Behavior: A behavior is anything that moves. Some behaviors that I find interesting are: the expansion of the universe, sunlight, rainfall, poetry, music, thoughts, urges, feelings, etc.
Mind: I take mind to be the sum total of everything that happens to a living body. Mind therefore may include hearts beating, blood flowing, thoughts thinking, feelings feeling, urges urging, etc.
Science: The word comes to us from a Latin root meaning to know. I think of a scientist as someone who knows that they know something, and is curious about how they learned to know it.
The useful work zone: When I worked with a personal trainer, they cautioned me not to lift so much weight as to be harmful. For me, lifting 100 pounds would injure my muscles and bones, so I started with 10 pounds instead. I think of meditation practice like a mental workout. I believe it may be useful to identify practices which develop capacity without causing harm or injury. I cannot identify these limits for anyone but myself. I believe that identifying limits, and the zone of useful work, is part of each person’s individual practice.
Cause and effect: Events occur and then more events. Behavior and then more behavior. The universe is exactly itself at every moment.
Reductionism: Understanding the nature of the way things are by breaking the whole into parts. Isaac Newton did this when he defined inertia as the idea that bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. Motion in regard to what? Because he broke reality into components (“motion” vs “rest”) he had to define an eternally fixed space and time that existed independent of motion. He needed an idea of “rest” or “stability” as the backdrop against which motion could be measured. Other scientists have thought about the world differently.
The environment: The environment is everything outside of a person. Some environments encourage the increase (amplification) of behaviors, some environments encourage the decrease (reduction) in certain behaviors. For example, the presence of colorful ads on social media might increase the number of phones purchased in a year. Whereas the absence of such ads might decrease the number purchased. Environments that increase or decrease behavior often also increase or decrease people’s emotions about that environment. People might experience such environments as “manipulative.”
Validation: Validation is defined as any behavior that unambiguously communicates to another person that their behavior is understandable in the current environment. Validation is not about approval, gratification, appeasement, rewarding, or agreeing. Validation communicates that the other person is seen and acknowledged in their wholeness as a valid being. Validation is a form of radical presence with the way things are now.
Invalidation: Invalidation is defined as not accepting the way things are now. The invalidating environment does not accept that people often have strong emotions. A consequence of this non-acceptance is that the invalidating environment cannot support people when they have strong emotions. Another consequence is that strong emotions may increase.
Aversive control: When we do something that someone doesn’t like in an effort to change their behavior this is called aversive control. The opposite, doing something someone likes, is called appetitive control. The problem with aversive control is that it often changes behavior in ways that we don’t want. For example, if I try to use criticism to reduce the frequency of a behavior I don’t like, often the behavior will increase, not decrease. Aversive methods can also be very unpredictable. Sometimes the consequence may be anger, despair, loss of self-control, etc.
Complexity: If one examines a reduced portion of a naturally occurring system (living or non-living) one often finds that this part of the whole still functions in the same way. Zoom in some bit more and still, the same function. This can go on for quite some time, but not forever. At a certain point of dissecting a system, the parts stop functioning like the whole. This point at which there is a qualitative change in function is called a phase transition. Complexity arises from the qualitative differences between the system as a whole and its individual parts. Complexity limits the utility of the reductionistic method. Here’s an example: the reductionistic method would say that I can write down an equation for how a frisbee travels through the air when I toss it to my friend. From the perspective of complexity science however, I have to actually examine the behavior of the frisbee at each moment in time. I cannot make predictions about the behavior of the frisbee 5 or 10 seconds into the future just because the system as a whole is qualitatively different as a system. It cannot be understood by being broken down into its atomistic parts. It must be understood as a system which is qualitatively different from its small constituent parts.
Growth and development: growth and development is one of those complex processes that cannot always be understood by a reductionistic method. We often have to examine the system at each and every stage of development. Relationships are often “non-linear,” which means that small changes now can sometimes predict large difference in the future. The system can be both predictably predictable and unpredictably unpredictable.
Predictive value: If someone learns they tested positive for a condition, they might want to know if the test is accurate. One way of measuring the accuracy of a test is to gather a bunch of people with positive tests and then determine how many of them actually have the condition. This is the predictive value of the test or observation. Here’s an example of how people can misunderstand predictive value: often after a tragic mass shooting politicians will say things like “this was the result of mental illness.” However very few people with mental illness are actually violent towards others. In general, mental illness has a very low predictive value for committing interpersonal violence. In general, those suffering from mental illness are far more likely to be victims of interpersonal violence than perpetrators. One of the most important components of predictive value is how the world is actually structured. And just because we have very different ideas about how the world is structured, people often assign very different predictive values to their observations. One person’s “catastrophe” can be another person’s “salvation.” This is one common source of dialectics.
Dialectic: A dialectic is a set of perspectives that are difficult to reconcile. We don’t easily see how the world contains BOTH A and B at the same time. We have been taught a reductionistic method in a world which is exactly what it is at all times. To think dialectically we often have to remind ourselves “both of these are true, at the same time.”
Availability bias: This refers to the fact that we often treat the first thought as the “best” thought. That is, we often treat the data that are most readily available to the mind as the most relevant, most important, or the most predictive data. I suspect this is why politicians will often “blame mental illness” after a mass shooting event. This idea readily comes to mind and is far more easily translated into a “sound bite” for the evening news than the reality of the situation, which is far more complex. Behavior cannot be modeled by such simple, reductionistic methods. If it could be so modeled, none of us would have any emotional difficulties. We would all just “know the answer” as soon as the problem presented itself. But we don’t, because it doesn’t.
Executive function: This is the slow responding part of the mind which follows explicit rules, sets priorities and/or modulates urges, emotions and impulse. It can drain our energy reserves and go “off line” when we are stressed, overwhelmed, exhausted or otherwise depleted. Another term for executive function is the “explicit learning system.”
Implicit learning: We have another part of the mind which is fast and automatic. It is how we learn without being aware we are learning. It may be a component of impulsive behavior. It may show up in compulsive loops of harmful behavior. But, it can also be useful for performing routine tasks. For example, on the way to work today you probably don’t remember all the red lights you stopped at. Why not? You were conscious while driving, right? Of course you were. But your implicit system was taking over the routine task of stopping at the red lights so that you would not waste valuable energy on something routine. We want to save our energy for tasks that are not routine–when the explicit system must be ready to take over from the implicit system. The implicit system often falls victim to availability bias. We need our executive system, to orient us to complexity when it arises.
Cortisol: Cortisol is one of the stress hormones which has a huge impact on the mind, often through the implicit learning system. People may do many things under the influence of stress that are not skillful or healthy.
Ineffective coping: Among the many unhealthy things people may do under the influence of stress and stress hormones are things like yelling, fighting, arguing, stealing, lying, self harming, drinking, using substances, surfing social media, etc. These behaviors may become compulsive (addictive). People may be caught in a self-perpetuating cycle that is very difficult to break out of. Living like this is often a form of emotional hell. No one intentionally chooses to live in emotional hell. People are often caught up in it by forces quite beyond their influence.
Compulsion: A compulsive behavior (sometimes called an “addiction) is an unhealthy or unwholesome behavior that people may struggle to bring under executive control. The individual may see the harm that the behavior entails, and may be quite committed to changing, but might not be able to find a better way. There may be a sense of being trapped. People are doing their best under the circumstances. This does not mean people are doing THE best in all possible circumstances. Achieving an optimal life is very difficult. We are all often stuck with doing our best. We are all subject to the laws of learning.
Rumination: Compulsive and repetitive thought patterns that are not useful. Some studies have indicated that cultivating sustained, meditative attention reduces the mind’s tendency to ruminate.
Stability: As we practice, we develop the capacity to stabilize our own practice more and more. Often this can occur by use of an anchor point that sustains attention. The choice of an anchor is very personal to each of us. Some prefer the breath, some prefer sound, some prefer the simple awareness of the mind sitting in meditation. Part of practice may be to develop stable anchors and sense of continuity. No one can give this to you. Which also means no one can take it away from you. It is yours forever.
Unification: As the mind becomes stable, it also becomes quiet. Quiet allows the mind to im-mediately perceive all its manifestations. The mind begins to perceive that no part of the mind is excluded from the mind. We learn to include all that is, just because there is nothing else. Unification can manifest as very intense clarity, combined with a remarkable calm. Mental states may lose the sense of error, of things that should not be. Thoughts, feelings, urges, ruminations, grudges, desires, judgments, compulsions…may become less of a problem and more a source of information. Some have called this the “remainder-less fading away of suffering.” Like how smoke slowly dissipates after a candle burns down to the base.
Insight: Clear seeing involves the mind meeting its own experience in the nature of the way things are. Insight is not approval. In fact, the mind might clearly see its own disapproving judgments, or desire for change. This need not be problematic. We can discern approval and disapproval with the same clarity that meets each moment. Insight is one of those factors which is both the result of practice and a stabilizer of practice, supporting the entire structure of awareness with its fiercely sharpened clarity.
Compassion: Compassion also is one of those factors which may be both a product and a component of practice. As we gain more insight into the nature of emotional difficulty as something no one would choose if they could have chosen otherwise, then we notice compassion arising for those caught up in compulsive loops. Compassion may then invite practice. The mind naturally inclining to what is wholesome and stabilizing.
free open mind 