Equanimity is equivalent to today’s buzzword “mindfulness” [from Buddhism], which in turn, is synonymous with hypnosis, or altered state of consciousness.
The effects of meditation and hypnosis are similar:
“Dropping of the awareness of the environment and loss of sense of separate self”
“…letting go of awareness of physical sense perception and space, psychological (and consciousness) boundaries…”
“Presence of theta waves in frontal area correspond to shutting down of executive and choice functions…, desire for action…and switching off of neural connections”
“The evidence indicates that both hypnosis and concentration meditation result in inhibitory patterns, particularly in middle and frontal cortical areas associated with executive functions and cognitive control”
The question is then posted as to whether the practice of mindful meditation increases one’s suggestability [due to increased presence of alpha and theta brain waves].
Basically meditation is for the overall well-being including specific areas of the individual, OTOH, hypnosis often has a specific target in mind.
Often the scare mongering by those who are anti-meditation and do not understand meditation is falsely presented as meditation empties the mind and thus make it vulnerable for Satan to get in.
Generally there are two types of meditation, i.e.
Concentration
Mindfulness
Both are necessary and concentration facilitates mindfulness.
Experiences of altered states of consciousness do happen during meditation but they are not the objective of meditation and the meditator is often advised to let such experiences go and one should not crave for it no matter how ecstatic the epiphany or experiences.
I don’t simply make such a statement without the justifications.
To add; if any one were to advise me with supporting justifications I will take their advice and update myself and I have been doing a lot of such in the past.
reminds me of this article (scroll down to decognition process and persuasion techniques). dicksutphen.com/battle-for-your-mind.html
The right brain is often targeted in hypnosis, NLP, and other brainwashing techniques, while the left is being immobilized or distracted.
Other than it being false…Sure! (note the use of the exclamation mark) Without right brain functions we also have all sorts of problems. Someone says right brain skills are missing in the West. You argue AS IF this is a call for the elimination of the left brain. See the problem?
Like you are at work and and someone says we need to get better at having better designs on our products.
Your response: if our products have no contents, we will lose business.
Head bang.
Perhaps if while you meditate someone is there telling you things. I mean, that is perhaps. In hypnosis you have someone telling you things. Someone utilizes your open state for a purpose.
So you call it proof. When he points out it is not proof but rather an appeal to the authority of some guy who wrote a blog, you now call it a clue.
See, again, this is where one acknowledges the other person is correct.
NOtice what happened. You say you can’t be creative if you have lost control of emotions, then you give examples of extemely creative people who had strong emotions, even to a problematic level. You just slide over the fact that you were incorrect. You move to the next point. They can be creative but it’s a bad tradeoff. Wildly oversimplified, but here’s what you did not do: admit that what you said about creativity earlier was false, even while supplying evidence it was false yourself. Then you could move on to say it was not worth it. You argue without honor.
If you have too much of the left side of the brain you will find it very difficult to operate in fluid, real-time, situations. You would have this need to predict every little movement in the environment which won’t work because real-time situations require quick decisions and deep thinking is slow – it does not occur fast enough. Sure, all else being all, it’s better to be precise in your predictions than to be imprecise, but in reality it is rarely the case that all else is equal. That’s the trade-off. The more precise your modelling of the situation is, which means the greater the number of facts it takes into account, the slower it is. So if you strive for precision and your motto is “the devil is in the details”, you will be immune to manipulation but you will suck at real-time activities (such as social activities.) You will only be able to operate under laboratory conditions. Thinking isn’t all bottom-up and it does not have to be. More facts isn’t always better than fewer facts, clarity isn’t always better than ambiguity, precision isn’t always better than imprecision, reason isn’t always better than intuition and so on.
What do you think is more fundamental?
Ambiguity or clarity?
Our kids are being introduced to this now. youtube.com/watch?v=C2id2TcfVv8
Happiness and well-being is being redefined as a skill to be developed from early age through the eastern methods of so called mindful mediation (i.e. embracing animal state). The emphasis is not in finding solutions to actual problems but on embracing passivity and withdrawal from external world. This is how the future generation will be solving problems. The message is, there is no problem out there, the problem is in you.
It’s good news for the east, as it will find “validation” and support of its mind-dumbing mysticism through western science. nbcnews.com/id/37157160/ns/t … ch-effort/
Let me counter you with a question: in the world of competing wills, which one is more important?
And it’s still attached to Buddhism that was birthed by a foreign civilization, and which so happens, is also in competition for worldwide control. Despite all the claims on attaining awareness, converts seem to remain unaware of this important detail.
This is also like saying that before the West met the East Europeans did not know how to focus and be aware of their surroundings by themselves.
I want to come back to this quote by KT:
That’s how it started and was argued. (And the same thing happened with feminist movement-in that suddenly there was something wrong with being a woman as she was).
Is the West lacking in creativity? No, and history proves it. Does the West need the East to solve its problems? Someone sure wants you to think so.
Note in etymology there are many words with loose and a range of meanings, thus context is critical.
You missed the point in the above.
When I pointed out ‘the above prove you wrong’ it meant ‘Phyllo’ view i.e. ‘equanimity stifles creativity’ is wrong because there are alternative views.
I totally agree with the blog post because I have read of various researches to support my point. But for Phyllo it would be a clue and an indication since he is not likely to agree until perhaps convincing research conclusions from credible sources are produced.
A person with a persistent emotional disorder 24/7 is not likely to be creative in any acceptable sense.
However there are people who have mental disorders who has sporadic periods [in minutes, hours or days] of mental disturbances and normalcy.
It is only during those periods of normalcy [with or without some degree of equanimity] that these people are able to exercise their creativity with recalls from the prior experiences of madness.
You accused me not being adept in basic Philosophy, but I am wondering whether you have sufficient depth and width in Philosophy.
If you have sufficient knowledge and awareness, you should be aware of the limitations within a discussion in a forum like this. If you are aware of the Principle of Charity as in Philosophy you would not have make the above accusations and making a meal of it.
There are two primary techniques in meditation, i.e.
Concentration - Samartha - this train the focusing
Mindfulness - Vispasanna - this module the emotions and other faculties to optimal levels.
Emotions are inherent and unavoidable within the brain and mind.
The strategy is to develop or train the inhibitors via mindfulness to modulate the emotions in regulating its pulses.
Note Aristotle again,
The develop the above mental skills one need to rely on exercises in mindfulness and must be supported by steady concentration.
You are not mindful of the terrible fears that are oozing and pulsating subliminally within your subconsciousness that drive you to the above conclusions based on ignorance.
As I had stated before you criticize anything, in this case Buddhism you have to have a thorough knowledge and understanding [not necessary agreement] of Buddhism, meditation, mindfullness and other related knowledge e.g. psychology, neuroscience, and others.
Unfortunately the above view is based on a terrible level of ignorance.
Note in the video the children did an exercise in reflecting on the full experience of eating a raisin. Normally what children do is merely -see raisin, eat raisin, i.e. pure animal instincts which at present is extended to some adults, “see threats/enemies - kill enemies.”
One good result from mindfulness is to increase impulse control.
In the earlier video you linked there is a simple mindfulness exercise of eating a raisin where the children are directed to pause, think, experience, think again and keep being mindful of the whole process.
The principle is training oneself to be mindful of all one actions and whatever is going around oneself at all times to the highest degree possible.
What is critical here is the technique of ‘think, pause, think, then act’.
The ‘pause’ in this case a stop gap to enable one to take corrective actions where necessary instead of being hasty without impulse controls leading to lusts and all sorts of extreme unmodulated responses leading to terrible acts of evils to oneself and others.
What is presented in the above are very basic exercises related to mindfulness and they are effective in some ways.
To be most effective, mindfulness in Buddhism is a very serious and extensive subject which require sufficient right knowledge and constant ‘right’ practices.
