Category: Psychology

Can Brain Evolution Teach Us Anything About Conflict?

Posted on by japineda

The Russia-Ukraine war playing out on television these last two weeks has produced a helpless feeling of not being able to help. Yet, it has motivated me to explore alternative ways to be of use. This essay represents a small way of using what I know to consider future answers to such conflicts.

The 21st century is well on its way to becoming the era of translational biological information. This means we are applying the vast amount of knowledge gathered over the last century to change the world for the better. Our modern economy, law, politics, and the military reflect this process. These are several of the many institutions in society that owe a great deal to the growing understanding of the mind. Advertising, marketing, focus groups, negotiations, ethics, law, and intelligence work—all rely on awareness of how we think and decide. From genetics to personalized medicine, the study of the human mind sits at the edge of a truly transformational time. We know well the link between malnutrition and depression, while we learn more every day about the role depression plays in mild cognitive impairment. Other findings, such as the effects that microbiome bacteria in our stomachs have on cognition, are nothing short of extraordinary.

For the past century and a half, we have learned that changes in our brain result in modifications to the mind and to our personality. Tools to study and learn these brain-mind relationships, such as deep brain stimulation, have moved us from indirect to more direct mapping. We have discovered ways to know how people decide and think, and how it is we communicate with each other. A more recent development in neuroplasticity is that modifications to our personality can cause changes to our brains. Mindfulness meditation to manage stress rewires unhealthy circuits in the brain, such as the HPA axis response.

What such insights have produced is not only a better grasp of how information processing affects perception and cognition but how, through extensive training, we can extend our personal and sociocultural boundaries. Neurotechnology, one of the new sciences in this contemporary world, has developed methods for treating and repairing soldiers injured in battle. It has figured out how we move cursors across a screen through the power of thought and how to control an advanced prosthetic arm in the same way. Neurotechnology restores the sensation of touch to an individual with severe neuro-degenerative injury.

The consequences of this new science, however, are not always positive. In the name of national security and warfare preparation, neuropsychological training also eases individuals into controversial tasks, such as killing. Thoughts control the flying of drones. Pharmaceuticals help soldiers forget traumatic experiences or produce feelings of trust to encourage confession in an interrogation. Thus, the weaponization of biological information raises ethical concerns.

The dual use of scientific information for good and bad ought not to prevent us from extracting lessons on how to avert conflict. Given all the current clashes, it is an opportune time to ask whether there is anything in the biological treasure trove of knowledge that can help us deal with conflict or even how to avoid it.

Optimal prediction in decision-making is one innovative way to prevent conflict. Imagine being able to anticipate the plans of others, especially adversaries, and forestall, or prevent those efforts? Could we have stopped the Ukrainian war had we known that Russia would invade the country? Is it possible to stop any conflict if we know the problem before it happens? The rational answer would seem to be yes. Interestingly, the human brain evolved for “optimal” prediction in decision-making, turning Homo sapiens into one of the most successful species to survive a violent and uncertain world. It sounds reasonable, therefore, to ask whether there are lessons in this evolution that we can extract for more general use?

Recent developments in cognitive neuroscience, based on neurologically inspired theories of uncertainty, have led to proposals suggesting human brains are sophisticated prediction engines. This means the brain generates mental models of the surrounding environment to predict the most plausible explanation for what’s happening in each moment and updates the models in real time. According to Andy Clark, a cognitive scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, “You experience, in some sense, the world that you expect to experience.”

We assume the major function of “looking into the future” through prediction, preparation, anticipation, prospection or expectations in various cognitive domains is to organize our experience of the world as efficiently as possible. The brain-mind is optimally, not perfectly, designed to cope with both natural uncertainty (the fog surrounding complex, indeterminate human actions) and man-made uncertainty (the man-made fog fabricated by denials and deceptions). We do this by conserving energy while reducing uncertainty. This ability evolved to support human intelligence through continuously matching incoming sensory information with top-down predictions of the input. Analysis of the temporo-spatial regularities and causal relationships in the environment produce top-down predictions or expectations—something known as Bayesian inference.

The brain uses this knowledge of regularities and patterns to make a model or the “best guess” about what objects and events are most likely to be responsible for the signals it receives from the environment. This “best guess” goes through an iterative process of minimizing the mismatch (i.e., correcting the error) between expectancy and reality until it reaches an optimal solution. Mental models are forms of perception, recognition, inferences about the state of the world, attention, and learning, which are beneficial for more pertinent reactions in the immediate situation.

In this perspective, mental states are predictive states, which arise from a brain embodied in a living body, permeated with affect and embedded in an empowering socio-cultural niche. The result is the best possible and most accommodating interaction with the world via perceptions, actions, attention, emotions, homestatic regulation, cognition, learning, and language.

A predictive machine requires a high inter-dependence of processes, such as perception, action, and cognition, which are intrinsically related and share common codes. Besides the feedforward, or bottom-up, flow of information, there is significant top-down feedback and recurrent processing. Given the levels of ambiguity and noise always present in the environment and our neural system, prior biases or mental sets become critical for facilitating and optimizing current event analysis. This occurs whether it concerns recognizing objects, executing movements, or scaling emotional reactions. This dynamic information flow depends on previous experience and builds on memories of various kinds, but it does not include mnemonic encoding. Indeed, the more ambiguous the input, the greater the reliance on prior knowledge.

The predictive model of the brain has been successful in explaining a variety of mental phenomena, such as inattention and distraction, beliefs and desires, as well as neural data. Sometimes, though, the brain gets things wrong because of incomplete or inaccurate information, and this discrepancy can cause everything from mild cognitive dissonance to learning disorders to anxiety and depression. But our survival is proof positive that whatever strategies we learned are highly effective in navigating a world of uncertainty.

Here are eight lessons regarding the predictive brain that may be helpful in dealing with conflict:

  • Recognize your use of mental models. To deal with uncertainty in the world requires creating mental models in which we map our understanding and expectations about cause-and-effect relationships and then process and interpret information through these models or filters. Mental models become critical for facilitating and optimizing our responses to current events.
  • Understand your mental models. Recognize that complex mental processes determine which information you attend and, therefore, mediate, organize, and attribute meaning to your experience. Your background, memories, education, cultural values, role requirements, and organizational norms strongly influenced this dynamic process.
  • Withhold judgment of alternative interpretations until you have considered many of them. Expertise, and the confidence that attaches to it, is no protection from the common pitfalls endemic to the human thought process, particularly when it involves ambiguous information, multiple players, and fluid circumstances.
  • Challenge, refine, and challenge again all your mental models. Discourage conformity. Incoming data should reassess the premises of your models. Remain humble and nimble. Be self-conscious about your reasoning powers. Examine how you make judgments and reach conclusions. Encourage “outside of the box” thinking.
  • Value the unexpected. It reveals inaccuracies in your mental models. You cannot eliminate prediction pitfalls because they are an inherent part of the process. What you do is to train yourself on how to look for and recognize these obstacles, view them as opportunities, and develop procedures designed to offset them.
  • Emphasize factors that disprove hypotheses. Increased awareness of cognitive biases, such as the tendency to see information confirming an already-held judgment more vividly than one sees “disconfirming” data, does little by itself to help deal effectively with uncertainty. Look for ways to disprove what you believe.
  • Develop empathy and compassion. Put yourself in the shoes of others to see the options faced by others as they see those options. Understand the values and assumptions that others have and even their misperceptions and misunderstandings. Then, act.
  • Change external circumstances instead of trying to eliminate everyone’s biases. Mental models are resistant to change primarily because they reflect the temporo-spatial regularities and causal relationships found in your environment. Restructure the setting and it will affect your perceptions.

Loving Kindness Meditation Invitation

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

I am certain your heart is full of love on this beautiful day. Thus, it offers the perfect opportunity to do something meaningful on a global basis. Click on the URL below and join us in expressing that love towards others.

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Metta—Loving-Kindness—Meditation.html?soid=1126600191855&aid=3XFMF2FY-4c

Torrey Pines beach early in the morning

Our Evolving Sense of Awareness

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Despite the mountains of information about mind and its relationship to brain, there remains a mystery at the core of our being. The holy grail of this mystery is awareness, the ability to hold something “in consciousness.” Neuroscientists and philosophers have called our first-person experience of the subjectivity that arises from this holding function the “hard problem.” This is because, unlike most other problems in science and life, this one has proven resistant to rationality and the scientific method. Recently, however, one promising approach has helped constrain, at least for me, the multiple ideas about awareness by placing its understanding within an evolutionary context.

In his “attention schema” theory, the neuroscientists Michael Graziano has proposed that awareness evolved in stages. The assumption behind this perspective is that each level in the progression provided fitness value and survival benefit to a species. Initially, according to Graziano, “awareness” involved bottom-up signal-to-noise mechanisms that selectively enhanced signals. The existence of some of the earliest neurotransmitter systems, namely the dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin systems that perform such a function, is consistent with this idea.

The next step in the progression likely concerned the interaction between signal enhancing mechanisms and top-down biasing and switching mechanisms that developed for greater control of the processing associated with the enhanced signal. The circuit in the basal ganglia, involved in the integration and selection of voluntary behavior, is a good example of this. Here, the neurotransmitter dopamine operates on striatal neurons to perform a switching function, controlling the flow of information in the direct and indirect pathways of the circuit.

According to the principles of control theory, an even more effective way to control a complex variable is to have an internal model of that variable. This allows the system the ability to simulate its dynamics, monitor its state, and predict its function, at least a few seconds into the future. Thus, Graziano suggests that the next critical jump in the evolution of awareness was the development of an internal model of attention (a simulation) that allowed the brain to attribute to itself a “mind” aware of something. I would add that, at this level, evolution moved from nonconscious to conscious control and subjectivity. The awareness that “I am attending to this thing” was born from such bidirectional interactivity.

Adapting this internal model of attention to social attribution led, at some later stage, to ascribing awareness to other beings. Finally, because of language, culture, and other social developments, humans became extremely good at modeling others, perhaps too readily. Such an ability likely explains our readiness to anthropomorphize or attribute consciousness to characters in a story, puppets and dolls, thunder, oceans, empty spaces, ghosts and gods.

Justin Barrett calls this the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, or HADD, and it appears to be a consequence of our hyper-social nature. The readiness to simulate and attribute a “mind” to animate and inanimate things may explain the sense some of us have of a rich spirit world surrounding us. Undoubtedly, this aspect of awareness provides side benefits, such as aesthetic experiences, including our sense of wonder about our mysterious world.

Flashbulb Memories

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There are moments in life when we encounter, however briefly, someone or something unexpected, beautiful, perfect, beyond description, in which we sense a larger beingness. We feel at the edge of a precipice transfixed, but connected to that larger sense of ourselves. The following are flash-bulb memories from my life and from friends who contributed them. Keep them coming!

A Great Goal

The soccer game started while a band played and the crowd shouted and laughed at the old men running up and down the field in shorts and waddling midsections. The town’s fathers had gathered several prominent citizens to play a game as part of the inauguration ceremonies for a new stadium. Dad, a lawyer and judge in the small town of my birth, was a 48-year-old defender. Seconds before the end of the first half, he stole the ball at midfield and began charging forward. Suddenly and unexpectedly, he stopped, swung his right leg back and kicked a cannon shot with his right foot towards the goalie nearly 50 yards away. The crowd groaned since it seemed like wasted effort. Remarkably, and against all expectations, the ball netted, and he scored the goal–‘un golaso’ or a superb goal, as many described it. In a town where soccer was king and everyone considered themselves experts, what happened that afternoon represented a minor miracle. Dad became a momentary superstar for the magic he had created. In my imagination, there would be a parade in his honor, a small statue of him placed in the center of town, and admiration toward all his family. In his typical way, he forgot the event, put his head down, and went to work the following day. It was a beautiful and transformative lesson for me, from a truly outstanding and humble man.

The Mona Lisa

Smart beyond measure, brilliant painter, architect, sculptor, inventor, and so much more, Leonardo da Vinci has always represented for me the ideal human being. From iconic paintings, like the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, designs for flying machines, and ground-breaking studies on optics and perspective, Leonardo da Vinci fused science with art and in the process created works that have become irreplaceable icons of the human story. He is the ultimate expression of an intuitive, unencumbered Original Mind, and someone I deeply admire. But of all his creations, the canonical example of his genius, at least for me, is the Mona Lisa. Like most of humanity, I am transfixed by this painting as reproduced in a variety of media.

In 1976, I found myself at the Louvre museum as part of a sightseeing trip to Paris. The entrance comprised a set of stairs at the top of which was the Venus de Milo. Walking up those stairs and encountering Venus felt like walking up heaven’s staircase to meet God. Yet, I did not linger with Venus for more than a few seconds, for I had one thing in mind, making my way to the Mona Lisa. I entered the room where she was hanging and remember the crowd gathered around her. My expectations, already sky-high, were off the chart as I slowly inched my way forward. Then, suddenly, there it was. I was in front of it. The shock that followed was unexpected and the disappointment earth-shattering, for I could not believe what was in front of me. In my mind, the Mona Lisa was large and yet here hung a comparably tiny version of what I held in my imagination. But that devastating emotional disappointment lasted only a brief instant, as I recognized what everyone else recognized. Here, in front of me, was the essence of beauty and something magical captured on a small canvas. For a moment, time stood still.

Joko Beck

When I met her in her late 70s, she sported short, grey hair and a grandmotherly demeanor, yet a youthful exuberance. I found her to be serious regarding her teaching and with a wonderful smile arising occasionally from her seriousness. I liked the fact she had shed many of the cultural trappings of Eastern Zen, including chanting and wearing of the robes. Joko Beck had become a well-known Zen teacher in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego. She had developed a fresh approach to teaching called “ordinary mind,” or Zen simplicity at its finest, which proved tremendously appealing. During our first encounter, the serenity surrounding her had a striking, palpable, and compelling quality. It drew me to attend Saturday meditation sessions and then three-day retreats. During each session, I met with Joko in teacher-student interviews.
            “Zen training,” she would remind me each time, “is learning how to work so you do it right, perfect in fact, with no extra anything, whether it is your job, gardening, shopping, whatever.” “In fact,” she would continue, “this requires little sitting–it’s more relating to everything in your life and taking care of it.”

“Do I need to come to the center to learn to do this?” I would ask.
            “Practice occurs anywhere and with anything,” she responded. “What happens at the center is I can provide you with encouragement and advice, but the actual practice is with your life in every moment. Life becomes your true teacher.”

My knowledge of Zen grew slowly as she imparted such wisdom during the four years I stayed as her student. After I left, our relationship turned into an apprenticeship of the heart, continuing with reading and reading of her book, “Everyday Zen.” Ever so slowly, Joko’s teaching transformed into life itself. As I walk this world, she is everywhere and I am eternally grateful.

The Bucking Horse: Chelsea Dorich

My mother once had an old Polo horse that was always going barn sour (feral). During those years, it was my job to break her so I could ride her again. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a horse being broken for riding, but it looks very much like the bronco riding event at a rodeo.

The old mare was tall even for a thoroughbred at 17 hands. She was fast, and she was strong. She threw me off many times before, with wounds that took weeks to heal.

One afternoon, I was again trying to stay in the saddle after she started her bucking dance. I had tried so many methods of falling and failed each time. That day, I had had it. I would avoid being burnt by the arena sand or caught under those hooves again if I could help it. Instead, I would try something absolutely unthinkable. I knew I was going to crash anyway if I did not. I would try a backflip and hope I didn’t crash into the fence or break my neck or… what have you.

I had nano seconds to take my aim and jump. I was so sure I would not make it.

Low and behold, I flew, dispersing the inertia and landing on my feet in the center of the ring unscathed. I looked down to see I was just to the left of the tool used to command the horse. The old mare stopped in her tracks when she saw this and gave me much less trouble from that day forward.

That sunny afternoon I surprised myself and learned that I might be capable of more than I ever expected- I just had to try.

The Great White: Tom Krzmarzick

Exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. On a crisp, clear day in early September, I took my 12’ stand-up paddleboard or sup to South Carlsbad State beach for a cruise session from the north end of the campgrounds to the south end near the Ponto jetties and back. The cruise is usually a two-hour journey. Typically, I will try to catch a few waves while paddling south and a few more on my return trip. The weather was one of those clear, brilliant days because of a weak Santa Ana. Visibility, looking down from the board through the crystal clear and a bright blue green water, was extremely clear.

As I paddled straight out from the shore, a family of four or five dolphins immediately greeted me, heading north. The dolphins, submerged under water on my left, swam underneath surfacing on the right-hand side of the board. The exhale breathing sounds from these animals felt amazingly close. After their visit, I turned or paddled south, as the dolphins swam northward. The brilliant beauty of the sky, clear water and visit from the dolphins energized me. I continued paddling south for another five minutes, when I glimpsed a shadow behind me approximately at the 5 o’clock position from my board, using the nose as the 12 o’clock position. As the shadow approached, I turned to my back right to get a better glimpse of what it was. After the greeting by the friendly dolphins, I was fully expecting more of them. I even started to say, “hello buddies,” when I realized the creature swimming closer to me was an eight to nine-foot great white shark! It swam in an arc, staying five feet below the surface and beneath me at approximately the 3 o’clock position of the board. It continued swimming in an arc direction and then turned right towards the horizon at the 1 o’clock position.

As the shark swam out toward the horizon, my initial thought was, “Holy Shit!! What do I do?” It exhilarated as much as it terrified me. My mental processing at that moment decided it was better strategy to continue on my way south as planned. I didn’t want to panic and abruptly turn around and go back to where I had entered the water, wondering what would happen if I fell off the sup while making those maneuvers. “Relax, you will not fall off this big board, you’ve been doing this for years,” I told myself, although I decided I would not try to catch any little waves since I had no leash for the board. I didn’t wear a leash because of the waves being so small, and I had planned on just a long cruise sup paddle.

I calmed down and continued my trip south, marveling at the beauty, power, and structure of the great white and how well built it was for the water. Its tail was vertical in the water allowing it to turn on a dime; It had a grayish black top and white underside, with a diamond-shaped powerful body. How effortless it swam! How powerful it looked in the water! I truly felt fortunate to experience seeing such a great white shark living in its own environment. It made an everlasting impression.

Walking to my car in the parking lot with the sup, I felt a surge of energy I can only attest to how fortunate to have witnessed these events. As I loaded the sup board on my car, dried off and got ready to go, I saw an older surfer hanging around his car. I couldn’t resist striking a conversation and telling him what I saw and witnessed. “Hey,” I said to him, “I just saw an eight to nine-foot great white shark. Have you ever seen them out there?”. He responded calmly with a short answer, “yep, they’re out there.” Indeed, they are!

Moments of Perfection

Posted on by japineda

There are moments in life when we encounter, however briefly, something unexpected, beautiful, perfect, beyond description, in which we sense a larger beingness. We feel at the edge of a precipice transfixed, but connected to that larger sense of ourselves. I call these moments of perfection, wrapped in glory. Sometimes the overwhelming emotion can be positive but it need not be. It is, however, unforgettable. The following are my flash-bulb memories of some of those events in my life. I encourage anyone with such memories to share a short-version of them with me so that I can post on the blog.

Individuation

Although most of my life as a 3-year-old remains shrouded in mist, I vividly recall the day when I became a separate, distinct individual. Until then, I had no awareness of a separate me, only of an undifferentiated consciousness. That auspicious day, I recall wanting to play, but my 5-year-old sister Nora did not, and in that instant, shattered my world. It suddenly dawned on me, more a feeling than a conceptual understanding, that she and I were distinct, with different thoughts. It was, as I would later characterize it, a “crack in the cosmic egg of my existence.” Individuation is a normal process we all go through, but few remember. Psychologists call it the development of a theory of mind, referring to the ability to distinguish our self from others and to know others can think different thoughts. The unexpected and earth-shattering aware-feeling of becoming separate from those close to me produced a deep sadness in my young mind. It made me feel very alone in a large universe.

Going to the Moon

We were inseparable, doing everything together, including fighting like brothers. On a sunny day, when we were both four years old, we went to the moon. Hector lived next door and had become my best friend. I don’t recall how we chose our target, but the adventure did not seem beyond our childish imaginations. There was a small bed in the corridor that faced the backyard of my house, which we commandeered as our spaceship. On launch day, we sat side by side with me as pilot and Hector as co-pilot. Suddenly, the engines roared, and we were off. We took control of the ship and pointed it towards the silver silhouette in the sky. My eyes fixated on that silver moon and, ever so slowly, perceived us getting closer and closer. It seemed like the afternoon dragged on for hours as the size of our target grew bigger and bigger. I have never been able to see the “face” on the moon, but on that day I could see the craters on the surface as clearly as if only a few hundred feet above them. It was thrilling beyond words.

Finding My Way Home

I started undergraduate life at UCLA as a math major since I had done well in the subject in high school. But it quickly became apparent I did not know what I wanted to study, and switched to Engineering, then Premed, and Sociology. It did not help my confidence to be surrounded by kids much smarter than me. I struggled to get through freshman chemistry, earning a passing grade. In contrast, a friend got an ‘A’ even though he rarely studied because the material did not challenge him enough. I remember sitting side by side in class, feeling disheartened and depressed. Such feelings accompanied me to every class during that first fall and winter quarters. In spring, I enrolled in Introduction to Psychology and things took a different turn. That first day proved foreboding as I walked into a semi-circular auditorium holding 500 students, all talking at once. I settled down on a seat at the top of the auditorium, fortunate to have found one. For five minutes, I waited for the class to start. Then, a young, short-hair male with glasses and sandals, who I assumed to be the professor, approached the podium. The loud noise settled down from a roar to a murmur and then complete silence, as if a disk jockey had turned down the dial on loud music. Maybe it was the deep and mellow tenor of his voice or his charm, but soon enough, I lost track of everyone around me. Everyone literally disappeared, and I became mesmerized by the professor’s voice and stories. I had stopped thinking and just listened–totally fascinated by what he said. At the end of the class and while the auditorium emptied, I felt disoriented. What had just happened? After a few seconds, I experienced a warm feeling and a sense I had stumbled upon what had been missing. It felt like I had found my way home after being lost, and a sense of gratitude, excitement, and a budding awareness that I now knew what I needed to do. I would major in psychology.

Snow in Frankfurt

It was the weekend and time to head downtown, to an area called Sachsenhausen, a part of the old town with a mix of late-night bars, clubs, and restaurants. I had been in Frankfurt, Germany, stationed at Rhein-Main Air Force Base for only a few months. The old town was a special hangout for US airmen during our time off. The coldness of winter gripped me as I pulled my light jacket tighter while waiting for the bus. In Sachsenhausen, my friends and I gathered at the Drop-IN club where we danced with German fräuleins, drank, laughed, and relaxed from our weekly chores. Around midnight, l headed home by myself feeling happy and light-headed. I stepped off the bus stop to switch to the one headed to the air base and sat on the bench to wait. I knew it would only be a few minutes, given the punctual nature of German public transportation. As I sat there, alone on a quiet night, during the bewitching hour, it snowed. I had never experienced a snow fall and as I looked up at the sky, the most beautiful pattern of white particles against a dark sky descended on me as if in slow motion. It was mesmerizing and for a long moment, time stood still, as I sat there watching and feeling blessed by God.

The Oscillation Between Mediocrity and Uniqueness

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Cal Ag/EyeEm/EyeEm Premium / Getty
I wish to be relevant.
I do not want my ashes
In the dustbin of history.
It is a terrifying thought!

To be invisible,
To be irrelevant,
Unable to add
To the human enterprise.

Amid a pandemic,
This consuming hunger
And accompanying fear,
Rears its head.

As I shelter at home
And avoid the world,
I feel less able to add
To the human existence.

The existential crisis grows.
My insignificance is clear.
I have no ground to stand on
And I disappear.

Then, out of the ashes,
Something new is reborn.
With a new relevancy,
The relevancy of being.

Nothing to do,
Nothing to be,
No more,
No less.

This poem captures two worlds colliding in my mind at the moment. One is the world of my ego in which I am feeling distressed at being ordinary, not standing out from the crowd, being ignored by my peers and others as uninteresting or unimportant, and not having done enough to make the world a better place. I compare myself to others and find myself inadequate, as if something is missing in my personality and competence. I feel a void in the pit of my stomach, and the state of “mediocrity” becomes a frightening possibility. Like the sword of Damocles, my ego obsesses with the sense that this state of being is about to drop into my soul any minute. And I dread the thought and the feelings it engenders, namely that I will recognize this as my true nature. I recognize I rooted such fear in my development, with high expectations and a lifelong effort to excel academically and in other spheres of life. In contrast, I occasionally oscillate to another sense – that of contentment, of being special, when thinking disappears, and the world seems absolutely perfect.

This oscillation between mediocrity and uniqueness, being special and not reminds me of what Harold Ramis, a well-known American actor, comedian, director, and writer, said about carrying two notes to remind you of who you are. The first note should read, “The universe was created for my delight.” The second note should say, “I am a meaningless speck of dust in the vastness of the universe.” His point was that life occurs in the rhythmic oscillation between these two opposite poles. Living happens between meaningfulness and meaninglessness, between creative and mundane living. The rhythmic oscillation of this dance occurs both outside and within conscious awareness, but in either case, we are participants. Nisargadatta Maharaj, an Indian guru, offered something similar. He said, “Between looking inside and recognizing that I am nothing and seeing outside and recognizing that I am everything–my life turns.” You, me, and everyone else are both nothing and everything; both special and not.

So, why do I yearn for uniqueness? To be special? And for whom is all this mental anguish and activity for? Psychologically, it is my ego’s soulful cry, created by an illusion of separateness, born out of my evolutionary drive for individuality. Spiritually, however, it is the aching sense to be united with my Source.

The Butterfly Effect

Posted on by japineda
A monarch butterfly

              … here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
             i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) 
                                                            e.e. cummings

What would our world be like if, instead of training the young to value money and material things, they would learn to value truth, creativity, and love? If they could learn to carry the heart of the other in their own heart? Why is such a world only theoretically possible? Obviously, it is the way we have structured rewards and punishment in our dysfunctional society. That money is the basis for purchasing goods and services makes materialism, if not inevitable, then highly likely. Those with the most money get the most toys. But what if goods and services were available regardless of money? What if we rewarded nonmaterial values? We can all imagine a society where hard work, honesty, teamwork could guarantee a child a free high school and college education. Such a society could guarantee a reasonable income and work once they completed their education. Why do we consider these things noble yet highly unlikely to occur? What must we change to move us in that direction?

Let’s begin with the young and the learning they undergo. On the optimistic side, schooling, when done right, is mainly a positive thing. Children learn to be social. They get interested in science. We encourage their curious ways. Whatever goes wrong with this expectation and outcome is correctable without having to rethink what education is. I would even argue that the competition that is fostered in grade school is a good thing as well. Whether in athletics or academics, competition is a healthy motivating force. It goes wrong when it becomes entirely a selfish endeavor, with no consideration for others. Is that the clue to what takes us in the wrong direction?

Some argue that selfishness is a part of human nature; that children are the ultimate narcissists; and unless society counterbalances that drive, things will go awry. If true, then what are the social forces that provide such counterbalancing drives. I would argue that things like church, group associations, a multi-ethnic, diverse culture are important. And what is at the core of what these institutions teach? I would say they teach us empathy; to put ourselves in the shoes of the other; to carry their heart in our own heart. Empathy is the counter to selfishness. Unfortunately, these countervailing forces in society are currently losing authority or producing an unnatural backlash. This is the root of the problem. The lack of a counter to our selfish drive is creating narcissistic individuals not interested in others. Of course, we are talking about massive generational, value- and age-based changes going on in the world. Is there one small thing that can change this inevitable storm?

Some argue that the world is a chaotic, dynamical system. In such a system, the fluttering of a butterfly in South America can have a significant effect on the weather in North America. Perhaps this essence of chaos theory applies to the chaos of social turbulence we are experiencing. Many answers about which behavior would be most effective are possible. But the one that rings most true, and which lies at the root of the root of the answer, is love—unconditional love. Love is empathy in action. Learn to love in this way. Teach others to love without judgment. This small beating of your wings might just change the turbulence you and all of us are experiencing.

Meditations for a Sunday Afternoon

Posted on by japineda

The human and divine. Once in a while, the idea of my human and divine nature rears its head. I know for sure that I am a human being, with all the attributes it implies. I had human parents who passed on their genetic attributes to me. Still, I have accepted that my essence is part and parcel of a fundamental energy that is, for the lack of a better description, divine. However, the schooling I received as a catholic youth regarding the attributes of such a divine essence, and later learning about Zen Buddhism, interfere with my adult understanding. Catholic training attributed a type of perfect, sinless nature to my divine self, a nature granted only through the grace of salvation. From my Buddhist training, this pure, essential nature was innate in me from birth. Unfortunately, many of my thoughts and actions appear to contradict that pure, sinless nature. The lack of trust in what I am creates this conflict. Am I both human and divine? Why do I have such a hard time reconciling these two thoughts?

The meaningless purpose of life. Daily evidence has convinced me I am both meaningful and meaningless. I feel special in God’s eye, but I also equate myself to a grain of sand in a universe of sand. My ego biases my thoughts toward the special, and I am surprised when the meaningless perspective sneaks up. This morning I wrote a blog post titled, “I Am Here” and felt inspired and special. Later, as I drove to the store listening to the KPBS radio channel, I heard an interview with Sonya Renee Taylor, author and poet, currently living in New Zealand. The interview basically hit me like a brick to the head. Ms Taylor summarized all the ideas I had written about in the blog but did so in a more polished, deliberate, attention-grabbing, and better way. Her unique wisdom struck me like a thunderbolt. My self-centered importance gave way, and I felt like a grain of sand-tiny and unimportant.

The limits of being human. The slight pressure behind my left eyeball, while not a full-blown headache, is uncomfortable. I experience it when my blood pressure is high; when I am drowning in financial difficulties; and when I ponder whether I should do something more meaningful than sitting and watching the world go by. It reflects anxiety about being productive; about being active and not passive; about giving back to society versus taking up space in a world already full of people. This drama plays out mainly during moments of anxiety and uncertainty. Because I feel the pressure mainly on the left side of my head, I assume it involves parts of my brain involved in language and conceptual thinking. It is my monkey mind messing with me.

The lack of trust. One constant in moments of monkey mind madness, when I feel impatient with others, life, and God, is my desire for immediate gratification. That desire overcomes my thoughtful self. I cannot wait for either human or divine responses. And those unanswered questions make me lose trust. Trust in myself and trust in something greater than me. At that point, the pressure behind my left eyeball increases and I feel a tension develop. Sometimes I feel the discomfort in the pit of my stomach, just below the rib cage. Sometimes it’s just a feeling of impatience. When the unresolved issue lingers, there is a restless anxiety that settles over me. It’s interesting, though not unexpected, that mental concerns should so affect my physical body. It’s only recently that I’ve understood their identities are the same.

The desire to do. One recurring thought I have is the desire to do constructive, meaningful things. I recall reading that any act done with full attentiveness and in a loving way is the most meaningful act possible. I feel the urge to help others. But also feel constrained by circumstances, the pandemic, those around me, and not wanting to endanger people who still have not received the vaccine.

The Triumph of the Human Spirit

Posted on by japineda

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5.

The last two years are without question the most unusual years of the 21st century. With surprise, alarm, disorder, and panic as a backdrop, the ordinariness of life stands out. I want, therefore, to celebrate the normal rather than the above-normal. To that end, I want to recognize someone who didn’t just go above and beyond this last year, she also went below and beneath. By this I mean she kept and maintained normalcy in the day-to-day life during a very chaotic time. She is someone who in her normalcy provided a glimpse for why the human spirit will triumph in the end.

Like a large portion of working professionals, her employers required my wife Jane to switch to working from home. It was psychologically and practically a disruptive event. Yet, her only real complaint was that she was less productive at home because the wi-fi speed of our internet was slow. Gradually, however, she adjusted to the slower rhythm even though it produced longer times spent at “work.” After a few weeks, she appreciated the rewards of being home. These included things she could let go, such as the need to commute, to dress-up, to be punctual. It also included things she didn’t know she missed, such as the comfort of being home, taking a break, snacking, catching up on the news at any moment. The result was a gradual switch and change. She was still not as productive, but she was enjoying her routine much more.

My wife suffered health problems following a trip to Australia in 2018. She was, therefore, in a high-risk group for catching the coronavirus. Because of this we decided, from the start of the pandemic in March 2020, to have her avoid contact with people as much as possible. She stayed home and away from crowds, and did most of her social contact through phone and zoom. It fell to me to do the grocery shopping and other activities requiring leaving the house. She went along with little complaining, and once again transformed the normal and naturalness of her social life into a constricted and cartoonish version of it. As the months rolled by, it became clear this new life would be less temporary than we imagined. She adjusted and did not grow depressed or anxious. She turned to her faith to provide the strength to bear the negativity and transmute it into a hopeful future. Her adaptiveness was a show of strength that bolstered my spirit.

I want to recognize my wife, Jane, whom I love and admire, as someone who did the nearly impossible – maintain a normal life and a confident purpose these last two years of the pandemic. By doing so, she showcased the strength and resiliency in all of us. In a similar way, many of you persevered and now look forward to a more normal future. Likewise, the triumph of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this year was a victory of the American spirit over the darkness that had descended over our country. While the dark clouds have not totally dissipated, it is easier to see the sunlight.

We have been through a lot during this pandemic, but there is clearly a human spirit that is indomitable. We must, above all, keep the optimistic flames going by celebrating every act of normalcy we can, along with acts of kindness and acts of love!

Is Love a Slippery and Intangible Thing?

Posted on by japineda
Lunch with friends

Genuine love is that which holds without holding on;

That which creates and lets go of its creation;

That which accepts without judgment and yet transforms.

In a recent New York Times essay, the novelist Celeste Ng writes that “Love is a slippery and intangible thing, and sometimes we can only pin it down in these mundane, bodily needs.” She is referring to everyday ordinary and extraordinary moments, food, texts, dozing off, and emails from friends and loved ones. But every day, mundane things are ALWAYS facing us, and thus the possibility of love is ALWAYS available to us. There is no slipperiness, intangibility, or rareness in this readily available bouquet. Love is and always has been the entirety of what we are, what we do, what we see, feel and think—EVERYTHING. What Celeste Ng and most of us don’t normally realize is that it is recognizing this love that is slippery, intangible, occasional, and temporary. This lack of awareness may be because of our inability to maintain constant openness and focus. Because if we could do so, we would recognize that we are never without it, that it surrounds us as much as the ocean surrounds the fish within it. Love is the ordinariness of life itself. It is the joyful lunch with friends, but also the lonely feeling when no one is around. It is both the happiness and the pain experienced. Love is life itself—we just need to recognize it.

What prevents us from recognizing it? Our spinning, monkey mind — the aspect that cannot settle down and which engages each and every thought it creates, distracting us from what is real. Paradoxically, love is always communicating to us, “I am here.” But our mind storm drowns out its voice and obscures recognition of its reality. STOP the spinning mind and realize that love is there—it has always been there in all its wonder. For love is not a slippery and intangible thing—it is the essence of all that is.

Is Love a Slippery and Intangible Thing?