my presentation at the recent Science and NonDuality Conference (SAND) in San Jose, CA, was "Myths About NonDuality and Science". Here it is...
Myth 1 - Relying on ancient religious teachings and practices is necessary.
In grad school for my Ph.D., an "insight" manifested where i saw that my suffering was caused by the endless, internal, self-referential, "blah, blah". Not even knowing if it was possible, i set out to stop this.
As an empirical physical scientist, the process focused on reducing those thoughts by DIY-ing it, using any source available from folk alive "today", to provide the experiments. No philosophy or religion was used and the result had to be functional and lasting, not just an experience.
Research has been published on just how much folks dislike this "blah, blah". ("Electric shocks rather than 'blah, blah'...new research") Being "alone w/your thoughts" for 6 to 15 minutes was strongly disliked by 146 college students in a lab, 44 students at home, and 66 farmers and church goers. Then 55 students who hated electric shocks were given a device to give themselves a strong electric shock for distraction...2/3 of the men, and 1/4 of the women did so. (Women are smarter.)
The practices used to stop this "blah, blah", came from a 14th century Japanese Zen master, Bassui, and the 20th century sage, Ramana Maharshi, my main teacher. One simply asks questions to understand what the I/self is and if it is the body, senses, etc. This is called, not surprisingly, self-inquiry.
After many hours of self-inquiry and yoga, the I/self fell away as did the self-referential thoughts, fears, emotions, stories, and the strong beliefs in free will and being in control.
Functioning in complex jobs improved. A deep, sweet Stillness remains after 17 years over 90% of the time interrupted only by great tiredness or low blood sugar.
Myth 2 - Having "no self-referential thoughts" is not necessary for nonduality.
"No thoughts" is defined by many well-known sources as why we do meditation, including Ramana, Nisargadatta, Zen masters, the texts of Daoism/Taoism, yoga, and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as by a leading ayahuasca shaman.
Myth 3 - You don't need to practice...you're already "enlightened".
A pervasive myth is that you don't need to practice to awaken, which is popular as it is what folk want to believe. Many who say this, actually did extensive practices themselves.
Recent Harvard research demonstrated that two months of meditation produced major changes in 5 brain regions. A monkey's neural face map changes every week.
Much research demonstrated that about 10,000 hrs of practice is required to "master" any complex skill. However, how you practice, and genetics and environment are important in reaching mastery and whether you continue to improve after that.
Myth 4 - Mystical experiences are a mystery.
Mystical experiences manifest over a broad range of activities. Newberg's and d'Aquilli's research demonstrated that the key was to make both the "arousal" and "quiescent" systems, that normally alternate, operate simultaneously. This shuts down the input to temporal and parietal centers in the Default Mode Network (DMN) which generates our sense of space, time and I/me/my, creating the mystical experiences of "now, now, now" and "All is One".
Four different states arise from this process. As a distance runner, the "runners high" often manifested. Zen taught me to sit very still for long periods. Coupled w/self-inquiry, after sitting about 35 minutes, the "Hyperquiescence w/arousal breakthrough" state arose w/a "dopamine high". "Addiction" to meditation followed. ("How the changing brain turns our pleasures into addictions...")
How can we tell if these experiences are "mystical" or "psychotic"? Newberg and d'Aquili gave three differentiators: 1) how experiences are described, 2) how we feel after this break from reality, and 3) what meaning is attached to them.
As shown @ left, there are significant differences. These are useful, but if you are seriously non-functional, unable to care for your kids, work, etc., see a psychologist.
Myth 5 - A spiritual path needs levels, titles and an end point.
Many teachers prescribe precise, fixed practices, levels of achievement, and a discrete end point. However, if you look at the factors that can affect one's spiritual awakening, one path just can't fit everyone.
It is also inconceivable that the synaptic interconnections involved in awakening, from the 50,000,000,000,000 that we have, would reorder in the same sequence for everyone.
Myth 6 - Psychedelics can produce persistent nonduality.
As described earlier, the DMN is widely-accepted as producing selfing/I-ing, "self-in-time" and "self-and-other". If either of the two (yellow) core centers, the posterior cingulate cortex/PCC and amPFC, are deactivated, then the whole network deactivates, selfing stops, and "All is One" and "now, now, now" manifest.
The study on 10,000 hr meditators (which i was heavily involved in) demonstrated that such folk can deactivate the PCC during meditation, which is what occurs during any "engaged tasking" activity as a different neural (tasking) network displaces the DMN. However, "doing nothing" between meditation/tasking runs, control network centers kept the DMN shut down. This is my normal, natural state.
A recent version of these interacting "default mode", "control" and "tasking" networks, incorporating other large studies, demonstrates how interconnected they are.
Magic mushrooms/psilocybin produce the same shutdown of the PCC. The PCC deactivates as soon as the psilocybin infusion begins and "extremely intense effects" manifest as you may have heard.
The same PCC and mPFC shutdown occurs with ayahuasca.
Persistently non-dual folk, including "me", demonstrated that the same Hood Mysticism scale works for psychedelics, meditators, and persistent nondual folk. Nine of us scored at the highest level, 160, and we are that way most of the time.
However, psychedelics can't make you persistently nondual. As long as external chemicals are used providing only a passing experience, the brain won't learn how to do it "all by itself", naturally.
Myth 7 - Nonduality is a psychotic state.
The new "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)" used by psychologists and psychiatrists to diagnose (and get paid for) basically describes nonduality as "depersonalization disorder (DDPD)". If one compares the Hood Mysticism Scale with the DSM-5 description of DDPD, they are mirror images.
However, as the chairman of the DSM-5 committee states, the new manual has many "high prevalence diagnoses at the fuzzy boundary with normality" to the benefit of drug companies and his peers.
There is clearly a "conflict of interest"...it is foolish to identify all mystics, now and historically, as psychotics.
Myth 8 - If there's no "I", you won't be compassionate.
What religions call "compassion", is basically reciprocal altruism, which is "i'll do something for you, but i expect something in return". This produces strong co-operation for mutual benefit, which evolved, Darwinianly, to strengthen our hierarchical, co-operative functioning that our species has used to dominate/destroy the planet.
However, this "WIIFM" (what's in it for me) trading strengthens the ego/I, the very thing being deconstructed in nondual awakening, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama points out.
IME, a deeper and more useful "compassion" w/o agenda, can arise from the "now, now, now" and "All is One" of nonduality.
Myth 1 - Relying on ancient religious teachings and practices is necessary.
In grad school for my Ph.D., an "insight" manifested where i saw that my suffering was caused by the endless, internal, self-referential, "blah, blah". Not even knowing if it was possible, i set out to stop this.
As an empirical physical scientist, the process focused on reducing those thoughts by DIY-ing it, using any source available from folk alive "today", to provide the experiments. No philosophy or religion was used and the result had to be functional and lasting, not just an experience.
Research has been published on just how much folks dislike this "blah, blah". ("Electric shocks rather than 'blah, blah'...new research") Being "alone w/your thoughts" for 6 to 15 minutes was strongly disliked by 146 college students in a lab, 44 students at home, and 66 farmers and church goers. Then 55 students who hated electric shocks were given a device to give themselves a strong electric shock for distraction...2/3 of the men, and 1/4 of the women did so. (Women are smarter.)
The practices used to stop this "blah, blah", came from a 14th century Japanese Zen master, Bassui, and the 20th century sage, Ramana Maharshi, my main teacher. One simply asks questions to understand what the I/self is and if it is the body, senses, etc. This is called, not surprisingly, self-inquiry.
After many hours of self-inquiry and yoga, the I/self fell away as did the self-referential thoughts, fears, emotions, stories, and the strong beliefs in free will and being in control.
Functioning in complex jobs improved. A deep, sweet Stillness remains after 17 years over 90% of the time interrupted only by great tiredness or low blood sugar.
Myth 2 - Having "no self-referential thoughts" is not necessary for nonduality.
"No thoughts" is defined by many well-known sources as why we do meditation, including Ramana, Nisargadatta, Zen masters, the texts of Daoism/Taoism, yoga, and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as by a leading ayahuasca shaman.
Myth 3 - You don't need to practice...you're already "enlightened".
A pervasive myth is that you don't need to practice to awaken, which is popular as it is what folk want to believe. Many who say this, actually did extensive practices themselves.
Recent Harvard research demonstrated that two months of meditation produced major changes in 5 brain regions. A monkey's neural face map changes every week.
Much research demonstrated that about 10,000 hrs of practice is required to "master" any complex skill. However, how you practice, and genetics and environment are important in reaching mastery and whether you continue to improve after that.
Myth 4 - Mystical experiences are a mystery.
Mystical experiences manifest over a broad range of activities. Newberg's and d'Aquilli's research demonstrated that the key was to make both the "arousal" and "quiescent" systems, that normally alternate, operate simultaneously. This shuts down the input to temporal and parietal centers in the Default Mode Network (DMN) which generates our sense of space, time and I/me/my, creating the mystical experiences of "now, now, now" and "All is One".
Four different states arise from this process. As a distance runner, the "runners high" often manifested. Zen taught me to sit very still for long periods. Coupled w/self-inquiry, after sitting about 35 minutes, the "Hyperquiescence w/arousal breakthrough" state arose w/a "dopamine high". "Addiction" to meditation followed. ("How the changing brain turns our pleasures into addictions...")
How can we tell if these experiences are "mystical" or "psychotic"? Newberg and d'Aquili gave three differentiators: 1) how experiences are described, 2) how we feel after this break from reality, and 3) what meaning is attached to them.
As shown @ left, there are significant differences. These are useful, but if you are seriously non-functional, unable to care for your kids, work, etc., see a psychologist.
Myth 5 - A spiritual path needs levels, titles and an end point.
Many teachers prescribe precise, fixed practices, levels of achievement, and a discrete end point. However, if you look at the factors that can affect one's spiritual awakening, one path just can't fit everyone.
It is also inconceivable that the synaptic interconnections involved in awakening, from the 50,000,000,000,000 that we have, would reorder in the same sequence for everyone.
Myth 6 - Psychedelics can produce persistent nonduality.
As described earlier, the DMN is widely-accepted as producing selfing/I-ing, "self-in-time" and "self-and-other". If either of the two (yellow) core centers, the posterior cingulate cortex/PCC and amPFC, are deactivated, then the whole network deactivates, selfing stops, and "All is One" and "now, now, now" manifest.
The study on 10,000 hr meditators (which i was heavily involved in) demonstrated that such folk can deactivate the PCC during meditation, which is what occurs during any "engaged tasking" activity as a different neural (tasking) network displaces the DMN. However, "doing nothing" between meditation/tasking runs, control network centers kept the DMN shut down. This is my normal, natural state.
A recent version of these interacting "default mode", "control" and "tasking" networks, incorporating other large studies, demonstrates how interconnected they are.
Magic mushrooms/psilocybin produce the same shutdown of the PCC. The PCC deactivates as soon as the psilocybin infusion begins and "extremely intense effects" manifest as you may have heard.
The same PCC and mPFC shutdown occurs with ayahuasca.
Persistently non-dual folk, including "me", demonstrated that the same Hood Mysticism scale works for psychedelics, meditators, and persistent nondual folk. Nine of us scored at the highest level, 160, and we are that way most of the time.
However, psychedelics can't make you persistently nondual. As long as external chemicals are used providing only a passing experience, the brain won't learn how to do it "all by itself", naturally.
Myth 7 - Nonduality is a psychotic state.
However, as the chairman of the DSM-5 committee states, the new manual has many "high prevalence diagnoses at the fuzzy boundary with normality" to the benefit of drug companies and his peers.
There is clearly a "conflict of interest"...it is foolish to identify all mystics, now and historically, as psychotics.
Myth 8 - If there's no "I", you won't be compassionate.
What religions call "compassion", is basically reciprocal altruism, which is "i'll do something for you, but i expect something in return". This produces strong co-operation for mutual benefit, which evolved, Darwinianly, to strengthen our hierarchical, co-operative functioning that our species has used to dominate/destroy the planet.
However, this "WIIFM" (what's in it for me) trading strengthens the ego/I, the very thing being deconstructed in nondual awakening, as His Holiness the Dalai Lama points out.
IME, a deeper and more useful "compassion" w/o agenda, can arise from the "now, now, now" and "All is One" of nonduality.
Right on the money as usual Gary. All of this fits in with my experience/path. Personally, it was my delving deeply into the thought free state that led to my awakening. Essentially my practice was, when I remembered, to find the thought-free state and remain there as long as I could. Repeat as necessary. That's it.
ReplyDeleteHi Roy. Great that you found it useful. It's "all about having no thoughts" as the ayahuasca shaman said. stillness
DeleteHi Gary, Regarding myth 4: Are you saying that all states are explainable? They may have a physical correlate in the brain but are you saying nothing is a mystery? To say that mystical states are not a mystery is to at some level also say that there isn't anything that is a mystery. Are you saying that? Thanks, William
DeleteHi Gary, Always appreciate absorbing the material. I'm grateful these teachings are grounded, practical, and empirically supported. It gives "spirituality" a truly solid foundation. The one mystery for me is from where does motivation arise? I know a quiet mind is more easily maintained if I've meditated in the morning before taking out the dog. And yet, getting up and doing it seems to go in cycles of very good discipline to "so so" discipline, seemingly irrespective of "me".
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the good work.
Hi Guillaume, Always great to hear from you. Yes, it is a great question "where does motivation arise?", to which there is no real answer beyond "it just does, or it doesn't". No one has found a way to create in folk the sincere, deep passion to get rid of their suffering.
DeleteIME, it appears to have a lot to do w/how much they have suffered before and are suffering now. If folk are relatively comfortable and have many attachments they enjoy, and are not really suffering that much, then "motivation" for spiritual practice will be low.
If they have suffered a great deal in the past, and are still, then they are strongly motivated to end it...which was my case. If they have suffering like "their hair is on fire", or like they are being held under water, then it is highly likely they will be strongly motivated to eliminate their suffering and will be successful.
Folk have asked me if they can construct "enough" suffering themselves to give them the motivation, and the answer is "no". If you construct it "yourself", the ego/I is deciding what will be done so it will be a carefully managed process...that isn't suffering. The ego/I has no interest in this process of self-inquiry moving forward and so will do all that it can to slow, or derail it.
Ultimately, whether one has motivation or not, is really out of your control.
stillness
Things deconstructed here in 1999 and am still residing in that thought free reality of advaita.
DeleteHere what remains is simply being in the moment. I would be happy to volunteer for research.
Hi Ganga,
DeleteAs the Universe/She danced it, i was in the first serious, credible, fMRI, peer-reviewed study on experienced (10,000 hrs +/-) meditators at Yale. There were 100 folk in the study which is a good population size. The uniqueness of "my" state is described in article "The Neuroscience of Suffering and Its End" in Psychology Tomorrow and in the recent non-fiction best-seller, "Why Buddhism Is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment".
Virtually all of the current meditation studies and research dollars are focused on "mindfulness", and the claimed results are increasingly being questioned as heavily biased with poor/no controls, small selected populations, etc. This is detailed in the blogposts "mindfulness meditation - religious vs secular - does it work? - new research" and "mindfulness works for women, but not for men?...new research".
There is little interest in this persistent nondual state at major research universities, as a) it requires developing a new protocol that must be approved by a University internal review board, b) there is no way to establish a baseline to compare meditating to not meditating as the state is continuous, c) it is not a frequent occurrence so a statistically significant study can't be conducted and d) funding is not available.
There are "entrepreneurial" folk with false and weak credentials with their programs to sell to "classify" your nondual state and train you. However, the cognitive neuroscience being used is bogus, there are no controls or credible impartial third-party peer review and no work published in a major journal.
It is unlikely that you will be able to find a peer-reviewed, careful publishable study done at a credible institution that is interested in looking at your state.
Given this situation, there are many folk currently claiming they have "stopped their thoughts", or reached "nonduality", knowing there is no currently accessible technology to refute their claims. All of these folk are afraid to be in a research study, so your willingness is a great sign of your authenticity.
The real-time fMRI work @ Yale was very telling and accurate, to some folks' dismay. Within 10 minutes you can tell if someone is, or isn't, persistently nondual.
However, there is a lot of work in wearable, affordable devices like the "Muse" headset, which may ultimately be replaced with ones with more sensors and the ability to monitor the key neural centers involved in shutting down the default mode network and "blah, blah", so anyone can monitor their own state.
It's not an idea situation, but that is what it is currently.
stillness
gary
Good summary of what you've been saying and extending these last few years.
ReplyDeleteI'm always amazed by how inefficient this process is - I'm still working away after all these years - with occasional shuffles in the right direction ;-)
Let's hope the science part of this eventually makes choosing the path easier, or makes the work more effective.
As usual my thanks and best wishes. John.
Hi JohnD,
DeleteThe process is only as efficient as one's desire to pursue it, and willingness to put in the work, day in and day out, and persevere, persevere, persevere.
IME, it was necessary to do two hours/day, every day of self-inquiry and yoga and to put it into my workday any place i could. If i could get away for a retreat, and spend more hours/day on it, i did so, although w/my busy professional and family life that was not that frequent. It took me about 20,000 hrs to do it, although i had no idea what i was doing most of the time, had no real coach, and wasted a lot of effort, so it took a lot longer. Scientific understanding of what happens in meditation was years in the future.
If you read the blogposts on "Dialogues w/Dominic", you'll see that he was successful w/about 1000 hrs of practice, about 30 minutes per day of meditation and putting it into his workday. he had previously done about 2 years of less intensive meditation practice. we worked together closely on e-mail for a year or so before the big shifts happened and it has continued to deepen.
It does appear as if we are getting better and better at it as the neuroscience develops and we understand and share our "best practices" with others.
stillness
Love this very clear article and how you've synthesized the research and your experience. It's a great roadmap to untangle the mess in the ego/mind. Step by step, it's dropping away. As deeper knots are unveiled and release the quiescence comes faster and for longer periods of time. I'm amazed at the rate the arising and falling away of the past is happening and how powerful the practices are - giving me the strength to just let things fall away into the silence without attaching to much. Thank you for your persistence and big heart, Laura
ReplyDeleteHi Laura,
ReplyDeleteGreat that you are finding the work so "powerful". The unveiling and releasing of those "deeper" knots is coming faster and faster due to your great diligence, strength and courage in moving into, investigating and then surrendering them and then letting them fall away into the silence.
It has been great working together.
stillness
Gary; just one question; are you saying that 'no thought' is, or is not indicative (proof) of a stable non-D condition? As always, thank you.
ReplyDeleteHi Amaryllis. As described in the post, persistent "no thoughts" is why we do meditation, in virtually all of the "awakening" traditions and is the clearest, most unequivocal and most immediate demonstration that there is no "I".
DeleteIt is important to also understand what "no thoughts" really means in this context...these are "self referential" thoughts which are typically tied to "episodic" memories and are the "problematic" ones and operate through the default mode/"blah, blah" network.
The "problem solving and planning thoughts" are not "self-referential", not problematic and operate through the tasking neural network. They have a totally different energy and feel to them. Amazingly, the brain is capable of differentiating between these two types, almost "surgically", allowing the later but eliminating the former.
There are also "thoughts" that operate "off line" to solve complex problems, etc. we are not conscious of them, but it is useful to recognize these so folk don't get get confused on how difficult problems get solved.
The video "What 'no thoughts' means - 3 different kinds of 'thoughts'" @ https://youtu.be/WnWxCgiZfrc discusses this.
It is also fundamentally important to realize that this is all about eliminating our suffering, and then living naturally, w/o any effort, in the sweet bliss of stillness experiencing happiness w/o a cause. The thoughts are a great indicator of our progress along the way.
stillness
Very Interesting Gary. Thank you for sharing with us.
ReplyDeleteYou are a clear voice of experience and reason among the noise.
All the Best!
Hi Jules,
DeleteGreat that you are finding the work interesting and useful. Tks for the feedback.
stillness
Thanks so much, Gary. Your presentations and findings continue to demystify the mechanisms behind meditation and spiritual awakenings. After 30+ years of trying to wrap my arms around it, your empirical approach has helped remove much confusion for me.
ReplyDeleteI recently heard someone say in a public presentation that the DMN rotates between assessing the external and internal world (e.g., outside and inside the body) about every 15 seconds. Is that true? If so, when the DMN goes off line, does that result in a sense of spacial equilibrium between inner/outer and therefore lead to a sense of oneness? And would the lack of rotation result in temporal equilibrium and therefore lead to a sense of nowness?
Thanks,
Phil C.
Hi Phil C.,
DeleteGreat that the neuroscience work has been useful for you. It has been enormously useful for me as well as it made so much of what was going on in "this consciousness" have some real scientific basis. The "understanding" made a great difference to the way in which the brain works w/the experiences, at least it feels that way.
i have also heard the internal/external world DMN switching story, but have not seen any peer reviewed papers that validate it. Obviously, it really doesn't feel that way, IME, as the research studies i've been in have shown that "my" DMN is deactivated, naturally, the vast majority of the time.
In many of my presentations, including the recent video, "The End of Suffering and the Default Mode Network", as well as this blogpost, i go through how two different sub-networks of the DMN generate the sense of "self and other" and "self in time". Deactivation of the PCC, one core center of the DMN, by meditation, ayahuasca and magic mushrooms/psilocybin, shuts down these two sub-networks and generates the classical mystical experiences of "All is One" and "now, now, now".
Trust this is useful.
stillness
gary
At the 39:50 minute mark of your "Myths about Nonduality and Science" talk on youtube (during the the "Does depersonalization disorder = nonduality?" slide) you mentioned that some lady lists 20 characteristics of depersonalization disorder and then you took the Hood mystical scale and listed 20 things and they were the same list.
ReplyDeleteDo you have this list of 20 characteristics available somewhere?
Hi Anonymous,
DeleteThe blogpost that covers this depersonalization disorder/nonduality topic is "Are our mystical experiences psychotic? Key indicators" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2015/09/are-our-mystical-experiences.html
It is the Steinberg Depersonalization test which you can find @ http://strangerinthemirror.com/questionnaire.html. There are actually 15 (i couldn't recall the exact number during the presentation) that would apply and one of those, # 6, on "cutting" is clearly not part of the Hood Mysticism scale.
The blogpost "Seeing everything as 'One'? What is 'mystical'? What is really 'real' - the science" @ http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/2012/07/seeing-everything-as-one-what-is.html discusses the Hood scale elements. The actual questions used are in the link "doctoral thesis" in that post which will take you to Jeffery Martin's Ph.D. thesis @ the California Institute for Integral Studies.
The questions Jeffery used are on p. 147. If you take out the "never" questions which, as i recall, were added by Jeffery and were not used in the final analysis, you get 15 there.
FYI, i was participant M8.
stillness
gary