B. Alan Wallace 2014 Public Talk Cultivating Attentional Intelligence

0:00 I love you, it's your first time, so I'd just like to give you a tiny bit of a background. Alan Wallace, a scholar and practitioner of Buddhism since 1970, has taught Buddhist theory and meditation worldwide since 1975. Having devoted 14 years to training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk, ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he went on to earn an undergraduate degree in physics and the philosophy of science at Amherst College and a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:28 And he is the president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies. With his unique background, Alan brings deep experience and applied skills to the challenge of integrating traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhism with the modern world. And it's a delight for me. I've heard Alan speak before. And welcome, Alan. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 0:28 Highlight the passage at 0:28

0:52 Hola. Let's have some fun tonight. Talking about attention, which is one of my favorite topics altogether. And for those of you who attended a lecture I gave several months ago on conative intelligence, then you'll already be aware that this theme occurs within the framework of a larger grid, namely four types of balance or intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 0:52 Highlight the passage at 0:52

1:17 So last time we spoke of conative having to do with developing wise desires, aspirations and intentions that are truly conducive to our own and others' well-being. So conative, we covered that. And there is a certain sequence here. It's quite intelligent. Someone could use the cliché term, something of an organic sequence, starting with the cognitive intelligence, cultivating whys, desires, intentions, and going from there to attention, attentional balance, achieved by way of attentional intelligence, and then cognitive, the way we apprehend reality, and then finally the very well-known emotional intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 1:17 Highlight the passage at 1:17

1:57 And so this fourfold aspect of mental balance, as far as I can tell, is fairly inclusive. I don't know of any type of mental balance that doesn't fall into one or some combination of these four. So tonight our topic will be attentional intelligence and we'll move right to the first slide. And I just created this slide tonight just because as I was meditating for some hours this afternoon... Report an error in the passage at 1:57 Highlight the passage at 1:57

2:25 These two themes came up quite strongly in my mind. I think this is a good way to start. So we go really to some core Buddhist themes. But as is often but not always the case, when we go to very core themes within Buddhism, from my perspective in any case, they really wind up being core themes that are universal. Report an error in the passage at 2:25 Highlight the passage at 2:25

2:41 That is, they are valid outside of the context of Buddhism or any particular spiritual or religious framework. So let's take the first one. Try it on for size. A statement attributed to the historical Buddha. This statement, Report an error in the passage at 2:41 Highlight the passage at 2:41

3:04 meditative equipoise, has everything to do with attentional balance, attentional intelligence, but also the theme that will be the topic for the next lecture in this series, which I think is maybe in October, I believe, on cognitive intelligence. But we'll be focusing on attentional this time. Meditative equipoise again suggests balance. Balance. And attentionally speaking, it's going to be a freedom from ADHD. Freedom from attentional hyperactivity. Report an error in the passage at 3:04 Highlight the passage at 3:04

3:34 So you just can't focus. Your mind's all over the place. You can't maintain a continuity of attention. You can't maintain flow. It's fragmented. It's disjointed. It's scattered. It's a bit crazy. And so attentional hyperactivity. And the other one is you're just losing it. You're spacing out, losing clarity, diffuse attention deficit disorder. Report an error in the passage at 3:34 Highlight the passage at 3:34

3:55 And so being free of those two, a meditative equipoise where there's a balance. He said this poises you, puts you in a position so that you can come to see things clearly. I think there's kind of a transparent intelligence in that. It kind of makes sense. But then he goes beyond that. Due to seeing reality as it is, the mind of a bodhisattva, so a great being, a compassionate being, dwells in great compassion for sentient beings. It's a very profound statement. Report an error in the passage at 3:55 Highlight the passage at 3:55

4:25 Simple, but it's very profound. And that is, we all know how, that is, if you're anything like me, you know how easy it is to be judgmental. Report an error in the passage at 4:25 Highlight the passage at 4:25

4:35 How easy it is to focus in and ruminate, fixate on our own faults, be fiercely judgmental towards ourselves, be a constant source of disappointment to our own self. But also then turning that same critical gaze upon those around us, governments, political leaders, spouses, family, friends, colleagues and so on. Report an error in the passage at 4:35 Highlight the passage at 4:35

4:55 How easy it is to see the faults in others and to then take a stance of superiority, of moral superiority, being judgmental, critical, contemptuous, disdainful and so forth. It's quite easy to do, right? And yet the statement here is a mind that sees reality as it is. Causes one to dwell in great compassion for sentient beings. One may be aware of the same faults, the same limitations, the same defects in oneself, in one's family, one's country, politics and so on. Report an error in the passage at 4:55 Highlight the passage at 4:55

5:28 And yet instead of the response being one of judgmentalism, contempt, disdain and so forth and so on, harshness, rigidity, when one really sees what's going on, the natural response in... Report an error in the passage at 5:28 Highlight the passage at 5:28

5:46 To the contrary, or in opposition to being contentious, it's compassion. When we really get it, when we really see, when there is a true limitation, a true defect, our behavior, on account, is really definitely defective, right? Objectively, factually stated, there is such a thing as really utterly inappropriate, harmful or even evil behavior. How can one deny that? It's kind of like obvious truth. Report an error in the passage at 5:46 Highlight the passage at 5:46

6:11 But when one really sees what are the factors, what are the causes and conditions, what's the framework, what are the context, how can you make this intelligible? Then instead of taking the high moral ground, the high stance, the superior stance, the response, the realistic response is in fact compassion. Report an error in the passage at 6:11 Highlight the passage at 6:11

6:32 It's quite deep, quite deep. And then a summary of the same statement, so the first one by the Buddha, this one by a great Indian contemplative and philosopher by the name of Kamalashila. Very commonly cited text, very widely known in Buddhism. He lived in the 8th century, 8th, 9th century, and became one of the great authorities of Indian Buddhism for Tibetan Buddhism. Report an error in the passage at 6:32 Highlight the passage at 6:32

6:53 And so here's his statement, which is something of a paraphrase of the preceding. Because the mind moves like a river, this constant stream of consciousness that William James and others have spoken of, always in motion, flowing, flowing, splashing turbulence, and so forth and so on. This ongoing flow of... Report an error in the passage at 6:53 Highlight the passage at 6:53

7:10 The flow of thoughts, of emotions, desires, states of consciousness, perceptions and so on. Because the mind moves like a river, it does not remain still without the foundation of quiescence. Quiescence, translation of shamatha. Really developing exceptional attentional balance by way of attentional intelligence. The mind that is not established in equipoise is incapable of knowing reality. Report an error in the passage at 7:10 Highlight the passage at 7:10

7:34 The Lord, referring to the Buddha too, declared the mind that is established in equipoise discovers reality. Report an error in the passage at 7:34 Highlight the passage at 7:34

7:45 It's not a strong point for Western civilization, and that is one of our strong points since the time of Galileo, is taking the theme of equipoise, like Galileo's telescope, just a nice simple example. Galileo's telescope started from 8 power, 20, 30 power, so he refined it over the course of his illustrious career. But we can be sure, as he made his extraordinary discoveries with his telescope, that he had his telescope mounted firmly on a stable tripod or some kind of a platform. Report an error in the passage at 7:45 Highlight the passage at 7:45

8:16 We can be sure of that. Otherwise, he could never have made those discoveries. If his telescope had ADHD, and that is if the telescope was wobbly, he just couldn't, it was just wobbly, he put it on some kind of a flaky back, maybe on his knee while he has Parkinson's disease, that could be a real problem. Report an error in the passage at 8:16 Highlight the passage at 8:16

8:35 If it doesn't have a stable foundation, it doesn't matter what you see through the telescope, it will not provide you with a clear perception of what's going on. And likewise, if the lenses are foggy, polished correctly, they're, you know, properly mounted and so on, if there's not a clarity that he could gain through gazing through those lenses, not going to be useful. Report an error in the passage at 8:35 Highlight the passage at 8:35

9:01 so his telescope was free of ADHD. telescope was free of deficit in the sense it was a clear telescope by which he could make veridical observations and change the world in so doing. Report an error in the passage at 9:01 Highlight the passage at 9:01

9:14 there was no Report an error in the passage at 9:14 Highlight the passage at 9:14

9:18 ...of clarity looking through his telescope. And there was also a stability that it was firmly mounted. Stability and clarity, stability and clarity. That's just the opposite of hyperactivity and attention deficit. So what we've done in this extraordinary, wondrous growth of science and technology over the last 400 years, almost exactly, time of Galileo, is externally, for knowing reality externally, the objective, the quantifiable and the physical. Report an error in the passage at 9:18 Highlight the passage at 9:18

9:48 We've taken these qualities of equipoise in a wide variety of systems of measurement, from electron microscopes to telescopes to x-rays and the list goes on and on and on and on, where there is technological equipoise. It's stability that it's robust, it's reliable and it's precise. It's got the clarity, the sophistication, incredible sophistication. Report an error in the passage at 9:48 Highlight the passage at 9:48

10:12 So when it comes to knowing objective physical quantifiable reality, Western science and technology have been a terrific success and we're all the beneficiaries of it. Every single person here, right? Report an error in the passage at 10:12 Highlight the passage at 10:12

10:24 But what is that good for when it comes to trying to understand dimensions of reality that are not objective, not physical and not quantifiable, such as your thoughts, your emotions, your attitudes, your beliefs, your desires, your emotions, your perceptions, your memories. You can't measure those. None of them can you directly measure using the instruments of technology. So, how do you come to know the mind as it is if the instrument of technology can measure only behavioral expressions and neural correlates but can't measure the mind at all? Report an error in the passage at 10:24 Highlight the passage at 10:24

11:02 You're stuck, aren't you? Isn't there a kind of an asymmetry? Tremendous stability and clarity, sophistication, precision in terms of observing the physical, but when it comes to observing the mental, the subjective, the qualitative, the non-physical. What's more non-physical than an emotion or a belief, trust, faith, affection and so forth? What's more non-physical than those, right? Report an error in the passage at 11:02 Highlight the passage at 11:02

11:24 And so, particularly, if we're very keen on gaining insight in the nature of the mind comparable to the sophistication, the accuracy, the depth of our observations and insights into the objective physical world, then the technology will not be a good surrogate. It can't replace. So we have to develop another type of equipoise and that's going to be in the mind. So externally, this modern civilization, tracing back to Galileo, has been a terrific success. Report an error in the passage at 11:24 Highlight the passage at 11:24

11:58 But over those 400 years, there's been no comparable success in developing this type of equipoise for observing, investigating and understanding the nature of the mind. So on the one hand, incredible sophistication and on the other hand, something a little bit akin to a Neanderthal from an outside perspective. Report an error in the passage at 11:58 Highlight the passage at 11:58

12:19 So here he says, the mind that is not established in equipoise is incapable of knowing reality. The Lord, to declare the mind that is established in equipoise, discovers reality. So let's move on then. So we start with kind of a bedrock of some observations from the Buddhist tradition. So let's go to the next slide and see where it takes us. So here's the framework. Report an error in the passage at 12:19 Highlight the passage at 12:19

12:41 You might recall this from the same grid, the same framework from the conative deficit. Being totally apathetic, having no desires, just really losing vision, cognitive hyperactivity like an addiction, and cognitive dysfunction, desiring things that will really not serve you well, even if you'd realize them. Report an error in the passage at 12:41 Highlight the passage at 12:41

13:02 Remember that? So, too much, too little and dysfunctional? Well, here we have a very familiar grid, because we actually have a word for this already. Report an error in the passage at 13:02 Highlight the passage at 13:02

13:11 And that is what the Buddhists call laxity, attentional laxity, which is a loss of clarity, nebulous, vague, diffuse, sleepy, drowsy and so forth. Well, it's called attention deficit disorder, ADD. And it's simply that, loss of clarity and vividness of attention. We have what Buddhists call excitation. Report an error in the passage at 13:11 Highlight the passage at 13:11

13:31 It corresponds very, very closely to the Western term attentional hyperactivity. Put it together with deficit, you have ADHD. And this is where your attention is subject to involuntary agitation and distraction driven by compulsive desires. So you're not able to focus on anything with much of a continuity because the mind just gets thrown off course, thrown off course, drawn away by external stimuli, drawn away by rumination, memories, desires, impulses, emotions and so on. Report an error in the passage at 13:31 Highlight the passage at 13:31

14:02 And then there's attentional dysfunction. Not simply a matter of too little or too much, deficit or hyperactivity, But attending in ways that are injurious, that are harmful to ourselves and quite possibly to others. To give an example, a person who is a sexual addict, man or woman, may look upon another person, the object of sexual desire, seeing this person simply as a sexual object. Report an error in the passage at 14:02 Highlight the passage at 14:02

14:30 It's a human being, full-fledged human being, like you or me or anybody else in this room. But instead of taking that in, the fullness, the richness, the three-dimensionality of another person. With her own hopes and desires, personal history, aspirations and so forth. Just seeing that person as an object of sexual gratification. Report an error in the passage at 14:30 Highlight the passage at 14:30

14:50 That's a way of attending to others. Attractive, unattractive or boring. What kind of people are there? Attractive ones, unattractive ones and what they don't care about. That's a way of attending to people, but it's dysfunctional. It's not a matter of ADHD. That's not the way to attend to people. It's dehumanizing. A salesman, a marketer. Report an error in the passage at 14:50 Highlight the passage at 14:50

15:09 That is looking upon human beings simply as instruments for his own profit. That's dysfunctional. To look upon human beings as simply an instrument. That is all you see as a wallet. It's dysfunctional. It's a way of misattending to others. So there are some basic attentional imbalances with attentional intelligence. Report an error in the passage at 15:09 Highlight the passage at 15:09

15:30 We'll seek to rectify those to establish this equipoise, this balance. Which brings us to the next slide. So we go right to a problem that has become endemic. I think now it's worldwide. It's no longer located just in Europe or Eurocentric societies such as exactly Australia, New Zealand, United States and so on. Report an error in the passage at 15:30 Highlight the passage at 15:30

15:52 It's now become endemic. This ADHD is everywhere and it's growing. It's growing among children. It's growing among adolescents. It's impacting really every aspect of modern society. So ADHD, clinically diagnosed. But it's almost comic the way it's diagnosed. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it's something like 20 symptoms of ADHD. Report an error in the passage at 15:52 Highlight the passage at 15:52

16:16 And if you have six of them, you have ADHD. If you have five, are you joking here? You're going to really draw a line in the sand? And now you're clinically diagnosed as having ADHD and you missed it by one? Good, you get it. You're fine? Because you only have five out of 20 instead of six? Who are we kidding here? The person doing the diagnosis probably has ADHD himself. Maybe only has 3 out of 20, but still, it's still a problem. Report an error in the passage at 16:16 Highlight the passage at 16:16

16:50 And so there it is. We're all very familiar with it. It's in the news time and time again. It's all over the world. Especially in the more industrialized, modern... Modern-paced societies. There are still pockets of civilization around the world. They're still very traditional. The way of life is slower. The old, again, just traditional. Report an error in the passage at 16:50 Highlight the passage at 16:50

17:11 And they do tend to suffer from this less. But we all know. I don't need to give any comments, let alone lecture, on the pace of life, the multitasking, the bombardment of information. Just everything's so hyped up. And it has grown in my lifetime. During the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st, it's gotten worse. Report an error in the passage at 17:11 Highlight the passage at 17:11

17:30 It's definitely gotten worse in the sense of just disrupting, throwing into chaos our attentional equilibrium. It's our work, it's our entertainment, it's the pace of life, it's the media, it's Facebook, it's cell phones, it's everything. Video games and so forth. It's kind of like some clandestine plot out to get us. But of course there's no they, it's we doing it to ourselves. Report an error in the passage at 17:30 Highlight the passage at 17:30

17:58 What is the primary intervention when a person is clinically diagnosed as having ADHD? Well, overwhelmingly, it's drugs. It's Ritalin, it's Adderall. Those are the two. You diagnose it. Your child is not doing very well in school. They seem to be very distracted, listless, inattentive in school. Take them for a diagnosis. Your child gets a diagnosis. Your child has ADHD. And what is almost certainly in the next sentence coming out of the psychiatrist's mouth, and I have just the drug for you. Report an error in the passage at 17:58 Highlight the passage at 17:58

18:28 Take this, it'll be okay. Because after all, what else are we going to do? You want to go for $10,000 worth of therapy? And exactly what kind of therapy would that be? So it's drugs. Well, here from the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, so clearly a peer-reviewed, very respected journal, an article was just recently published and the conclusion was that while most young people with ADHD benefit from medications in the first year of treatment, These effects generally wane by the third year, if not sooner. That's not even acknowledging the fact that they work only in about 50 % of the cases. Report an error in the passage at 18:28 Highlight the passage at 18:28

19:08 But even when they do work, they work for maybe a year. And then they don't. And then you can start upping the dosage. Kind of like cocaine. And it actually has a family resemblance to cocaine. Ritalin and so forth. So that's kind of sobering. In other words, it's quite clear. That the drugs are not healing anything. They are managing the symptoms, which is a pleasant way of saying they're suppressing the symptoms without getting to the underlying causes. Report an error in the passage at 19:08 Highlight the passage at 19:08

19:41 So the author of the study, James Swanson, he comments now, I quote directly, there are no long-term lasting benefits from taking ADHD medications. Report an error in the passage at 19:41 Highlight the passage at 19:41

19:52 But mindfulness, so he attended to this mindfulness training, which is now very, very widely known globally. Mindfulness training seems to be training the same areas of the brain that have reduced activity in ADHD. In other words, actually training in mindfulness might actually get to the core of the problem. Report an error in the passage at 19:52 Highlight the passage at 19:52

20:09 That's why mindfulness might be so important. It seems to be getting at the causes. So clearly the causes are not neurological dysfunction. Otherwise, a simple drug should come in and snuff it out. But the neurocorrelance is simply a manifestation. Not the root cause. You're getting to the root causes not by giving drug therapy but actually giving mental training. So I see this in the media all over the place these days. Report an error in the passage at 20:09 Highlight the passage at 20:09

20:34 If you have some kind of a training you want to offer, if you say, this is brain training, suddenly people go, oh, like that must be scientific. I'm training my brain. What are you doing? You're practicing mindfulness training or something else. But they say you're training your brain and now, oh, now it's become scientific. Report an error in the passage at 20:34 Highlight the passage at 20:34

20:52 You're not training your brain. Any more than you're training your liver if you stop drinking alcohol. Report an error in the passage at 20:52 Highlight the passage at 20:52

21:03 So why don't we just go back to calling a spade a spade? You're training your mind. And your brain will follow suit. Give a drug to your brain, your mind follows suit until it doesn't, which is about a year. Report an error in the passage at 21:03 Highlight the passage at 21:03

21:19 So we're really being hypnotized here. There's kind of a mass hypnosis going on of equating mind with a brain and saying if you're really going to get something done, roll up your sleeves and start training your brain. You're not training your brain. You're draining your mind. Why don't we just be clear about this? You're draining your mind. That's what actually works. The drugs suppress the symptoms. So let's move on and see where we can go. Report an error in the passage at 21:19 Highlight the passage at 21:19

21:42 A theme that comes out of the research is the theme of cognitive control, sometimes called executive control. It's a very meaningful term. It comes out of psychology, not out of brain science. Report an error in the passage at 21:42 Highlight the passage at 21:42

21:52 So a person who has really gained some mastery of cognitive control in this regard is able to delay Gratification, that is not just be pushed by pure impulse as with a cognitive lack of intelligence. As impulse management, emotional self-regulation or self-control, the suppression of irrelevant thoughts actually is able to maintain some control, some management, some intelligence in controlling, directing, monitoring the flow of thoughts and so forth and paying attention or learning readiness. Report an error in the passage at 21:52 Highlight the passage at 21:52

22:28 So those are some of the central features of cognitive control. Sounds very good to me. Sounds like that might have a lot to do with mental balance altogether. People who display some significant ability in cognitive control, pretty much defined by the proceeding, this singular mental ability predicts success both in school and in work life, not to mention mental balance and well-being. Report an error in the passage at 22:28 Highlight the passage at 22:28

22:54 But now, is it something we already learn, that is, as we're growing up as children, as very young children through later childhood and adolescence? What happens in cognitive control simply by growing up in modern society, going through school and so on? Studies have shown that cognitive control increases from about the age of 4 to 12. Report an error in the passage at 22:54 Highlight the passage at 22:54

23:17 And then in terms of just what we're getting from the environment, ordinary education and so forth, perhaps going to a church, synagogue, temple, then we plateau out. That is the maturation. In terms of our ability to really control and regulate our own minds, pretty much plateaus out at the age of 12. And then you're 24, you're 36, 48, and you're still walking around with a degree of cognitive control of a 12-year-old. Report an error in the passage at 23:17 Highlight the passage at 23:17

23:43 But now you're running a multinational. Or you're a general running an army. Or you're a political leader, and so forth. But you've still got the cognitive control of a 12-year-old. Report an error in the passage at 23:43 Highlight the passage at 23:43

23:55 Does it really have to be so? Is that somehow biologically predetermined? hit your maximum capacity when you're 12. mean, that's pre-adolescence, for heaven's sakes. So bolstering this mental ability might be particularly helpful in treating ADHD. And that is if there are ways of not training your brain, but training your mind, developing the ability to cognitive intelligence, whether you're able to delay immediate gratification. Report an error in the passage at 23:55 Highlight the passage at 23:55

24:24 Impulse management, which may be very much cognitive, but also emotional. Emotional self-regulation and self-control, there we are emotional. Suppression of irrelevant thoughts, that would be attentional. And paying attention or learning readiness, attentional already. So we have three out of the four types of mental balance right there. And of course all of these have enormous relevance to what the topic will be for next October and that is cognitive intelligence, cognitive balance. Report an error in the passage at 24:24 Highlight the passage at 24:24

24:49 So I think just by laying out these points, the problem is kind of laid bare. The expense on an individual's life. of inability of having very little cognitive control and really on a very core level inability to control the focus of our own attention. That's very core, that's very existential. If you can't focus your attention at will, what can you control? Really, if you can't even do that, if your mind's like some rabid dog just running off in all directions, then what do you have control over at all if you can't control that? Report an error in the passage at 24:49 Highlight the passage at 24:49

25:27 So this is very core, very central. So let's go to the next slide, see where it takes us. William James, where are you? There we come. Slowly, slowly. One of my favorite quotes, I'm quite an enthusiast of William James. Not every aspect of him, but he really was quite brilliant and his writings on attention were quite extraordinary. Report an error in the passage at 25:27 Highlight the passage at 25:27

25:50 So this is a quote I've probably cited a hundred times by now, but I think it's so rich and has enormous explanatory power in many, many areas. So here it is. I believe it's from this Principles of Psychology published in 1890. And it's attention in the world of experience. And here's the quote. Don't want to paraphrase it. He writes quite deliciously. He said, the subjects adhere to become real subjects. Report an error in the passage at 25:50 Highlight the passage at 25:50

26:17 Attributes adhere to real attributes. The existence adhere to real existence. So we'll pause there. And that is those subjects, whatever the subject may be, another person, a political situation, economic, your own health, your mind and so forth, what we adhere to, and that is simply that which we attend to, really focus our attention on. Report an error in the passage at 26:17 Highlight the passage at 26:17

26:38 For us, that which we attend to becomes real for us. It's not just that. So in the Buddhist, just skipping out, I'm going to just kind of weave in and out of his statement here. Report an error in the passage at 26:38 Highlight the passage at 26:38

26:52 But in the Buddhist tradition, consciousness, awareness is often, Lama Tsongkhapa When I'm focusing on yours, the people behind you are somewhat out of focus. Betty's is way out of focus. Peter's more so. And I think these people over here have heads, but I'm not quite sure because it's not quite evident. Report an error in the passage at 26:52 Highlight the passage at 26:52

27:31 But one face is very, very clear. That one becomes real to me. So it's been known. A lot of studies have been done. Scientific studies have been done of attention, visual attention in particular. And within the visual field, attention is very small. It's very selective. Most things are not in focus. And that's simply a good, it's suggestive of the role of attention altogether. It's highly selective. Report an error in the passage at 27:31 Highlight the passage at 27:31

27:59 So if awareness is like a light, attention is like a laser or a flashlight, a torch. It's focused. It illuminates that which it's focused on, but that means everything else that's not being focused on is cast into the shadows. And as far as we're concerned, that's which we don't attend to, either deliberately or unconsciously. Report an error in the passage at 27:59 Highlight the passage at 27:59

28:21 So he says the subjects that we attend to become real for us. Those attributes, let's say, of another person that we attend to, people are immensely complex, almost inconceivably complex, every single individual. And we're getting so much information from everybody around us as we engage in dialogue, we observe behavior and so forth, we get to know people. We're all so multifaceted. Report an error in the passage at 28:21 Highlight the passage at 28:21

28:49 So multifaceted. We have so many qualities. Physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, creative and so forth. So as we attend to our spouses, our friends, our children, our colleagues, strangers, we are being presented with a wealth of information. We can't attend to all of it equally. We're selective. We have no choice in that. We are selective. But as we attend to the qualities of the individuals around us, not only individuals, situations, places, circumstances, activities. Report an error in the passage at 28:49 Highlight the passage at 28:49

29:21 We can't attend to all that, any more than I can attend to everybody's face in this room. I can't do it, certainly not at one time. It would take me a long time to go boom, boom, boom, boom. That was pretty quick. I only gave you two sentences. That's not much. That was a little snapshot. And so even to take in, really take in the faces, and that's just one part of the body. Report an error in the passage at 29:21 Highlight the passage at 29:21

29:42 That was already selective, right? I could be focusing on your necks or your right arm or your feet. I mean, that was already selective. Good selection, but nevertheless selective, right? And so it's the attributes that we adhere to, not only the entities, but which attributes of the entity are we really looking at? Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:01 That becomes real for us. That counts. That matters. The existence adhere to real existence. We tend to the existence of some things where we tend to marginalize or entirely overlook the existence of other things. They just don't get picked up on our radar. And he comments on this in the other half of this statement. While the subject disregarded become imaginary subjects, that which we do not attend to, deliberately or undeliberately, they become imaginary, kind of ethereal, epiphenomenal, quasi. Report an error in the passage at 30:01 Highlight the passage at 30:01

30:34 The attributes disregarded, erroneous attributes, they don't count, they're regarded as noise. When scientists make measurements, they get the data they're looking for, but then there's usually noise, and the noise is something that we're not interested in. Throw that out. Screen through the noise. Collect the data you're after. And that's what counts. Why? Because that's what you're attending to. Maybe the noise was more important, but more important for you. Report an error in the passage at 30:34 Highlight the passage at 30:34

30:58 What were your questions? And so the attributes disregarded, erroneous attributes, the existence disregarded and the existence in no man's land, in the limbo where footless fancies dwell. Report an error in the passage at 30:58 Highlight the passage at 30:58

31:11 And that is there are some things we may simply not attend to at all. Take as an example one of my good old, how do you say? Dead horses that I keep on beating. The behaviorism of John Watson, for example, B.F. Skinner. They went out of their way to avoid practicing introspection as if it had the hives that would give them herpes. Report an error in the passage at 31:11 Highlight the passage at 31:11

31:34 They really made a point. Introspection is not part of the agenda. Introspection does not count. We will not use it. We will focus on what's real and what's real is behavior. It's objective, physical and quantifiable. That's what counts. That's what we'll attend to. That's the existence that will become real for us. And therefore the mind is reduced to a mere disposition for behavior, a certain proclivity. Or B.F. Report an error in the passage at 31:34 Highlight the passage at 31:34

31:57 Skinner later went on to say, well, if you reduce the mind to behavior, that's a step in the right direction. And then simply say it's equivalent to the brain and now you've hit jackpot. Report an error in the passage at 31:57 Highlight the passage at 31:57

32:09 Which means, and there are, there's a whole school of philosophy, still I think people are living who still advocate it, called a limitative materialism. A limitative materialism. And there, and Daniel Dennett is a case of this, Patricia Churchland, Paul Churchland, there are others. They say subjective experience, your emotions, your thoughts, your perceptions and so forth, don't exist at all. Report an error in the passage at 32:09 Highlight the passage at 32:09

32:32 They don't exist at all. All that really exists is brain function. And so it's like Groucho Marx's statement, who are you going to believe, me or your very own eyes? Report an error in the passage at 32:32 Highlight the passage at 32:32

32:43 And the limited materialists say, don't believe your eyes. You actually don't experience anything real. All that's real is the brain function. And so they've just gone out of their way as a matter of dogmatic policy. We will not practice introspection. We will not look at subjective experience. And therefore they find it easy to say it doesn't exist at all. Report an error in the passage at 32:43 Highlight the passage at 32:43

33:02 It's purely illusory. So this plays out a lot. He sums up the statement with, habitually and practically we do not count these disregarded things as existence at all. Report an error in the passage at 33:02 Highlight the passage at 33:02

33:18 They're not even treated as appearances. They're treated as if they were mere waste equivalent to nothing at all. So when we look at this, I could spend the whole evening on this one slide. I find just the explanatory power from it is quite breathtaking and it's purely psychological. This is not some sophisticated philosophical reasoning or syllogism or anything like that. It's a psychological observation and it's making a psychological conclusion. Report an error in the passage at 33:18 Highlight the passage at 33:18

33:42 He's not saying that this exists because we attend to it, which would be flat out silly because then you could have something going to become non-existent simply by denying it. A person gets diagnosed with cancer. Well, I'll just ignore it. I don't have it. I won't think about it. I won't think about it. And then, oh, your cancer will go away because you don't attend to it. Well, that's silly. He's not a silly man. Report an error in the passage at 33:42 Highlight the passage at 33:42

34:02 He's making a psychological truth, pointing out a psychological truth, that what counts as real for us corresponds directly to what we're attending to. Report an error in the passage at 34:02 Highlight the passage at 34:02

34:17 If I should ask everybody here, please write me a one-page summary of who you think you are. Who are you? I'd like to know who you are. One page. Try to summarize. You probably could. One page, you know, say something intelligible that's not completely misleading. But what I think I can guarantee is what you would write, if you're being honest, doing your best, will be an exact account of what you've been attending to. Report an error in the passage at 34:17 Highlight the passage at 34:17

34:42 Because how much data is there and how much can you write down? You'll write down what you've been attending to, what is real for you. If I ask, please describe your spouse, you'll describe what you've been attending to. Describe your children, you'll describe what you've been attending to. Describe your country, you'll describe what you're attending to. Report an error in the passage at 34:42 Highlight the passage at 34:42

35:02 Describe the universe. Describe what you're attending to. And what you don't attend to doesn't make it onto the page because it doesn't make it into your sense of what's real. So attention, attentional intelligence looms Report an error in the passage at 35:02 Highlight the passage at 35:02

35:21 large because what we're attending to is actually defining what we consider to be real for us. Let's move to the next one and see where it goes. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:33 Ah, the summary. I love this. Each of us literally chooses by his way of attending to things. What sort of universe he shall appear to himself to inhabit. That's why I never want to paraphrase William James. I don't know how you can say that better. Report an error in the passage at 35:33 Highlight the passage at 35:33

35:54 What kind of a person do you think you are? It corresponds to what you have been choosing to attend to. What kind of universe are you inhabiting? Are you surrounded by compassionate people or mean-spirited people? It's not just up to them. It's what are you attending to? Does your world consist entirely... Report an error in the passage at 35:54 Highlight the passage at 35:54

36:12 Are you a materialist? Fine, that's what you've been attending to. Are you living in a world where you're just experiencing a bounty of God's blessings in every way? It's a much mellower, sweeter universe to inhabit, but that's what you're attending to. Are you seeing karma maturing from moment to moment, from year to year, from day to day? Okay, that's what you're attending to. Report an error in the passage at 36:12 Highlight the passage at 36:12

36:44 But we see, we literally choose. Well, we literally choose if and only if we actually know there's a choice involved. That the world is not simply being imposed upon us, but in fact we are participants. And the world that rises up to meet us corresponds to the world that we're attending to. Which means we actually have the ability to shape the world that we take seriously by literally choosing what to attend to. Report an error in the passage at 36:44 Highlight the passage at 36:44

37:10 But can we do that? Let's see. Report an error in the passage at 37:10 Highlight the passage at 37:10

37:15 William James really strikes to the core. He was passionately, like myself, or I like he, like him, passionately concerned with education. He wrote a delightful little book, by the way, called Talks to Teachers. You can read it easily in one afternoon. And it is not trivial reading, but it's very readable. So in that and other writings of his, he comments on the significance of attention for education. Report an error in the passage at 37:15 Highlight the passage at 37:15

37:39 And this is a matter that I feel very passionately about. And he writes, the faculty voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention over and over again. Report an error in the passage at 37:39 Highlight the passage at 37:39

37:49 It's the very root of judgment, character, and will. education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. it is easier to define this ideal than to give practicalist directions for bringing it about. Years ago when I was at Stanford as a graduate student, I jumped out of my department, very heretical of me, and went over to the School of Education. Report an error in the passage at 37:49 Highlight the passage at 37:49

38:12 I was in Religious Studies, taking courses all over the place in Philosophy of Physics. Cognitive psychology and so on, but I jumped over to another school, which is very daring. The School of Education spoke with a man named Ray McDermott. Three brothers, quite exceptional, but Ray McDermott. Senior researcher in the School of Education, spent a lot of time doing field research in middle school. Middle school, children 13, 14, 15 years old. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:40 Based upon his research, he found in the classroom... That about 90 % of the teacher's time was spent just trying to get the kids to pay attention. And that was about 20 years ago. So there it is. You may have the most brilliant teacher, the most award-winning teacher in all of New South Wales. Number one teacher might be the teacher for your child. Report an error in the passage at 38:40 Highlight the passage at 38:40

39:04 If your child can't pay attention, that's like somebody pouring you a glass full of milk and your glass is upside down. It may be the best milk in the world, but if your glass is upside down or your glass is shattered or dirty or leaky, What does it matter how good the milk is? What does it matter how good the teacher is? If the child isn't even attending, what does it matter? Why not just have a tape recorder going? Report an error in the passage at 39:04 Highlight the passage at 39:04

39:30 Or just anything. If the child's not attending, the child's not getting an education. So isn't it common sense? Are we missing something here? Why isn't attentional training part of education from preschool onwards right through graduate school? Are we missing something here? Because if you can't pay attention, you can't learn the ABCs and you cannot learn advanced neuroscience either if you can't pay attention. And is ADHD an endemic problem or is that only for the clinically diagnosed? Report an error in the passage at 39:30 Highlight the passage at 39:30

40:01 I think we already know the answer to that question. So this is something profoundly and obviously missing. It's common sense that if you have a good educational system, and I think Australia generally has quite a good one, relatively speaking, it's good, right? Report an error in the passage at 40:01 Highlight the passage at 40:01

40:17 Up in Scandinavia, I think it's quite exceptional. I mean, they keep on scoring the top in the world. Up there in Denmark, Sweden, Norway and so forth. Finland, really outstanding. That's great. It's a wonderful thing. But if your kids can't pay attention, then what was all that for? All the infrastructure, the training of teachers and administration and all of that. Report an error in the passage at 40:17 Highlight the passage at 40:17

40:38 The kids can't pay attention. So this is like giving them digestive enzymes if you're giving them good food. If they can't digest what you're giving them, then... What's the point of giving them good food? They can't digest it anyway. They're just going to evacuate it. And so if there were an education that could teach children, adolescents and so on, how to really focus their attention, then that would be the best form of education. Report an error in the passage at 40:38 Highlight the passage at 40:38

41:02 Because then they could actually receive whatever you're giving them. But he comments here, 1890 or so, that it's easier to define this ideal, that it would be a very good thing if it were possible. But actually he had no, William James, as much as I admire him, had no practical instructions whatsoever for actually implementing that in any school system. Report an error in the passage at 41:02 Highlight the passage at 41:02

41:23 He recognized with, I think, perhaps unparalleled clarity how enormously important it is and didn't have a clue how to do it. Report an error in the passage at 41:23 Highlight the passage at 41:23

41:33 But he adds here again, with such great articulation, he says, in education the power of voluntarily attending is the point of the whole procedure. Just as a balance turns on its knife edges, so upon it our moral destiny turns. It's a simple statement. Again, I think it's spot on. Is there anyone here who has not on occasion been subject to a real moral, what's the word? Report an error in the passage at 41:33 Highlight the passage at 41:33

42:05 Well, a moral challenge, but I'm looking for another word. Dilemma, but not quite a dilemma, but more just that we're really tempted, a temptation, a moral temptation. Or let's say immoral temptation. There's something we'd really like to do. It would give us immediate gratification. We would get pleasure from it. We know, though, from our own standards, without my imposing morality on anybody, it's not right. Report an error in the passage at 42:05 Highlight the passage at 42:05

42:31 You really should not do that. That's wrong. You know it in your heart. That's wrong. But you'd really like to. And it would give you pleasure. You're tempted to do it. So will you do it or not? That which you know by your own standards, that's unethical. That's wrong. That's harmful. That is beneath you. That is not who you really want to be. Will you do it anyway? And there's kind of a simple answer to that. Report an error in the passage at 42:31 Highlight the passage at 42:31

43:00 If you can get your attention off of it, you won't do it. If you can focus it elsewhere, you won't do it. If you keep on fixating there and fixating and fixating, oh, you're going to do it. Report an error in the passage at 43:00 Highlight the passage at 43:00

43:15 Sooner or later, you're going to succumb. Only when you get your attention off will you not do it. And then the question is, there you're attracted to it. Standards. That's unethical. That's wrong. That's harmful. That is beneath you. That is not who you really want to be. Will you do it anyway? And there's kind of a simple answer to that. If you can get your attention off of it, you won't do it. Report an error in the passage at 43:15 Highlight the passage at 43:15

43:40 If you can focus your attention elsewhere, you won't do it. If you keep on fixating there and fixating and fixating, oh, you're going to do it. Report an error in the passage at 43:40 Highlight the passage at 43:40

43:50 Sooner or later, you're going to succumb. Only when you get your attention off will you not do it. And then the question is, there you're attracted to it. I'm going to take a silly one. The second dessert. Not immoral, but maybe really not that good idea. If Report an error in the passage at 43:50 Highlight the passage at 43:50

44:12 you keep on coming back to it sooner or later, oh, what the heck, just bring the dessert and shut up. Get your attention off of it, it becomes a non-issue. Report an error in the passage at 44:12 Highlight the passage at 44:12

44:23 It kind of is that simple, isn't it? If you can actually take the reins of the horse of your mind. And direct the mind elsewhere. Direct your attention elsewhere. The moral challenge is overcome. You've succeeded. The alcoholic has a really bad day and could really go for a drink. Just one. Just one. Knowing full well it won't be just one, but persuades him or herself, just one. Report an error in the passage at 44:23 Highlight the passage at 44:23

44:54 What could it hurt? Will you take the drink or will you not? What can you do with your attention? It's more complex than that, but in a way that is actually the gist. Get your attention off of it. So we move on. Attention is looming large here. It doesn't stop. Attention and inner strength, sheer character. Report an error in the passage at 44:54 Highlight the passage at 44:54

45:19 William James again, a person who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition and self-denial in unnecessary things, will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him and his softer fellow mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast. Report an error in the passage at 45:19 Highlight the passage at 45:19

45:39 You see, this is why I quote him directly. Who wants to do better than that? But is it true? In times of crisis, when people are freaking out, an economic crisis, a social crisis, crisis of all kinds. It can be personal in your own home. It can be in your community. It can be your nation. It can be global, global warming and so on and so on. Report an error in the passage at 45:39 Highlight the passage at 45:39

46:03 When people are freaking out, really losing it, not everybody loses it. Not everybody goes cuckoo. Some people stand firm. Some people are like a rock. Some people want to gather around them. This person has her act together. This person is still solid, is not losing it. Who's that person? That person. Attention has everything to do with it. It's not the only thing. But if you can't control your attention, you can't control anything. Report an error in the passage at 46:03 Highlight the passage at 46:03

46:34 That, I will say, is true. All of these issues are more complex than attention. There's no question. Morality, addiction, and so forth and so on, clearly is more than attention. if you can't focus your attention, if you can't control that, you can't control anything. Report an error in the passage at 46:34 Highlight the passage at 46:34

46:48 Isn't it true? There's no dogma here. It's either true or false, but it lends itself to empirical investigation. That's William James. He's a radical empiricist. Let's move on. So now here's the big question. He said, well, if there were an education, that would be an education par excellence that actually could train children to develop attentional stability and clarity, overcome deficit and hyperactivity. Report an error in the passage at 46:48 Highlight the passage at 46:48

47:11 But can it be done? Some things, you can't change your genetic structure, your DNA, you can't change it. If you're tall, you're not going to get short. If you're short, you're not going to grow tall, not if you're 25 years old. There's nothing much you can do about it, right? And so there are many things that are just kind of like, that's just the way it is. You have big feet, you have small feet, and so forth and so on. Report an error in the passage at 47:11 Highlight the passage at 47:11

47:33 There's just not much give. There may be none, right? Is attention one of those things that's hardwired? It's a really serious question. Enormously important. If it's hardwired, then we just have to have a stiff upper lip and say, well, that's the brakes. What did William James come up with? He says there is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time. Report an error in the passage at 47:33 Highlight the passage at 47:33

47:54 That's a pretty strong statement. What is called sustained voluntary attention is a repetition of successive efforts which bring back the topic to the mind. So he's saying it's kind of staccato stream of staccato kind of returns to the object. But in the sense of any real continuity, it's very... Not only pessimistic, he just said it flat out doesn't happen. That doesn't sound very promising. But now let's go on. This is again more than a century ago. Report an error in the passage at 47:54 Highlight the passage at 47:54

48:21 Now that he's highlighted with such clarity the enormous importance of attention and what he calls sustained voluntary attention. Okay, but now William James informed us here. You've got us, you've whetted our appetite, you've aroused our interest, we've shown us how important this is. Can there be something we can do about it? And then he says, the possession of such a steady faculty of attention is unquestionably a great boon. Report an error in the passage at 48:21 Highlight the passage at 48:21

48:44 Yes, I'm a believer. Tell us more. And then he says, those who have it can work more rapidly and with less nervous wear and tear. Great, I want to be one of those people. And then he says, I'm inclined to think that no one who is without it naturally can by any amount of drill or discipline Attain it in a very high degree. Its amount is probably a fixed characteristic of the individual. Oh, crap. Report an error in the passage at 48:44 Highlight the passage at 48:44

49:09 He got us all juiced up and then just hammers into the ground like you either have already won or you've already lost and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. Report an error in the passage at 49:09 Highlight the passage at 49:09

49:20 Well, is he just a pessimist? No, he's an empiricist. That's what he was. He was an empiricist above all. One of the least dogmatic intellectuals of modern era as far as I can tell. I think he looked around him in Boston, in London, in Paris, in Heidelberg and so forth. Very transatlantic person. Didn't travel globally, but he got around a lot across the Atlantic. Report an error in the passage at 49:20 Highlight the passage at 49:20

49:43 And he looked around in the circles of society that he lived in. And he simply saw no evidence of anybody getting better. And he saw no evidence of any viable training that was evidence-based. He saw no methods. Based upon the evidence that he saw as a very smart... Very attentive, very interested person. He saw no evidence that there is such a thing as real continuity of attention or any evidence that it can be trained. And therefore he drew the empirically based conclusion. Report an error in the passage at 49:43 Highlight the passage at 49:43

50:17 It's probably hardwired. It's just a fixed characteristic of the individual. Some people are born scatterbrained and some people are born more composed and focused. And if you're one of the latter, you're lucky. And if you're one of the former, tough luck. Report an error in the passage at 50:17 Highlight the passage at 50:17

50:40 Well, but this again, this was in the very infancy of modern psychology. He was one of the founders. He and other people like Tichner and Cornell, Wilhelm Wundt and Leipzig. So they were the grandfathers of all. They started experimental psychology. So the fact that they would make some possibly false claims, how could they not? Report an error in the passage at 50:40 Highlight the passage at 50:40

51:01 They are, after all, pioneers, not coming in after 400 years of maturation like in physics. But what we find if we look at the 20th century, Report an error in the passage at 51:01 Highlight the passage at 51:01

51:13 Because he died in 1910, so pretty much missed the 20th century. That winds up being pretty much an unquestioned assumption for the whole century. Report an error in the passage at 51:13 Highlight the passage at 51:13

51:23 If you look for progress in mainstream psychology throughout the entire 20th century, you see that assumption, that conclusion that he drew in the late 19th century seemed to remain unquestioned. Although there was a vast number of studies of attention by psychologists, neuroscientists and so forth. Great work, lots of insights. Report an error in the passage at 51:23 Highlight the passage at 51:23

51:44 But the most important question, is attention malleable? Can you train it? Seems to have slipped under the radar. They weren't attending to that question, therefore it didn't exist. They weren't attending to it, therefore it wasn't real to them. Which means there was an implicit assumption that went unquestioned for a century. Report an error in the passage at 51:44 Highlight the passage at 51:44

52:08 A century of the greatest, really truly exponential growth of scientific knowledge in the history of humanity, where we knew more about everything, it seems. In one century than all the preceding centuries. But on this point, so utterly important, fantastically important for judgment, for character, for judgment, for ethics, for education and one can say for creativity and other things. Report an error in the passage at 52:08 Highlight the passage at 52:08

52:33 No progress at all. Isn't that astonishing? We're so focused on the outward, the external, the physical, the objective and quantifiable that there was something of an assumption that was not only in attention but in many other areas as well. The assumption of of Report an error in the passage at 52:33 Highlight the passage at 52:33

52:52 Immutability, non-plasticity, almost like a pre-Darwinian notion of species, that God created them that way. And that's the way they've always been. Giraffes have always been giraffes. God created them as giraffes. They've been giraffes for the last 8,000 years, the whole history of the planet. I mean, that was the assumption until very recently, until the early 19th century. Report an error in the passage at 52:52 Highlight the passage at 52:52

53:16 They took the book down pretty literally, you know. It's only in the early 19th century that they started seeing millions of years, let alone billions, the five billion years that we now know to be the age of the planet. But the whole notion of species being static, well, that was the common assumption until Darwin, 150 years ago. Report an error in the passage at 53:16 Highlight the passage at 53:16

53:35 Well, that same kind of pre-Darwinian notion has really exerted a lot of influence on scientific understanding of the mind, that some people are just this way, some people just that way, and he nailed it for attention and got it profoundly wrong. But I do agree with him on this point. He wrote this in 1892 in a remarkable little essay called A Plea for Psychology as a Natural Science. Report an error in the passage at 53:35 Highlight the passage at 53:35

54:00 And he wrote, William James, psychology indeed is today hardly more than what physics was before Galileo, what chemistry was before Lavoisier. Report an error in the passage at 54:00 Highlight the passage at 54:00

54:13 Galileo introduced the appropriate technology for understanding terrestrial physics to take the first real steps for understanding terrestrial physics dynamics. And of course astronomy, the technology. He found the appropriate means of observation to draw conclusive results that could be corroborated by other people, third-person observation. Report an error in the passage at 54:13 Highlight the passage at 54:13

54:37 So I think to some extent, to a troubling extent, that's still true. So let's move on. Okay, there's some really good news here that's actually hidden, that has not been attended to by many people in modern academia, to an astonishing degree. To my mind, to an utterly astonishing, almost flabbergasting degree. And the discovery embodies some real breaking news. It's really quite incredible. Eurocentric civilization is actually not the only civilization on the planet. Report an error in the passage at 54:37 Highlight the passage at 54:37

55:09 We actually don't know more about everything than any other civilization has ever existed. Report an error in the passage at 55:09 Highlight the passage at 55:09

55:18 That little fact has not crept through in many, many departments in academia. I spend a lot of time in academia. Not Report an error in the passage at 55:18 Highlight the passage at 55:18

55:27 along with some people, but I'm often just flabbergasted. How the assumption creeps in that if we don't know it, nobody knows it. Report an error in the passage at 55:27 Highlight the passage at 55:27

55:37 That if anything was published more than five years ago, it's not worth reading. If you publish a scientific paper and it was published five years ago, don't expect anybody to read it. What did they know five years ago after all? Because we must be doing better now. Look what was published last month. But five years ago, this is like an iPhone, five-year-old iPhone. Report an error in the passage at 55:37 Highlight the passage at 55:37

56:00 What do you need that for? It's a doorstop. Why would anybody want a five-year-old iPhone? Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:08 So the notion, here's a statement that I love, it's so wildly ethnocentric. You know, pre-scientific cultures, you know, the ones that didn't know anything, like the Greeks, the Jews, the Romans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Mayans, and they're pre-scientific. Report an error in the passage at 56:08 Highlight the passage at 56:08

56:32 That's the time when your tongue goes into the cheek. What do they know? They're pre-scientific. As if human knowledge began four centuries ago. And Report an error in the passage at 56:32 Highlight the passage at 56:32

56:43 many people actually believe that. There's pre-scientific and post-scientific and the post-scientific or the scientific. That's where all the knowledge is to be found. Pre-scientific, they have myths and legends and folk this and folk that. They're very quaint and charming and they write good poetry. Report an error in the passage at 56:43 Highlight the passage at 56:43

57:02 So at Stanford University, where I spent six years in graduate school, there were the fuzzies and the techies. And the techies were the sciences, technology, computer science, business, medicine, the techies. The fuzzies, I lived in the heart of fuzzy will. Fuzzyville. The fuzzies were the people in the humanities. You know, the touchy-feely people. Philosophy and art and music and literature. Report an error in the passage at 57:02 Highlight the passage at 57:02

57:32 You know, the fuzzy stuff. The pre-scientific people. Report an error in the passage at 57:32 Highlight the passage at 57:32

57:39 So the really good news here is that while we have learned so much about so many aspects of reality by studying the objective, physical and quantifiable, which is the primary way of studying the mind to this day, studying behavior and brain states and interviewing people objectively, getting data, As one eminent cognitive psychologist, Anne Treisman, there's no reason not to say her name, Anne Treisman, eminent cognitive psychologist at Princeton University, really the grand dame of the field, because she focused on study of attention. Report an error in the passage at 57:39 Highlight the passage at 57:39

58:10 I invited her to a conference I helped organize with the Dalai Lama five years ago. She said, when we interview people, when we interview people, you study their behavior, their brain, and you interview them. Those are the three. avenues of research in modern academic psychology. And we interview people about their own subjective experience. We do not take their statements to be statements of fact. Report an error in the passage at 58:10 Highlight the passage at 58:10

58:29 We simply take them to be statements of what they said. It's data. person did objectively, clearly, unequivocally say this. Report an error in the passage at 58:29 Highlight the passage at 58:29

58:40 whether that person has any actual insight into her own mind, emotions, and so forth and so on, well, who knows. they did say this, and that's the data. Subjects provide you with data, but the notion that They may be actually making veridical claims about their own experience. It doesn't even come up. In fact, she said all of our experience is illusory. All of our perceptual experience is illusory. Report an error in the passage at 58:40 Highlight the passage at 58:40

59:06 I wonder if she's referring to herself as well. No, maybe not. Maybe they're more like the priests of the Roman Catholic Church 400 years ago. We have a privileged access to what God really said and you people who are not in the ecclesiastic community will tell you what's going on. But don't trust your experience. Report an error in the passage at 59:06 Highlight the passage at 59:06

59:26 I think it's something in parallel. Alright, here we have themes that are running to the rescue, that are coming from outside Eurocentric civilization. It happens to come from Buddhism. Buddhism deeply, how do you say, indebted to the great contemplative heritage of India prior to the Buddha. Because India is the mother of Samādhi. Report an error in the passage at 59:26 Highlight the passage at 59:26

59:49 Samādhi is focused attention. William James never went to India. He hardly even acknowledged its existence because he wasn't attending to it. Report an error in the passage at 59:49 Highlight the passage at 59:49

1:00:04 The Chinese got it. From India. The Tibetan got it from India. Southeast Asia got it from India. Indo-centric. Indic. What comes out of about 5,000 years of research, not 400 as in modern science, about 5,000, give or take a millennium, in India is ways of training attention. As the Buddha said, when he said the mind resting in meditative equipoise, he's referring to samādhi. That's what he's referring to. Samādhi. And samādhi is... Report an error in the passage at 1:00:04 Highlight the passage at 1:00:04

1:00:39 And there's a sequence here. If you want to fulfill what William James idealized and didn't have a clue how to realize, if you'd like to bring attention training into education, into sports, into business, into mental health care and so on, you need to have a strategy. And in this contented tradition of Buddhism, and there's nothing religious about this at all, the first thing is loosen up. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:39 Highlight the passage at 1:00:39

1:01:13 especially for people living in our society. If you're a farmer living in India 2,500 years ago, maybe not such a big deal. If you're a Tibetan nomad living 100 years ago, not such a big deal. For us living in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Singapore, in New York, Los Angeles, it's a big deal. We are so wound up. We're so wound up. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:13 Highlight the passage at 1:01:13

1:01:33 It's amazing we can be sane at all. the first thing is loosen up. Relaxation. If you'd like to develop your attention skills. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:33 Highlight the passage at 1:01:33

1:01:42 Don't bring your whole nervous system, your ready-made mind so configured, so warped, so strung out by modernity and now start applying this going forward, trying to develop your attention. You're going to just wind yourself tighter. That's what's going to happen. And it's done all the time. Jet fighter pilots do it, air traffic controllers do it, professional chess players do it, even professional musicians do it. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:42 Highlight the passage at 1:01:42

1:02:09 They bring the ordinary mind to the task at hand, they bear down, they focus really intensely and then they're exhausted. They're drained, they're wiped out. They recover, they come back, wind themselves up in knots again, burn themselves out and then try to relax. It's a dysfunctional way of applying attention. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:09 Highlight the passage at 1:02:09

1:02:27 That's because they missed the first beat. Loosen up. Learn how to do it. It's a skill. It doesn't come naturally. But developing a sense of bodily and mental ease, of looseness, of comfort, of ease. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:27 Highlight the passage at 1:02:27

1:02:42 Herbert Benson, the Harvard physician, research physician, wrote a book on this called The Relaxation Response. It was maybe 30 years ago, about TM. He said, well, that's one thing it's good for. It helps you unwind a bit. It's a good start. It's not everything meditation is about, but it does help. Many things help. Jogging can help. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:42 Highlight the passage at 1:02:42

1:03:00 Getting a massage. Sitting in a jacuzzi. Listening to pleasant music. But one way or another, you better learn how to relax. Otherwise, you'll never develop attention skills. Yoga, Tai Chi, Qigong and so forth. All can be very good. Swimming can be very good. And then on that basis, then developing stability, which is the continuity and coherence of attention on a chosen object. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:00 Highlight the passage at 1:03:00

1:03:25 It is exactly what William James called sustained voluntary attention. Spa. Sustained voluntary attention. That's stability. That you relax and then as you develop gradually, patiently, gently, lovingly, kindly. Develop the continuity of attention. As you do so for more and more protracted periods, you don't get burnt out. You don't get stressed out, which is what does happen in professions that call for a high degree of attentional focus. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:25 Highlight the passage at 1:03:25

1:03:56 Air traffic controllers and so forth. They are on shift for four hours. At the end of four hours, they feel like burnt toast. And that's common. I think it's very common in the medical profession and many other areas where you need to be very, very focused. When you're finished, you're wiped out. That's because you weren't relaxed. You had no relaxation training and no real training and attention. You simply tried really hard and you were able to focus, but you're damaging yourself in the process. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:56 Highlight the passage at 1:03:56

1:04:22 The Indians figured this out 4,000 years ago. And so that's the second one. On the basis of relaxation develops stability. On the basis of stability, there's also still the issue of attention deficit. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:22 Highlight the passage at 1:04:22

1:04:34 And that is your mind may be very stable, very calm, very still and dopey. What's that good for? May as well be taking a nap. So it's not enough to be relaxed and stable. It has to be relaxed, stable and clear. And that's the third one. The brightness, the resolution, the focus of attention. Now cultivate those sequentially and you have a winning formula. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:34 Highlight the passage at 1:04:34

1:05:02 And that's been proven in repeated experiments for 4,000 years or so. So roughly 10 times the history of modern science. It's old science. And almost entirely ignored or simply unknown, not attended to in modern psychology and education. Too bad. A lot of time would be saved by figuring that one out. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:02 Highlight the passage at 1:05:02

1:05:24 So let's move on. Where do we go from there? We need methods. It's good. Okay, develop relaxation, stability, vividness. Good. Now give me a technique. What William James was calling for and said, I don't see it anywhere. We need some techniques. What can you actually teach to children, to adolescents, to adults? They can actually do. So here, Here's something that is specifically designed for adults, but with some adaptation. And I know some very, very creative, wonderful people like Susan Kaiser Greenland adapting these traditional methods for children and making it fun and effective for young children, five-year-olds, ten-year-olds. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:24 Highlight the passage at 1:05:24

1:05:59 Five-minute training. For an adult, maybe 25 minutes is okay. For a child, 25 minutes is an eternity. But five minutes is something enjoyable. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:59 Highlight the passage at 1:05:59

1:06:11 Can work. And she has some very effective techniques. The Mindful Child is a book she's written. Very good. Very good. She's one of the best in the works. But now for adult people like us in this room, mindfulness of breathing is a method that the Buddha highlighted. He taught it more than any other meditative practice in his whole 45 years of teaching. Mindfulness of breathing. Simply be attentive to the flow of the respiration. And it calls for different types of mindfulness. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:11 Highlight the passage at 1:06:11

1:06:39 Not this kind of reductionistic approach. It's just... Mindfulness is nothing more than moment to moment nonjudgmental awareness of whatever is occurring in the present. That's very good, but it's also, frankly, it's reductionistic. It's one very important facet of mindfulness. But to say that's all there is to it, that's too bad. You've missed an awful lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:39 Highlight the passage at 1:06:39

1:07:01 There's retrospective mindfulness stored in long-term memory. Maybe two weeks ago you go for a meditation seminar and you learn a method. Good, now you're two weeks later, you're sitting on your cushion and you're meditating. Do you remember the instructions? If you don't, then you're not practicing anything. You're just sitting in there in a chair waiting for the time to flow by. Do you remember the instructions or not when you're actually sitting on the cushion trying to develop your attention skill? Report an error in the passage at 1:07:01 Highlight the passage at 1:07:01

1:07:26 If you don't remember it, then you're not practicing it. That's called retrospective mindfulness, bearing in mind, remembering, recalling. And then there's the actual attending to the breath in the moment. As the breath goes in, the breath goes out. That's present-centered mindfulness. And there's also a metacognitive awareness of the flow of attention. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:26 Highlight the passage at 1:07:26

1:07:44 And that is there is a monitoring, an introspective monitoring, such that you are able to recognize when, although you decided to focus on the breath, in fact, ten seconds later, you're thinking about lunch, or you're remembering this, anticipating that, fantasizing about that. So you made a decision, and then ten seconds later, you even forgot the decision, because you've lost control. Well then, there needs to be a quality control. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:44 Highlight the passage at 1:07:44

1:08:16 An awareness of when you've lost it and then gently bringing the attention back. You can lose it by the mind going into hyperactivity, straying off, fragmented, distracted, agitated. But you can also, as you're sitting there after a full lunch at 2 o 'clock in the afternoon on a very warm, humid day and gaining what's called a nodding acquaintance with meditation. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:16 Highlight the passage at 1:08:16

1:08:39 This is what it looks like. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:39 Highlight the passage at 1:08:39

1:08:47 It's called laxity. It's dullness. Are you recognizing when you're just spacing out? That's attention deficit. so there's two things going on here. One is the mindfulness, that is the bearing in mind, the sustained voluntary attention. other one's an awareness of the attention itself, the quality. So these are both crucial. If you would like to really develop your tension skills, mindfulness and introspection are the two twin faculties that must be used. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:47 Highlight the passage at 1:08:47

1:09:17 So we move on. There is a more subtle one. Enormously important in terms of mental health as well as emotional balance, emotional intelligence, mental balance all together. And that is developing the ability to be aware of what's going on in your own mind. This is present-centered, real-time mindfulness of the space of the mind, simply the domain of mental experience, the domain in which your thoughts, your memories, mental images, desires, emotions arise. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:17 Highlight the passage at 1:09:17

1:09:46 The awareness of the space of your own mind and its objective contents, which appears to you within that mental space, such as the mental chit-chat, discursive thoughts and so forth, mental images, like the image of a banana, the image of the Eiffel Tower, the image of palm trees in Tahiti. Anything come to mind? They're appearing to you. They're appearing in the mind's eye. They're appearing in the space of the mind, like little slides or little video clips, right? Report an error in the passage at 1:09:46 Highlight the passage at 1:09:46

1:10:13 Memories. What does your mother's face look like? Do you have a dog? What does a dog look like? What does your house look like? What kind of car do you have? One after another, images come to mind, right? That's objective within the space of the mind. Dream events, discursive thoughts, mental images, and then at night, the objectively appearing dreamscape and the people, the events and so forth taking place in the dream. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:13 Highlight the passage at 1:10:13

1:10:37 They're creating the space of the mind, but they're appearing to you. But what's going on in the space of the mind is not only the appearance arising to you, but also the subjective impulses that you experience. This you pick up retrospectively in terms of working memory. It's very short term. And this is being aware of the subjective mental process, such as the emotions, the desires, the feelings, the intentions that we experience. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:37 Highlight the passage at 1:10:37

1:10:58 They don't appear to you like the image of your mother's face, but they are something you experience directly. And we tend to be aware of a desire, for example, after it's already arisen. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:58 Highlight the passage at 1:10:58

1:11:12 We pick it up retrospectively, very short term working memory. That's a skill that can be honed. And then there's a metacognitive awareness of the flow of attention, the same thing regarding the occurrence of laxity and excitation. So there's a whole discipline there. We'll be starting a retreat tomorrow, just afternoon. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:12 Highlight the passage at 1:11:12

1:11:30 We'll be doing this a lot, developing base attention skills one week to do the most important thing in your life. Unless you find something more important. But it is important, developing attention skills and learning how to be aware of what's going on in your own mind. When you don't have that, it's like driving a car and having no dashboard. Having no idea whether you're out of gas, you're running out of gas, the RPM of your engine, your speed, and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:30 Highlight the passage at 1:11:30

1:12:04 Imagine. I mean, the first car, the Model T, had no dashboard. Steering wheel. That was it. The first car, the first American car, Ford, had no dashboard at all. After a while, they thought it might be helpful. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:04 Highlight the passage at 1:12:04

1:12:20 To actually see what's going on under the hood because you can't see it. All you can see is the surrounding top of your car and the surrounding environment. So actually what's going on under the hood, what's going on in your car turns out to be a pretty good idea. Well, we can observe our own behavior. We can listen to our voice. We can watch our body moving about. Do you ever look under the hood? What's going on in the mind that is arousing all this behavior, the talking, the gesticulations and so forth and so on? Report an error in the passage at 1:12:20 Highlight the passage at 1:12:20

1:12:48 This ability, this metacognitive ability to monitor our own thoughts, emotions, desires and so forth, according to one neuropsychiatrist that I know named David Galen at the University of California at San Francisco, he said that a person who is metacognitively impaired has a very, very limited ability to be aware of what's going on in his or her own mind. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:48 Highlight the passage at 1:12:48

1:13:12 That metacognitive impairment is more debilitating for your overall mental health and balance. And being blind or deaf. Being blind, why couldn't you have spectacularly good mental health and be blind? What's the problem? Or be deaf and have a very balanced mind, very healthy mind. What would be the problem? I don't see anything really significant. You'll learn Braille. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:12 Highlight the passage at 1:13:12

1:13:38 You'll learn how to adapt to that. But if you are severely challenged, really have atrophied ability. Be aware of what's going on in your own mind, your own thoughts, your desires, your emotions. You learn about them when everybody else does by way of your behavior. Oh, I must be angry. I'm shouting. Oh, I must be wanting that food. I'm moving towards it and I'm pushing it in my mouth. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:38 Highlight the passage at 1:13:38

1:14:07 If you learn about it when everybody else does, that could be a little bit too late. It can lead to what Paul Ekman, my very dear friend and eminent psychologist, calls regrettable episodes. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:07 Highlight the passage at 1:14:07

1:14:22 So there it is. There's another method. Let's move on. We're almost finished. Awareness of awareness, this is the subtle one. Very profound, very simple. It's a type of retrospective mindfulness in a very subtle way in terms of very short-term working memory of the preceding moment of mental awareness. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:22 Highlight the passage at 1:14:22

1:14:39 And that is something very simple. It's something you've already been experiencing for the last hour and 15 minutes that I've been talking. It's already been there. And that is, is there any way I could persuade you that you've not been in this room for the last hour or so? Could I show you any evidence? Could I give you some syllogism, some really smart logic that could persuade you you haven't been here at all? I don't think so. Report an error in the passage at 1:14:39 Highlight the passage at 1:14:39

1:15:06 Because you're not only aware of the room, the people in it, my presence, what I'm saying. You're aware of that. But in the midst of being aware of your surroundings, there's another type of awareness that was there implicitly, but very real. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:06 Highlight the passage at 1:15:06

1:15:21 And that was an awareness of being aware. It is, in the words of one Tibetan Lama, our most indubitable mode of knowing. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:21 Highlight the passage at 1:15:21

1:15:30 And that is, I might be able to persuade you, hypothetically as a thought experiment, I might be able to persuade you that in fact you're not sitting in one of the rooms in the Vajrayana Institute in Sydney. You have not been here for the last hour and 15 minutes at all. At all. You're not here at all in this room in Vajrayana Institute. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:30 Highlight the passage at 1:15:30

1:15:54 And how might I persuade you of that? If I could persuade you that you're dreaming, That for the last hour and 50 minutes you've been having a non-lucid dream. Maybe if I turn myself into a toad, that could be really an eye-opener. Report an error in the passage at 1:15:54 Highlight the passage at 1:15:54

1:16:14 Or if I started flying around the room sprinkling Peter Pan dust and you all started flying with me, that might persuade you, I thought I was awake, but this is all a dream. And I'm probably lying in my bed someplace. And I'm not in the Vajra Institute, I'm only dreaming that I'm on the Vajra Institute. Amazing. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:14 Highlight the passage at 1:16:14

1:16:37 I might be able to persuade you. And that would be by evidence, right? This cannot possibly be taking place in the waking state. Alan just turned into a toad. And then he turned the rest of everybody else in the room into tinkerbells. And we're all, you might think, I'm not in the Vajrayana Institute. Report an error in the passage at 1:16:37 Highlight the passage at 1:16:37

1:17:00 That doesn't happen in the Vajrayana Institute. It happens only in dreams. And I must be sound asleep someplace in my bed. I might be able to persuade you. Turning into a toad would be a good way to start. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:00 Highlight the passage at 1:17:00

1:17:13 But could I present you with either a syllogism or evidence to persuade you that you have been totally unconscious over the last hour and 50 minutes and right now, that you are not conscious at all? Is there any conceivable evidence or reasoning I could possibly provide you to persuade you right now you are absolutely unconscious, as unconscious as this cup of chamomile tea? Report an error in the passage at 1:17:13 Highlight the passage at 1:17:13

1:17:38 I will say nobody's there. I say there's no such evidence. No such conceivable evidence, no such conceivable reasoning, because if I could show you the evidence, you'd have to be aware of it. If I could present you with a reasoning, you'd have to understand it. To understand it, you'd have to be aware, in which case I failed. It's our most indubitable knowing. You might be very confident that you're in the room in Vajrayana Institute right now, but you could be wrong. Report an error in the passage at 1:17:38 Highlight the passage at 1:17:38

1:18:07 You could be dreaming. But could you be wrong about your conviction that you're aware right now? Impossible. Our most indubitable knowing, incontrovertible, unquestionable, irrefutable knowing. How about resting in that knowing? It's Descartes on steroids. Descartes wanted to have some initial axiom that he said, this is absolutely beyond doubt. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:07 Highlight the passage at 1:18:07

1:18:38 On this I will build the edifice of my entire philosophy as modeled after geometry. Axioms, Euclidean axioms. He started with, I think, therefore I am. He should have gone deeper. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:38 Highlight the passage at 1:18:38

1:18:54 Anybody who's ever had thoughts that you didn't think should know that you don't have to think for them to happen. Sometimes thought just happens. Report an error in the passage at 1:18:54 Highlight the passage at 1:18:54

1:19:04 So something more primal than I think, and less debatable, because that's been debated a lot ever since he came out with that as his fundamental axiom. Awareness happens. I didn't even put in a personal pronoun. Just awareness happens. Incontrovertible. Cannot be doubted. If you doubt it, you're doubting it consciously, which means you can't doubt it. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:04 Highlight the passage at 1:19:04

1:19:30 How about, what would it be like to rest in, to dwell, to linger in the most indubitable knowing you'll ever know in your life, to drench yourself in it, to actually know what it is to be conscious without ornamentation, without elaboration, without clothing. We clothe our consciousness and our awareness of colors and sounds and tastes and smells and emotions and images and so forth. We clothe it, we adorn it, we elaborate it. Report an error in the passage at 1:19:30 Highlight the passage at 1:19:30

1:20:00 We focus then on that of which we are aware. But what if we stripped naked awareness down to its essentials? Just naked, raw awareness and turned it in upon itself and dwelled there for a sustained period. Just an ongoing flow of awareness, of being aware, of knowing indubitably and knowing in a sustained fashion. What would that be like? Report an error in the passage at 1:20:00 Highlight the passage at 1:20:00

1:20:29 We'll be doing that in the next week, next week. So we come to a conclusion. Here's my four balances, cognitive, attentional, cognitive and emotional, in that sequence. And just to highlight as the last point for tonight, we're pretty much right on time. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:29 Highlight the passage at 1:20:29

1:20:47 To develop wisdom, develop intelligence in terms of choosing our desires. All kinds of desires come up, right? If you're all like me, all kinds of desires. I see something attractive, an attractive woman, food, some object that I might possibly buy. Kind of like, oh, that's a nice car, that's a nice, oh, that's a beautiful woman, blah, blah, blah. Report an error in the passage at 1:20:47 Highlight the passage at 1:20:47

1:21:08 Desires come up all over the time, all over the place. Most of them I don't follow. Number one is life too short. Number two, some of them are entirely inappropriate to follow. They give rise to harmful consequences. I'm not going to run after other women. It would be harmful. I have a lovely wife. What do I need another woman for? One is enough. Other women are very attractive. But to follow after every attractive woman, that would be crazy. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:08 Highlight the passage at 1:21:08

1:21:35 So much complexity, so much unhappiness, so unrest, agitation. Studies have been done. Men who just go around, you know. They're not happy. Actually, they're not happy. Scientific studies have done on that. Oh, yeah, I've nailed this many women. Report an error in the passage at 1:21:35 Highlight the passage at 1:21:35

1:21:53 That's how they talk. And are they really content? Do they have a real sense of satisfaction, of joy, of sense of well-being? The answer is no. They're pathetic. So all kinds of desires come up. But can we be wise in choosing which desires to embrace with the conviction, the confidence, even if not certainty? Report an error in the passage at 1:21:53 Highlight the passage at 1:21:53

1:22:15 If I follow this desire, it will be conducive to my own and others' well-being. How can we do that if we can't focus our attention? That's my point here. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:15 Highlight the passage at 1:22:15

1:22:25 Attention is crucial. If you'd like to develop a cognitive intelligence, good, start training your attention. That'll be a real good choice. That'll be a good desire, a very meaningful desire. It will be time well spent. Developing attentional balance for the sake of attentional balance, really good idea, of course. That's obvious. Cognitive balance. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:25 Highlight the passage at 1:22:25

1:22:46 Cognitive imbalance is the same thing, the same theme. Cognitive hyperactivity, where we're projecting our assumptions, our conceptions, our presuppositions, our beliefs and so forth on reality and then completely conflating our projections with what reality is dishing up. Report an error in the passage at 1:22:46 Highlight the passage at 1:22:46

1:23:02 But I thought you intended this. I thought you felt this. I thought that. Oh, where we completely confuse and literally fusing together, confuse what we projected and what reality was presenting. So we can't even distinguish between the two. It's cognitive hyperactivity. Cognitive deficit. Reality is shouting at us and we're not even noticing. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:02 Highlight the passage at 1:23:02

1:23:29 Cognitive deficit. Just not there. Not picking it up. Not because of a lack of attentiveness so much, but sometimes a cognitive block. Sometimes it's called denial. There it is. You're an alcoholic. Your behavior, everything about you is screaming at you. You're an alcoholic. No, no, no, no. I just enjoy a good drink. I like to drink. I like to drink. Everybody else around you knows you're an alcoholic. You don't know you're an alcoholic. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Report an error in the passage at 1:23:29 Highlight the passage at 1:23:29

1:24:01 I've got it completely under control. It's not an attention problem. It's a blockage. It's a cognitive blockage there. It's a cognitive deficit. And then emotional imbalance is obvious. A lot of really good material about that. Emotional hyperactivity, emotional deficit, dysfunctional emotions, inappropriate emotions. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:01 Highlight the passage at 1:24:01

1:24:24 But for all of these, for each one of these, you see that attention is going to be a major player. The notion of having cognitive balance but your attention is ADHD, impossible. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:24 Highlight the passage at 1:24:24

1:24:37 And I would say flat out, the possibility of emotional balance, emotional intelligence, without having honed your attention skills, impossible. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:37 Highlight the passage at 1:24:37

1:24:48 If you can't focus your attention, you can't do anything. You can't do anything at all, except for be unhappy. And dysfunctional, you can do that, but no form of mental balance is possible if the attention is really dysfunctional. Hyperactive, deficit or dysfunctional itself. So for all four of these, attention is really a key. Not the only key, but it's an indispensable key. Report an error in the passage at 1:24:48 Highlight the passage at 1:24:48

1:25:16 It is necessary but not sufficient. But it is necessary. And the fact that it plays, the training of attention plays no significant role in modern education is pathological. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:16 Highlight the passage at 1:25:16

1:25:30 But the really good news is that it's Eurocentric. That's my term because I have to include Australia here. I can't say Western. Are you people Western or Eastern? You're Southern. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:30 Highlight the passage at 1:25:30

1:25:40 But you're Eurocentric. As much as Brazil, America, as much as Singapore to some extent. Singapore is interesting. It's so complex. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:40 Highlight the passage at 1:25:40

1:25:50 Australia is Eurocentric. No question about it. Apart from the people who are here that were suppressed. Europeans suppressed everybody else who invaded. Report an error in the passage at 1:25:50 Highlight the passage at 1:25:50

1:26:01 But Eurocentric civilization, this is just not our strength, the attention. We let the whole 20th century slip by, didn't even notice that we're not developing our attention skills, even though William James shouted at them, shouted at Western civilization, attention is really important. But then he also said, you can't do anything about it. So again, there's Eurocentric civilization, modern science, 400 years old, modern psychology, 135 years old. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:01 Highlight the passage at 1:26:01

1:26:29 This is like 4,000 or 5,000 years old, the attention balance, the attention development, attention. So this is one area where, to my mind, it's really time for Eurocentric society to listen, listen to the so-called pre-scientific cultures, the Hindu culture, the Buddhist culture, the Taoist culture. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:29 Highlight the passage at 1:26:29

1:26:51 Early Christian culture had a lot to offer in this regard. The great Christian contemplatives on Mount Athos, for example. The desert fathers, they knew a lot about attention that modern science never even knew. This is old, pre-scientific. So speaking as something of a contemplative, I'd say right now, modern society, modern civilization, global civilization, I'll say this with a happy smile, with a lot of optimism, we're living right now in a pre-contemplative phase of human civilization. Report an error in the passage at 1:26:51 Highlight the passage at 1:26:51

1:27:21 Pre-contemplative. Scientific, yes, but pre-contemplative. We're Neanderthal when it comes to this. We've hardly even made the first steps out of the nest. We're hardly hatched. It's only in the 21st century that studies have been done, such as the Shamada Project that I had a lot to do with, and then other studies done by European, American scientists, Australian scientists, showing that attention can be trained. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:21 Highlight the passage at 1:27:21

1:27:47 It's like 10, 15-year-old research. Almost all the good research has been in the last 15 years. That's kind of like good and pathetic. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:47 Highlight the passage at 1:27:47

1:27:58 And we're just starting. We're barely starting. And of course, then we're looking for drugs that can do that. We're looking for devices, neurofeedback devices. Give me a quick fix. Make it easy. Make it fast. Make it easy. Make it fast. I mean, this is like, let me do it in my spare time. Report an error in the passage at 1:27:58 Highlight the passage at 1:27:58

1:28:18 Like one of the most important things in human existence. I'll try to carve out 10 minutes for it, but I'm really busy. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:18 Highlight the passage at 1:28:18

1:28:26 So it's time to, I think, take seriously that we are living in a global village. There are multiple civilizations here. With extraordinary heritages, the Chinese, the Indian, the Greeks, the Jews and so on. It's now silly to be ethocentric. It's kind of embarrassing to pretend whatever our civilization is, whether you're Tibetan, Indian, Chinese or Eurocentric. It's now just kind of silly to think that whatever your culture is, that it knows more about everything than anybody else. Report an error in the passage at 1:28:26 Highlight the passage at 1:28:26

1:29:00 It's a very widespread assumption in academia. Very widespread. Embarrassingly so. I think, with an optimistic note, in 50 years, 100 years, they'll look back on this society and say, how could you miss that? Report an error in the passage at 1:29:00 Highlight the passage at 1:29:00

1:29:17 Just like we look back in 100 years ago, I think probably, I know in America, women didn't have the right to vote. 100 years ago, women had no right to vote. Why would they give them a right? They would just vote like their husbands. And they're so emotional. They have all these little snap-snap things to do. Why women didn't need to vote? Why was it a waste of time? Report an error in the passage at 1:29:17 Highlight the passage at 1:29:17

1:29:35 And now we look at it and say, boy, were you people dumb. And women don't need an education, right? Because if they got higher education, what would they do with it? They're going to make babies and stay home and cook anyway. So why should they get an education? It's a waste of time. And now you find in graduate schools, at least in America, in graduate schools women are outnumbering the men consistently. Medicine, law, business, women are outnumbering the men. Report an error in the passage at 1:29:35 Highlight the passage at 1:29:35

1:30:03 Well, good. Good. But why wasn't that the case a hundred years ago? Women didn't get smarter in the last century. We just started paying attention to what was already there. And then it's embarrassing. Oh my goodness, we didn't let women into graduate school 100 years ago. How dumb were these men that they're missing out on half the life force of human civilization by excluding women. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:03 Highlight the passage at 1:30:03

1:30:26 Men are dumb as doornails. What was wrong with you? We say with astonishment. How blind could you be? Or the notion that people have, because there's different skin pigmentation. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:26 Highlight the passage at 1:30:26

1:30:41 know. That they should or should not get an education. Blacks in America, 100 years ago. Oh, what do they know? They're blacks. They're Africans. You know, they're almost animals. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:41 Highlight the passage at 1:30:41

1:30:52 It's a cognitive deficit. It's a cognitive deficit. So that's what we're experiencing now. It's a cognitive deficit. Ethnocentricity is still alive and well in Eurocentric civilizations. And I hope 100 years ago, 100 years from now, they'll look back with embarrassment on how we are right now and take for granted. Report an error in the passage at 1:30:52 Highlight the passage at 1:30:52

1:31:11 But we don't need to. There's local clarity. Of appreciating, savoring, delighting, celebrating the excellences of our own civilization. They are enormous in science, the arts, philosophy and so forth and so on. The list goes on and on. Truly celebrated. Many things you do not find a parallel in India, Tibet, China and so forth. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:11 Highlight the passage at 1:31:11

1:31:36 No, it's Eurocentric. It's a beaut and it's Eurocentric. We have much to be proud of. But much also limitations. So that's it. But the moral of the story was attention. How enormously important it is for every aspect of life. There really is hope that William James was wonderfully wrong when it came to the possibility of training attention. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:36 Highlight the passage at 1:31:36

1:31:59 It should be highlighted, it should be sung from the rooftops, and it should be taught in every school in Australia from early on, preschool. It's not too early. And there are methods. I don't know them, but people who spend a lot of time really working with children, they know them. They're accessible, absolutely non-dogmatic. Report an error in the passage at 1:31:59 Highlight the passage at 1:31:59

1:32:17 Nothing manipulative about it. It's preparing them for this chaotic world that they could grow into and be able to deal with it effectively, creatively, with mental balance and truly be able to flourish in this world that we've created for them. So I think my generation, my parents' generation, I think we owe it to them because we've created the mess for my grandchildren to grow into. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:17 Highlight the passage at 1:32:17

1:32:43 We've created the mess. My little 10-year-old grandson, he's not responsible. My generation, his parents' generation, we're responsible for what we've dished up. The enormous challenges facing our children, our youth, we're responsible, they're not. They're the recipients of what we created. Therefore, I think we have enormous moral responsibility to do everything we possibly can to prepare them to engage with the mess that we've created for them. Report an error in the passage at 1:32:43 Highlight the passage at 1:32:43

1:33:11 Attention training is going to be key to that. That's all. That's it for tonight. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:11 Highlight the passage at 1:33:11

1:33:26 I don't know how to respond except to say thank you. I learnt heaps, I realise I'm very much in the Model T Ford. Report an error in the passage at 1:33:26 Highlight the passage at 1:33:26