On Jul 7, 2011, at 3:50 AM, turquoiseb wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "whynotnow7" <whynotnow7@...
wrote:
Barry takes authenticity and honesty, or their lack, as
tools for manipulating responses from others on here.
That is his entire game; using his writing skills to
plant emotional triggers in his posts calculated to
set others off.
He doesn't care if he said the exact opposite the day
before, or makes stuff up. Its all about Hah - you
flinched! That's it, and that's all there is.
If that were true, and two of the historical criteria
of being either enlightened or "more highly evolved"
and close to enlightenment are non-attachment and the
ability to have external events have as little effect
on them as a "line drawn on water," what in your view
does "flinching" say about those who do it on a regular
basis?
You came up with the description of me. You're one of
the biggest "flinchers" on this forum. Now explain
how your characterization of me, if true, reflects
positively on you and the other over-reactors.
From an old post:
There has been a lot written and there are numerous on-going
investigations into what the Buddhist taxonomy of consciousness would
call afflictive emotions. The first major work was by Daniel Goleman,
Ph.D. and entitled Destructive Emotions. Goleman was group leader in
the Mind & Life conference, where HH the 14th Dalai Lama meets with
leading scientists. The meeting Goleman was at was actually the 3rd
Mind & Life conference held in 1990. Since that time researchers have
continued to look into this topic. I am actually just reading a more
recent work on the topic of emotional awareness, a conversation
between the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, Ph.D. entitled Emotional
Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and
Compassion.
Of course there are afflictive and non-afflictive emotions. If one
truly expands consciousness one should expand consciousness to
include automatic mechanisms--"knee-jerk reactions"--which can
include the afflictive emotions. As awareness expands, unconscious
afflictive emotions are diminished. Some meditation forms may not
work at this level and so destructive emotions continue to flourish,
which means such people can afflict others with their afflictive
emotions.
But someone who is free from afflictive emotion and able to
discriminate instinctively, can also use afflictive emotions
constructively.
It's usually pretty easy to tell "who is who" in person, if one
spends enough time around them. Similarly, although with less
precision, you can also get a good idea by reading someone's writing
across time.
One primary characteristic of afflictive emotions is that they are
out of tune with reality. There is a distorted perception of reality.
It is as if the perception of reality is poisoned or negatively
colored by an instinctual negative reaction. Whether one can turn
that afflictive emotion into something constructive depends on the
skill of the individual.
Certain meditative training can help one develop that skillfulness.
In general meditative forms that use a form of top-down control of
attention tend to favor a more egocentric neural functioning, and
thus aren't as good at transforming instinctual negativity. Bottom-
up, more "open presence" style of meditative practice, either alone
or in conjunction with egocentric attentional forms, seem to favor a
more allocentric, "other", "out there" awareness and are better at
integrating and transforming negativity. "Transcend and include"
rather than "transcend into".
All healthy humans have various instinctual reactions or reflexes
that originate from the very old, reptilian part of the brain. For
example, in all humans, if they are startled by a loud sound, there
is a reflexive and measurable response that always occurs at exactly
250 milliseconds after the stimulus and always lasts for exactly 250
milliseconds, always ending 500 milliseconds after the stimulus.
Never longer, never shorter, in the entire species. However in
advanced meditators we now know they can "transcend and include" to
the point where that reptilian startle is no longer measurable or
just barely detectable. It's this level of meditation practice and
proficiency that allows a person to conquer--and master--even the
most instinctual negative emotions.
This "non-startle" presence is very obvious once one has recognized
it, around certain meditative adepts. It has a kind of ripple effect
through the various levels of the person. And like the afflictive
emotions of a person who can spread this "affliction" to others (and
cause them to produce negative emotions), people with the non-
startle, non-afflictive style are able to pass that presence on to
others, but in a more positive manner.
