[Somik 'defended' his inspiring and thought-provoking dissertation -- Achieving Clarity on Value -- at Stanford this week.  Below is an interesting excerpt about meditation, included in his dissertation.]

When discussing the experience of value, we would be remiss if we did not touch upon an important philosophical question, namely, is the experience of value a condition or a decision?

Eastern psychology points to the latter as a deeper truth, and the former as an apparent truth. From the Vipassana technique of meditation, we find four key phenomena that explain the working of the mind: consciousness, perception, sensation and reaction. The first phenomena, consciousness, works "to cognize, simply to know, without differentiating. A sound comes into contact with the ear, and the (consciousness) notes only the fact that a sound has come."  The second phenomena of the mind, perception, is about recognizing something from one's past experience as good or bad.  For instance, a sound may consist of words of praise or words of abuse. The third phenomena of the mind, sensation, is what arises in response to the recognition. For something that was perceived to be pleasing, pleasant sensations arise throughout the body, and similarly for unpleasant perceptions, unpleasant sensations arise throughout the body. These sensations are felt by the mind. The fourth phenomena of the mind is to pull out the reaction from a database of past reactions to such sensations. At this point, the tendency of the mind is to apply the reaction, and deepen the habit-pattern as the applied reaction gets stored in the mind for future access. Moreover, the reaction creates more external stimulus and the cycle repeats, multiplying the perception and thereby the sensation. However, the teachers of meditation urge the student to discover a space between the reaction that arises as an informational element and the response that is a decision. Instead of reacting, the student is urged to stay equanimous, and develop equanimity as a habit. As the habit-conditioning changes immediately, the cycle breaks, and the physical experience also starts to change. Instead of multiplying and feeding on itself, the effect of external stimuli becomes short-lived, and the action taken is less and less a reaction and more and more a thoughtful action. In this sense, the experience of positive and negative stimuli becomes more of a decision.

This explanation helps us understand the experience of value in the moment, and if every moment may be dealt with equanimously, then the value experienced in the future is no longer a concern for analysis for one who lives in this way. It is a determination of the present moment. If everyone were to live in this way, we would not have to worry about our actions. However, as most of us have not trained enough to live in the moment, the experience of value is in large part influenced by conditions around us, and insofar as we desire to affect such conditions with our decisions, the need for thoughtful action remains.

Posted by Neil Patel | comments (0) | permalink | more 'Inspiration' |