skill, it is discovering what is already there. Getting to know the mind that is already there. • Inclusive, not trying to fix things, trying to find everything there is to find. Everything your mind can do is included in this practice. • Cannot be done wrong. • Including (gently). Meditating is not a battle, if it is, then do it gently. Not too tight, not too lose.
Vipassana – classic, basic mindfulness. • Polyword, language spoken by terivata. Language of text. Derivative of indian. Means “inside, where clear seeing.” Be presence in experience where they occur in a nonjudgmental fashion. Not related to conceptual mechanisms, different from attention. • The meaning of mindfulness changes as buddism changes.
Post colonial revival in south east asia. Initially conquerors disliked buddism and banned it. When colonialism officially ended, buddism came back into popularity. Ppl tried reading the different scripts and thinking back to grandparent techniques.
America found: Body scan – Mahasi technique – (from east bay)
Parts of meditation: • Shamata – peace. When you let mind, mind will naturally come to peace with contents, despite emotions. Clarity, insight/wisdom. • Traditionally with eyes close. • Try to sit as straight as possible, feet flat on floor (helps with grounding you). • Breathing – simple, reliability. Constant obj of attention. ◦ Trying to focus attention right where breath leaves nostrils. Ex. guard at gate, mule train leaving, then mule train entering, but guard does not move position. Ex. carpenter moving hand saw, if focus on spot where saw sawing through wood, saw remains straight. Shouldn’t focus on movement of saw.
Or can try:
- paying attention to breath by diaphragm.
Can imagine physically wherever.
Mind often tries to do other things, like thinking. The mind if like waves, doesn’t just lie there. When attention is lost, turn attention to distraction. Label distraction, if it helps, as what it is (“worring”, “hearing”, “remembering”, “planning”, repeated thoughts; “that one”.) Keep noticing it until it stops coming or changes. Then return to breathing. Don’t worry too much about label name. • Don’t have to label if it is confusing. It’s a way of seeing what mind is doing. Settles world down.
Student commented that he noticed he labels a lot throughout his day, noticed due to meditation. • Not emotional labeling, simply detached labeling.
Breath is thought of as chi in chinese. Prana in indian. • Meditation practice is to be as simple as possible. Trying not to think of energy component of breath. Maybe don’t want to focus on energy. Can be very individual about meditation choices. Each person can have own way of being mindful.
If sleepy, get sleep.
If itch, can try to repeatedly notice itching. If too much, scratch it.
Not trying to analyze thoughts or suppress thoughts.
Lecture 8:
Samsara: cycle of birth, death, rebirth.
Know found cause if can do something and something will change.
Macro approach to karma: • Causality across life times. Affects future lives.
Micro karma: • Causation moment to moment. About habits. • Can see it during the same life time.
James herbrington, conversation with a lemming: • He meets a lemming, who made a life long study of ppl. Lemming says the same thing. • He doesn’t understand why lemmings drown themself. The lemming doesn’t understand why humans don’t drown themselves.
Karma is not: • Faith • Being reborn into the same life
Ant analogy: can watch ant move and can see where the pathway goes. Ant does not see where own path goes.
Karma – one event causes x, which causes y, which causes q etc. • Gives random events meaning. Esp negative event. ◦ Can think of it as past self, ex self yesterday.
Wheel of samsara: the wheel with the realms.
Outer circle of the samsara: (about habits/karma)
Behavorism karma relation: rats press bar to get food, when receive shock, will temporarily stop pressing, but occasionally will try to press bar again.
Behav has to occur without the next steps occuring, in order to break habbit.
Consciousness means realms, born into consciousness.
6th sense is contacting mind and emotions.
There is a point where you can notice things before you usually notice things.
Lecture 9:
Summary of Early Buddhism (last lecture on early buddhism)
Can try to meditate with group, aura emitted by group may help.
Buddha didn’t know whether or not to teach. Some ppl he had economic issues with came to buddha to settle their score. The credit sharks came to him and as they approached they were wondered by his aura and asked him to teach them what he learnt. (They wanted money as they were initially coming, then changed their mind). • Hindi version where hindi gods came to buddha and told him to teach.
First teaching by Buddha – Dukkha (noble truths)
No getting past suffering. Can get through it, but must suffer at some time.
Eleanor has a story about an alcoholic student: after breaking up with his gf due to domestic violence, he attended one this very class long ago. Was in bad mood. As the lecture proceeded, he started feeling better. He was impressed by how the class was about suffering. (He sent eleanor his novel, which was never published). He was improving his life a bit before attending class, but class may have helped.
Noble truths:
1st noble truth Suffering: • Suffering of suffering (gross suffering – when something you don’t want happens. Getting sick, growing older, being too old. • Suffering of change – Get something you want, anxiety over it ending soon, get bored. Get something you want, but not satisfied. Worried about losing something. Taking things for granted. (similar to how buddha left his castle). Getting a raise, but having all your colleagues getting a bigger raise. When set points go up, they are hard pressed to go down. Mourning. In rats, get most pleasure just before getting food. • All pervasive suffering – general anxiety. ◦ In sri lanka – buddhist are never clinically depressed. Always just say ‘ahh, dukkha’. Don’t blame source of problem or themselves. ◦ If you can’t get out of it, get into it.
Lottery winner’s are happiest when they find out they won.
2nd noble truth – cause of suffering: ◦ Early Buddhism thought of suffering as disease. ▪ Symptoms ▪ Cause
3rd noble truth – cessation of suffering: • Laughing can be an end to suffering. Called release. • If disease, it is curable and suffering not continuous.
4th noble truth – peace: (more so in late buddhism) • Using good karma to get more karma. • Squeezing pencil hard tenses mind and body, but muscle mind tension not part of you. • In early buddhism – if let go enough, then reach final goal of getting to nirvana. ◦ Nirvana translated means extinctions. Not necessarily extinction in a bad way.
Darhma wheel (grasping wheel vs letting go wheel)
Sitting on chairs causes back pain. Sitting on floor is bettr.
Man shot with poison arrow. He wouldn’t allow surgeon to operate on him (save him) until he knew the answer to random questions. Like a person who doesn’t want to be buddhist until they know there is a nirvana.
In center of wheel of life: • Rooster – greed • Snake – hate • Pig – ignorance
Lecture 10: Western view
In west: there is something called meditation in general. Doesn’t differentiate between practices.
Experiment: data collection and results.
Basic research: what is meditation, what explains it all?
Western health: • Many people meditate for health reasons in west. Many insurance programs have some coverage for meditation (but not prayer). • Difficult to distinguish between physical health and psychological health. • Started in 1960s. ▪ Initially 1 practice (uses mantra) ▪ Someone disagreed and thought benefits were simply due to being relaxed. ◦ Both of those later disappeared. • 1970s: ◦ John Cabotson: made 8 week program that on consisted of various meditations ▪ Breathing ▪ Body scan ▪ Yoga poses ▪ Told to have a nonjudging attitude ▪ Lectures about stress, poetry readings, group discussion and report, homework ◦ A person thought benefits due to separating pain from judgments. ◦ Another method is to focus on pain til it turns into sensation. (works for severe pain). ◦ 15 – 25% suffer from clinical anxiety in west. ▪ Measure of anxiety: hamilton stress scale. ▪ Vaccine shots less effective if stressed, effects don’t last as long.
Oganiga practice: some guy could stop his heart via meditation.
Can only teach mindfulness if the teacher knows how, can’t simply read instructions on it (like reading how to swim).
Can tell with brain scans if a person is focusing on breath or wandering mind. However, different for each person, each brain scan is unique. Even if method is being done correctly.
State inbetween emotion and logic that can be used to cure borderline personality disorders.
Vows – kinda make a person forgot states that will cause them to impede vow.
Left hemisphere activation predicts good mood and optimism.
In eleanor – getting ppl in human realm is a way to help clinically.
Most research is about explaining meditation. Less is about trying to see what it’s like to be a person.
To tell if a person is being mindful, can use a scale, however not exactly accurate. Deal more with being spaced out rather than buddhist definition.