THE QUEST: WHO AM I? HOW TO GET OUT OF MISERY AND UNHAPPINESS
I spent a few days at a seminar learning about how to gain mastery of the mind based on the teachings of Gotama Siddhartha. During many days of discourse and countless hours of work on the mind-body, we came to a section where we talked about who we are. What is the essence of a human being; basically, who am I? Gotama’s explanation hit home. I finally understood how, as a species, we can define the “I”. It really helped me to understand how my mind works and how I react to certain events in life. Everything was making sense; simple to understand but not easy to practice. So, let’s dive in.
Animals and human beings have a material form: the body, and a primitive mind that we use at moments such as fight-flight-freeze or our survival instincts. Nonetheless, a Human’s mind has one area that is much larger than most animals compared to their size: the cortex and neocortex. The cerebral cortex is mainly involved in the process of consciousness, thought, emotion, reasoning, language, and memory. We are the only creatures that can think and imagine in a much more abstract manner. Think about this: do animals ask themselves “who am I?” Probably not. I will not dive into more details about the brain structure because what matters most here is how it functions and interacts with our body, and vice versa. Let’s start with the matter (physical form/body) and then the mind. It is important to mention that these two mutually dependent components interact with each other constantly. Let’s dive into the physical body first.
Physical body (matter)
The 8 elements
The body is the physical aspect made up of matter. This matter forms the structure of a human being. What Gotama discovered thousands of years ago is that this matter is made of tiny particles. He called it “Kalapa”, the smallest units in physical matter. He even gave a size for it: about 1/46,656th of the size of a particle of dust from a wheel of a chariot. Simply said, he discovered not only the atom but the subatomic particles of an atom (you can google the scientific research that proves he was right about the size of those particles). He said that they are invisible under normal circumstances but can be seen or better said felt under special circumstances. These subatomic particles are composed by eight inseparable elements of material essence, four primary and four secondary elements.
The four primary and predominant elements are water, earth, air, and fire. Think of it this way: when you feel tightness, binding within your body - it is the quality of the water. When you have the sensation of your weight - it is the earth attribute. When you feel the cold or heat in your body, it is the fire quality. When you feel movement, the tiniest vibrations within your body - it is the air attribute.
The four secondary elements derive from these four primary elements. The secondary elements are color, smell, taste, and nutrition. These elements lead us to the second important aggregate of the human body: the six senses.
Six senses
Yes, not 5 senses, but six: touch, sight, smell, hearing, taste, and MIND. The mind is considered to be a sense which generates and processes thoughts. At the same time, it interprets what is perceived by the other senses. These senses are paired with physical organs; touch and body (skin), visible object (shape and color) and eye, odor and nose, sound and ears, taste and tongue, and finally mental object (thoughts) are associated with mind.
In summary, our form, our physical aspect, our body is made of subatomic particles (kalapa) and six senses. Quite straight forward. What struck me is that the mind is considered to be an organ and a sense. This statement really resonated with me. I wanted to know more and understand what the mind is made of.
The mind
Gotama Siddhartha breaks down the mind into four aggregates. Those four parts are interconnected and influenced by the physical body. When you understand how they interact, you will understand the root causes of many of the miseries or negative thinking in your daily life. These four attributes are 1) cognition, 2) recognition and judgment, 3) sensation, 4) reaction.
1. Cognition
This is the first step. Being aware of something through our senses. It is the very primitive stage based on your sense organs. For example, if you see a red car, at the cognitive stage, you only see the shape and color. If you smell lavender, at the cognitive stage you are only aware of a different smell than the moment before. If you see someone in the street, you see a shape and colors, maybe you hear a sound (voice). At the cognitive level, your brain does not interpret anything; it just takes the raw data and the raw inputs in.
2. Recognition and judgment
The next step is recognition. Your brain will take the raw data it has received and will look in its database to see if it can recognize what it is. The database is all the past experiences that are stored in the unconscious or subconscious part of your brain. During this process, it will add an etiquette of judgment based on past experiences. If I take the previous example, the shape and red color are identified (recognized) as a car. The judgment on it could be “I want it”, “I like it” or the opposite is you don’t like red cars. The new smell is identified as a lavender smell. You may or may not like it (judgment). The shape in the street is recognized as a human being that you may or may not like. At this stage, it’s all happening in the mind.
3. Sensation
The judgment mentioned in the step before will trigger a bodily sensation. These bodily sensations are created by biochemicals within our body. It translates into pleasant or unpleasant sensations throughout the body like pleasant tingling (think about the stomach butterflies when you fall in love), tightness, or shaking. If I take the previous examples, the red car is the car that I really want to buy in the future, generating good sensations, sensations of joy and happiness. You may hold your breath like when you get a happy surprise. The lavender smell might trigger a feeling of relaxation or disgust. The person you saw in the street could be someone who hurt you in the past which translates as a feeling of anger, hatred, or animosity. Your breath may get heavier and faster. The pleasant or unpleasant sensation will then lead us to the final step: the reaction. Steps one to three are taking place at the conscious level of the mind.
4. Reaction
The final step is the reaction. According to the sensation I generated, I will react in two ways: either craving or aversion. This psychological mechanism is taking place in your unconscious mind; it is very important to remember it! If I take the previous examples, the red car is triggering the craving. The lavender smell is either craving or aversion (I want more of it or don’t). The person I saw in the street triggered an aversion in my unconscious. This process of craving or aversion cannot be controlled by the mind directly. They are mental conditionings that are hankered deep in our unconscious mind. Those mental conditionings are generated by our past experiences and are deeply rooted in our unconscious. There is no way for the conscious mind to directly reach the unconscious mind. Both craving and aversion will create misery and unhappiness (I want more of it, I like the sensation, or I dislike it, I don’t want it, or I don’t like it). This is the last step that creates all our mental trouble in life.
Now, this is where it gets very interesting. The craving or aversion will manifest itself and influence directly the level 3 we talked about before, more specifically the judgment. The “liking“ of the red car makes you want it even more, increasing your sensations (more biochemicals are created which increase the sensations which reinforce your reaction). It is not only a loop, but it is a loop that multiplies itself. The person who hurt you in the example before will trigger an aversion which will increase your animosity towards that person. More biochemicals are discharged in the body. Now, you don’t have only the tightness in your muscles, but your breath is heavier and faster, and your fists are tight. You are multiplying your anger exponentially.
That is how we get stuck in the binary functioning of the brain that creates misery, unhappiness, depression, or distress in our lives. We either run toward what we really like or want (craving) or run away from what we dislike (aversion). But you cannot run away from your mind. So how can we fix it? Is there a way? The answer is yes. The answer was already mentioned throughout the examples before. The two ways you can access the deep-rooted mental conditionings that are dwelling in the unconscious mind is through the breath and bodily sensations. From the awareness of those sensations, you will activate the conscious mind in an equanimous state in which you will neither have craving nor aversion. The keywords here are AWARENESS and EQUANIMITY.
Awareness and equanimity
Too often we keep our awareness on the thought and forget to pay attention to our breath or bodily sensations. If we pay attention to the thought, observe it, and analyze it in the best equanimous way, we only stay on the level of the conscious mind. We stay at the gross level of the mind. We address the symptom but not the root cause. It is like going to the doctor for a chronic migraine. He can give you medicine to take the migraine away (symptom). But if he does not address the root cause of the migraine, you will keep getting it over and over and will take more medications. Worst of all, you will continue to be in pain, angry, miserable, and unhappy with the condition (“so tired and upset of this chronic migraine!”). But if the doctor addresses the root cause, he can eradicate the migraine forever.
Similarly, if we stay on the conscious level and observe the thought with equanimity, we will only treat the symptom. We want to treat the cause of it and eradicate it permanently. To achieve this result, we need to access the unconscious mind.
When you have a negative thought, pay attention to your breath. Has the pattern changed? Is it more intense or febrile? Is it faster or slower? Where do you feel tension? What is your bodily sensation? Scan your body from head to toe; where do you feel it? Awareness of the sensation within the framework of the body is the first step. Then you must bring equanimity into the equation and that is a very difficult exercise.
What does equanimity mean? According to Wikipedia, equanimity means “a state of psychological stability and composure which is undisturbed by experience of or exposure to emotions, pain, or other phenomena that may cause others to lose the balance of their mind. The virtue and value of equanimity are extolled and advocated by a number of major religions and ancient philosophies.”
When you feel intense, gross sensations throughout your body that are even painful, it is hard to stay equanimous. Imagine you run a marathon and at mile 15, you start to have pain in one ankle. How can you stay equanimous and make sure that this pain will not take you down mentally? How can you pass the pain without mentally cursing about it?
The answer is to observe any sensation AS IT IS. Don’t label it (judgment). Don’t generate craving or aversion. If we take the example before, your ankle pain is just pain. Observe it. Don’t label it with “I don’t want it, I don’t like it, I want it to disappear”. If you do so, you will create more biochemicals that will then increase the sensation of pain, causing you to react even more intensely. Remember that the loop multiplies itself (from reaction, loop back to judgment, this increases the sensation that in turn increases the reaction influencing the judgment again… and so on…).
When you observe your ankle pain, IT IS SO AS IT IS (pain only), stay EQUANIMOUS (no label of judgment, you basically decrease the level of biochemical released in your body which, in turn, will decrease the sensation that in turn will decrease the level of aversion (or craving if it is a pleasant sensation). The “lower” aversion level will then loop back to the judgment, and we start the judgment-sensation-reaction loop again. But this time we don’t multiply it. We eradicate this mental conditioning; we eradicate our craving or aversion. After a few loops, the judgment will become neutral, no biochemical is released, the sensation disappears and the aversion to this pain (or craving if it is a pleasant sensation) gets eradicated. When craving and aversion are eradicated, misery and unhappiness disappeared. Only joy, happiness, peace, and harmony stay within our body and mind. Sounds magical, right? You will become happy with what is in life. You slowly will get out of the misery you put yourself through by letting your unconscious mind be the driver of your conscious mind. The more you practice it, the more you change the habits, the mental conditioning that is creating misery in your life. But remember, these mental conditionings are not located in your conscious mind. You cannot change them or eliminate them by staying on the growth level of the mind which is the consciousness. You must reach the depth of the mind, the unconscious mind. There are only two ways to reach it: the breath and the sensation in the body.
Sound magical, right? Let me tell you, it is challenging to stay equanimous, especially when our mental conditioning was trained to always judge everything in life. It is even more difficult when you have past traumas. It takes 1,000’s of hours of mental training to reach that level of equanimity.
Final Words
Now, you may ask, who is Gotama Siddhartha? What kind of seminar was I attending?
Gotama Siddhartha is better known as Buddha. The seminar was a 10 Days Vipassana Meditation Course. It is my second one in 6 months. Why am I doing it? Because it is powerful, and I want to master my mind. It has changed my life and the way I think. I feel much happier, content, and fulfilled. Life is more peaceful and harmonious. It is hard work, and you must continue the work after the 10 days of meditation if you want to see results in your life (and yes, you will see results if you dedicate yourself to the practice).
The teaching of Buddha, Dhamma, is a technique and not a religion. Too many people misunderstand this fact. Buddha was never interested in creating a religion. He was an observer of life and only believed in the law of nature that is universal and not sectorial like the religions. He didn’t care who you were, what kind of beliefs you had, your religion, your wealth. He was only interested to share his discovery to end misery. He wanted people to be happier, more fulfilled, and have a more harmonious life.
So, back to the title: who am I? Buddha described us, human beings (the “I”), as a collection of 5 aggregates:
The matter (body with six senses)
Cognition (conscious mind through the senses)
Recognition and judgment (conscious mind through past experiences)
Sensation (subconscious mind through the production of biochemicals)
Reaction (unconscious mind through mental conditioning)
One last important fact: the commonality of these five aggregates is IMPERMANENCE. The law of nature is such that everything arises and passes away. On the matter level, subatomic particles arise and pass away. On the mind level, thoughts and sensations within our body will arise and pass away. Nothing is permanent. Everything is in a constant change from moment to moment, matter, and mind. Remember, matter (body) and mind are two mutually dependent components interacting with each other constantly. When you understand this principle, you understand the power you must have to change your life. You understand the interconnectedness between the mind and the matter.
You understand that if you want to change your mental state and be more happy, joyful and have a more harmonious life, you will have to go deep within the mind to the unconscious level and eradicate the root cause of your misery: the mental conditionings you have accumulated through your life (or previous lives if you believe in reincarnation). To reach these depths within your mind, you need to focus on the sensation of the body and your breath.
Vipassana is an art of living. Yes, it requires good techniques, practice, and discipline if you want results. But who does not want to master their mind, to have more wisdom in life? Who does not want to be happier and live a more fulfilling and harmonious life? Who does not want more peace in this crazy world? Why not give it a try? 10 days Vipassana Meditation Courses are open to anyone around the world and are free (or donation-based if you finish the course). There is probably one near you. Google it! What are you waiting for…? Go for it. Get out of your comfort zone… it will bring you so many benefits (and indirectly benefit those around you). I am here for you if you have any questions. Just think about it... and then TAKE ACTION!
P.S. If you want to read more about my first 10 Days Vipassana Meditation Course, you can click the link HERE.
- Hubert
YourHPcoach
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