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A New Approach to the Khandhas – How We Experience the World
26 Feb
‘What is this world condition?
Body is the world condition.
And with body and form go feeling, perception, consciousness, and all the activities throughout the world.
The arising of form and the ceasing of form – everything that has been heard, sensed, and known, sought after and reached by the mind – all this is the embodied world, to be penetrated and realized.’ Samyutta Nikaya
‘The ‘world’ of experience is not given in experience: it is constructed by thought from the data of sense.’I. Lewis1
For us to understand the profundity of the Buddha’s teachings, we must first turn to an examination of the khandhas. According to the Wisdom Library2, the khandhas (Pali) (Sanskrit: skandhas) or Five Aggregates are the five components of a being which come together at birth and separate at death:
(1) Matter or form (rupa) – external and internal matter. Externally, rupa is the physical world. Internally, rupa includes the material body and the physical sense organs, i.e. eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body;
(2) Sensation or feeling (vedana) – the feeling in reception of physical things by the senses through the mind;
(3) Perception and/or cognition (sanna) – the functioning of mind in distinguishing appearances;
(4) Volition or mental formation (sankara) – habitual action, i.e. a conditioned response to the object of experience, whether it is good or evil, whether you like or dislike it;
(5) Consciousness (vinnana) – the mental faculty engaged in perception, cognition, and experience.
Figure 2
The Traditional Interpretation of Khandha
Khandha is most frequently translated into English as ‘aggregate.’ Before the Buddha’s particular use of the word, the word khandha had very common meanings: a khandha could be a pile, a bundle, a heap, a mass. Inaccurately, this image of a ‘pile’ has continued to be used in describing the Buddha’s use of the word. For example, as Thanissaro Bhikkhu traditionally uses the term, ‘The five khandhas are bundles or piles of form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness. […] The common and explicit image is of the khandhas as burdensome.’ (SN 22.22)3
Or as C.A.F. Rhys Davids wrote:
‘And the Khandhas stand exposed as the vehicles of pain and misery, and as “a burden” taken up ever again by craving ever-reborn – craving of sense-desires, craving for rebirth.’4
Extended Interpretation of Khandhas
Sue Hamilton, in her book Early Buddhism: A New Approach: The I of the Beholder, makes a significant extension of reference from the above traditional doctrine of the khandhas as five individual, separate, burdensome aggregates or ‘piles.’ She cogently argues that, in his first sermon and after, the Buddha always referred to the khandhas as a collective, unified unit, and only as a unified unit can one best understand the Buddha’s perspective regarding their function. In their collective function, the khandhas refer to the body as a living organism that provides the basis for our ability to know anything.
This important formulation of the khandhas as an integrated organic whole, highlights the reality that it isn’t possible for us to separate ourselves from our experience, nor is it possible to know anything other than by the khandhas. There is not only no separation between our self and our experience; there is also no separation between mind and body. The human ability to conceptualize relies on the sensory data that are filtered through the collective unit of khandhas. From this perspective, the khandhas are not a ‘burden’ and cannot be separated or jettisoned from our experience – nor should they be.
They are our experience. We know the world through the khandhas. The khandhas must be understood not as five separate ‘heaps’ of bodily material but as a cohesive, living physical apparatus, an apparatus whose main operating processes are centered on the survival of the organism and the functioning of our cognitions.
So we come to understand that our senses are not ‘windows on the world’ and what we see isn’t actually what’s out there but instead an ‘informed guess’. Our brain constructs a reality of the external world based on what evolution has developed as a capacity of cognitive construction of what we need to know for our survival.
Khandas as a Collective, Unified Unit
This crucial point of understanding the khandhas as a collective, unified, organic unit and not five separately functioning bases is similar to what Marek McGann explains as the enactive cognitive position regarding our cognitions.5 McGann notes that, while individual sensory organs may be vital, no perception depends on, or can be explained by, the input of a specific organ alone. All perception is inherently multi-modal. Modalities are not atomic in nature; rather, they are a product of a dynamic process which involves an embodied agent (with goals and sensitivities) and a world. Any aspect of a person’s awareness during a particular action will have to be described and interpreted in light of the rest of the system during that same activity. In other words, the khandhas, or body as a living organism, is an organization of interacting modalities.
With Hamilton’s extension of understanding, we analyze the khandhas as interacting modalities of a unified organization. This leads us to a very different analysis of the nexus of interactions of the khandhas, the cognitive apparatus through which we construct our ‘world,’ so it makes sense to us. Ultimately, instead of the traditional analysis focusing on the impermanence of each separate ‘heap’ or khandha as the root of suffering, we understand on a more radical and profound level that the sources of our suffering are the illusory cognitive constructions of ‘self’ and ‘world’ with their accompanying cravings. The result is that, with Enlightenment, one ceases to grasp at the object and subject of experience. Enlightenment results from insight into, and the dis-identification of, the thoughts and the conceptual constructions and projections that provide the foundation for our pre-enlightened cognitions. This dis-identification transforms our basic and mundane mode of cognition into ‘pure experience’ (emptiness), which is defined as non-conceptual and devoid of interpretive overlay. Much of this book explores the implications of this extended analysis.
The Explanatory Analysis of the Five
The five khandhas are the body, consciousness, sensations or feelings, apperception, and volitional activities. The body is significant as a khandha not as simply a ‘pile’ of matter, but as the living organism which is the origin of one’s ‘experience’ – the locus of the senses through which we experience the world. In Buddhism there are six senses of the body: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and ‘mind.’ While the first five are familiar to us, we usually do not consider mind a sixth sense. As Hamilton states, ‘[…] in the early Buddhist teachings (mind) is the faculty, or sense, which filters and collates all sensory data so it can actually make sense to us.’6 In the Buddha’s teachings, it is mind that mediates everything the other senses collect, that makes sense of the huge volume of information that arises with the interaction between our sense organs and sense datum. Mind is not a permanent substance; it is the ongoing process of conceptualization and emotion. Or, as neuroscientists J. A. Scott Kelso and David Engstrom put it, ‘The body is crucial to our experience of the world because it provides the sense organs through which the objective world is accessed by us and it has the organizing capacity of the mind that processes and constructs an understanding of that data. Organisms are not just pieces of matter; they are matter in motion – animate forms. […] Coordination dynamics (the study of how human beings and human brains – singly and together – coordinate behavior) has stressed the coevolution of real organisms coupled to and acting in real environments, a view captured in the term “embodied cognition.”’7
Our Bodies are Crucial
The body is thus crucial to our experience of the ‘world,’ since it provides us with the sense organs through which the ‘objective world’ is accessed by us. The input through our sense organs is then further processed by our sophisticated complex mental activities; these become our ‘experience’ or knowledge of the world. Experience which originates for us through our sense organs, then, is not simply sensation or perception but is also embodied, unified, and interpreted with the mind’s organizing, processing, and constructing our ‘sense’ of the world.
This analysis is emphasized in the Buddha’s teachings, with the crucial importance of how the body operates; it also places a different perspective on what is now found in many Buddhist meditation practices as well as in teachings regarding the body. Often, the body is taught in a negative light as an encumberment, a heap of unwanted bile, pus, and cells, a burden. In fact, the emphasis of numerous Buddhist interpretations is mainly on impermanence and encourages bhikkus (monks) to feel disgust with their bodies in order to create an attitude of nonattachment. For example, the common ‘corpse meditation’ is considered to be a particularly powerful method to develop disgust toward our bodies; this is then supposed to cut our attachment to sensual pleasures, such as sexuality or pride in appearance.
An example of this attitude, as Hamilton writes in Identity and Experience,8 can be found in an often cited text by the 5th century AD Indian Buddhist scholar Buddhaghosa. It has been translated as: ‘Wherefore, monks, be ye disgusted with this body.’ However, in Hamilton’s opinion, a more appropriate translation (both in this specific text and the wider context of the Buddha’s teachings) is: ‘So monks, be indifferent towards or dis-enchanted with your body.’ Hamilton posits that this second interpretation of the passage, and the accompanying general attitude – rather than encouraging bhikkus to feel disgust and repulsion towards their ‘impure’ bodies – is meant simply to discourage them from identifying with their bodies. The early Buddhist attitude toward the body was neither positive nor negative but neutrally analytical. In fact, the Buddha repeatedly encouraged a healthy lifestyle and care for the body.
A quote attributed to him is: ‘To keep the body in good health is a duty…otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.’ This perspective is stated by Dr. Pinit Ratanakul:
‘In the Buddhist perspective the unique body of each of us, both in appearance and structure, is a result of our past kamma. The human body is at the same time the means by which we contact the world and the physical manifestation of our mind. Being such an important instrument, the body must be duly attended to, i.e. one must not abuse it through unwholesome food, alcohol, drugs, or by taxing it with over-indulgence and deprivation. Even enlightenment, the highest goal of Buddhism, cannot be attained by the mortification of the body, as witnessed in the personal experience of the Buddha. This is due to the interdependency of the mind and the body (mind and the body are also labeled name and form). Intellectual illumination can be attained only when the body is not deprived of anything necessary for the healthy and efficient functioning of all bodily organs.’9
So, as we see in all of his teachings, the Buddha did not teach revulsion but an analytic and pragmatic Middle Way in our attitude toward our bodies.
Consciousness
The other khandhas engage in our intricate cognitive activities, and the necessary condition for all of the activities of the khandhas is consciousness. Consciousness is the activity of being conscious or aware and is dependent on the operation of the organic integrated whole of the khandhas, not individual aggregates acting in isolation from each other. Even though our attention becomes selective, narrowed, and focused on one awareness in a given moment, the general process of knowing what one is aware or knowledgeable of is called the khandha of consciousness.
Evan Thompson wrote about the brain basis of consciousness model called the Unified Field Model, as developed by Professor John R. Searle, which echoes the Buddha’s conception of consciousness: ‘According to this model (the Unified Conscious Field) the neural substrates of individual conscious states should not be considered sufficient for the occurrence of those states, for those states themselves presuppose the background consciousness of the subject. Any given conscious state is a modulation of a preexisting conscious field. An individual experience or conscious state (such as visual recognition of a face) is not a constituent of some aggregate conscious state, but rather a modification within the field of a basal or background consciousness: “Conscious experiences come in unified fields. In order to have a visual experience, a subject has been conscious already, and the experience is a modification of the field.”’10
In other words, Searle, like the Buddha, is advocating that the process of consciousness be understood not as manifested through separate individual ‘piles’ of experience but as an integrated ‘unified’ whole.
Sensation
The final three khandhas – sensation, apperception, and volition – explain how incoming sensory data filtered through the ‘mind’ and awareness become our knowledge, or what we know. Again, we need to remember that we do not attend to our raw sensations one at a time; this process is, therefore, not linear. Rather, many inputs course through the various sense organs as well as bodily sensations that the ‘mind’ sorts out, and then specific inputs are given conscious attention within the unified field. McGann states: ‘Cognition is not added to perception after the fact, because it is inherent in the process of perception itself, it is part of what continually initiates, drives and structures the act of perceiving. An enactive approach to perception thus maintains a strong distinction between sensation and perception. Perception, wrapped up as it is in cognition, action, sense-making, is an activity embedded within, contextualized by, value driven intentional action. Sensation is an aspect of an embodied agent’s interaction with the world, an important part certainly, but not one with any veto or absolute authority as the character of experience.’11
This is clearly different from the traditional intuitive stage-like description of perception which holds modalities as basic ‘modes of presentation’ in which a perception is simply ‘presented’ to us as is – as visual, gustatory, tactile, or the like. All other aspects of perception (recognition of the object, interpretation of the event) involve some form of further, often inferential, cognitive operation; perception mingles with cognition. In other words, it’s not just what the sensory organs are doing, but what the brain is already doing, that is involved in perception.
Sensations are vipaka, which are whatever you initially experience through the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, or touch. We first have an impinging of incoming sensory data but are unaware of the ‘pure’ sensation and experience of it because it is still too early for the data to reach a necessary threshold to register it. In this pre-reflective stage, experience is direct, immediate, and intuitive. Subject and object, inner and outer, are unified. This is the khandha of sensation. Every perceptual experience is an experience of my body.
Apperception
Next come discrimination and identification, which are associated with the khandha of apperception. In modern terms, this equates to cognitive functioning – an intellectual constructive process by which one becomes aware of, perceives, or comprehends ideas – and it involves all aspects of perception, thinking, reasoning, and remembering. One identifies more clearly or becomes perceptually aware when what was previously only a sensation (the impinging data) reaches a certain threshold, triggering impulses in the receptor neurons that register in the brain through various mediating processes. It is through this process that we identify things individually by contrasting and distinguishing them from their surrounding contexts, independently from us, and giving them a separate continuity. ‘Ideas’ about the object mingle with the awareness of its sense presence: we name it, categorize it, and compare it to other things. Seeing a color is vipaka, but conceptualizing our like or dislike of it is not. Names, features, and what seem to be independent objects are the products of this reification process and are dependent phenomena. Importantly, the independent status of objects is purely an attributed state. They are only distinguished contrastively, and they no longer correspond to an original ‘pure’ sensation, because they are now the result of a complex, constructive neurological process.
Take, for example, the act of seeing, or looking at a flower, to distinguish what characterizes the stage of sensation, or immediate awareness, from that of apperception, or ascertaining distinguishing features of an object. In the first instant of experience, the flower and the observer are one. The impinging stimuli hasn’t yet reached the threshold that triggers registration in the cortex. The flower is seen and the seeing of it is one indivisible act, which is the datum, or the ‘pure sensations’experience. But to cognize and then declare that the flower is a flower and, more specifically, a yellow rose, involves interpretation, which is an abstracting process. What is now experienced is not an immediate, unmediated sensation, but the outcome of a complex, constructive cognitive process. Therefore, a sensation is defined as the contact between sense organ and sensory input, as well as the consciousness that results from their contact. After the direct experience, the sensations are processed by a complex, constructive neurological process and categorized and their significance established. As Hamilton writes, ‘One sees, hears, tastes, something. As such, though one refers separately to sense organs, sense objects and what is sensed – nose, cheese, smell, for example – this separation is, in fact, an abstraction from the experience “smelling cheese-smell.”’12 It is in this reflective phase of perception and conceptualization that experience becomes a constructive process and that sensations are interpreted in light of past experience, including cultural and linguistic constructs and individual interests and preferences.
Writer and philosopher Alva Noë makes a similar point about the difference between sensations and perceptions when he argues:
‘In general, there are reasons to doubt that tactile sensation or feeling is sufficient for tactile perception. To perceive by touch, for example, the rectangularity of something you hold in your hands, or the layout of furniture in a room (as a blind person might, by moving around and reaching and touching) is not merely to have certain feelings or sensations. After all, the rectangularity is not captured by specific sensations. There is no unitary sensation or feel of a rectangle. The rectangularity is made available to you, in touch, by your active touching (probing, prodding, stroking, rubbing, squeezing) with your hands. What informs you of the shape of what you feel or hold is not the intrinsic character of your sensations, but rather your implicit understanding of the organization or structure of your sensations.’13
Bhikkhu K. Ñänananda also makes a relevant observation with this analysis:
‘Suppose there is a little child, a toddler, who is still unable to speak or understand language. Someone gives him a rubber ball and the child has seen it for the first time. If the child is told that it is a rubber ball, he might not understand it. How does he get to know that object? He smells it, feels it, and tries to eat it, and finally rolls it on the floor. At last he understands that it is a plaything. Now the child has recognised the rubber ball not (only) by the name that the world has given it, but by those factors included under “name” in nàma-råpa, namely feeling, perception, intention, contact and attention.’14
And finally, Sariputta, a chief disciple of the Buddha, declared:
‘Feeling, apperception, and cognitive awareness, friend – these factors are conjoined, not disjoined, and it is impossible to separate each of these states from others to describe the difference between them. For what one feels, that one apperceives; and what one apperceives, that one cognizes.’15
In the workings of the khandhas, the initial impinging of sense data are not enough for the grasping of what the initial data represent. Sensation and sensory knowledge must work together, for example, in the case of furniture, to produce the perception of the spatial layout of an object or a room. As Noë concludes, modeling any sense requires that we understand it not as something that concerns the brain alone but as something involving ‘the animate body and the world. I propose that to perceive is not merely to have sensation, or to receive sensory impressions, it is to have sensations that one understands […]. The enactive view insists that mere feeling is not sufficient for perceptual experience (i.e., for experience with world-representing content).’16
As the Buddha explained, the process of selection begins at the initial non-reflective stage when attention creates the necessary threshold and then moves to the self-conscious stage of apperception. David J. Kalupahana explains:
‘Selectivity based upon “interest” occurs even in the pre-reflective stage beginning with the impinging of the sense object with the sense organ culminating in feeling or sensation. The need for selectivity even at this initial stage of sense experience is prompted by the inability of consciousness to deal with the “big blooming buzzing confusion.” During the second stage, when sensations give rise to perception and reflection, the selectivity is conditioned by the stronger “dispositions” or habitual tendencies, thereby leading to obsession and bondage during the final stage. This selectivity in consciousness accounts for the possibility and, therefore, the ability on the part of the human being to choose, think and act, and these represent the core of selfhood or personality in the Buddha’s doctrine.’17
For William James, the making manifest of what is attended to by the sensations is the result of what he called attention, which is selection: ‘Out of what is in itself an indistinguishable, swarming continuum, devoid of distinction or emphasis […] Attention […] picks out certain sensations as worthy of notice, choosing those that are signs to us of things which happen practically or aesthetically to interest us, to which we, therefore, give substantive names and to which we give the status of independence and dignity.’18
So while selection or attention is based on an inherent or learned focus as well as on our organic biological makeup, it isn’t until the selected sensation is cognitively recognized, named, and interpreted that it moves into the realm of apperception. There are two aspects of a single, represented, integral event – two poles (subject/object) with consciousness linking them together.
Volition
The fifth khandha, volition, is the most complex aspect of our cognitive apparatus. We have affective responses to whatever we experience; these can be pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. A neutral response is to merely register a sensation and become aware of it simply in a non-attached, factual sense. When we consider an experience to be pleasant, on the other hand, we become attached and want it to continue or be repeated. These desires or cravings become preferences and choices and therefore originate in our cognitive apparatus; they can range from minor preferences in the positive domain and mild aversion in the realm of the negative to very profound affective states in both. These affective states are responses not only to bodily sensations, but also to abstract concepts and beliefs; they are established on, among other things, one’s beliefs, desire to continue to exist (or not), self-identifications, traditions, customs. They can also be such general desires as to be loved, successful, accepted, happy, wealthy, not alone, not poor, or not unhappy. These biases and inclinations make up our psychological orientation and represent our ‘world.’
According to the Buddha, our affective volitional characteristics fuel the kammic process and continue until our last affective volitional states are extinguished with Enlightenment. Their continued functioning is conditioned (dependently originated) by the level of ignorance or insight on which we are operating. As we better understand how to see things ‘as they are,’ the degree of our ignorance – and, therefore, our volitions – becomes differently conditioned. To return to the work of David J. Kalupahana: ‘The Buddha insisted that desire is not identical with the variegated objects in the world. It is the thought of lust which is generated by wrong ideas or misconception, primarily the metaphysical conceptions of self and object. As such it is possible to maintain that on occasions of sense experience, which are represented by the coming together of the subject and object, the subject does come to be affected in a certain way and this is conditioned by views it holds regarding its own nature as well as the object.’19
We cannot separate ourselves from our experience, which is organically based and which takes place through the khandhas. It is the understanding of the operation of the khandhas that is the focus of insight meditation. We clearly see that dukkha is intimately linked with our cognitive experience and is not just a description of the world in which we have our experience, or of what we perceive and then react to. Since our affective-volitional apparatus, which fuels our continuity, is cognitively based, dukkha is also. The cessation of suffering, or Enlightenment, is a radical cognitive re-orientation. The Buddha taught that our cognitive experiences and phenomena are dependently originated, dynamic, ever-changing, and impermanent. This is the Truth of experience.
The Buddha’s teachings focus on epistemology, or how we can know about reality, and they assign primary importance to the workings of one’s constructive and categorical cognitive apparatus. They are not ontological or based on the study of fundamental categories of reality. Unfortunately, this significant but subtly expanded understanding of the Buddha’s teachings is often missed in contemporary Buddhist teachings. For example, in a discussion about the Buddha’s perspective on suffering, Adam Miller writes, ‘Sensation is suffering. Sensation takes place only when a sensor is affected, stimulated, irritated, perturbed, or pressed upon. We see only when light perturbs the eye, we hear only when sound perturbs the ear, we think only when thoughts perturb the mind. It is in light of the constant, relentless pressure of sensation in all its modalities that life is suffering.’20
We have seen, though, that the Buddha taught dukkha, not as the simple occurrence of sensations of inputs alone, but as the secondary processing which then identifies, contrasts, classifies, and creates pleasure or discomfort and then desires or craves or rejects as a consequence of cognition. In the Second Noble Truth, the Buddha clearly teaches that dukkha is our pre-enlightened constructed experience.
Cognition after Enlightenment
Often, also, there is confusion as to how the Buddha, as a human being, experienced life cognitively after his enlightenment. To end suffering, an Enlightened One does not become a ‘robot’ that transcends worldly sense experience or someone who denies the reality of the world of sense experience. Quite the contrary: the operation of the five khandhas becomes intimately known and accepted. The grounding of Enlightenment as a cognitive event leaves intact the locus of experience in the body, and the post – Enlightenment life experience becomes quite reasonable and understandable.
In fact, if we accept biologist H. R. Maturana’s concept of autopoiesis21 – that living systems are ‘self-producing’ organisms which maintain their particular form despite material inflow and outflow, through biological self-regulation and self-reference – we can consider the Buddha’s biological existence to have continued as before his Enlightenment. The biological, physical functions of sleep/wakefulness, hunger/satiation, fatigue/alertness, and so on, as well as smelling, tasting, seeing, hearing, touching, and thinking would have remained the same. These physical conditions only ended upon the Buddha’s death. The Buddha made the distinction between the experience of living which is grounded in the body and in the khandhas and the ignorance of a cognitive schema in which a subject/object dualism exists. Actually, the Enlightenment experience allowed the Buddha to move in the world unhindered by the ordinary restrictions borne of our ignorance in referring naively to our dualistic cognitive constructions.
Another source of confusion has to do with the ‘I’ of an Enlightened One. As Kalupahana explains:
‘In the context of the five aggregates (khandhas), the Buddha was not reluctant to speak of “I” or “myself” or even of the “self.” Without admitting to a “ghost in the machine” or a transcendental apperception, the Buddha was willing to recognize the feeling of individuality, of self. It is a feeling that can contract and expand depending on the context. It does not represent a static entity to which everything belongs. […] There seems to be no justification for assuming the Buddha encouraged the annihilation of this feeling of self. Indeed, the reality of feelings and emotions that occur in the stream of experience are relevant to an explanation of harmonious life. […] Thus the Buddha spoke of “I” or “myself” and “mine” but avoided and discouraged “I-making” or “mine-making,” both terms imply egoism. The feeling of self-occurring thus turns out to an important element in the affirmation of the relation of dependence that exists between a person, his family, nation, humanity, as well as nature.
The solidification of this feeling into a ‘pure ego’ can interrupt its extension at any level, confining it exclusively to the neglect of every other. As such, it can lead to extreme selfishness, to tribalism, to nationalism, or to pure altruism. For the Buddha, the so-called self-feeling is dependently arisen, and, is therefore contextual, not absolute.’22
As much as the Buddha emphasized the elimination of egotism, he did not intend the annihilation or depersonalization of what modern psychology labels the empirical self or the individual experiences. The terms ‘I’ or ‘self’ are pragmatic conventions that reflect the living experience that all conscious living beings have.
Khandhas and Awakening
With Enlightenment, the Buddha came to a sudden realization or epiphany about the nature of ‘existence.’ The basis of his enlightened was having had the ‘pure experience’ of emptiness or Nibbāna (Sanskrit: Nirvana). It was only when he experienced this state of no-thingness that he understood the mechanism of the creation of cravings and desires which, in turn, causes the dukkha of our lives. Upon Enlightenment, he comprehended that it was his ‘mental apparatus’ that had in ignorance created his desires and cravings; therefore, it is the process and organization of our systematic mental organization that needs to be understood and altered in a radical way, and to do this we must understand the khandhas.
What the Awakening insight reorients is our understanding of how the cognitive apparatus creates craving and dukkha. The Buddha was concerned with the spiritual and existential suffering of sentient beings, and his Awakening showed him that our world is completely subjectively constructed, and that what the cognitive apparatus creates or imagines is dualism (most notably, subject-object dualism). Therefore, the Buddha’s teachings focus on understanding the workings of our bodies as embedded living organisms and the process of how we ‘experience’ living and knowing.
Upon achieving a correct understanding of the nature of our constructions of reality and the consequences thereof, the Buddha attained Enlightenment; this extinguished the fuel of the fire – the desires and cravings – of continuity (the cycle of rebirth). He taught the way for us to also achieve Nirodha and become Awakened. Dukkha is based not solely on impermanence but more profoundly on how we construct our ‘world’ and cling to the illusions we construct – our pre-enlightened experience.
Notes
Lewis, C. I., Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (New York: Dover, 1956), 29.
Wisdom Library, Buddhism in Ottawa: “Glossary of Buddhist Terms” (www.wisdomlib.org). Retrieved 3 June 2013.
Thanissaro, B., “Five Piles of Bricks: The Khandhas as Burden & Path” in Access to Insight, 5 June 2010.
Davids, C.A.F. Rhys, “Intellect and the Kbandba Doctrine” in Buddhist Review 2:1, 1910.01-03, 104.
Enactive approaches in cognitive science propose that perception, and more generally cognitive experience, are strongly mediated by embodied (sensory motor) processes, and that our primary experience of the world is action-oriented or pragmatic (Noë 2004; Thompson 2007; Varela et al. 1991). Adams, F. and Aizawa, K., “The bounds of cognition” in Philosophical Psychology 14 (1): 43-64.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E. T. and Rosch, E. (1991) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991), 59-80.
Hamilton, S., Early Buddhism: A New Approach: The I of the Beholder (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism) (New York: Routledge, 2000), 73.
- A. Scott Kelso and Engstrom, D. The Complementary Nature (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006), 87, 89.
Hamilton, S. Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism (Oxford: Luzac Oriental, 2001), 181.
Ratanakul, P., “Buddhism, Health and Disease”, Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 15, 162-164.
Thompson, E., Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 351.
McGann, M., “Perceptual Modalities: Modes of Presentation of Modes of Interaction?” (http://lifeandmind.files. wordpress.com/2010/02/mmcgann-perceptual-modalities – modes-of-perception-or-modes-of-action1.pdf). Retrieved 3 June 2013.
Hamilton, S., Early Buddhism: A New Approach: The I of the Beholder (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism) (New York: Routledge, 2000), 163.
Noe, A., Action in perception (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004), 15.
Access to Insight, ed., “Majjhima Nikaya: The Middle-length Discourses”, in Access to Insight, 23 April 2012 (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/index.html). Retrieved 15 June 2013.
Noe, A., Action in perception (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2004), 16.
Kalupahana, D. J., The Principles of Buddhist Psychology (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 89.
Shaw, M., “William James and Yogaacaara philosophy: A comparative inquiry.” Philosophy East and West 37(3), 228.
Kalupahana, D. J., The Principles of Buddhist Psychology (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 97.
Miller, A., “The Root, The All” (http://www.progressivebuddhismblogspot.com). Retrieved 3 June 2013.
Maturana, H. R. and Varela, F. J., Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1980).
Kalupahana, D. J., The Principles of Buddhist Psychology (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987), 38.
Subject and Object: Explorations how we construct meaning and language
26 FebSubject and Object: Explorations how we construct meaning and language
“We experience ourselves and the world as subject and object only through conceptualization and language. This dualism, however, is only mental and not real. Mind produces this subject-object dualism. The subjectivity of our mind affects our perceptions of the world that is held to be objective by natural science.”
Tom Arnold
‘The entire world of experience is one which is comprised of the polarity between subjectivity and objectivity. […] The subjectivity and objectivity are mutually dependently originated […] the subjective and objective aspects of our experience are in fact the linked “poles” of a single process.’ Susan Hamilton
‘In all psychic life there is subject and object.’ Karl Jaspers
Defined in psychology and cognitive science, schemas are mental structures of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. According to M.A. Arbib & Erdi they are also interdependent in relation to the other ones. Schemas and their network of interconnections, have a proneness to remain constant, even in the face of contradictory information, nevertheless, they do change through the processes of accommodation. Accommodation is the cognitive process of incorporation of new information by revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. An analogy of this transitional process are the colors of the rainbow. While we can clearly define the primary colors of a rainbow, part of its characteristic is the overlapping colors that merge into one another. Like a rainbow, at each phase of equilibrium or schematic stability, there is a primary ‘color’ while in the transitional spaces, the primary ‘colors’ merge and blend. If the established schema cannot make sense of unfamiliar information, dis-equilibrium is necessary for the transformation or updating of the existing schema (knowledge). Through learning, a new schema network emerges that moderates a person’s new reality or perspective. ‘Each schema enriches and is defined by the others (and may change when a formal linguistic system allows explicit, though partial, definition). Even though processes of schema change may affect only a few schemas at any time, such changes may “cohere” to yield dramatic changes in the overall pattern of mental organization. There is change yet continuity, with many schemas held in common, yet changed because they must now be used in the context of the new network.’ 30 Therefore, we see that transformation is different from learning new skills or facts; it instead disrupts and alters the way our cognitive apparatus knows, interprets and responds. In fact, one’s cognitive development and transformation through the Eightfold Path can be easily construed as intentional ego stage developments involving the advancement through progressively schematic dis-equilibrium/equilibrium to more refined ways of knowing.
Similarly, according to the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, cognitive development and transformation progresses in discoveries or insights, not at a steady rate. A state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be assimilated into existing schemas. Since disequilibrium creates stress, the urge for equilibration then becomes the force that drives the learning process as we seek to de-stress and restore balance by cognitively mastering or letting go of the new challenge (accommodation). We also see this phenomenon described in the Zeigarnik Effect, which is the natural propensity for alleviating the stress created by task incompletion by better recalling of all tasks, hence, giving priority to unfinished projects before finished projects. Through the process of assimilation and the integration of the new information, the newly formed schema remains until the next time an adjustment is required. This process of growth involves a progression of continual shifts of meaning marked by periods of stability and periods of instability, leading to ongoing construct/schemata reconstructions. Stability and harmony are the forces, which move development along. Resulting from either new experiences and/or deliberate interventions, such shifts produce corresponding changes in our viewpoint of the environment, ourselves, and, therefore, how we interact with an increasingly discerned and objective world. In the process of transformation, the previous schema or way of meaning-making is not entirely left behind; this previous way can still become activated as a latent disposition. As Laszlo points out, ‘…all we can say is that the new steady state, if it is dynamically stable, assimilates the disturbance introduced by the destabilizing parameters within an open structure that is likely to be more dynamic and complex than the structure in the previous steady state.’32
Thinking and Talking: the shift from Subject to Object
One of the Buddha’s most significant insights was that the self is developed and maintained by a dualist perspective, and this distinction between a subject and object is a cognitively based convention. This duality has two poles (subject/object) with consciousness linking these two aspects together. After all, where there is an object of perception, there is a subject perceiving and it is consciousness that maintains an awareness between them. The subject-object relationship is not just an abstraction but a cognitive experience. Our constructs of the self that are Subject are nonconscious aspects subsumed internally which hold our unquestioned beliefs about the world. One generally cannot name things that are Subject, and we do not usually reflect upon them for that would require us to stand back and make them object. Kegan asserts, ‘We cannot be responsible for, in control of, or reflect upon that which is subject’25 (p. 32). The Object represents the content of one’s knowing, and any insight of the subject (i.e. by a projective psychological test) provides a clue about our underlying cognitive structure or schemata. Even though dualities occur naturally as a function of conceptualization, psychological calcification around them leads to excessive fragmentation of experience.
In Kegan’s discussion of stage transformation, the distinction between Subject and Object is of vital importance. In fact, the aspect of transformation that he is most concerned with involves the movement of essential schematic features from Subject to Object. According to Kegan, the way one progresses from one stage to the next is taking what was once subject and making it object. Therefore, the process of transformation is learning to objectively evaluate what biases or schemata, as ‘colored glasses/lens’, we unconsciously used in the prior order of consciousness. ‘Object’ are those aspects of our cognitive world that we are aware of and can be looked at, related to, reflected upon, engaged, controlled, and connected to something else. Contrarily, on the other side of the subject-object relationship, ‘Subject’, is the aspect of our cognitive world in which we are embedded in, fused with, and identify as our self. Kegan writes, “We have object; we are subject”. Things that are Object in our lives are “those elements of our knowing or organizing that we can reflect on, handle, look at, be responsible for, relate to each other, take control of, internalize, assimilate, or otherwise operate upon”.25 When we identify elements as Object, we become aware that “the element of knowing [when it is Object] is not the whole of us; it is distinct enough from us that we can do something with it”.25 Our worldview can expand and become more complex when we become objective about the subjective and no longer identify them as ‘me’. The disequilibrium and transformation of schematic systems moving from Subject to Object is gradual. This shift means that what is once a non-conscious ‘lens’ through which we regard the world is instead brought into awareness, analyzed, categorized, and altered. This disequilibrium from Subject to Object of established systems to new equilibriums is what forms the transformation of orders in consciousness.
Therefore, Kegan’s five orders of mind are qualitatively different ways of constructing reality. Each order is a qualitative shift in complexity and meaning-making from the order before it. Kegan explains that when we move the elements of the earlier meaning-making or schematic system from Subject (where it has dominion over us) to Object (where we have a new sense of qualification over the system itself), we accommodate what we have learned in a previous order. Therefore, with transformation, there is a shift from a habitual and unreflective pattern to a more deliberate and self-reflective pattern, changing the actual form of our understanding of the world. These different compositions of the cognitive apparatus largely determine the intellectual, emotional and behavioural aspects of our functioning.
The knowing disequilibration of our schematic systems by reflection and transformation successfully allows us to update our cognitive apparatus through context change, assumption re-assessment, and by challenging our minds to shift. By amending and revising our suppositions and assumptions, we loosen the static Self position and experience the humbling realization that our perceptions, assumptions, and beliefs are limited, imperfect, subjective and in need of constant mindful evaluation. In fact, also in Buddhist Citta cultivation, the intentional transformation of the subject becoming object is part of the ego transformation and transcendence leading to awakening. ‘Meditation, for example, includes a practice of making subject into object: of simply witnessing our own subjective minds with non-attached equanimity, experiencing our subjective thoughts, emotions, sensations, and impulses as objects in our awareness. With enough training and practice, the spiritual path ultimately leads us to the point of “Absolute Subjectivity”—that point where we are completely “emptied out” and there is no more subject left to be made into object, and all that remains is the effortless and seamless embrace of nondual awareness.’ 33
The Buddha’s transcendence of the Subject and Object
“…the world is steeped in the notion of duality. It grasps either this end, or the other end. Hard it is for the world to understand the stance of the arahant couched in the cryptic phrase, neither here nor there nor in between the two”. The worldling is accustomed to grasp either this end or the other end.’
Bhikkhu Katukurunde Ñāṇananda34
While Kegan emphasized schematic stage transformation occurring through primarily new and unintentional life experiences, the Buddha, as well as now psychotherapy, used deliberate interventions to transform, refine, and ‘purify’ the schematic basis of the cognitive apparatus to reach the goal of enlightenment. What distinguishes the Buddha’s program for cognitive transformation from other psychological systems, is the principle of self-transcendence or the cognitive transformation that relinquishes all attempts to establish and attach to identities. The teaching of impermanence and dependent arising along with no self is a prescription for self-transcendence. In Buddhist training, the development and transformation of personality through dis-identification transcends the factors that constitute our perception of duality and the substantiality of existence. However, the transcendence of the self is the most subtle and difficult. While modern Western psychology assumes the primary importance of securing and strengthening the self to yield concrete, pragmatic, and successful life results, for the Buddha, ultimately realizing self-transcendence or non-self, is the successful end of the Path.
In fact, for the proper practice of the Path, transformation and transcendence are equally crucial. Without self-transcendence, the principle of self-transformation can lead to a wiser, happier and more socially astute personality but not the realization of the original mind. Only when these two principles work in harmony and are in balance during development can they bring the end of suffering. The accomplishment of self-transcendence – the relinquishing of all points of grasping and attachment – is through the gradual process of self-transformation in which moral discipline, compassion, and the cultivation of Knowing advances us by stages from our condition of subjective identifications to cognitive ‘emptiness’ and our original mind.
In conventional thinking, both the mutually exclusive either/or and dualism level of thinking are most common. We often function on both levels in which we are either making mutually exclusive distinctions with two possible polar monisms between concepts like right and wrong, hard and soft, or, in dualism, where both aspects of the pole are irreducible and coexist by definitions like subject and object, ‘I’ and ‘Mine’. As Vitaliano cogently states: ‘Dualism is the act of severance, cutting the world into seer and seen, knower and known ….’35 The Buddha taught that people mostly base their perceptions and thinking on duality. People, through the structure of grammar and language, communicate with each other using the significant feature of a subject-object relationship, which carries the implication that there is a thing to grasp and someone who grasps. Under those conditions, we are conditioned to think in terms of getting, attaining and maintaining.
While categories referring to more or less static concepts, which often dualistic pairs, have certain advantages like helping to organize information, removing ambiguity, and facilitating communication, inevitably the differences between the categories become valorized, reified, and given a superior/inferior position. Because of this creation of relative based misperceptions and misconstructions, the world becomes a tangle of names and concepts, with nouns particularly perpetuating the belief, that, as a reality, there is a permanent essence in existence. There is then the predisposition to falsely believe in a substantial self with the justified pursuit of ever-possible egotistic pleasures while ignoring three important characteristics of impermanence, not self, and suffering.
The structure of language and grammar is a mechanism for conducting thought processes which reinforce the perception of permanence as well as facilitates the communication of ideas. After assigning and sanctioning a name to an object, it easily becomes a convention. The Buddha recognized that shared language is crucial for numerous reasons including: mastery of the object world, self-conceptualization, social interaction, and cognitive growth in fields of knowledge. There is also the practical necessity for communication with the subject-object duality, including its categories, comparisons, and I – me – mine designations. Nevertheless, the Buddha also reminds us that language is only a convention with its inherent deceptions as we have seen in the research cited earlier. A. Chah explained, ‘The things of this world are merely conventions of our own making. Having established them, we get lost in them and refuse to let go, giving rise to personal views and opinions. … Now, if we know conventional reality then we’ll know liberation…If we clearly know liberation then we’ll know convention.’36 However, through the reification of these cognitive abstractions, all things are viewed with the emphatic belief that they categorically exist. As a result, our cognitive apparatus also becomes preoccupied with the belief of an abstracted ‘self’, which stands separate from ‘other’. With the illusion of our own permanence, we become fixated on a static identity and existence.
According to the Buddha, when adopting subject-object dualism there is a very close relationship between recognition and communication – in whatever way one perceives, one also speaks about them with the mindset of inherent permanence. Since knowledge and understanding are so often associated with words, concepts, and categories, if one recognizes the name of the thing one is naively assumed to comprehend or know it. The process of reification, however, is not an accomplishment through just learning the abstracted representation (word) with the object. For example, a child is given a rubber toy and told ‘ball’ to teach them the object name. Nevertheless, instinctively, this is to get to really ‘know’ the object. First, they smell it, and then touch it, try to eat it, roll it on the floor, and finally associate the object with an action, i.e. throwing; like they had seen someone do previously. At last, the child understands and recognizes the rubber ball not only by the name but also by other basic factors including: perception, intention, contact, and attention. Therefore, with such comprehensive involvement with objects/words/representations, the mind unequivocally accepts the view that ultimately the world is permanent and substantial. Consequently, we fail to understand that the basis of all of life is a dynamic process of transformation; never understanding the essence of ‘emptiness’ as a truth.
With the Enlightenment experience, the Buddha transcended the subject/object dichotomy, in which there is no experiencer nor thing experienced, and he found only experience. The result of this transformation is self-transcendence – no-self or the original mind. The self is comprehended in the proper perspective of being a mental representation created through the polarity of a subject and object – ‘I’, ‘me’, and ‘mine’. As Hamilton writes “This is what pure experience is: neither the world nor “I” in it other than experience.”29 Hence, the realm of pure experience is not an ontological category, but the ordinary world of phenomena experienced directly, with no intervening conceptualization. The essence of the middle path is inward peace, which is an existence free of clinging – letting go and not grasping of all identifications (dis-identification).
To illustrate this the Buddha presented a basic pattern representing three types of worldviews: the untaught ordinary person who is obsessed with and craving for the imagined substantial pleasures based in their perceived duality; the practitioner with higher training who is trying to free herself from her unconscious conventional script; and the emancipated one who is completely free from it. Also, non-self does not mean the absence of a functional ego; it means that one is no longer mistakenly identified with that self, the ego, or any of its sub-personalities. As Wei Wu Wei puts it, ‘The seeing of Truth cannot be dualistic (a ‘thing’ seen). It cannot be seen by a see-er, or via a see-er. There can only be a seeing which itself is Truth.’ 37The transcendence of the self is accomplished by cognitive, moral, and wisdom development as described above. It is through dis-identification and determining the truth of the original mind within, that we are able to transcend the world of suffering, attachment, and resistance. The way out is through transformation and transcending.
The Eightfold Path is a gradual development of reconceptualization leading towards the realization of emptiness. However, in trying to find release from the never-ending circle regarding dualism, some philosophical systems resort to finding a remedy through unity or oneness. The Buddha showed that oneness is not the solution. Developing in the Path, we confront the duality, and we grasp that the solution is found in the clinging-free approach of nonidentification – transcending both form and formless. In fact, transcendence of both is the aim; however, some mistakenly call emptiness the ending of existence. Instead, D-T. Suzuki explained, ‘The outside world of form-and-name and the inner world of thought and feeling are both no more than the construction of mind, and when the mind ceases, the weaving-out of a world of particulars is stopped. This stopping is called emptiness or no birth, but it is not the wiping out of existence, it is on the contrary viewing it truthfully unhammered by discriminative categories.’38
Modern psychology emphasizes identification as a largely unconscious process which occurs when an individual takes as his or her own characteristics, demeanors, achievements, or other identifying traits of other people or groups. However, differently, the Buddha’s use of identification (tammayatà) is more inclusive, subtle and establishes the fabrication and concoction of identity as all mental content. C.I. Lewis wrote, ‘The ‘world’ of experience is not given in experience: it is constructed by thought from the data of sense.’39
Through our attachment or aversion to our perceptions (the way we think about or understand someone or something), we are continually acting and reacting, never resting in repose. As these reactions become habitual and automatic, we become subservient to our cravings for or aversion against. Even though our cognitive representations are merely conventions that we adapt and employ, once we become well immersed in them, we become lost in them and we strongly resist relinquishing them, giving rise to personal biases and grand assumptions. ‘In whatever egotistic terms they think of an object, it becomes that. And therein, verily, lies its falseness, the puerile deceptive phenomenon that it is.’S N v. 916.
To free ourselves from our self-inflicted dependences, biases, and ignorance, we must dis-identify and non-attach. By understanding that the belief in a substantial and inert self is imaginary, we develop a more mature and flexible relationship with our internal and external world. In fact, certain schools of psychology and psychotherapy, as we have seen in numerous examples in earlier chapters, recognize the possibility and significance of psychological dis-identification to create cognitive transformation through the objectification of the subjective (self). Nevertheless, even at the end of thorough psychological introspection there still prevails an ego (self) identified as the agent or mover behind the sum total of sense experience – ‘I experience therefore I am’. This conception of the ‘I’ as a CEO managing the operations of the mind/body is deemed an incontrovertible fact. However, the Buddha goes beyond the illusion of the necessity of a subjective ego as an agent. The Buddha said, ‘Let him completely cut off the root of concepts tinged with the prolific tendency, namely, the notion – ‘I am the thinker.’ Whatever inward cravings there be, let him train himself to subdue them, being always mindful.’ (S T v.916) To do this, he emphasizes that the experience of the subject/object duality has the third component of consciousness.
In fact, with the ego transformation development and resulting dis-identification of all mental content through the analysis of the two poles (subject/object) and the middle (consciousness), the final aim of eradication of the root of greed, lust, and hatred is achieved. As a rule, consciousness takes hold of objects on either side of the poles: (subject) __consciousness__(object). However, we usually ignore the middle or mindfulness because of habituation, impulsivity, and reflex grasping for the poles content by our craving or aversion which results in suffering. Therefore, through our desires and volition, we are continually moving toward or away from whichever polarity we are inclined to in the now. When one believes everything exists in truth and fact, even though it is possible for one to remain neutral, usually one craves or rejects all that arises in awareness. In fact, this is the nature of craving and aversion; it continuously bends and moves one forward or away from the poles. Differently, the noble practitioner of the middle way, because of her insight and understanding of the arising, ceasing and insubstantiality of everything, let’s go of all through non-grasping. In other words, instead of reacting impulsively and reflexively to the perpetual stimuli, we mindfully and knowingly observe our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors with calm equanimity, free from all worries and vexations and respond with reflection and wholeness.
Non-attachment is accomplished through non-conceiving or dis-identification. Consciousness becomes devoid of the nature of grasping for any object since it finds no object worthy of craving or grasping after. ‘Bhikkhu, ‘I am’ is a conceiving; ‘I am this’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall not be’ is a conceiving; I shall be possessed of form’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be formless’ is a conceiving; ‘I shall be non-percipient’ is a conceiving. Conceiving is a disease, conceiving is a tumour, conceiving is a barb. By overcoming all conceiving, bhikkhu, one is called a sage at peace.’ (M.N. 140.31) Nibbāna literally means “cool” or “to extinguish”, and it is a cognitive state where suffering has been “extinguished”; the flames of desire have been cooled. It is to be free from those bonds that entwine and trap us. It is a state of profound peace, contentment and wisdom that comes by eliminating the foolish attachment to the pain or pleasure in impermanent (transitory) objects. Through the mode of mindfulness, insight and wisdom of the middle path, one transcends the subject/object duality. The ‘extinction of craving’ through non-attachment is a full-fledged synonym of nibbāna.
Embodied Living: Glimpses into the Complexity of Life.
9 FebEmbodiment
In my book, The Buddha’s Radical Psychology: Explorations, I develop a crucial discussion of how without a major focus on the ‘Self’/Ego as western psychology tends to still have, Buddhist inspired psychology naturally looks to the embodied nature of human existence and the significance of the body. The following are some general explorations highlighting the significance of our embodied life from chapters from that book. Naturally as research develops and deepens the datum will change but the discussion will remain the same.
- Our bodies are crucial
Our body, a living organism is the matrix of one’s experience. Neuroscientists J. A. Scott Kelso and David Engstrom affirm this: ‘The body is crucial to our experience of the world because it provides the sense organs through which we access the objective world and it has the organizing capacity of the mind that processes and constructs data understanding. Organisms are not just pieces of matter; they are matter in motion – animate forms… with “embodied cognition”.’
- Organisms as Coherent Embedded Systems
The interrelationship between organisms and their environment is an oscillating co-arising with an equilibrium between two sets of processes; the organism with its hierarchy of needs and the broader ambiance in which it is a part. Within the hierarchy, there is one dominant process, called the organizing process. All life consists of inseparability and dynamic interactions. With meaningful information exchange in living things, dualities are bi-stable, and in general multi-stable coordination, dynamics confers many advantages, in particular, multi-functionality. If any aspect of the duality becomes out of balance and develops too far, it binds the system.
In living, organisms can never maintain perfect symmetry. Co-arising is universal. The Buddha taught that there is no universal preconceived beginning or end. Life is unity in diversity and form is the recognizable continuity of a process.
- Life’s web and rhythm
All life on earth exists within a web of vibrations, and rhythm is fundamental to all forms of life. Natural rhythms guide all that we do (daily rhythms, internal rhythms, etc.).
One compelling answer to explain these universal phenomena is provided by thermodynamics. According to biochemist Mae Wan Ho:
‘Practically all living processes are organized in cycles. … biological rhythms ranging from periods of … electrical activities of brain cells … the heart-beat…respiration, to periods which are circadian and circannual. …why that should be. The answer is provided by thermodynamics. It turns out that symmetrically coupled cycles are the key to both the conservation of coherent energy and compensation… entropy within the system so that living organization is maintained…’
Much of our basic daily-life activities are co-arising around these rhythms. They have positive functional advantages, including spatial and temporal organization, prediction of events, energy efficiency and precision of control. The rhythms of our breath, heartbeat and brain are intimately related to our emotions, thoughts and mindset states. The quiet rhythmic breathing of meditation is well known for its calming effect. Both simple and complex rhythms do not exist in isolation. Rather, they have complex interactions. When physiologists discovered brain waves these rhythms were believed to be correlated with various mental states. For the brain, the experience is not continuous stream or flow but quantized.
According to Gregory Hickok: ‘We actually perceive the world in rhythmic pulses rather than as a continuous flow…. Rhythms in the environment, such as those in music or speech, can draw neural oscillations into their tempo, effectively synchronizing the brain’s rhythms with those of the world around us […]. We should talk of the rhythm of thought, of perception, of consciousness. Conceptualizing our mental experience this way is not only more accurate, but it also situates our mind within the broader context of the daily, monthly and yearly rhythms that dominate our lives.’
Brain waves shape our perception, movement, memory. Hickok believes that the brain interacts with the world in rhythmic pulses. These rhythms correlate with electrical rhythms of the brain and this is how our brain focuses attention (cocktail party example).
Bodily rhythms that interact with the external environment resent an essential element in whether we have healthy or unhealthy bodily functions. For instance, our circadian rhythm can be easily disturbed by jetlag or bright light etc. Health can be interpreted as harmony among these rhythms. Disruption of normal rhythms and the emergence of abnormal rhythms have been called ‘dynamical diseases.
- Circadian rhythm
Circadian rhythms (our Body Clock) signal and affect every aspect of our life (wake up, sleep, active and energy). They influence how we socialize and how we feel. There are patterns of brain wave activity, hormone production, cell regeneration and other biological activities linked by the light-dark cycle over a 24-hour period. Within the brain, and more specifically located in the hypothalamus just above the optic nerves, lies a group of about 20,000 nerve cells called the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), which coordinates all these body ‘clocks’ so that they are in synchronization.
A protein directing our circadian rhythms is named CLOCK. Functional balance is created by a metabolic protein called SIRT1, which counterbalances CLOCK. Disequilibrium in the CLOCK-SIRT1 balance, lead to sleep disruption and increased hunger. Light has a significant role in governing our circadian rhythms. Tim Brown has discovered that it is the color of a sunset that our bodies use to regulate the internal clock (melatonin production). Work schedules conflict with the body’s natural circadian rhythm and some individuals have difficulty adjusting to the change. Light exposure and ad unusual meal times increase the risk of developing chronic diseases.
Recent studies suggest that repeated bouts of jetlag may cause harm to the temporal lobe, an area of the brain important to memory. Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome (DSPS) – Changes in routine such as staying up late is a circadian rhythm disorder. Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome (ASPD). ASPD results in symptoms of evening sleepiness, going to bed earlier and waking up earlier than desired.
- Lunar phases
There is a link between sleep patterns and lunar phases. Sleep might be delayed by 25 minutes around a full moon, and sleepers have been found to spend 30 additional minutes in REM sleep. Sleep duration is often shortened by 20 minutes around the time of the full moon. These syndromes can have significant problems for our health, but we can minimize their effect and prevent them. The choices we make about our sleep environments and sleep habits can make a significant difference. Limiting night-time exposure to artificial light and increasing exposure to sunlight can shift sleep-wake cycles.
- Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
SAD is a form of depression that is related to changes in the seasons. It is estimated that SAD affects between 10% and 20% of the Northern latitude population. Symptoms of SAD typically manifest around the age of twenty years old. There appear to be several biologic mechanisms underlying SAD, including retinal sensitivity to light, vulnerability to stress, neurotransmitter dysfunction, genetic variations affecting circadian rhythms, and reduced serotonin levels. The primary cause appears to be the delay or advance of the circadian phase. Humans have neural circuits that detect changes in day length and use this information to control the timing of seasonal behavior. In this way, even relatively minor seasonal changes in day length is sufficient to create problems for certain individuals.
- The human life-cycle
‘A broad definition of life history includes not only the traditional foci such as age-related fecundity and mortality rates, but also the entire sequence of behavioral, physiological, and morphological changes that an organism passes through during its development from conception to death.’ Shea
A life-cycle is defined as the developmental stages that occur during an organism’s lifetime. All living things have a life-cycle that includes being born, childhood, adulthood and death. As humans we are interrelated with our socio-economic environment, therefore not only the individual but the family unit has its own stages of development, or life-cycle, as does one’s employment, housing, education etc. A person’s life is substantially determined by the challenges of each developmental phase. A person’s life is significantly shaped by the tasks and opportunities embedded within their developmental life-cycles.
- The biological imperative of movement
Research into natural movement patterns reveals that there appears to be, ‘biological imperatives to movement,’. One such study found that people tend to move in complementary intervals. The intervals of movement and inactivity were more consistent in younger people than older ones. Another study looked at the movement pattern of mice. When running wheels were provided, the younger mice exercised a lot, developing marked peaks and valleys of activity. The older mice were less consistent in their activity patterns. Once the ability to exercise (running wheels) was removed, the patterns of the younger mice became more like that of the older ones: ‘By prompting the release of a wide variety of biochemicals in the body and brain…exercise almost certainly affects the body’s internal clock mechanisms and therefore its circadian rhythms, especially those related to activity.
- The body as an embedded organism
- Creatures of the atmosphere
In Buddha’s psychology, we see the body as an embedded organism, with effects constantly co-arising with its interaction and interconnectedness with the forces of nature, including the weather. While no satisfactory agreement has been reached as to how the weather causes joint pain, there are plausible theories. One theory points to changes in air pressure. Barometric pressure is the weight of the atmosphere that surrounds us. Barometric pressure often drops before bad weather sets in. This lower air pressure pushes less against the body, allowing tissues to expand. As rheumatologist David Borenstein explains, ‘When there’s less pressure, we expand.’
- And creatures sensitive to temperature
Hot temperatures: There are two ways in which our body copes with heat – by perspiring and by breathing. High temperatures and humidity present a crucial adaptive factor. If there is very high temperature and high humidity, the body will be sweating but the sweat won’t dry on the skin. Therefore, the body is not able to cool down as effectively. If the temperature remains elevated overnight, the body becomes overwhelmed. If a person is exposed to heat for a very long time, the first thing that shuts down is the ability to sweat. Once somebody stops perspiring, they become very hot and in short order can move from heat exhaustion to heat stroke.
Cold temperatures: Likewise, the human body is not adapted for extremely cold temperatures. But the human body does have several defenses. Our muscles shiver and our teeth chatter, our hairs rise and our flesh forms goosebumps. The hypothalamus stimulates these reactions to keep the body’s vital organs warm. The body directs its warm blood close to the core, thereby constricting blood supply to the outer regions. While fat does not transfer heat very well and, therefore keeps it inside the body, humans, with no fur and relatively little fat, can’t adapt well to very cold environments.
- Smells can make you feel and act differently
Our sense of smell can recognize thousands of different smells and is directly connected to the limbic system. These structures are involved in many of our emotions and motivations, for example, fear, anger and sexual arousal. By the time we correctly recognize a particular scent as, the scent has already activated the limbic system, triggering an emotional reaction. A smell can evoke a memory. Despite individual peculiarities, some significant generalizations have been made: For example, people tend to give higher pleasantness ratings to smells that they can identify correctly, including the use of an appropriate color, for example, red with the smell of cherry. There are some fragrances that appear to be universally perceived as pleasant, such as vanilla. The thought of pleasant fragrances can make us a bit calmer. It seems that positive emotions are predominantly processed by the left hemisphere of the brain, while negative emotions are more often processed by the right hemisphere. Smells can also affect our perceptions of other people. Beauty can be in the ‘nose’ of the beholder. Unpleasant smells can have the opposite effect. Therefore, we need to be mindful of how odors can affect our judgment and behavior.
- Organ cross-talk and interactions
Important in the cognitive processes and the enmeshing of the body and its environment, the co-arising principle is again critical in the interactions between the unified coherent body systems.
Our unified body systems operate on functional, automatic mode every moment of our life. When we wake up, get sleepy, hungry or thirsty, all is responded to by the coherent and wide system operation of our body. There isn’t an organ in the human body that operates in isolation. Everything interacts in different levels of response. The interactions between these different levels are so complex that they can’t be reduced to a single level. In a biological system, a change in one part of the body’s system will affect the dynamic behavior of the whole organism.
Unfortunately, many people do not conceive of the body as a whole, and instead still think of using a Cartesian partition between mind and brain, and brain and body. Some basic physical interactions include the nervous system and its interactions with every single organ including musculoskeletal control. Many physiological and behavioral functions depend on the merging within the nervous system. The nervous system is a dynamic platform exchanging information from between one part of the body and another. This happens in both healthy and unhealthy physical processes, processing that can be significantly influenced by hormones.
The liver is often called the most unselfish organ because almost everything that it does is done for the benefit of the body as a whole. Likewise, the kidneys share a very close role with the heart through the cardiovascular system. An example is provided by Andrew Davenport in his article, ‘The Brain and the Kidney – Organ Cross Talk and Interactions’, in which he describes how the kidney and the brain play major roles in maintaining normal homeostasis of the extracellular fluid. It is vital to look at the body as an inter-connected dependent co-arising unit, instead of individual parts. For example: If someone with a lowered adrenal output is given supplemental thyroid hormones, they develop many side effects, such as heart arrhythmias, or nervousness. This is because the adrenal glands are further stressed by the additional thyroid.
Both neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine are made through a methylation pathway. Research has shown that the pituitary gland needs serotonin and dopamine in order to release the appropriate hormone signals. There is a physiological hierarchy of needs. An important example of this is that when the body is attempting to cope with a stress situation, it will create more cortisol and sacrifice the sex hormones. With our fast-paced modern lifestyles, our bodies are using cortisol almost constantly.
An exquisite feature of the living system is its acute sensitivity to weak signals. The extreme sensitivity of the human organism applies to all systems; no part has to be pushed or pulled into action. Instead, the coordinated action of all the parts depends on rapid intercommunication between the different organs and tissues. The organism is a system of, ‘Excitable media,’.
- Specific body systems
Circulatory System – transports nutrients and gasses to cells and tissues throughout body.
Lymphatic System – transports lymph towards the heart, plays a crucial role in immune system.
Nervous System – monitors and coordinates internal organ function and responds to changes in the external environment.
- Homeostasis
‘The highly developed living being is an open system having many relations to its surroundings – in the respiratory and alimentary tracts and through surface receptors, neuromuscular organs and bony levers. Changes in the surroundings excite reactions in this system or affect it directly so that internal disturbances of the system are produced. Such disturbances are normally kept within narrow limits because automatic adjustments within the system are brought into action, and thereby wide oscillations are prevented and the internal conditions are held fairly constant.’ Walter B. Cannon31
Walter Cannon coined the term ‘homeostasis’. Homeostasis is the automatic and coherent response of our body to maintain optimal health via a relatively constant internal environment balance. For example, it maintains our body temperature, a stable flow of blood, optimal nourishment and oxygen to the cells, whilst removing toxins. ‘The brain also has a remarkable tendency to maintain its chemical constancy…’
The regulative processes in every organism tend to be restorative. Physical and psychological stress cause physical imbalance. ‘What Does Homeostatic Balance Mean?’:
‘The body uses different processes to maintain homeostasis. Receptors throughout the body sense changes in the internal and external environment and send messages to the brain; it responds by telling the appropriate organs to restore equilibrium. Hormones are often used to signal the changes that must be made to restore balance, but the body also uses other mechanisms.’…
An imbalance in the homeostatic processes can lead to disease or even death.
- The chemical basis of behavior
Metabolism describes all chemical reactions involved in maintaining the living state of the cells and hence the organism. The metabolic process involves two kinds of activities:
Anabolism – The building and storing processes.
Catabolism – Comprises those processes that breakdown molecules to release the energy required.
Metabolism is a vital, complicated and constant chemical process; if it stops, then we die.
Specific proteins and several hormones of the endocrine system are involved in controlling the rate and direction of metabolism. The thyroid gland releases thyroxine. The pancreas releases the hormone insulin to increase their anabolic activities. Generally, metabolism works effectively and automatically. A metabolic disorder can cause serious medical problems: Hypothyroidism (The under-functioning) Hyperthyroidism (over-functioning).
Type 1 diabetes – The pancreas doesn’t produce and secrete enough insulin. Symptoms include excessive thirst and urination, hunger and weight loss.
Type 2 diabetes – The body can’t respond normally to insulin requirements. The symptoms of this disorder are similar.
Metabolism is closely linked to nutrition and the availability of nutrients. Food provides a variety of substances that are essential for the efficient functioning of the body.
Essential nutrients that we must acquire include: Carbohydrates, Starches and sugars, Fibre , Proteins, Fats, Minerals More than 50 elements are found in the human body. Vitamins – Vitamins play an important role in body chemistry generally, activation of important enzymes (co-enzymes).
Other important chemicals interacting with brain functions include: Oxygen-Glucose – Normal brain function is dependent upon an adequate and continuous supply of glucose etc.
- Exercise physiology
People used to live in an environment in which physical activities like walking, running, lifting, etc. were necessary for accomplishing many everyday tasks throughout the year. But, the amount of physical activity carried out on a daily basis has been greatly reduced. The body, however, still responds to the physical stress in the same way as it always has. Robert Gerszten, explained that, ‘[…] how these effects occur is not entirely clear. Exercise physiology is surprisingly very poorly understood.’
- Blood chemistry
Regular exercise offers important benefits for our wellbeing, partly through altering blood chemistry. Exercise alters the body’s physiology by increasing of the oxygen-carrying capacity of blood. In addition, the number of mitochondria will increase to handle the higher demand for energy. Blood sugar levels fluctuate as glucose is catabolized for energy. Next, the body will trigger a chain of chemical reactions to break down stored energy in the muscles, liver and adipose tissue. The release of the stored sugar will elevate glucose levels until they are depleted through activity. This helps to normalize our glucose, insulin and leptin levels by optimizing insulin/ leptin receptor sensitivity.
- Brain chemicals
When performing aerobic exercises, researchers found that increased stimulation of brain regions that are involved in memory function and an increase in the production of a neurotransmitter known as Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), which plays an important role in memory. BDNF rewires memory circuits so they work better. As BDNF levels increase, the growth rate of neurons in the hippocampus increases as well. ‘Using more brain cells turns on genes to make more BDNF.’ There are several other chemicals that are released by exercise, which can affect your mood, outlook and physical comfort level.
- Hormones
When you move, your muscles release hormones. Some interesting hormones relating to physical activity include Irisin, or the ‘Exercise Hormone’. The validity of irisin has generated controversy among scientists. ‘Data unequivocally demonstrate that human irisin exists,’ said Spiegelman. Testosterone –. Estrogen – Peptide YY/Ghrelin – A vigorous workout affects the release of these two key appetite hormones. Ghrelin is the hormone known to stimulate appetite. But exercise also does increase levels of peptide YY, which may make you less hungry. Endorphins – Serotonin – Dopamine. Exercising can increase the amount of dopamine in certain regions of the brain, promoting positive wellbeing and even countering negative mental states. It’s been shown that meditation can also increase dopamine levels. Hobbies of all kinds bring the brain into a meditative state and increase dopamine. Growth factors – like hepatocyte, fibroblast and insulin send signals to the satellite cells to regulate preparative growth of muscle mass growth.
- The microbiome and its multiple roles: the gut-brain axis
All vertebrates have a symbiotic relationship with what is called gut microbiota. Surprisingly, cell by cell, we are mostly made up of bacteria. There are up to 100 times more bacteria than human cells in the human body. Biologists now believe that much of our wellbeing depends on microbial activity. At birth, the gut is sterile, but over time our gut develops a diverse and distinct variety of bacterial species, determined by genetics as well as by which bacteria live in us and those around us. In a human adult, the gut bacteria can weigh as much as five pounds, and they make up an organ of sorts. The Human Microbiome Project estimates that a normal adult’s gut consists of 100 trillion microbes. Collectively they are known as the microbiome. It interacts with and influences organ systems throughout the body. The brain can have a strong influence on the microbiome – mild cognitive stress reactions can change the microbial balance from beneficial to disease-causing bacteria. Premysl Bercik, MD says, ‘[…] data suggest that bacteria can have profound effects on behavior and brain biochemistry, probably through multiple pathways.’ There is evidence of bacterial translocation being associated with approximately 35% of people with depression.
Demonstrating the significance of the microbiome-gut-brain axis, Bercik and colleagues reported having completely changed the behavior of a species of mice by giving them a mixture of antibiotics that significantly changed the composition of their gut bacteria. The ecosystem of the microbiome is also intimately entwined with our immune, endocrine and nervous systems. It is crucially linked to the brain – our diet and gut bacteria influence our behavior, thoughts and mood: ‘Scientists are increasingly convinced that the vast assemblage of microfauna in our intestines may have a major impact on our state of mind.’ Not only does the microbiome affect brain biochemistry, stress responses and behavior, it also produces many neurochemicals that the brain uses. Dr. Siri Carpenter estimates that gut bacteria manufacture about 95% of the body’s supply of serotonin, which influences both mood and gastrointestinal (GI) activity. Similarly, Lyte, proposes a neurochemical, ‘Delivery system’ by which gut bacteria, such as probiotics, can send messages to the brain.
Gut bacteria both produce and respond to the same neurochemicals that the brain uses to regulate mood and cognitive processes. Such neurochemicals probably allow the brain to tune its behavior to the feedback it receives from the mass of bacteria in the gut. The microbiome is often referred to as the ‘second brain ‘, as it is the only organ to have its own independent nervous system. Dr. Katrin Andreasen has been investigating the role of microglia and the brain’s immune cells in Alzheimer’s disease. Her work suggests that the prodromal stage of Alzheimer’s disease involves an inflammatory response; a particular receptor, EP2, may predispose individuals to develop the condition.
Another study found that compared with individuals who received a placebo intervention; participants who received a multispecies probiotics intervention demonstrated significantly reduced ruminative thoughts.
The research into understanding the role of the microbiome in reaction to human emotions and behaviors has become very compelling. Exploring functions and mechanisms of the human body as part of a whole, interdependent, dynamic system is far more accurate than trying to understand it as comprised of individual independent systems.
- Epigenetics: a new insight to biology
Another new branch in biology is epigenetics or the study of changes in gene activity which are not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. Environmental influences, including nutrition, stress, and emotions can modify genes without changing the sequence of nucleotides. The epigenome refers to the overall state of a cell, and works as an interface between the environment and the genome. Epigenetics studies the reason why a skin cell looks different from a brain cell or a muscle cell.
Epigenetics studies the factors that cause the body’s genes to turn off or turn on by exploring the effects of the physical, social and electromagnetic environment on our cells’ actions. Preetha Anand suspects that only 5–10% of all cancer cases can be attributed to genetic defects, whereas the remaining 90–95% have their roots in environmentally-induced epigenetic alterations. What we eat, where we live, who we interact with, when we sleep, how we exercise, even aging – all of these factors can cause chemical modifications in our genome. As biochemist Mae Wan Ho stated: ‘…we already have a great deal of knowledge on how social deprivation, psychological stress, and environmental toxins can have dire effects on us and our still unborn children and grandchildren while social enrichment, caring environments and cognitive and physical exercises, and stress-reducing mind-body techniques can have beneficial effects on infants, children and adults alike. The implications of the appropriate interventions for health, education and social wellbeing are clear.
It seems we cannot control approximately 30% of our genetic makeup, but we can control about 70%. It was previously thought that an embryo’s epigenome was completely new, but this isn’t completely true. Some epigenetic changes do pass from generation to generation (epigenetic inheritance). Early in an embryo’s development, most signals come from within cells or from neighboring cells. As cells grow and divide, they faithfully copy epigenetic tags along with the DNA. This is especially important during embryonic development, as past experiences inform future choices. The epigenome enables cells to remember their past experiences long after the signals fade away (e.g. the mother’s nutrition). Other types of signals, such as stress hormones, can travel from mother to fetus. In infancy, a wider range of environmental factors begin to shape the epigenome. Environmental signals allow cells to respond dynamically to the outside world while internal signals direct body maintenance. During these processes, the cell’s experiences are transferred to the epigenome, where they shut down and/or activate specific sets of genes. Examples of inherited epigenetic changes have been shown by experiments with rat models, which were exposed to a crop fungicide that can cause susceptibility to cancer.
- Psychoneuroimmunology
‘The mind and body are dependent on each other the way two sheaves stand up by leaning against each other.’ Samyutta Nikaya
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) studies the complex and intimate communications, interactions and regulation among our psychological processes, behaviors, central nervous system (CNS), immune system and the endocrine system. Dr. Robert Ader states, ‘Its [PNI] central premise is that homeostasis is an integrated process involving interactions among behavior and the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems.’ PNI is increasingly showing how changes in a person’s mental or emotional state can modify the molecular profile of his or her immune or hormonal system.
The pain experience is complex and involves many components, which depend on bi-directional communication with the spinal cord. One study provided evidence that explicitly presented pain-related words lead to activations within regions of the brain’s pain matrix. When tasks involved imagination, the specificity of pain-related words is reflected in the activation of regions associated with the cognitive dimension of pain, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the inferior parietal gyri (or IPG). The findings suggest that the perception of pain-related words changes the central nervous processing, that is associated with the cognitive dimension of pain.
Music-induced analgesia can reduce stress, depression and distress in people with acute and chronic pain. Christine Dobek’s research showed observable changes in neural function in the entire CNS in response to changes in pain perception related to music analgesia. Music-induced analgesia seems to work by evoking a rewarding response in the brain that activates the descending analgesia system, indicating therefore that music is processed in various areas distributed throughout the brain including limbic areas, cortical regions and reward-related mesolimbic circuits. Dopamine mediates the mesocortical and mesolimbic circuits to (potentially) trigger opioid release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) whilst listening to music.
- The stress phenomenon
An important focus of PNI is the complexity of the stress phenomenon and its potentially harmful influence on the body. In fact, any belief that there isn’t an intimate interaction between physical and psychological stressors is a misconception. The stress response typically expresses itself in two main ways. Firstly, the endocrine pathway causes the secretion of several stress hormones, including corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol. If left unchecked, these chemicals can devastate the body’s homeostatic balance. Secondly, the autonomic pathway may be affected. Adrenaline, like cortisol, has a large number of effects on several body systems, one example being that persistent adrenal surges can damage blood vessels and arteries, raising blood pressure and increasing the risk of heart attacks or strokes.
- Chronic stress
The brain and bodily systems can’t differentiate between an actual and an imaginary threat. Chronic stress not only results from long-term, repeated exposure, but can also be caused by negative emotional ruminations about the past. It has been found that in response to long-term stress responses, the branching dendrites, where much of the brain’s information and memories are stored, decrease in size and in volume. Gestalt Therapy proponents of chronic stress: If the organism’s needs or sensibilities remain “unfinished”, the organism will keep on trying to resolve the unresolved contact. Instead of giving up on its needs, the organism will take emergency measures, delaying any unfavorable resolution or consolation. If the organism’s needs continue to go unmet, the chronic emergency becomes the new normal and eventually passes out of awareness. Chronic stress, by causing a negative mind-body interaction, is considered a significant risk factor. Chronic stress may also contribute to obesity, both through direct mechanisms (causing people to eat more) or indirectly (decreasing sleep and exercise) and numerous other problems. Therefore reducing chronic stress can boost the immune system, and enhance wellbeing.
- The placebo effect on stress
To further appreciate the two-way process between the relationship of mind and body, the placebo phenomenon must be acknowledged. Some studies suggest, that the placebo effect triggers an increase in the body’s production of endorphins. Helen S. Mayberg and colleagues report that there is an increased metabolism, which is probably an early indicator of the brain’s compensatory capacity in response to a placebo response. As the basic concept of PNI hypothesizes that the mind and body are inseparable, it seems logical that the power of suggestion will have an effect either way.
Expectation seems to play a potent role in the placebo effect. The stronger the feeling, the more likely it is that a person will experience positive results (and vice versa).
The placebo effect appears to be part of human potential to be relieved by something for which there is no apparent medical basis just by reacting positively to a ‘healer’. Since, the brain seems to respond to an imagined scene much as it would to something it actually sees, a placebo may help the brain go back and remember a time before current physical or psychological symptoms and produce certain physical-chemical changes. This is called Remembered Wellness. When directed in a constructive path, the positive placebo is an illustration of the therapeutic potential of the mind-body relationship. With a wholesome mindset, a person can enhance the immune function and improve his or her mind-body condition. The Buddha tells us that with a wholesome, serene mindset, happiness will follow, ‘If a man speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.’
- The immune system: neuroimmunology
Neuroimmunology describes the study of the interrelationship between the nervous and immune systems. It’s becoming increasingly clear that our brain, our immune system and our gut microbes are intricately linked. Autism, for instance, may be associated with gastrointestinal problems and a potential over-reaction in the immune system. Jonathan Kipnis reported: ‘Moreover, neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s have long been linked to changes in immune system function, and autoimmune diseases of the gut, like Crohn’s disease, correlate with psychiatric illness.’ It hasn’t been clear how such connections arise, but now both a gut-brain axis and a link between the immune system and brain have been more clearly shown. Kipnis emphasized: ‘We believe that for every neurological disease that has an immune component to it, these vessels may play a major role. …In Alzheimer’s [for example], there are accumulations of big protein chunks in the brain. …they may be accumulating in the brain because they’re not being efficiently removed by these vessels.’ And, ‘Careful studies have shown that the brain does interact with the peripheral immune system, albeit in unique ways. Immune cells do, somehow, circulate through the brain, and antigens – which would normally stoke an immune response – do drain from the brain into the lymph nodes.’
- The immune system as an ecological system
Alfred I. Tauber proposed that the immune system does operate and cooperate with so-called ‘foreign’ visitors to the body. From an ecological perspective, we, as individual organisms, actually live in a community of others that contribute to our welfare. There is a growing body of evidence that the immune system isn’t a passive system just waiting to react to outside threats, but a highly proactive system that changes in response to external cues.
Robert Ader stated: ‘Together, behavioral, neural, endocrine, and immune processes of adaptation constitute an integrated network of defenses and, insofar as immuno-regulatory processes are concerned, the assumption of an autonomous immune system is no longer tenable. It is not possible to obtain a full understanding of immune regulatory processes without considering the organism and the internal and external environment in which immune responses take place.’
The immune system possesses ‘cognitive’ functions too, in that it ‘knows’ how to recognize healthy versus harmful visitors. There is no isolated, circumscribed, static, rigidly self-defined identity designated as ‘the self’. ‘Self/non-self’ separation recedes as a governing principle, even with immunity, when it is appreciated as both outer-directed against the deleterious and inner-directed in an on-going communicative system of internal homeostasis. From this dual perspective, immune function falls on a continuum of reactivity, where the character of the immune object is determined by the context in which it appears, not by its character as other per se. Tauber asserts that more simplistic models have too often obscured this cardinal lesson and writes, ‘The “me” (or “I”) serves as the variable linguistic label of a function of possessive identity, which in the translation of Freud’s das Ich has been forever called (inaccurately) “the ego”.’
- Neurobiology
‘The mind is the basis for everything. Everything is created by my mind, and is ruled by my mind. When I speak or act with impure thoughts, suffering follows me As the wheel of the cart follows the hoof of the ox. The mind is the basis for everything. Everything is created by my mind and is ruled by my mind. When I speak or act with a clear awareness, happiness stays with me. Like my own shadow, it is unshakeable.’ Dhammapada 1-2
If we’re looking for happiness or fulfillment, the place to look for it is inside. Rick Hanson, Ph.D. wrote an insightful article called, ‘Mind Changing Brain Changing Mind’. In this, he summarizes important facts, which provide the basis for understanding the biological processes that accompany meditation; and the importance for a disciplined Bhavana or mind-culture practitioner to attain wholesome results on the journey for mental purification. Recognizing how our thoughts influence the structure of our brain, and vice versa, as well as how our cognitive construction of a ‘self’ are only a creation of our neural networks, can support us on our journey to Enlightenment. Research is beginning to clarify the circular, interdependent relationship between the brain and the mind. The Citta, or mind, also alters both the brain’s physical structure and functional organization. In his article, Hanson defines mind as being, ‘The flow of information through the nervous system, most of which is forever unconscious’.
As the synaptic connections strengthen in response to the increased activity, and new synapses form for new activities. Through meditation and other concentrated thought processes, we can use our mind to build neural structures and increase particular regions of the brain’s mass. This can be highly beneficial for building skillful mental states. Within the vast networks of the brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been found to be the area that manages what is called ‘effortful attention’. When we practice the four foundations of mindfulness, we use the ACC; performing Metta, which stimulates the ACC and strengthens it (the region can increase in mass). Meditation also strengthens another region of the brain called the insula, which supports us in our ability to become more empathic with others.
Research has indicated that the deep, non-conscious structure of the brain is actually the most significantly active when thoughts surface. When you observe your thoughts, you can see the outer signs of neural activity. Interestingly, after thought but just before new thought forms, there’s an ‘empty’ quiet moment, where a structure hasn’t yet congealed. This can be a productive meditation practice of staying with the empty moment and even trying to expand it.
Once a representation has formed and become fully established in our mind. The representation can quickly become identified as a subject and as an aspect of our ‘self’. Once we identify with the image, it becomes difficult to un-identify with. Even these images related to ‘self’ are just neural patterns, these patterns exist but they’re impermanent, dependently arisen and mere constructions of our brain’s cognitive apparatus. While the ‘self’ seems real and substantial, it helps our non-identification practice to remember that it is only evolving and impermanent patterns in the mind and brain. The ‘self’ exists in the way that memory allows it to exist, and like all physical-biological processes, memories are transient, illusionary, and it therefore is foolish to cling to them. To quote Hanson: ‘Whatever of self-there is in the brain, it is compounded and distributed, not coherent and unified; it is variable and transient, not stable and enduring. In other words, the conventional notion of self is a mythical creature.’ As we grow to understand that the representations of ‘self’ are only fictional, we can then start taking our ‘self’, ‘with a pinch of salt’. Neuropsychology supports the idea that we have the freedom and possibility to condition and create our particular mind states, which are supported by our nurtured brain structures. After the gradual ripening to a maturation of our habits, latent tendencies, non-identification with the subjective ownership of experience etc. we no longer respond immaturely or egotistically to our desires and aversions. This doesn’t mean that we become emotionless and detached automatons. Through the transformative process, there becomes a greater awareness and respect for our body, a serenity of the emotions, increased kindness of the heart, flexible and realistic attitudes. More genuine human relationships grow out of a deeper awareness. In the end, an Arahant can be described with two words: simple and stable.
- Body electric
Our body is capable of generating electricity, and this ability is actually a key part of our achieving health. Everything we do is controlled and enabled by electrical signals (nervous system, brain). Electrical signals in our body are responsible for controlling the rhythm of our heartbeat, the movement of blood and much more. We are electrical beings. Any breakdown in our body’s electrical system is a real problem. For example, when you get an electric shock, it interrupts the normal operation of the system. We can generate electricity since our bodies are huge masses of atoms, with protons positive charge, neutrons neutral charge and electrons negative charge, and there is a flow of electrons.
Almost all of our cells are capable of generating electricity.
This electric field is detectable (EEG). We can generate between 10 and 100 millivolts. Not only your brain, but our entire body has an electric field. Anywhere there’s a nerve cell, there’s electricity. Being an electric field, all those overlying electric vibration patterns that comprise your brain waves are governed by the same equations governing the electromagnetic spectrum, light, particles and everything else in the universe. Your thoughts are formed in this electric field.
The thoughts you are thinking of, the words your mind is processing, are all electrical impulses that can be measured if you had a few wires hooked up between your head and a machine. So, thoughts are energy, the same as everything else. Some even hypothesize, that the higher the frequency of our thought/brain wave vibration/ rhythm, the higher our consciousness (and vice versa).
- The electrodynamics of health
‘Most of the fields surrounding the cells and us are invisible, but their effects are not. It is time to look for them as this regards our understanding about ourselves.’ Dr. Daniel Fels ‘There is a strong evidence that EMFs and radio/ microwave frequencies are associated with accelerated aging (enhanced cell death and cancer) and moods, depression, suicide, anger, rage and violence, primarily through alteration of cellular calcium ions and the melatonin/serotonin balance.’ Dr. Neil Cherry
- The human body as a complex energetic system
Science confirms that in addition to biochemical processes, the body is suffused by a quantum electrodynamics field, interacting on many levels of subtle energy, patterns and significance. Our bodies are networks of complex energy fields that interact with the physical and cellular systems. There is a hierarchy of subtle energy systems that coordinate electro-physiological and hormonal functions as well as a cellular structure within the body. Consciousness is an energetic form that is closely related to the cellular expression of the physical body. Disease states may arise when energy systems are out of balance. As indicated by Pokorný, fundamentally disturbed electrodynamics field characterizes cancer cells: ‘Mitochondrial dysfunction (that develops before the appearance of the cancer malignant properties) and diminished power and coherence of the electrodynamics field may be the most pronounced differences between the healthy and the cancer cells in the clinical phase.’
Pokorný asserts that high-capacity information transfer between the body organs and the brain may be mediated by the electromagnetic field. The human bio-energy field is proposed to have a magnetic structure. It ultimately determines our chemistry, metabolism and cell structure. Some suggest that electromagnetic field imbalances (or outer influences) are linked to cancers and other illnesses, such as leukemia. These hypotheses are often dismissed because of a presumed absence of ‘possible biological mechanisms’ to account for the illnesses. Pokorný’s model represents a valuable source to understand the sensitivity of organisms to weak electromagnetic fields.
The unpredictability of electromagnetic fields is perfectly described in the ‘butterfly effect’.
The existence and functionality of electrodynamics fields is not new. In the 1930s, American biologist Harold Saxton Burr proposed that all living organisms are molded and controlled by electrodynamics. Then, in the 1950s, a researcher named Becker showed that all organisms’ bodies have a Direct Current (DC) field. These fields are in addition to the accepted knowledge of the electrical activities of the brain and heart. Becker further proposed in the 1960s that an electrical communication system exists within all living things. As the body uses electromagnetic signals of different frequencies and to different extents to intercommunicate, it would be surprising if external electromagnetic fields did not have an effect. It is becomingly increasingly evident that electrodynamics and electric currents are involved in intercommunication throughout the body.
- Effects of electromagnetic fields on the body
Recently, there has been an increase in radiofrequency (RF) exposure from wireless devices as well as reports of hypersensitivity and diseases related to the electromagnetic field (EMF) and RF exposure. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has documented numerous studies showing this exposure has adverse effects on health. It is well known that long-range EMF or RF forces can act over large distances to set a biological system oscillating in phase with the frequency of the electromagnetic field. Even passive resonant circuits can imprint potentially long-lasting effects of a frequency imprint into water and biological systems. RF exposure causing changes associated with degenerative neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has been reported. Epidemiological studies of RF exposure occurring non-locally, have reported neurological and cognitive disorders. Pulsed electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) have been shown to consistently provoke neurological symptoms in subjects, while exposure to continuous frequencies did not. From such a perspective, it seems increasingly clear that a quantum physics model is necessary to fully understand and appreciate how and why EMF and RF fields are harmful to living beings.
Specific frequencies of electromagnetic radiation regulate DNA, RNA and protein synthesis (assemble), alter protein shape and function and control gene regulation, cell division, cell differentiation, hormones secretion, nerve growth and function.
Thoughts, the mind’s energy, directly influence how the brain controls the body: they represent an incredibly powerful form of energy that can activate or inhibit the function of a cell’s proteins via constructive or destructive interference. ‘Every cell in our body has a characteristic vibration. …When they vibrate at a different rate and pattern, the body functions less well and the person feels not so good […] every thought is a pattern of energy characterized by a certain vibratory rate and pattern […]’
Our conscious mind experiences the chemical communication signals between cells as emotions. If positive thinking and emotions are good for you, imagine what negative thinking can do.
- Electromagnetic radiation effects on people from everyday electronics
ELF-MF and radiofrequency electromagnetic fields do seem to influence our circadian rhythms. Numerous studies have reported changes in sleep patterns, and melatonin and cortisol secretion after exposure to these fields. There is a wealth of evidence to support the claim that the everyday technologies we use today emit electromagnetic radiation that can penetrate our body. For years now, research has linked EM radiation to serious diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and others. For example, after an extensive review of more than 2,000 such studies, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences concluded that EMFs, ‘should be regarded as possible carcinogens.’
- Why is radiation dangerous?
Our bodies use electromagnetic fields to function properly. Robert Becker wrote that our cells actually communicate with each other via bioelectrical signals and electromagnetic fields. These natural EMFs help regulate important biochemical processes of all kinds. Maintaining balance in those cellular electromagnetic fields is crucial to our physical health. Magnetic radiation (which is part of any EMF), can easily penetrate the body. The body’s electrical signals can easily be affected by ambient radio waves, microwaves and other. Artificial EMFs can change the frequency of the body’s electrical fields, distorting the balance and alter its communications. Even when we leave that strong electromagnetic field environment, our body’s systems tend to store electromagnetic radiations within the cells as electromagnetic oscillations. Mobile phones, for example, have powerful EMFs. Numerous studies conducted have shown that overexposure to EMFs can lead to weakened immunities, lowered resistance to bacterial and viral infections and cancer. While hotly debated the BioInitiative Report (2007), concluded that the existing standards for public safety are completely inadequate to protect your health.
Further research is being conducted into the possibility of a connection existing between different types of health risks. Accordingly, a recent study reported the results from a series of experimental studies aimed at discovering the effects of low-intensity radiofrequency radiation in the metabolism of living cells. In particular, oxidative stress was observed, which represents, ‘An imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant defense.’ Oxidative stress mechanisms are known as a key factor in the onset of cancer.
