← B. Alan Wallace

Alan Wallace Public Talk Cultivating Conative Intelligence 30 Oct 2013

B. Alan Wallace · 2013 · 1 h 56 min · Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive

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  • 8:09

    let your awareness rest in stillness in the present moment, relaxed, still and clear.

  • 34:49

    The sense of well-being that derives from that. The Buddha said, what was it, 18 times greater, I don't know why he chose, I think it was 18 or 16, but the Buddha said the sense of well-being, the happiness that comes from a clear conscience, from a clear conscience, is greater, order of magnitude greater, than the pleasure, sensual pleasure, intellectual, ascetic and so forth. I think that's right, it lingers, it lingers. Hedonic pleasure by nature is something that while you're being stimulated,

  • 45:29

    So first of all, there's the definition, nice and straightforward. One would think then, given that very useful, simple, easily understood definition, that conation would be a household term. And it's not for some reason, but I'm working on it. I think eudaimonia has made its mark, right? I'll take personal responsibility for that and a few tens of thousands of other people. But here's another one, conation. It really should be used a lot more. It's very useful. And there it is. Faculty of purpose, desire or will to perform an action and volition.

  • 1:17:00

    And that's the Buddha's brilliance. Mental afflictions generally, boil them down. Three, ignorance-delusion, craving-attachment, hostility-aggression. And then check it out. This is not religion. If one just, oh, so it must be true, the Buddha said so, and you just move right on, you've missed the whole point. This is to be reflected upon. Is that true or not? Is that true or not? And now we don't have time to do it really right now. But then exactly what you mean by craving? Is that the same as desire?

  • 1:35:53

    Developing this metacognitive awareness so you see between the spark of the impulse and the flame of the behavior. There's some monitoring there, some intelligence, and it is censorship. Let's call a spade a spade. There are some impulses for which the best response is restraint. Call it judgmental, fine. Judgmental is the adjective for the noun being judgment, as in good judgment. So the noun is good but the adjective is bad, I'm sorry.

0:05 Welcome Alan and welcome ladies and gentlemen. It's my great pleasure to welcome Alan Wallace back again to Badgerana Institute this evening. He's been a regular visitor here over the past seven or eight years, Alan, and so we're delighted to have you back. Very much appreciated. Report an error

0:28 Just over a year ago when we discussed your return and what we would talk about tonight, Alan... Nominated tonight's lecture will be about cultivating cognitive intelligence. Now the first thing I did was to do a quick Google search on conation and went straight through to Wikipedia and it said conation is in the 1,000 most obscure words in the English language. Report an error

1:01 But obviously... Your vocabulary is bigger than mine, so we've got a great audience here tonight and we're really looking forward to tonight's talk, Alan. So, as usual, Alan's giving a public talk tonight and then we'll be continuing on to do a retreat over the next six or seven days up in the Blue Mountains. Report an error

1:23 Of course, that's now... No, it's in Wilton. Wilton, sorry, Wilton. I'm driving, so I'd better make sure where that is. Ellen. Report an error

1:34 Okay, good. It will be wherever we wind up. We might need to revise it. So I just wanted to say it's now sort of fully subscribed but Alan's coming again next year and we've got two retreats next year and so as you know these retreats fill up very fast and I sort of thoroughly recommend them to anyone with a serious interest in meditation. Report an error

1:59 For many of us there have been this sort of... Indispensable and wonderful, not just an introduction but a refresher and getting more deeper into the practice of meditation. So I thoroughly recommend that to anyone who hasn't yet been on one of the Alan Wallace retreats. There are two opportunities next year. So just by way of introduction, Alan has been I guess one of the most prolific writers, lecturers and authors on the subject of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. Report an error

2:33 Over the last 20, 30 years. So we're greatly honoured to have him back. He's been spoken at many of the conferences, Miner's Potential and Habitical Causes. He's been a former translator of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and many other positions, which I don't want to use up our two hours just going over all the biographical details. Report an error

2:55 So I think without any further ado, I will hand you over now to B. Alan Wallace. Thank you very much. Thank you, Alan. Thank you, Tony. Report an error

3:06 As always, it's wonderful to be back in my home in Australia. And we have, I think, a very rich topic for tonight. I will break the suspense and let you know what conative means. I think there are more obscure words than that, but I don't know that there are many obscure words that are so important and so useful. This term conation or conation, it's simply, I'm going to just dispel the mystery right now. Report an error

3:32 It's something very prosaic, something very ordinary. And it is simply our faculty of desire. And of intention. It's that simple. But it's a very useful category, as we'll see, I think, over this evening. But before jumping into the topic, what I'd like to do is take a few minutes and simply settle body, speech and mind in a relative ground state of what I like to call dynamic equilibrium. Report an error

3:57 So please find a comfortable position with your feet flat on the floor. We'll take just a few minutes. Report an error

4:17 This is really literally a time to settle down. To let the awareness descend into this somatic field of the body, right down to the tactile sensations of your feet, in contact with the floor, Report an error

4:37 and letting your awareness permeate the whole field of tactile sensations from the soles of your feet up to the top of your head, as you are mindfully present throughout the entire field of your body. Report an error

4:58 Not a time for visualizing the body or cogitating about it, but rather stripping down. To a quality of bare attention and Report an error

5:13 first of all setting your body at ease, Report an error

5:20 softening the shoulders, the muscles around the neck, bringing the awareness to the face and softening, loosening all the muscles of the face, especially those around the eyes and softening the eyes themselves. Let Report an error

5:48 your body rest in a posture of comfort and ease. Let Report an error

5:59 your body be still. Report an error

6:03 And balance the sense of relaxation with a posture of vigilance, with your spine straight, sitting at attention. In Report an error

6:21 this way we bring forth three qualities of the body, relaxation, stillness and vigilance. Then Report an error

6:38 let your breathing, your respiration settle in its natural rhythm, breathing out fully without forcefully expelling the air. Let it flow out and continue releasing and releasing the breath. Report an error

6:54 And though you've given it all away, Report an error

7:08 then let the next breath flow in effortlessly. And whether it's long or short, deep or shallow, Report an error

7:17 let the breath simply flow in without your pulling it in or exerting effort to inhale. Let the breath flow in and out effortlessly without impediment, as naturally and effortlessly as if you were deep asleep. Report an error

7:53 And finally, for these few brief moments, set aside all your concerns, your cares, your hopes and fears about the future and the past. And allow yourself the luxury to Report an error

8:09 let your awareness rest in stillness in the present moment, Report an error

8:21 relaxed, still and clear. Report an error

8:46 So in this way we establish the body and mind in a state of dynamic equilibrium, relaxed and yet clear and bright. And Report an error

8:58 now let's launch into the main topic for tonight. Report an error

9:13 So as obtuse as this term seems to be, or at least... Not so known when I say desire and intention, desire and volition, desire and will, our aspirations, our goals, very ordinary language. It refers to nothing more than that. But these two are bundled together because clearly we don't intend to do some things that we desire to do. Report an error

9:37 We put on the brakes for maybe good reasons. We say, no, that's not a desire. That would be good carrying through. But where there's an intention, there will be a desire there as well. And obviously some of our actions are involuntary. They will not be the topic for tonight's talk. So let's go back to the first slide. We're going to linger there for a little bit. Report an error

9:57 So desires and intentions, desires and volitions, aspirations, goals, ideals, all of these very important to all of us. And it struck me as I was reflecting upon this this afternoon in my meditations that we as a human species, having these great big brains, especially the big frontal cortex, We're a lot smarter than we need to be. Report an error

10:23 That is, if you compare us to the other primates, most of us, the great majority of us, far, far more intelligent than the gorillas, the chimpanzees, let alone dogs and cats, let alone reptiles, let alone cockroaches. Report an error

10:41 And I've spoken with many evolutionary biologists, or at least a number of them over the years, asking why is it that we have such big brains and more subjectively... Why is it that we are so intelligent? I mean, the capacity of the human mind, not that we always behave intelligently, but from a strictly evolutionary perspective, we didn't need this much. Report an error

11:05 We didn't need one-tenth this much to be able to develop general relativity theory. Not that everybody does it, but a lot of people can understand it. And the symphonies of Mozart, the... Paintings of art, of architecture, of science and technology, of so many things that the human mind has developed, conceived of. That's really not how evolutionary biology, the mechanisms of evolution work. Report an error

11:32 Evolution on the whole is parsimonious. It gives you what you need to survive and procreate in a changing environment. But it doesn't give you ten times as much as you need, a hundred times or a thousand times. So I've never heard a good explanation in terms of just sheer biological... How do you say? Selectivity. Why we are so bright. It does seem to be an anomaly, one that's easy to overlook because we take it so for granted. But now there it is. Report an error

11:56 We are relatively very intelligent compared to the other warm-blooded, cold-blooded animals. And so one would think with this exceptional intelligence and imagination, ability to look into the future, to conceive of different scenarios. If I were to do this, then this would happen. If I did that, this would likely be the outcome. Report an error

12:18 That kind of thing. We're really head over shoulders above any of our nearest species, at least as far as we know. And so one would think that with this exceptional intelligence, imagination, memory, ability for abstract thinking, for creativity, given all of that, you would think we would just be the happiest species on the planet. Report an error

12:38 I mean, really? I mean, with that much intelligence? I mean, how hard can it be to be happy? I mean, when I was growing up, we had dogs. I mean, the dogs seemed very happy. And yet I had a sense that I was a lot more intelligent than them. And so why am I not proportionately happier than my dog? So I think these are worthy of consideration. Report an error

13:03 And now we get older. We hope to get wiser. We do have memories after all. We do have the ability to learn from our experience. And some of us with gray hair like mine have had some decades roll by. That's a lot of data, a lot of experiences, a lot of trial and error. So one would think as intelligent beings, of course, the older people would all be happier than the younger people. And in fact, we'd be happier than the middle-aged people. Report an error

13:27 And we'd be happiest when we're almost dead. So much experience, you know. And of course, we would have learned about people who died successfully and these people who died unsuccessfully. And I don't mean people who couldn't die, but couldn't die in a meaningful and fulfilling and joyful way. And there have been many, many people who have. Report an error

13:49 But others who are exceptionally intelligent who haven't. So it gets interesting if we kind of take the Sherlock Holmes approach to this. What's up with this? And as we recall the trajectory of our own lives, whether we're in our 20s, 40s, 60s or older, do we see anything that looks even remotely like a gradual maturation of our desires becoming wiser and wiser and happier and happier? Report an error

14:16 Living more and more fulfilling lives, meaningful lives, satisfying lives. Do we see something like that? And that's a very personal question. It's not one that I'm posing in order to judge anyone else. I don't even think about that. But I do feel that's my prerogative, to evaluate, not to be judgmental, we know that's a nasty term, but to take stock. Report an error

14:34 To take stock. Am I learning from my mistakes? Or do I have any control here at all? That is, do I have any real say-so about how happy... Fulfilled, meaningful, satisfied, content, I am. Or is it the case that if we don't see much progress in that regard, is it because that which really determines our quality of life, our degree of well-being, is beyond our control. Report an error

15:01 So however smart we may be, tough luck because other influences override. So what's going on here? And so many of you have heard many traditional Tibetan Buddhist discourses. I've certainly heard many over the last 43 years, not 25, but 43. The clock is ticking. A long time that I've been listening to very, very wise, erudite, extremely bright Lama speaking. And when they're giving a typical Dharma talk, a discourse on Buddhist theory and practice, it's ever so often that they'll begin with a statement, all sentient beings. Report an error

15:41 Our wishing for happiness and wishing to be free of suffering. Such a simple statement. All sentient beings. Virtually never in Buddhist discourse do you hear that kind of emphasis on all human beings setting us apart. We get that a lot in the West. Human beings, human beings. We're in a class by ourselves. But not in Buddhism. It's always all sentient beings. Report an error

16:07 All sentient beings. And probably a major reason for that is within the Buddhist worldview. We're all getting recycled constantly from lifetime to lifetime. So you don't want to just lock into one modality of being human when maybe you weren't human last time and you won't be human next time. So the broader bandwidth. But there it is. All sentient beings. And I think it's actually it's one could even say it's tautology because the term is sentient. Report an error

16:31 Sentient. Now again an English term. Sentient doesn't mean simply conscious. Cognitive, aware of one's body, one's environment. But sentient means that you experience some degree, you're consciously aware of some degree of pleasure and unpleasure. Like, don't like. Painful, neutral, pleasurable. That makes you sentient. Now the Buddhist worldview, here's a major hypothesis, difficult to test, but it is an assertion that runs through all of Buddhism, and that is that all cognizant sentient beings, Report an error

17:08 All beings that are aware of anything also have feelings. There's no one that has awareness but no feelings. So the two are utterly intermixed. If you're conscious, you're sentient. So there we are. So we have at least a number of aphorisms in English. Report an error

17:30 Doesn't one of them go like, beware of what you wish for, you might get it? Something like that, very close to that. Or the road. Report an error

17:39 The road to hell is paved with good intentions. There's another one. I'm sure you can dig out more along those lines. And what those are all about, of course, is cognitive intelligence. Report an error

17:50 Beware of what you wish for. You might get it. Which means, can we select which wishes to have? Or if a wish comes up, does it just swallow us like a big fish swallowing a little fish? Can we select our desires? Not only select our intentions, I wish for a third dessert it would taste good, but I think that won't be good for my tummy, so even though I'd like a third dessert, I'll pass. Report an error

18:17 As I eye that dessert I would love to have. So there's a desire, but we know that. There are things that we desire, we say, well, but maybe not. It really is not. Now, why not? Well, in my case, I'm not really getting particularly fat. I'm probably fat I'm going to be at least for a while, but indigestion. So I don't want... Report an error

18:33 Six hours of indigestion, four or five minutes of pleasure. So it just makes sense, right? So let's move on here to one person I greatly admire and the other one I greatly revere. A little bit different. You can tell which one's which. So these are sound quotes. I do try to check my sources to make sure I'm not just by hearsay. Report an error

18:55 So this is something Albert Einstein actually... And this comes under the title, you see, Pursuits of Happiness. That is, what kind of happiness are we longing for if we, as sentient beings, are indeed wishing for happiness? And of course then, therefore, wishing to be free of suffering, what kind of happiness? Because clearly there's not just one kind. So Albert Einstein makes this statement, well-being and happiness never appear to me as an absolute aim. Report an error

19:22 I'm even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig. Report an error

19:30 Okay, alrighty, that's a little bit startling there. When Albert Einstein compares me to a pig, I have to kind of pay attention because he's a pretty smart guy. Whether he was a very happy guy, I think that's another question. But he's certainly very smart. Well, how about another man? Now, when I revere, his Holiness the Dalai Lama has written and he articulates this view on many occasions. Report an error

19:53 Here's simply one such occasion. He writes that, I believe that the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness. Whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, we are all seeking something better in life. So I think the very motion of our life is towards happiness. Report an error

20:13 So that looks like a head-on collision between two people who are certainly deserving of our respect. Very savvy, very good men. Albert Einstein, a great pacifist, even though his research led to the atomic bomb, but a very ethical person. His ethics were very much on his mind, a pacifist in many respects, a very good man in many respects. And then there's His Holiness, no commentary needed from me. Report an error

20:40 But it looks like they're in diametric opposition here. And the next slide will show you that in my interpretation, they are not. So my interpretation, there's the direct quotes, you can interpret them any way you like, you're about to get my interpretation, is that when Einstein refers to pursuit of happiness as being... Report an error

21:00 Morally speaking, no better than that of a pig. He's referring to hedonic pleasure. Now, there are different ways that these two terms, hedonic pleasure and genuine happiness, or the more elegant term for genuine happiness is eudaimonia, the Greek term, referring to human flourishing, more genuine happiness. Report an error

21:18 These are defined in different ways by very knowledgeable people, and I would say quite emphatically and with great confidence, there is no one definition to either of these terms that is the correct one. That's not how language works. Report an error

21:31 There can be a correct one for a certain context. You can say in the writings of Daniel Kahneman, this is what is meant by hedonic well-being. In the writings of Barbara Fredrickson, this is what eudaimonia means, or genuine happiness. Or Martin Seligman, this is what they mean by genuine happiness. You can say this is true for them. And then might they differ somewhat? Well, sure, why not? They're very bright people. And so what I'm presenting here is a definition of these two. Report an error

22:00 That I have formulated, based very strongly inspired by Buddhist writings. And I would say these, I think these are, I sense these are true within the context of Buddhism. But then we can say, okay, they're true for Buddhism. But then the question that really matters is, how useful are they? How useful are definitions? Right? Report an error

22:19 To say a definition is true but it's not useful, then throw it out. Who cares if it's not useful? So here's how I'm defining hedonic pleasure, hedonic happiness, well-being. And it is simply any type of pleasure we experience that is stimulus-driven. So I'm raising the bar quite high here. Well, you'll see what I'm going to do in just a moment. Report an error

22:37 But something nice happens to us. We have a pleasant conversation. We see a beautiful sunset. We have sensual pleasure, intellectual pleasure. Something arouses a very good crossword puzzle or a great game of chess or a mathematical problem or what have you. But something comes in, something arises to our minds and it can be internally generated. Report an error

22:57 Going down memory lane and recalling a pleasant vacation we had sometime. Those thoughts are arising to us. It's a stimulation. And in response to a pleasant memory, a sense of pleasure arises in anticipation of a vacation to come. We can already start enjoying it in anticipation. This is why it's good to plan vacations well in advance. You get to enjoy them for months before them happen. Report an error

23:19 Rather than a split decision, you get no chance at all. It's work, work, work. Oh, suddenly it's vacation. And then right after vacation, if you're working really hard, you don't have much time to recollect. You might as well get your biggest bang for your buck, we say in America. So you can enjoy it as much as possible. Report an error

23:33 Because by the way, when you're there, you might not enjoy it. In which case, the pleasure you had in anticipation is actually much better than what you had during it. But that's what you paid for. So now you see what you're really paying for is the anticipation. Because that's not loused up by reality. Report an error

23:53 That it rained the whole time, you got diarrhea on the first day, it lingered the whole time. Your spouse was in a cranky mood. Everything was screwed up. Murphy's Law, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I mean, things happen. But that's it. Anything stimulus-driven, a pleasurable response to a pleasurable stimulation, that's what we call the hedonic, which means it can be unwholesome in nature, schadenfreude, taking delight in somebody else's misfortune. Report an error

24:19 It is delight, but it's kind of a nasty one. You're right. Report an error

24:24 Taking delight and simply enjoying a good ice cream, that's, I would say, ethically neutral. It doesn't go anywhere. It's just the ice cream's gone and it's finished. But we can also take delight in things that are very meaningful, virtuous, wholesome. And I'm going to say that's still hedonic. But now you know what I mean by this. It's not something degraded. Oh, you're such a hedonist. We know that's a put-down, right? Well, this is not a put-down. Report an error

24:46 Hedonic can be the pleasure of having a healthy family. And so I'm broadening this to that it has negative, neutral and very, very positive connotation to it. And what they all have in common is something pleasant has happened and we're responding with pleasure to the pleasant. Report an error

25:01 But now then we go out, that is if we're seeking a mate, we're looking out with eyes big round, who's going to make me happy? Who's going to make me happy? Oh, maybe she will. Maybe he will, etc. What kind of job will I get if I'm looking for an education? What university shall I go to? Where shall I live? What kind of a house shall I live in? Report an error

25:22 Oh, I need to buy a house, a car. Which one's going to make me happy? So looking out is a hunter-gatherer approach. Generally speaking, and there are exceptions to this rule, But as a broad generalization, the hunter-gatherer approach, where we're hunting for, we're job hunting, we're car hunting, we're hunting for abstract things, trying to become more famous, become more loved, be admired, accepted, acknowledged. Report an error

25:46 What can I do? I want more acknowledgement, etc. We're hunting, and then when we get it, somebody acknowledges us, and then we gather in. So hunter-gatherer approach. Now I was about to say... The hunter-gatherer approach is, generally speaking, competitive. That is, if I got it, somebody else didn't get it. Money, fame, power, possessions of all kinds, and so forth. Report an error

26:17 It tends to be competitive, which means then you may be bound for conflict. But there it is, broad-based, and I would suggest that's what Einstein was referring to. If that's what it's all about, how can I just be lucky, lucky, lucky and bump into one fortunate circumstance, one pleasant person, one sensual gratification after another and kind of run the gauntlet of life trying to just bump into pleasurable things? Report an error

26:41 Well, that's what a pig does. So there's really, immorally speaking, that's nothing better than a pig or a dog or a cat or a guppy. So there's one. But now when the Dalai Lama says that the very motion of life is towards happiness, he is... Not saying that the very meaning of life, you know, use that word as well, the very purpose of life is to, how do you say, accumulate as many pleasant memories as you can. Report an error

27:08 Especially, you know, some people, when they get older, they lose their memories. And then what do you have? Report an error

27:15 What? Did you say something? Was there a question? So, no, I think it's quite clear. And it's clear, as I said, the basis for my... Defining these terms in this way is Buddhism, that the kind of happiness he's referring to is genuine happiness. And I will define it as a sense of well-being, of satisfaction, of contentment, of fulfillment, of meaning, of pleasure and happiness that stems from within, from what we're bringing to the world rather than what we're getting from the world. Report an error

27:51 That's a nice, clean, clear way of saying it. We just want it short, hedonic pleasure of what we get from the world. Oh, you're so fortunate. Fortune smiled upon you, whereas genuine happiness is all of those above, but comes from what we bring to the world rather than what we get from it. Therefore, the genuine happiness is not dependent upon something pleasant happening to us. It's not stimulus driven. And so this is more, again, taking the analogies from early phases of human civilization, the hunter-gatherer approach, and then about 10,000 years ago in the Middle East, then... Report an error

28:28 Tribes starting to form into villages, starting to cultivate the land rather than going out into uncultivated land and just hunting and gathering what they could, finding that it was actually more time effective and better. It just works better for larger communities to get a much smaller portion of land and then fertilize it, mulch it, till it, water it. Report an error

28:49 Then there it is. You don't have to. So you're cultivating. And so the first one is hunter-gathering out into the world, looking outwards, who, what, where is going to make me happy. And the second one is cultivating your own heart and mind, cultivating your own way of life. And that's actually, the odds are better. Report an error

29:08 The odds are better of success. One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that I can control almost nothing in the world. Report an error

29:18 Not even my health. I try to be responsible, I eat well, try to get exercise and so forth. And how many people do that and they die of cancer when they're in their 50s or whatever? Or they have a stroke or they get a disease they weren't looking for. Malaria, whatever. I spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia. Dung fever, not nice. Report an error

29:38 And very healthy people can get it. Let alone accidents and injuries of all kinds. And so the first one is the approach. Report an error

29:50 The second one is the approach of an investor. It's something where you actually can exert a good deal of control. That is, if you're cultivating your own heart and mind, your way of responding to the world, you can really exert some influence there. Then the question comes, what kind of influence based upon what desires and what aspirations and intentions, which gets us to move on. So we'll place this now quite explicitly within Buddhism. Report an error

30:18 I have a clock right there. But it's the wrong time, so maybe I'll put my clock up there instead. I desire to watch, it's okay. But that one's going to, we're going to have a very long talk because it's going to be 7 o 'clock for the whole time. Report an error

30:37 At least it keeps, as they say, at least it keeps accurate time twice a day. So Buddha's path of human flourishing. It's often stated, additional hands. Four hands on it, okay, that's a new one. But again, I've got this one, I'm all set. Report an error

30:57 So it's often said, especially in Theravāda Buddhism, in the Pāli Canon, that the Buddha said, I teach only one thing, and that is suffering and the end of suffering. If you want a real soundbite for Buddhism, I teach suffering and the end of suffering. That's the Four Nobletoes collapsed into two phrases. And so what is that path? Report an error

31:15 As we have the reality of suffering, the source of suffering, cessation of suffering, then we come to the path. And these are very meaningful and broad statements, generalizations that are true for all of Buddhism. So it's generalization and I think it's universally true. That within Buddhism there is foundation of all spiritual practice. And it's not a certain meditation technique, it's not a belief system, it's the way we are engaging with the world around us. Report an error

31:44 And that is with the natural environment at large and with our fellow sentient beings in particular. And by way of leading an ethical way of life, and what that means is something again very simple, a life that is led on the basis of the principle of non-violence. Report an error

32:03 And that is not, how do you say, injuring, harming others simply out of retaliation, out of our greed, our hatred, hostility and ignorance and so forth. So unnecessary violence, touching the world lightly, our fellow human beings, sentient beings and the planet at large. Report an error

32:24 The principle of ahimsa, non-violence as much as we possibly can, and then on the positive side of the leisure, while trying to avoid inflicting harm, unnecessary injury. And there is such a thing as necessary injury, surgeons know all about that. They're doing something very violent, very invasive to the body, with the working hypothesis that the overall benefit on the long term will be much better, will outweigh the damage being done by cutting into the body with a knife. Report an error

32:53 So that's just one of many cases where violence is, it is kind of violence, what else do you call it? But there's a greater good in mind for that person and not violating one group for the sake of another group. That gets very dodgy very quickly. And then on the positive side of the ledger, being of service where we can. Doing what we can to alleviate the suffering of others, to bring them happiness, help them fulfill their meaningful desires. Report an error

33:18 So that's ethics in a nutshell. Treating our environment with the thought of ten generations ahead and not just our near-term profit is an aspect of cognitive intelligence. It's just being smart. Report an error

33:31 Because you just don't care about your own children and the next generation. Looking ahead in terms of our overall impact on the environment and seeing how we can maintain sustainable economies and balance with the natural environment gives rise to environmental flourishing and treating our fellow sentient beings, human beings and non-human beings alike, with a kind of basic consideration, its core ethics, and it crops up in multiple religious traditions of the world, doing under others as we wish them to do to us. Report an error

33:59 Treating others with decency, with empathy, with courtesy. But there it is. And that is something we bring to the world. Ethics doesn't happen to us. Ethics can't be forced on us. We can be forced to abide by laws, but we can't be forced to be ethical. It's a choice. It's a choice. And so clearly it's something choosing to behave in a non-violent way, by way of body, speech and mind. Report an error

34:26 Because we can have violent thoughts that may never manifest, but they could even manifest internally as intentions, in which case there's already a kind of action. And so voluntary action by way of body, speech and mind releases as much as we can those violent impulses, those that would inflict harm with no benefit for those who are harming and being of benefit. Report an error

34:49 The sense of well-being that derives from that. The Buddha said, what was it, 18 times greater, I don't know why he chose, I think it was 18 or 16, but the Buddha said the sense of well-being, the happiness that comes from a clear conscience, from a clear conscience, is greater, order of magnitude greater, than the pleasure, sensual pleasure, intellectual, ascetic and so forth. Report an error

35:12 I think that's right, it lingers, it lingers. Hedonic pleasure by nature is something that while you're being stimulated, Again, it can be internal, external, pleasure arises, but as soon as the stimulation stops, it's like getting into a taxi cab and going around the block and it drops you off right where you were. Report an error

35:31 It was a nice ride, but when you end, you haven't gone anywhere. Whereas the sense of satisfaction, the sense of contentment, the sense of meaning, of knowing that you've done your best to lead a non-violent life, to be benevolent. Courteous. I like the word courtesy. It's so down home. But treat each other with decency. Animals, the natural environment as a whole. There's a sense of well-being that comes from that and I think many, perhaps all of you know what I'm talking about. Report an error

36:05 It's not some abstract, it's not based upon some belief in God or reincarnation karma. It's right where we live. But for example, just the sense of knowing that you did your very best as a parent. However your kids turn out, you can't control that, right? One of the many things we can't control. But have we done all that we can for them? Really taken our role as parents, as spouses, as friends, as business partners. Report an error

36:32 And looking back, I was responsible. I took the other person's well-being very much into account. I led my life accordingly. There's something there. It's rather subtle. But it's quite real, isn't it? Genuine happiness. Yudhomania. Something that didn't happen to us, we brought it to the world. But it lingers. It lingers. Report an error

36:52 And that is you can simply bring it to mind at any time. That same sense of well-being carries through for the very simple reason that it's not stimulus-driven. Therefore, when a stimulation vanishes no longer there, well, this wasn't a stimulation. This is something that you brought to. So very meaningful. And so in modern writings, people like Barbara Fredrickson, a very, very bright woman working in the field of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, who has spoken at least one, no, at least two of the... Report an error

37:20 Conferences here in Sydney, minor dispensational happiness and causes. In terms of the modern research in positive psychology, positivity, they've definitely gotten that far. Linking it now, Barbara Fredrickson more recently linking it to ethics, which is a nice sea change because that wasn't coming out for the first decade or so. But the sense of meaning. Report an error

37:41 The sense of meaning being very, very important, that our relationships to the world, we have a larger vision, a sense of a greater whole, rather than simply our own personal self-interest. And the sense that our conduct, our way of engaging with the world is meaningful in a broader context, playing a crucial role in genuine happiness or authentic happiness, to use Martin Seligman's term. Report an error

38:01 Great big step in the right direction. It's good. The second one hasn't come up much yet, as far as I can tell, and I'm not reading voraciously in this area because I spend a lot more time meditating now than I do reading. Report an error

38:13 But the sense of well-being that comes from mental balance, giving rise to psychological flourishing, and this is through the cultivation of the mind, the heart and mind, such that even when you are not actively engaging with anyone, you're not doing anything. You could be sitting on a chair or sitting cross-legged in meditation. Report an error

38:34 And you're cultivating balance of various types. And through bringing the mind to a state of balance, of clarity, of stillness, of poise, that a symptom of a mind that is in a state of balance is a sense of well-being. And it's not stimulus-driven, and it's not even pumped up or perpetuated by keep on doing things that are meaningful and doing good, doing good, doing good. Report an error

39:00 No, you can just be sitting there doing nothing. And a meaningful sense of well-being can arise. That's something that hasn't been explored much. We're still living in the Eurocentric world where the Protestant ethic of get out there and do something, don't just sit there, do something. Do something productive. I've heard even recently that one of the definitions of sanity, a person who is not mentally ill, is can you be productive? Report an error

39:25 Sounds like a machine part. Can you go to the gas station and can you pump gas? Okay, you're sane. You're sane enough. Keep on pumping that gas. I'm coming to your gas station. Pump the gas. Okay, you're sane. You're okay. Well, that's a very utilitarian view. I know it's not the only one, but I did hear that recently, that if you can function and you don't draw attention to yourself in an unpleasant way. Report an error

39:53 Okay, if nobody's looking at you weird and you're productive, contributing something, okay? like, Report an error

40:00 You're good enough. You're good enough. And if you're depressed, well, we've got all kinds of things for you. Entertainment, work, drugs, you name it. So psychological flourishing. Well, this is where I'm anticipating if there's interest next year, I'll continue the sequence. We start with conative, which is a really good, in fact, there is a sequence here, I think a very meaningful sequence, starting with a conative, desire and intention, then moving on to cultivation of attentional intelligence or balance. Report an error

40:31 Cognitive intelligence by way of cultivating cognitive balance. So intelligence is kind of like the input or the fruition. And then finally the famous one, thanks to Dan Goleman and others preceding him, emotional intelligence, coming through emotional balance. So there's a broader context. And for this evening, what I'd like to do, of course, is to focus on the cognitive. Report an error

40:56 But there's a broad context. And I said this is specifically Buddhist, but I am a scholar of comparative religion and I find this format does crop up in many of the great religions or wisdom traditions, contemplative traditions of the world. It's not unique to Buddhism. So there's mental balance. And then there's finally a type of a deeper sense. And I would say there's the more superficial and very meaningful social environmental flourishing or genuine happiness, psychological flourishing, which is an inside job that you could be bedridden. Report an error

41:26 You know, with a terminal illness. Or one student of mine has both of his kidneys that are just shot because of some very rare disease. So he will spend the rest of his life in a hospital. Five hours a day on dialysis. So that's the rest of his life. Because they have no cure. No cure on the horizon for what he has. But I know him. He writes to me periodically. Report an error

41:44 And he's living a very meaningful life. But he's able to do very little outside of the hospital. But he's teaching meditation to fellow inmates within the hospital. So he can't do much, but he's living a meaningful life and a satisfying one. And even he blew my mind when he said, I find this disease actually to be a blessing. Only he can say that. Report an error

42:04 Nobody else can say that about him. He can, though. That's what he told me. The final one is really the culmination, though. And that is a sense of spiritual flourishing that's beyond the psychological, which comes only from wisdom. Report an error

42:20 The great Christian theologian Augustine referred to it as a truth-given joy. In Buddhism, it's called A Truth Given Joy. Different truths, of course, but truths into some utterly fundamental aspects of reality, the knowing of which profoundly and irreversibly transforms the knower, liberates, awakens, enlightens. Report an error

42:44 And so, central theme, going back to the Delphic Oracle, one of perhaps the earliest aphorism we have in Western civilization, at least from the Greek side, know thyself. Very central to Buddhism. Of course, wisdom traditions around the world. It is key. Knowing who you aren't and knowing who you are. So there's the big picture. I'm probably lingering a little bit too long. Report an error

43:05 We have a lot of material to cover, which I think is all meaningful. But I think the big picture is enormously important. And then you see, and I won't try to unpack tonight, but I have found by reflecting on this a lot, there's a natural evolution or a building. On the conative, the attentional, on that the cognitive on top of that, the icing on the cake, so to speak, being the emotional. And the ideal of realizing emotional intelligence without having done the groundwork in terms of cognitive, attentional and conative, I think is a chimera, an illusion. Report an error

43:42 I think it's not going to happen. I think it will always be very transient. Because the groundwork has not been laid. Let's move on to the next one, see where that takes us. So conative imbalances. There's a theme that runs through all of Buddhism, middle way. Middle way, it crops up in many contexts. It's the golden mean in Aristotle. It's all over the place in the wisdom traditions. And in Buddhism, the middle way, whether it's philosophically or in terms of lifestyle and so forth, you find the middle way by identifying what the extremes are and bouncing off of them. Report an error

44:12 And then that which is left over when you're not colliding into one of the extremes by the process of elimination, what's left over is the middle way. Now we know this is true in so many cases. I was just thinking as I'm looking at you, in a spousal relationship, I've been married now for 24 years, a spousal relationship, how much attention to give to the spouse? Report an error

44:33 There is such a thing as giving too much. I just want some space. And there's also definitely giving too little. Where were you when I needed you? So there we are, right? How much? It can be too much, it can be too little and it can be wrong kind. Report an error

44:53 And those three themes, too much, too little and wrong kind, in this formatting, that defines all imbalances of the cognitive, attentional, cognitive and emotional. Too much, too little and dysfunctional or wrong kind. I found this to have enormous explanatory power. You can decide, you will decide for yourself whether you agree. So with the theme of looking for cognitive balance, the cultivation of which leads to cognitive intelligence, being smart, intelligent, wise about our desires and intentions, well let's look at some of the imbalances. Report an error

45:29 So first of all, there's the definition, nice and straightforward. One would think then, given that very useful, simple, easily understood definition, that conation would be a household term. And it's not for some reason, but I'm working on it. I think eudaimonia has made its mark, right? I'll take personal responsibility for that and a few tens of thousands of other people. Report an error

45:49 But here's another one, conation. It really should be used a lot more. It's very useful. And there it is. Faculty of purpose, desire or will to perform an action and volition. There we are. So first of all, too little cognitive deficit. And I invite you to take this very personally. Not to think this is somebody about, okay, who have I ever met who's going through a cognitive deficit and kind of categorize them as you're one of those cognitive deficit people. Report an error

46:15 But rather take this personally and that is, have you ever experienced an apathetic loss of desire for happiness and its causes such as this Latin term, acadia, which is just kind of a spiritual sloth, a sense of just coasting, just kind of treading water, going nowhere, no real vision. Where you lose heart, where you lose heart, you lose vision. For a little while you seemed a bit hopeless, without direction, Report an error

46:46 apathetic. You don't really have a clear vision or sense of direction or anything practical that could be done to realize what you've not experienced. There's something about desire. Desire, think by, well, it's not always the case, but often it is the case when it's desiring for something that we don't have. Report an error

47:04 We are looking into the ocean of possibility, into the realm of possibility, something that is not yet actuality but we think could be, and desiring it, like throwing a fishing line into a pond and then there's the pond of possibility and hoping to reel something in from that pond so that we get it onto the dry land of actuality. Report an error

47:26 Desires, ideals, aspirations for things that are not yet so except as possibilities. But reality, and I think it's a very important point, Reality consists not only of actuality. Reality also consists of possibility. If it didn't, nothing would ever change because you'd have only the world of actuality at all times. Report an error

47:49 So there are things that are possible that haven't happened yet. Women's rights a century ago was to a large extent something that hadn't happened yet. Couldn't even vote, right? In the United States, I know, it was not until about 1920 or so, that women could even vote. Let alone education opportunities, professional opportunities, and a lot of people, primarily the men, didn't think twice about it. And then some women thought, well, it's not true yet, but it could be. Report an error

48:16 And then we've seen that's one of the, to my opinion, one of the most positive changes of the 20th century. A lot of work to be done still, clearly, but enormous progress in that regard. And it's happening all over the place. I just saw an article that's showing the best countries in the world, mostly in Scandinavia, by the way. Report an error

48:36 Iceland comes out number two. If you can handle the weather, then you're really free to have gender equality. So there it is. So cognitive deficit. Then we go to cognitive hyperactivity. Too much. And this is the realm of addiction. It's the realm of obsession. Report an error

48:56 It's the realm of fixation. And it can happen for mundane pursuits. It can happen for super mundane pursuits, spiritual pursuits. Where one becomes fixated on some particular goal and then gets so hung up, so fixated, so absorbed in that, that you really lose sight of the present moment. You're so fixated on something in the realm of possibility that you're not attending to the realm of actuality, which means you're not actually cultivating the causes that will give rise to that which you desire. Report an error

49:26 Because that has to take place, of course, in the present moment, where you're actual and you're actually doing something that might yield the fruit that you desire. So there needs to be something of a balance there, isn't it? If you're locked totally into actuality, then you have no vision, no sense of direction. You're not using your imagination. Report an error

49:44 That's a great, great loss, right? But if we're living always in the realm of imagination, then we're just missing out on, you know, reality is what's happening when we're thinking of something else. Or another one I like is, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. So hyperactivity is just a sheer matter of too much. Report an error

50:05 Even for good things. The overprotective mother, the parents who are overzealous in getting their children to succeed, and the list goes on and on and on. The health nut, the health freak, you know, working so hard and, you know, bicycling out there every day at the point of exhaustion and then, you know, having an accident because they're trying so hard to bicycle a lot. Report an error

50:25 And then now they're crippled paraplegic and so now they get to roll really quickly another kind of two wheels. So it happens. For good things, indifferent things and really bad things, we can have too much desire. And then finally, just desiring the wrong things. This is where, you know, be careful what you wish for. Report an error

50:45 Cognitive dysfunction. And this is desires for things that are not conducive to one's own or others' well-being. So here, there continues to be more and more writings about... Morality, about ethics. Now biologists, evolutionary biologists, social biologists, people like Edward O. Wilson and many others are jumping into the fray and saying, okay, now we scientists are here, all you theologians and philosophers, you've been mucking about with this for centuries, you haven't gotten anywhere, no consensus. Report an error

51:15 Now we're going to bring in some scientific research and we will determine what is and is not ethical and moral based upon biological mechanisms. Good luck with that. Report an error

51:26 You know, because they're going to disagree and they do disagree and they'll continue to disagree. So what is ethical? So shall we settle this tonight? What is ethical and not ethical? You know, so we just get the final answer. Of course, I say in jest, but there's, again, I'm not looking for the right answer, but I do look for meaningful definitions because those are the ones we live by. Report an error

51:45 And I don't even ask whether it's right. I ask, is this a meaningful one? Is it useful? Is it helpful? Because I gave one for genuine happiness and hedonic well-being. I find them useful. That's it. That's the only justification. And likewise, it's ethical. It's not ethical. There are so many philosophies about it. And of course, you can make it easy. Report an error

52:03 God said so. Or Allah said so. Or this is bad karma. This is good karma. And it happens in the future life. You don't know what's happening. So just rely on the Buddha. So there are many theological answers, philosophical answers, utilitarian approaches, the whole issue of duty, going back to Kant and so forth. Report an error

52:18 I'm going to give another one that, again, is completely inspired by Buddhism. But I find it works. And I think it's completely congruent with Buddhism, even though I've never read it in any Buddhist text. Which means I could be wrong in terms of Buddhist understanding of ethics. I don't think so, but I could be. But then we can ask, is it meaningful? Because the Dalai Lama has now written two books on secular ethics. He's obviously taking it very, very seriously. Report an error

52:46 Ethics of the New Millennium and then Ethics Without Religion or something like that. Is that it? Ethics beyond religion? Or just simply beyond religion? Beyond religion. So he came out with a second book on the same topic. That shows how passionately he is concerned with this issue. Because again, many, at least a few billion people on the planet are not religious. Report an error

53:04 In which case we would certainly like for them to be ethical in a way that is meaningful to them and beneficial for everyone. So here's another definition or criteria, a way of evaluating. Is my behavior ethical or unethical? I'll give a real simple one. It's eudaimonia-based ethics. You want a label? That's it. Eudaimonia-based ethics. Not hedonism-based ethics. Report an error

53:29 We know what that is. It's basically whatever can give you pleasure or you and yours, your family, your country, your side, gives you pleasure and protects you from suffering, then it's okay. But of course not the other side. And that's been going on whenever nations go to war. They always have that ethic. Report an error

53:47 If it's good for our side. Or I still see this. It always gives me the creeps. When in the news, we read about some airplane that went down. And in American press, they'll say, and on the airplane, there were five Americans. Report an error

54:02 Why are you saying that? I mean, so what? And it happens a lot. How many Americans died in the Iraq War? 3,000. Only recently did I read how many Iraqis died. A half million. Saddam Hussein, George Bush. Report an error

54:21 Who did more damage? Or Al-Qaeda for that matter. It was 3,000 in 9-11. Half a million, that's going to be a lot of 3,000 stacked up to get to a half a million. It's a lot of collateral damage. It makes me weep. So that whole mentality of listing people of your ethnic group or your religious group or your nationality as if somehow that's significant. Report an error

54:43 This needs to get in the press. How many Americans died on the airplane? How many Australians died in that earthquake in Chile? It's terrible, right? Well, it happens a lot. So, not hedonic based ethics. We've been there and done that. It's a dead end. How about eudaimonia based ethics? And that is whatever behavior I engage in. I'm going to make it very personal because I do. Whatever behavior I engage in, and that is by way of body, speech and mind, mind meaning volition, things I intend to do, which are already actions. Report an error

55:20 Any action of my body, speech and mind. That is conducive to my own and others' well-being. Genuine happiness. That's ethical. Any action that I do that is harmful to my own or others' genuine happiness is unethical. Report an error

55:41 But then enormous weight goes on. What was it again? You meant by eudomonia or genuine happiness? Because clearly we can do things for our own and others' hedonic well-being that may be terribly unethical. Whole countries do this. Do this on a daily basis. Continue to do this. Form policies by way of government that are good for the economy for the short term and are just putting, the sky is the limit for global warming. Report an error

56:08 Sky is the limit for how much we deplete the oceans. Sky is the limit for how much we contaminate with herbicides, pesticides. Sky is the limit in terms of how many other species we exterminate from year to year. But it's good for the economy, right? That is good for our economy. And what's good for America must be good for the world, right? Report an error

56:28 I think I've studied that someplace. And so the hedonic-based, it's really a disaster. It's really a disaster. It doesn't work. And it's proven it doesn't work. That's not a metaphysical or religious belief. It's proven it doesn't work. Genuine happiness, if we take that into consideration, is our conduct conducive to our own and others' genuine happiness? Report an error

56:51 Is it detrimental to our own and others' genuine happiness? You don't have a formula. You can't simply have a list. You have to keep on being wise and learn how to be wiser as you observe the impact of your behavior. See, that's what I intended. Was that the consequence? I acted in this way thinking it was ethical and now I look, was it ethical in fact? As I observe the consequences of my behavior on my own and others' well-being. Report an error

57:21 Genuine happiness. Social, environmental, psychological and spiritual. That one just calls us to be wiser and wiser. It's an ongoing question and not one that comes down and says it's bad karma. It's against the will of God. It's biologically unadaptive. That's where the guillotine comes down. You can stop thinking now. The guillotine of stop thinking never comes down. Report an error

57:47 You continue to ask, what's the impact of my behavior now? It takes a lot of close mindfulness. Report an error

57:59 Conic desire for things not conducive to our own another's genuine well-being. Well, addiction is a real obvious one. I helped to organize a conference several years back, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with some very smart people, primarily in medicine and psychology, on addiction, craving, pain at Stanford. Report an error

58:20 And there's a Mind of Life meeting coming up on a very similar topic very soon. Right now, that's why we're not attending. pretending. Report an error

58:29 But I heard this from the psychologists that I spoke with, and so I'm not making a generalization about Western psychology because I've not studied in depth, but I did encounter some psychologists that basically would define addiction as too much of a desire. Report an error

58:42 If you like desserts but you're addicted to them, that means you like them too much. If you enjoy sex but you're addicted to it, then that's a pathology. That's not good. And likewise, money, okay, too much. Then it's greed as a pathology. But it seemed quantitative. And that is if you desire anything too much, that's pathological, that's a dysfunction. I don't agree with that. I think we can have little smidgens of desires, little tiny little impulses that are already dysfunctional, that already are neurotic or not healthy, even though it's a little mild impulse. Report an error

59:16 A mild impulse to put another person down. Maybe, let's take a real obvious one, to put another person of a different race in his position. Just one of those little things that slips out. But I just set my dagger, the dart. I just hit you. I hope you understood. I meant you. And it can be just a little phrase. But now this person knows, okay, that's how it's being played here. Or it happens with gender a lot. Report an error

59:44 You know, men to women. And there it is, that little thing. Report an error

59:50 It may be small. It doesn't mean it's a small little bit of poison, but it's still poison. Whereas I would say that there are aspirations that cannot be too large. The Buddha said the aspiration for liberation, the yearning, the longing to be free of all mental afflictions, the classic ones, the three poisons, delusion, craving, hostility. Report an error

1:00:14 The aspiration to be forever and irreversibly and completely free of those. The Buddha said let your aspiration for freedom be like a person whose hair is on fire. Report an error

1:00:24 If you imagine you're actually being on fire, you can imagine you're really not thinking of anything else. Kind of like, first things first, get the fire out. And I have known yogis. I have known yogis who are like that. They have sacrificed everything for the sake of liberation. And it was never considered too much. Report an error

1:00:44 It was never pathological. For other people to say, well, that's way over. But I've had people tell me, Alan, you've been meditating for so long. Why do you keep on meditating? Why don't you spend more time teaching? You've had your turn. You've already meditated. Report an error

1:00:57 That's about the time I want to retire. So there it is. It's not simply a matter of quantity. One can have a tiny smidgen of something that's really, really toxic or an enormous desire that it doesn't matter how large it is. Bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's ideal of achieving perfect enlightenment in order to liberate all sentient beings from suffering. There's no such thing as too much. Report an error

1:01:22 So, conative imbalances. So we find conative balance through Eliminating cognitive imbalances. By the way, this model of too much, too little and dysfunctional, it comes straight from Indian Ayurvedic medicine. In terms of the humors, wind, bile and phlegm and the four or five elements in the body, earth, water, fire, air and space. Report an error

1:01:40 Too much, too little dysfunction. That's the format that's placed upon the body-mind. To diagnose a very, very wide array of physical illnesses. And then that's adopted in traditional Tibetan medicine, which I've had a lot of exposure to. And I simply plucked that from the Indo-Buddhist tradition of traditional healing and said, if it's good for the goose of the body, it's good for the gander of the mind. Report an error

1:02:03 And I find it very useful. Let's go down to the next slide and see what happens. I like this one too. I came up with this just recently. This is novel. But I find it really helpful. I've never heard anybody use this terminology at all. But if you're going to speak of stimulus-driven pleasure and a sense of well-being that is not stimulus-driven, how about unhappiness? Report an error

1:02:22 Why not have some symmetry here? So we all know what the first one is. This is hedonic unhappiness. We all know what it's like, where we say, oh, bummer. Oh, crap. Oh, this happened again. Why do you have to do that? And we respond to a stimulation. It's unhappiness triggered by misfortune, unpleasant circumstances, which the world seems to impose upon us. Oh, it turned out so badly. I'm so bummed. Report an error

1:02:51 Well, we all know what that's like, and we do our best to massage the world into shape so that that doesn't happen. Lots of luck with that. Seven billion people have an announcement. Be good. I want to be happy. Don't piss me off. I'm sure they're going to listen, just not to me. And then unhappiness. This is the interesting one. Report an error

1:03:16 I've spent a lot of time in solitude. Many yogis that I know have spent a lot more time in solitude. But I know what it's like to be in a relatively stimulus-free environment. Because that's what the yogi is looking for, frankly. And so there you are. You're sitting in a room where you're not hungry. You don't need to go to the bathroom. Report an error

1:03:34 You're not too cold. You're not too hot. You're not physically suffering from anything. And you're just sitting there. And then in a matter of minutes, seconds, Report an error

1:03:47 Minutes, hours, let alone days, months. It's called solitary confinement, I believe, and it's one of the heaviest types of punishments that they, you know, up to but not including torture, that is still used regularly in prisons, I think, all over the world, certainly in America. And that's considered to be a very severe form of, I mean, really heavy, heavy punishment, okay, into the brig or whatever they call it these days, into solitary for a month. Report an error

1:04:13 You've been really bad, right? And if it's really simply solitary confinement, you give them enough to eat of boring food. They've got a toilet. They've got a bed. So there's nothing really bad happening to them. But now they get really mugged. And it's all an inside job. It all comes to their own minds. So now, that's an extreme case, right? Solitary confinement. Report an error

1:04:37 Have we ever felt unhappy when we look around for something that's making us unhappy and we can't find anything? And we think, oh. Maybe I've been cultivating weeds in my garden and this is the symptom of my own dysfunctional mind. Just like a body that is not healthy, a body in which the various humors, wind, bile and phlegm, are in a state of imbalance, it feels bad. Report an error

1:05:02 It's a good thing. If you felt good while you were ill, then you wouldn't take any steps to recover your health. I'm feeling great and then you die. So it's called the messenger, the pain in the body. Sometimes the messenger should stop. Sending the message because we received it, we can't do anything about it. A friend of mine suffered a back injury by riding his bicycle. He now has pain for the rest of his life. Report an error

1:05:26 Even morphine doesn't work. He's a medical doctor. So the pain, the spine, the nerves in the spine are constantly, every waking moment, giving him messages. Fix me, fix me, fix me. Don't use me. But he can't respond to it. He's a medical doctor. He's a very smart guy. But even morphine doesn't work. So that's where you would kind of like to kill the messenger. Report an error

1:05:48 Because you've got the message and you can't do anything. But in many, many other cases, if you eat your third dessert and then you feel bad at 2 o 'clock in the morning, you're like, oh, there's a messenger. Maybe I should learn from that now that we've done it a thousand times. Maybe I'll learn this time. But that's an interesting one. Report an error

1:06:07 That's an interesting one. There are billions of dollars made every year by people who are giving advice or selling things to help you, protect you from hedonic unhappiness. Because it's something money can buy to a certain extent. A security system for your home, airbags in your car, and the list goes on seemingly infinitely. What exactly should you buy? Report an error

1:06:31 What will you do with your money to protect yourself from genuine unhappiness? But there's no stimulation. It's an inside job. It's not even necessarily thinking negative thoughts. That's a stimulation. I'm going to put that into the category of hedonic. You're ruminating on negative thoughts, resentful thoughts, dismal thoughts and so forth. Report an error

1:06:51 That's a stimulation. You're making yourself unhappy. Why don't you stop doing that? Maybe with some training you can. But when you're just sitting there and you're not negatively influencing, stimulating your mind and you're still unhappy. You're restless. You're feeling malaise. You're feeling depressed. You're feeling unhappy. What do you do for that? Report an error

1:07:14 Well, the standard response is, don't just sit there stupid, go out and do something. And that'll get your mind off. Overwhelm your genuine unhappiness with sensory stimulation. At least get to work, get something done. Do a crossword puzzle for heaven's sakes. Do something. Get your mind off the most important reality you can face. Report an error

1:07:36 And that is genuine unhappiness. That it may be genuine, but that doesn't mean it's intrinsic. That it's immutable. That's where the juice is. That's where the real juice is. There are inmates who have done terrible things and therefore they're incarcerated. They go into solitary confinement and they're miserable. Some will even commit suicide. They have the chance. There are yogis that I have known who have spent years in solitude under external circumstances far worse than most solitary confinements in, let's say, Eurocentric civilization. Report an error

1:08:16 Far worse. I mean, the food much worse. No plumbing, no heating. Pests like lice and rats and bedbugs. My favorite one. Bedbugs, yeah, that's my favorite one. I know what I'm talking about. And they're happy. And they're happy. You're looking at what's making you happy and basically nothing. There's nothing making them happy because around them it's just raw. It's really primitive and it's difficult. Report an error

1:08:48 Yogis in the Himalayas living at 5,000 meters with no heat right through the winter. And they're happy. And another person, a billionaire, sitting quietly in his room, knowing that he's got wealth, he's got power and he's got reputation. Those are called the three jewels of the hedonic world. Everything you can get with wealth, power and fame. That's a lot. Report an error

1:09:15 But what happens if you've got all three? And we know especially movie stars, they're really... A-listed ones. They got all three. They're also really attractive. That's nice. They're wealthy. They exert a lot of influence. Report an error

1:09:30 And then fame, of course. And then we hear some of them. You know the list as well as I do. And then they're taking cocaine. Like some kid in a ghetto who's just taking crack. It's the same substance, just a different mode of taking it in. So here's a person who's lost in the great casino of life. It's down on the bottom. Report an error

1:09:50 Without a job, without anything desperate and taking cocaine. Here's a person at the top of the mountain, won the lottery and is taking cocaine. Report an error

1:10:00 That's important. That shouldn't be happening. But we know it does. And not all the time. Not all the time. But enough that it shows very clearly that happiness is not directly correlated to increase of wealth, power and fame. Report an error

1:10:18 Then you get to look at genuine unhappiness. If it's there, and this is why in the Christian tradition, I know of one island off the west coast of Scotland called the Isle of Aran and then the Holy Isle. Back in the 5th century there was an Irish saint. He was born as a prince, like Shantideva, like so many of the great Buddha saints in India. He was born as a prince in Ireland and gave up all of that and lived in a cave in Scotland through those icy cold winters, the howling wind and the cold. Report an error

1:10:47 He lived in a cave and he was a saint. Joyful, blissful. But they came down from the top of the mountain where everything was going for them. And like the Buddha Shakyamuni himself, a prince, Prince Gautama. Report an error

1:11:04 Hedonically, he's just looking at success tracks all the way to dying. The only problem is the end of the track is getting old, sick and dying like anybody else. Like Steve Jobs. He wasn't as old as I am. His money didn't help with that kind of cancer. That's an interesting one. Genuine unhappiness. I would say, frankly, to put it a bit simply and probably simplistically, all of Dharma is really designed to attend to that. Report an error

1:11:34 The genuine unhappiness. Because that's what all the money, wealth and fame is not successful at addressing. And we know that. It's not. It's very good for the first one. For warding off, not completely, but boy, money talks. It can protect you from a lot of stuff. And fame and all of that. It works really well for getting hedonic pleasure. Report an error

1:11:56 And warding off hedonic unpleasure. No question about it. That's why it's so marketable, including drugs of all kinds, legal and illegal. But that one, that's what's left over. And so when you've tried everything else, like these princes of classical India, of Tibet, of Ireland and so on, when you've tried everything else, what's left over is nothing else worked. Report an error

1:12:19 Maybe I should check out Dharma. So I was no prince, but I was very fortunate. You can afford good fortune like many other people. But by the time I was 20, I was hopeless that saṃsāra would deliver the goods that I was looking for. I just had literally hopelessness. I had no hope. I looked at the religion to which I was exposed and I couldn't believe it. I mean, central themes of the doctrine just didn't make no sense. I had no choice. I could not believe. Report an error

1:12:44 And then I was planning for a career in science and I just could not imagine how that, in a very meaningful field of science, ecology. But I could not see how that would possibly give me the happiness and sense of contentment and a well-being and meaning that I was seeking for. And so when you're there, then you look for what's left over. Report an error

1:13:04 And so I made my way from my own particular path was to Buddhism, to Tibetan Buddhism. An old friend of mine who was a generation older than mine, he asked me on one occasion, Alan, why are you practicing Dharma? Why are you practicing Tibetan Buddhism? And I started conjuring up, I was a pretty smart guy and I'd studied a bit, so I was picking out some of the really juicy morsels from Buddhism. They'd have a good pitch, you know, the marketing, packaging. Report an error

1:13:27 I was telling about the Four Noble Truths, I'd tell them about the Three Principles of the Path. And I would just get started and I said, no, no, why are you practicing? And when I saw that none of my marketing spiels were working, I said, can you tell me? And he said, well, you're practicing Dharma because there's nothing else to do. And he was right. It was not a put-down. Report an error

1:13:46 He's not putting me down like I was bored or just stupid. He said, no, when you've tried everything else, the only thing that lingers with any hope is Dharma. So it's very useful. I found that very useful. Let the word out. Genuine unhappiness. Hedonic unhappiness. It can be very useful. It's interesting. It's interesting. Report an error

1:14:05 It's interesting when we start looking at the underlying causes. The first one is easy. I'm happy. Look at my new Porsche. I'm happy my Porsche just got totaled or somebody keyed it. Report an error

1:14:16 I'm unhappy. So that's pretty straightforward. That's why it's so marketable. But the second one, there are causes for genuine unhappiness. Now, bring out your intelligence. Let's look at the next one, see what happens. Oh, cause and conditions, that's good. So I've posed this question on many occasions, and that is, can anyone think of anything that could happen to you or that could happen in the world, that is in your environment, coming into your senses, that could not possibly catalyze unhappiness for somebody? Report an error

1:14:48 Anything, change of weather, economy, environment, anything. Is there anything that could happen out there that couldn't possibly make somebody unhappy? And I have responded to a lot of very smart guesses and none of them held up. So thus far, I won't do it right now because time is passing quite quickly, quicker than I thought. Overall, whether that's absolutely true, I don't really care that much, but if it's generally true, I think it is. Report an error

1:15:16 Things that make one person happy make another person unhappy. So when you're looking for catalysts that may trigger unhappiness for someone, and that would be, of course, hedonic, virtually anything could make somebody unhappy, including yourself. Report an error

1:15:32 But now the true causes, so those are mere catalysts. But a catalyst, something that catalyzes unhappiness for one person may catalyze a completely indifferent response to another and may make another person quite joyful. In other words, the power is not on the catalyst. That's just a catalyst. The power is in what's the true cause, what's the core, the essential cause. And the true causes of unhappiness are the imbalances and afflictions of our own minds, including craving, hostility and delusion. Report an error

1:16:00 I've studied physics and the three laws of Newton are breathtakingly brilliant for their enormous explanatory power for all mechanical interactions in the known universe on the macro level, not relativistic and not really micro, quantum level, but on the slow-moving, large level, breathtaking. How much explanatory power is in those three really simple equations? Likewise, Maxwell's four equations for all of electromagnetism. Report an error

1:16:26 Breathtaking. Four little principles and you can explain so much. I would say to my mind this tops them in a way that I care a lot more about. And that is all of unhappiness, mental unhappiness. All kinds of things can injure the body. That gets much more complex. But what makes you unhappy? Report an error

1:16:44 What makes you unhappy? All kinds of things could catalyze it, but what makes you unhappy? What's really core? What is necessary to make you unhappy? And that's the Buddha's brilliance. Mental afflictions generally, boil them down. Three, ignorance-delusion, craving-attachment, hostility-aggression. Report an error

1:17:14 And then check it out. This is not religion. If one just, oh, so it must be true, the Buddha said so, and you just move right on, you've missed the whole point. This is to be reflected upon. Is that true or not? Is that true or not? And now we don't have time to do it really right now. But then exactly what you mean by craving? Is that the same as desire? Report an error

1:17:31 No. By definition, craving is a mental affliction. Because it entails distortion. The Sanskrit term is klishta, related to klesha. Klesha means a distortion, an imbalance, and kleshta means twisted or distorted. And that is, any of these mental afflictions, craving, hostility, delusion, by definition, entail a misapprehension of reality. Report an error

1:17:50 We're twisting, contorting, distorting, not getting the clear picture as it is. And that then triggers on the positive side, that is, positive affect or desire. I want something, but it's an afflicted desire because it's by nature deluded. We're seeing something that is an object as an actual source of our happiness. And we do it all the time. And it's delusional. We look upon a situation, a person, a place as the actual source of our unhappiness, then get angry. Report an error

1:18:25 We exaggerate the negative qualities of that person, place, etc. And then we respond with hostility, aggression, hatred. It's nation to nation, community to community, individual to individual. Enormous, breathtaking explanatory power. To see how it boils down to that. This is why I did with a clear conscience move from the aspiration for my whole life to be an environmental activist, wildlife biologist, ecologist, which I thought was enormously meaningful in terms of doing something in the world, to Buddhism and devoting the last 43 years of my life to Buddhism and therefore discontinuing a professional track. Report an error

1:19:03 And that is, we're very smart, coming back to that, we're very smart. Australians, Americans, Europeans, all over. People are smart. Governments are smart. They're not that full of stupid people. Mostly they're intelligent. And yet we're doing stupid things all the time. Smart people are doing stupid things. Congress, heads of state, stupid things. Like, how could you? How could you be so stupid? Report an error

1:19:30 How could you do things where any dummy can see that the impact of that over the long term is going to be catastrophic? Why didn't you see that coming? Why do intelligent people do unintelligent things? Report an error

1:19:44 Delusion, craving and hostility. Intelligence is not by nature virtuous. Intelligence is mercenary. If your mind is dominated by craving, three, like Madoff, the fellow who ripped off people for billions of dollars, including the elderly and charities and so forth. Very, very bright. No question about that. You can't rip off billions of people from very smart people. I know one of them. Very smart man. Investor. Report an error

1:20:13 He had his whole charity. He put it in Medo's hands. Wiped out his whole charity. He's doing great work. Why do intelligent people do unintelligent things? Because intelligence is co-opted. It's brought into the service of our mental afflictions. When it's malevolence, we become incredibly ingenious in developing weapons of mass destruction. Report an error

1:20:34 More ingenious ways to torture. More ingenious ways to exploit. We're so clever. More ingenious ways to exploit the natural environment, to wipe out species, to disrupt the balances of nature. We're so smart in delusional ways. So be careful to smart people. They can do a lot of damage. At least as much as people are not so smart. Because when their lack of intelligence is put in the service of craving hostility, they probably won't do so much damage. Report an error

1:21:05 No other species has done more damage to the globe than our species, and we're the smartest one. We don't even have competition. You know, the cockroaches clean up the garbage, rats clean up the garbage, we make the garbage. So there it is, true causes. That's going to be crucial right there for cognitive intelligence. Report an error

1:21:24 See whether that one's true. Let's move on. The night is growing old. Connative unintelligence. Oh, this is one of the most moving verses, to my mind, in all of Shantideva's classic text, a guided bodhisattva way of life, in which he writes, those desiring to escape from suffering hasten right toward suffering. Report an error

1:21:45 With a very desire for happiness out of delusion, they destroy their own happiness as if it were an enemy. If any verse of anything I've ever read gives rise to compassion, that's the one at the top of my list. It's in Christianity, Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. They're ignorant, but not only ignorant. Ignorance is innocent, I just didn't know. But it doesn't stop at ignorance. Report an error

1:22:10 It goes into delusion of thinking we do know something that we don't, of misapprehending reality and acting accordingly. Report an error

1:22:20 So that's very powerful. And of course it's not only those other people, but then we reflect upon ourselves other occasions when I always want to be, I never wake up in the morning and think, I think I'd like more suffering today. Never happens. Always want less or none. And then with that very motivation and with my intelligence, I'm a pretty bright guy, then doing things that exactly pave the road for my own unhappiness and very likely the unhappiness of others. Report an error

1:22:47 And then wanting happiness and doing just the things that are contrary that will make sure I can't be happy and probably obstruct other people's happiness as well. So that is the challenge for cultivating cognitive intelligence is recognizing unintelligence. Report an error

1:23:03 Let's move on. This one we can go through pretty quickly. Types of addiction. So this is obviously the too much desire. Addiction to sensory and intellectual stimulation. This is something that's rather modern. Report an error

1:23:18 Protestant ethic, just the nature of the whole theme of productivity, the whole materialism that all of our progress is outward. Tibetans coming to the West or Eurocentric. Since I'm talking, where are you, East or West or just mid-Pacific? But Eurocentric still means something. Eurocentric civilization. Many Tibetan alamas I've known who've come to the Eurocentric civilizations have noticed that we just don't know how to sit still. Report an error

1:23:46 We always have to be doing something. Even if it's completely useless. Like when you're waiting in the dentist's office, you really wanted to read that two-month-old copy of People magazine? That's going to be for your edification? Report an error

1:24:00 Or in the elevator, we really need music? So it's just stimulating me. Where was I just today? Oh, last night I went to a little restaurant right near the apartment block where I was staying. And I was the only person in the restaurant. It was 5 o 'clock. Nice and good food was decent, but I had to wait 20 minutes or so for the food. And I got to listen to music the whole time. Report an error

1:24:28 Heaven's the best that it would be quiet. What would we do? We might actually have to encounter genuine unhappiness. And anything, elevator music, you can't buy a pair of jeans in America without having music just blared at you. Everywhere you go, the malls, it's just music, music, don't think, don't react, just buy. Report an error

1:24:50 So there's one. Addiction. So there it is. Stimulation. Well we know that. It can be work. Stimulation by work. Sensual. That is television. Internet. All of that. Intellectual. Give me something to work on. Crossword puzzle. Just anything. But then on a more subtle level. Rumination. What I like to call obsessive compulsive delusional ideation. Report an error

1:25:10 And that is addiction to obsessive compulsive ideation. Isn't that an addiction? That is when the mind just keeps on blabbing on and on and on even when there's nothing to talk about. We're just sitting quietly at a stoplight and there's really nothing to think. We could actually simply be quiet and peaceful and be very mindful and attentive. And instead we talk right through it. Report an error

1:25:30 And it's talk that you say, what was that about? Why were you talking? You had nothing to say but you just kept on going. You're a motor mouth. And this can't be a sign of mental health. But we're all used to it and it's private. I lead meditation retreats where people look so good. Report an error

1:25:52 There are times when it's advantageous not to be clairvoyant, to hear 36 radio stations all blaring out rubbish, as if people actually wanted to do that. So that's an addiction. What else should we call it? It's not helpful. We have no choice in the matter. It goes on and on. It's very tiring. Now, an increasing number of scientific studies of rumination, about 80 % of it is unpleasant and useless, and we do it anyway. Report an error

1:26:21 I think it's an addiction, right? But it's much more persistent than merely addiction to drugs or alcohol. You know, you take it and then you stop. Rumination, I mean, it even keeps us awake at night. You know, the mind just keeps on talking, talking, talking. Oh, you wanted to sleep? Well, let's talk about it. Report an error

1:26:39 So one of my favorite phrases from a very deep thinker, a very devout Christian, mathematician, philosopher Blaise Pascal in the 17th century, writes, and boy, this could be 500 years later, when I've occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men. The pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war. Whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc. Report an error

1:27:02 I've discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own shape. Yes, you may share my, that is, Claudia, you may share the slides with anybody who would like them. It's other people's wisdom, not mine. But boy, if that was true in the 17th century, should he put that in 64 font, neon flashing lights for the 21st century? But words of wisdom, clearly. Report an error

1:27:28 Next one. So now, what is this craving and attachment? This is by definition afflictive desire, which can turn into afflictive intentions. And so the nature of craving is the kind of desire in which one falsely superimposes or exaggerates. Agreeable qualities upon an object, the object could be a person, a place, a situation, an activity, any object of mind, but one forcefully superimposes or exaggerates seeing it as intrinsically agreeable, intrinsically pleasurable, which it is not. Report an error

1:28:01 Cognitively screens out disagreeable qualities, like in sexual infatuation. One sees only the attractive qualities of the object one's craving and those unattractive qualities, personality, physical, what have you. Insofar as infatuation has gripped the mind, we don't see them. We see them only when we fall out of love, and then we say, oh, how could I be so stupid? And now we're into aversions, and now you ask, I know, well, you just found another kind of stupidity, because now you find him or her so disagreeable, so disgusting, and you can't stand them anymore. Report an error

1:28:30 I want you out of my life. So marriage, divorce, there's a perfect symmetry there. Into delusion, out of delusion, into the next delusion. Report an error

1:28:43 And then common sources of raising wealth of three jewels, wealth, power and fame, and everything you can get with them. And that covers a very broad swath of pleasant things. Some things you can't get with wealth, but you can get it with power. Some things you can't get with wealth or power, but you can get it if you're famous, have high status. Report an error

1:28:59 So that covers a very broad swath of hedonic things that one can be attached to. And why I would imagine I have never been very wealthy and I have no aspiration to be such. But I can imagine the desperation. I think I can imagine this. Is if you've just won, you have more money than you can even imagine how to spend at this point. As the Dalai Lama says, if you have a hundred room mansion, how many rooms can you be in at once? Report an error

1:29:25 And you've got 13 cars, but how many you can drive at once? And so when you've won, and maybe you're even good looking, maybe you have a trophy husband or a wife, maybe you have healthy children, you've won, won, won. Like everybody said, boy, your life is just perfect. If your life is about as perfect as it gets, and you're still unhappy, if you're now experiencing genuine unhappiness, you either find Dharma or you're really out of luck. Report an error

1:29:49 You either go up or you go right down to the toilet and you go for alcohol. How many celebrities are alcoholics? How many are taking illegal drugs? How many are taking legal drugs and getting addicted to them? Or just losing themselves in work. I can't stand being who I am, so I'll get my mind off of that. I'll do another movie. I'll do another gig. I'll do another tour. I'll do anything to get my mind off the fact that this isn't working at all. Report an error

1:30:18 But since this should have, and I know no other option, then let's just wait it out. There's so many cases of that. Moving on. So the cultivation of cognitive intelligence. Well, one can say this is what Dharma is all about. It's not one slide, it's not one lecture. It's cultivating, it's spiritually evolving, it's maturing. So our vision of the good life, the vision of fulfillment of yudamonia is maturing and of course not isolated to our own well-being. Report an error

1:30:52 But Nagasena and Arhat, living many, many centuries ago, a couple of centuries before the Common Era, In his dialogue with King Menander in Greek, his name was Melinda in Pāli, translation of his name, he defined mindfulness, which has now been subjected to a tremendous degree of reductionism, down to just bear attention, which is, okay, a very slimmed down form of mindfulness, but here's the rich, vitamin-improved, rich form, which we will miss an awful lot if we miss this and just think mindfulness is only bear attention, and we're missing almost everything. Report an error

1:31:27 But mindfulness, he writes, in response to the king's question, what is mindfulness? So this term sati in Pāli is that mindfulness, when it arises, calls to mind wholesome and unwholesome tendencies, that is, it attends to them, takes account of them, evaluates them, with false and faultless, inferior and refined, dark and pure, together with their counterparts, that is, other processes taking place in the mind. Report an error

1:31:49 Mindfulness, when it arises, follows the courses of beneficial and unbeneficial tendencies. That is, follows the courses it observes, attends to closely and intelligently the consequences of such tendencies, recognizing these tendencies are beneficial. They prove themselves to be beneficial as we see how they play out in terms of their consequences. These tendencies are helpful, these unhelpful. These tendencies are beneficial, these unbeneficial. Report an error

1:32:16 These are helpful, these unhelpful. Thus, one who practices yoga Or engages in Dharma, rejects unbeneficial tendencies and cultivates beneficial tendencies. So I could spend a lot of time now. The time is really up, beyond up. But the whole theme, because I know Jon Kabat-Zinn well. We've known each other for 22 years and I admire him and respect him and I love him as a friend. Report an error

1:32:38 And I think he's done a great service. And in the definition that now is rampant in modern psychology and the whole mindfulness movement, which is now everywhere it seems. The theme of being non-judgmental figures very, very prominently. And it can be very intelligent. John is a smart guy, and I know him. He's also a very ethical man. Report an error

1:32:56 And so I've asked him, what exactly do you mean by this when you say moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness of whatever comes up, whatever's occurring? And he says by non-judgmental what he said to me, his lips to my ear, was not simply reacting to experiences. In the sense, kind of knee-jerk reaction of I like it, I don't like it, I like it, I don't like it. But kind of like linger there for a minute. Linger there before you slap on like it, don't like it, pleasant, unpleasant. Report an error

1:33:27 Why don't you actually see what it has to say to you before you enter into dialogue telling it what you think about it. And that's people. This person's agreeable, that one's disagreeable. This guy's really nice, that guy's a stinker. This place is a really nice lift, but this place sucks. This car is really great, but that one's terrible. I love this weather, but that's terrible weather. Americans are good, but Canadians, oh. A lot of people say that. Report an error

1:33:53 They tend to be more south of the border. Before getting into that whole rumination, obsessive-compulsive reactivity, why don't you just linger for a moment and see what's up, dude. Just see what reality is saying to you. So that's good. Now, having said that, I've seen other people interpret that non-judgmental in a way that I would have to say is idiotic, morally irresponsible, sheer stupidity. Report an error

1:34:21 I could go on with more adjectives where they're suggesting be without discernment. Don't evaluate the consequences of your conduct. Don't determine what is wholesome and unwholesome. No, just be a... Barely attention, simply maintain bare attention or whatever and don't respond, don't use your intelligence to discern. And that is self-imposed moral idiocy. Report an error

1:34:44 That happens, I've seen that happen. So let's move on. The role of introspection, enormous. Introspection, call it metacognition. That's a term that has more currency in modern psychology. It is our ability. To monitor, to be aware of the processes taking place in our own minds, including, and now very centrally for this talk tonight, noting the type of desires that arise, the type of intentions that arise, noting them before we manifest them behaviorally in the world, before we've set them out into the world that we can't reel them back in. Report an error

1:35:20 What Paul Ekman, my very dear friend and esteemed psychologist, calls a regrettable episode. And that is we just blurted it right out. An impulse came out. There was no censorship, no editing, no awareness. We learn about what our mental state was when we listen to the words coming out of our mouths. Report an error

1:35:39 In other words, we get the news when everybody else gets the news. And we say, oh, crap, why did I say that? It's verbal because we're very verbal people. And sometimes it's physical as well. Paul Ekman calls it... Developing this metacognitive awareness so you see between the spark of the impulse and the flame of the behavior. There's some monitoring there, some intelligence, and it is censorship. Report an error

1:36:04 Let's call a spade a spade. There are some impulses for which the best response is restraint. Call it judgmental, fine. Judgmental is the adjective for the noun being judgment, as in good judgment. So the noun is good but the adjective is bad, I'm sorry. So no, we don't want to be judgmental. Do we want to exercise sound judgment, intelligent, discerning judgment? If you're not, then you're stupid. And we don't want to cultivate stupidity. Report an error

1:36:32 We're born with enough. And so... Introspection, enormously important. We just define mindfulness in a very ethical fashion. Mindfulness and introspection are taught, says Asanga, a great 5th century Buddhist sage from India. For the first, that is mindfulness, prevents the attention from straying from the meditative object. That is, you're able to sustain the flow of your voluntary attention at will. And introspection recognizes that the attention is straying. Report an error

1:36:59 So when we're seeking to focus on something, our own behavior, a conversation, a task at work, a creative endeavor, what have you, driving in heavy traffic, mindfulness enables us to sustain the flow of voluntary attention. Report an error

1:37:12 Introspection enables us to monitor whether attention has strayed or not. I was in a conversation just very recently with a fellow, and as long as he was speaking, he was very engaged. Literally, within a matter of just minutes, when I started speaking in response to him, he fell asleep. Report an error

1:37:33 It was a threesome. So it was a conference call. I mean, if I'm giving a long lecture, I kind of understand. But when it was a conference call discussing major issues of a joint project, and we had three-way video, so we could all see each other. And I spoke to the other person on the conference call, and I said, look at him. Literally, it was really obvious. And then, just to make sure that we got the message, then we heard. Report an error

1:38:10 So the two of us tried to maintain the conversation. We said, okay, let's just... Cancel this call and I'll call you right back. So I think he never saw it coming. The only time that he knew he fell asleep was retrospectively when he eventually woke up. Report an error

1:38:25 Where is everybody? It could have been hours later, who knows? He never got back to me. Report an error

1:38:36 So Shantideva, our beloved Shantideva, from the same text, he writes, in brief, this alone is the definition of introspection. It's why I translated it as introspection rather than many other translations. Awareness, vigilance, alertness. Full awareness, they all miss the mark because introspection by definition is reflexive. Mindfulness, you can focus on anything with mindfulness. Report an error

1:38:56 Introspection is always monitoring your own body, speech and mind. If I'm monitoring somebody else's, that's not introspection, that could be mindfulness or being judgmental or what have you. So it's repeated examination of the state of one's own body and mind. That's introspection. So it's not only introspection a la Descartes, introspecting into your mind, but it's also monitoring the flow of your speech and monitoring your physical behavior. Report an error

1:39:20 Is it suitable or unsuitable, wholesome and wholesome? It's reflexive. So very useful. Moving on. Okay, finally, now we can spend... Okay, the next hour will be on. Buddhists never ask. If you look in any traditional Buddhist text, I think you'll never see the question asked, does man, or let's be generous, human beings, Have free will or not. Doesn't come up. As far as I know, I just checked this out recently, it started to come up, it seems, from the time of St. Augustine, 4th, 5th century, because he was faced with a theological and philosophical dilemma, and that is the God he worships sends people to eternal damnation or saves them eternally based upon their behavior, faith and lack of faith and so forth. Report an error

1:40:03 So you're getting eternal reward or eternal punishment for finite behavior, which is kind of tough. A tough deal. One of the many things I couldn't accept at all. But if God the omnipotent and God the omniscient is controlling everything, in other words predestination, God started the whole thing. And if we're living in a Laplace and predeterministic universe where everything is set from the beginning and now it's just following predetermination or predestination depending on whether it's physics or human destiny. Report an error

1:40:36 If it's already set from the time of creation, then God is a cosmic psychopath. That he creates on people just so he can punish them forever. I mean, that makes the Nazis and the Maoists and the Stalinists look pretty okay compared to God. I mean, that is just inconceivably awful, right? And so Augustine was one very smart man. Report an error

1:41:00 Whether you agree with his theology, he was very smart. That's a broad consensus there. And he said, okay, then we have to have free will. That is, we must be responsible for our behavior and we must have a real say in whether we go eternally up or eternally down. And therefore, there must be free will. Otherwise, God's a psychopath. So either we have free will or God's a madman, in which case we have free will. Report an error

1:41:22 And that's been debated ever since. And it's been debated without consensus for the last 1500 years. There's no consensus anywhere in sight, including among neuroscientists and psychologists and philosophers and theologians. Nowhere consensus anywhere. So either we're all not smart enough to address the question in any way that gives rise to any consensual agreement, or else we're asking the wrong question. Report an error

1:41:43 After 1500 years, I'm going to go for door number two. Ask a dumb question, you'll never get an intelligent answer. And so why don't we stop asking that question? Number one, can you even define what you mean? And of course, already there, there's an enormous amount of disagreement. This person means this by free will, this one means this, etc., etc. Report an error

1:42:01 So, well, why don't I just define it? I'm pretty bold there. It's either useful or it's not useful. That's all it, and then you judge. But we are exercising free will. It is free will. I'm going to define it as the ability to make decisions that are conducive to our own and others' genuine happiness. That's simple. Report an error

1:42:20 I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it's simple. And then is it meaningful? I found it very meaningful. But now if we ask, well, what are the conditions in which we have less free will rather than more? When you're drunk, you don't even have the freedom to drive safely. You can't even walk in a straight line. You can't stand on one leg with your eyes closed. You don't have much freedom at all. Report an error

1:42:39 You can't speak intelligently. You laugh for no reason. You get depressed for no reason. Except for, you know, your brain is drugged. And so whether we're drunk, whether we're addicted, whether we're enraged, A person who's full of wrath. A person who's absolutely obsessed as a stalker or addicted to this or that. Where's your freedom? Report an error

1:43:00 Where's your freedom? Well, it's negligible. So we don't have to ask, does man have free will? Give me a break. Whether man has free will or not, when you're drunk, you don't. Or maybe somebody slipped some LSD into your punch and you didn't even see it coming. Or the worst one I've heard is dadura. Oh, terrible stuff. Report an error

1:43:19 I spoke with somebody who'd actually taken it. Jimson weed. You take that and you don't hallucinate. You become actually delusional. You don't know you're hallucinating. You think everything is real and you're completely, it is self-induced. If you're taking it voluntarily, it's self-induced psychosis. It does wear off. But I actually spoke with a person who had taken it and said it's horrible because you're completely delusional. Report an error

1:43:44 LSD can be fun. You know, strawberry feels forever. It's really groovy, man. Then, you know, you're down. This one, you're absolutely out of your mind because your mind has been taken over by a drug. Check it out. It's very interesting. Datura. Datura. Datura. Or Jimson weed. Datura, yeah. Boy, it's scary stuff. You would never get that. I would hope you'd never give that to your worst enemy because that person has absolutely zero freedom. Report an error

1:44:08 You become a schizophrenic for a little while. So free will. So there it is. Free will is something to be cultivated. How? By applying remedies to mental afflictions that deprive us from free will. There's a case of drug-induced delusion, big time. Schizophrenia, delusion, very little freedom. And then we look at the spectrum from a person who is absolutely incapacitated because of drugs or brain damage or severe psychosis. Report an error

1:44:34 And then the spectrum is smooth, all the way to that of an Arhat or Buddha or a saint, whatever you like, on the other end. It's a smooth spectrum. That's what I would suggest. It's a smooth spectrum. And it's not just, oh, I'm like an IQ, I'm 135 or I'm 98 or whatever. How are you at 2 o 'clock today versus 3 o 'clock? Report an error

1:44:55 Where are you slip sliding your way along in that sanity graph, in that sanity bandwidth? And are you, over the course of your life, are you moving towards greater sanity? Or are you spinning wheels, just mucking about in the same bandwidth? Mediocrity. Merely sane. How can we cultivate greater freedom of will so that our decisions, our decisions as we mature, are more and more conducive to our own and others' genuine happiness? Report an error

1:45:24 That's an answerable question. That's an empirically researchable question. And in terms of predetermination, the Buddhist view is we are not predetermined, we're not predestined. Karma is not destiny. Karma presents events to us, how we respond to events. That's our responsibility and it's not predetermined. Report an error

1:45:47 But then how can we see that it isn't predetermined? Do we ever act out of mere habit? Sure we do. Then we're more like automatons. When we're devoid of mindfulness, devoid of introspection, then we're doing knee-jerk. Then we look more like machines, acting out of mere instinct or habit, very little freedom. Report an error

1:46:08 The road to that is to introspectively recognize desires before they manifest in behavior and choose which ones to adopt and which ones to release, develop cognitive intelligence. Through trial and error and be willing to make mistakes. I'm a perfectionist. I like to never make mistakes. It doesn't work out. But to learn from mistakes. Report an error

1:46:27 Be willing to make mistakes but then learn from them. Final, I think maybe one more and we're finished. Yeah, I think so, maybe. Is there such a thing as perfection? In Buddhism we have perfection of generosity, of ethics, of patience, of enthusiasm, of meditation, of wisdom, the sixth perfection. So Buddhists believe in perfection. Report an error

1:46:45 Is there such a thing as a perfection of cognitive intelligence? What would it be like to have come to its fulfillment, its great perfection? How about this? Having the wisdom to desire only that which is truly beneficial to oneself and others in this life. For starters, it's not the end. But the only desires that come up, we have so cultivated the mind that the only desires we have are benevolent ones. Report an error

1:47:09 People who have met the Dalai Lama, I think you might get an impression, that happens a lot with him. He said he never ever experiences hatred. Report an error

1:47:19 Never experiences hatred. Bit of irritation once in a while, yeah. Bit of anger, yeah. Sometimes regrettable word, yeah. He said, that's what he said. Hatred, never. That desire of hatred never happens. And Arhat, craving, hostility, delusion, never happens. The Bodhisattva coming to full maturation, becoming a Buddha, all the desires are wholesome. That would entail knowing what desires and intentions lead to happiness. Report an error

1:47:48 It's a little typo there. Beyond this life and acting upon them. So that raises another large issue and that I've already gone over 25 minutes over. But it's a big one. It's easy to ignore, especially if you're surrounded by people who ignore it or act as if they already know the answer. And that is, if you're not a religious believer, then you just face the facts. And that is, when you die, you're terminated. Oh, that's an interesting belief. Report an error

1:48:14 If scientists actually knew the causes of consciousness, I would take that materialistic conclusion quite seriously. They don't have a clue. Report an error

1:48:23 We don't know when consciousness arises. We don't know scientifically. We don't know what the necessary and sufficient causes are of our consciousness. Gestation. Wouldn't it be wonderful in terms of, what's it called, the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers? Wouldn't it be helpful if we actually knew when there's a sentient being in there? Report an error

1:48:40 Not in there, but more elsewhere. The women kind. When there's a growing fetus from the time of conception, wouldn't it be kind of cool if we knew when it was conscious? Report an error

1:48:52 Wouldn't that be useful? Whether, you know, and moreover, I mean, there's consciousness, you know, in Buddhist understanding of the development of the embryo, it goes through all these stages like yogurt and then into kind of like a fish and an amphibia and then gradually a little mini evolution takes place in the womb. Report an error

1:49:10 That's Buddhism. There's a whole science of embryology in Buddhism. And then it's much more sophisticated and so forth in modern science. But in the course of that, is there a point at which... Whatever is in there, that union of the seed and sperm, is there a point at which it's simply not conscious? So if you abort it, you've just kind of like taken out a kidney or just drawn some blood out. Report an error

1:49:33 I mean, who cares? It's your business. It's really the woman's choice entirely because it's your body part, for heaven's sakes. If it's not conscious, it's not a passenger. It's a body part. So give blood. Give bone marrow. Give a kidney. Give one of your lungs. I mean, it's yours. If you want to do it, it's just your choice. It's simply a woman's choice. But if you're carrying a passenger, Report an error

1:49:55 If it's an animal, you say, well, it's not human yet. It doesn't have a frontal cortex, it doesn't have a human brain. But if it's conscious, then you want to have animal rights for the creature in your womb? Does the animal have any rights? It's not a body part. A conductor on a train can't say, you're all on the train, or I can kill you if you like, because it's my train. Report an error

1:50:16 No, you're passengers on the train, right? So you have some rights. So the unborn fetus is, if it's conscious, if it's a sentient being, And let's not, how do you say, split hairs about whether it's human or not yet. But since me, I mean, then it's a passenger. It's not a body part, right? I mean, that's just simple. Report an error

1:50:34 And at some point, we have to say it's human. Because obviously it doesn't get human by cutting the umbilical cord or somehow magically transform into human when you come out of the womb. That's stupid. And of course, there are preemies, children who are born, what, two, three, four months prematurely, and they survive. Well, they didn't become human by coming out. They had to be human already. Report an error

1:50:54 So... Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had some scientific knowledge of when it becomes conscious, when it becomes humanly conscious, and then it becomes an enlightened debate by people with good motivation who respect women's rights. I certainly do. I also respect animal rights and I respect human rights. But I respect sentient beings' rights. That's kind of a Buddhist thing. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we knew what the necessary causes and conditions are? Report an error

1:51:19 And would we go down to the food chain, down to single-celled amoeba? Are they conscious? Or do you have to have a nervous system like a hydra? Is that necessary? Well, the answer is a resounding silence, almost universal ignorance within the scientific context. Scientists can't measure consciousness in anything. They don't know what causes it. They don't know how it interfaces with the brain. They don't know how the brain interfaces with it. And that means any scientist or anybody who's working out of the scientific context who says, well, we know that science... Report an error

1:51:50 The consciousness, individual consciousness, terminates at death. You're blowing smoke. That is called pseudoscience. You're pretending as if that's a scientific conclusion. Well, you know squat. That is an illusion of knowledge, and those are some of the most destructive things in all of history. Pretending you know something you don't. And materialists do this on a commonplace. Report an error

1:52:10 While they ridicule religious believers, they're almost smothering to death in their own beliefs, uncorroborated, not evidence-based, and often not even rational. And they call it materialism. They think it's not religious. Somehow it makes it rational. There's a word we have for that in America. It's called bullshit. And so this is an open question. Report an error

1:52:30 From the Buddhist side, hey, we've got 2,500 years of experience here. That counts. And we know unequivocally beyond any shadow of any doubt, consciousness is not terminated to death. You might wish it does. Life becomes a lot simpler. But that's wishful thinking. You're stuck with it. We are not tourists in reality. We are inhabitants. Report an error

1:52:51 We neither behave accordingly or not, but if we don't we're fooling ourselves and we have a big surprise coming at death. The atheists, the materialists are in for a big shock. I think when they die and they're in the bardo they're going to say, oh shit, I didn't see this coming. Why didn't somebody tell me? Report an error

1:53:12 If it's true. I'm not pressing dogmatically that it is true, but I'm saying, hey, scientifically we don't know and there's an awful lot of illusions of knowledge out there. Buddhists claim, Hindus claim, others claim. In contemplative tradition of the world, no, it's a mystery for people who study the mind only by way of brain and behavior. Get a clue. If you want to understand the mind and consciousness, look at it, dummy. Report an error

1:53:33 Don't just look at the physical correlates. You're missing the whole point. You'll never come to the conclusion if all you're studying is the brain and behavior. Everybody knows the brain rots and behavior stops. Cell is something we didn't know. So what if? What if there's individual continuity of your own consciousness, that there's more to come? Report an error

1:53:52 Then cognitive intelligence is taking that into account. It's just being intelligent, not being religious, it's just being smart. And what are you going to bet your life on? Because everybody's betting their life on something that we don't know unless you're a Buddha. What are you betting your life on? Are you willing to bet your life that you're going to be terminated to death? Go for it, see how it turns out for you. Are you willing to bet your life that there's continuity and you're morally responsible? Report an error

1:54:17 You're creating your future that is not predestined or destined by something or somebody else? Want to bet your life on that? Go for it. That's going to turn out well no matter what. Because if you're wrong, you win. And if you're right, you win. Knowing what desires and intentions lead to liberation, not simply good future rebirth or good fortune in the future. Report an error

1:54:42 How about liberation? How about something irreversible? How about spiritual awakening, bodhi? Knowing what desires and intentions lead to the ultimate good for oneself and others and acting upon them. That would be the perfection of cognitive intelligence. This is a big deal. Little term, rather obscure, not so clear, cognitive intelligence. Hopefully in these two hours it's become clear. And if it's anywhere as near meaningful to you as it is to me, this was two hours well spent. Report an error

1:55:15 So I went on a full half an hour too long. But you know me, for people who have attended, you know I do it all the time, so it's not predictive. Report an error

1:55:33 Thank you once again, Alan, for a really fascinating and a quite profound evening. So now we have... 100 plus evangelists of cognition. Cognition? Cognition. C-O-N-A-T-I-O-N. Report an error

1:55:55 So we are going to go out there and spread the word about cognition. And genuine unhappiness. Genuine unhappiness. That's a good one. So you've given us some homework. Thank you very much, Alan. And we're really greatly looking forward to you coming back. Report an error

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Talk by B. Alan Wallace. Original at Vajrayana Institute via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/CultivatingConativeIntelligence2013. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 3.0. Transcript generated automatically and may contain errors; the audio is the authoritative version.

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