Dr Ian Ellis-Jones ... Living Mindfully Now

NOTE. This blog is in recess. Nevertheless, you will find here over 500 of my posts exploring many aspects of spirituality, mindfulness, psychology, philosophy, literature and the performing arts. A member of the Australian and New Zealand Mental Health Association, I lectured at the NSW Institute of Psychiatry (now the mental health portfolio of HETI) for 14 years and at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) for 16 years. Mindfully yours, Ian Ellis-Jones PhD. 26 July 2021.

Friday, May 16, 2014

IT’S POSSIBLE TO DO THE IMPOSSIBLE!

‘The things which are impossible with men
are possible with God.’ Lk 18:27.

This post is about personal transformation and recovery, but I am not suggesting some method or technique. (I don’t believe in them.) Nor am I some fundamentalist or evangelical Christian who’s out to convert you---far from it. What I am suggesting is a transformative spiritual, and not just psychological, idea---an idea which, if accepted in your consciousness, and actualized, can and will change your life forever. Maybe that sounds too good to be true, but it’s not. So, please read on, if you’re at all interested.

Now, even though I’ve quoted a verse from the Bible, I want you to know that I am not a Biblical literalist. Indeed, I abhor those 'black letter' Christians who always interpret the Bible literally. For many decades now I have studied the Bible, as well as other sacred scriptures, with a view to ascertaining their deeper, ‘inner’ meaning. You see, I happen to think that, for the most part, sacred scripture was never intended to be interpreted literally. Take the Bible, for instance. Much of its contents are written in mythological, figurative, metaphorical, symbolical, allegorical, and spiritual language. True, there are actual, historical events recorded in many parts of the Bible but even many of them were never intended to be taken literally, or only literally. Yes, the Bible is full of myths, legends, fables, folk tales, morality tales, symbols, parables, allegories, and archetypal ideas, and must be interpreted and applied in that manner in the light of reason, contemporary knowledge, and a knowledge of metaphysics and sacred language.

Take, for example, the verse set out above. It’s from Luke’s Gospel. Now, read the verse carefully. For starters, the verse does not say, ‘God can do the impossible.’ After all, that would make no sense at all. If God---whoever or whatever God is---can do the impossible, then it’s not impossible … at least not insofar as God is concerned. No, the verse does not say that God can do the impossible. It simply says that the things that are impossible with ‘men’ are possible with God. Now, what does the word ‘men’ mean in this verse? You may think that’s a silly question, but it’s not. Yes, the word ‘men’ can be interpreted literally to mean men (and, of course, women and children as well), but the word often has a deeper, ‘inner’ meaning as well in many sacred writings. In Biblical metaphysics the word ‘men’ often means thoughts---your thoughts, my thoughts, and especially those of a conditioned, almost non-thinking kind.

There is another Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) expression worth noting---‘men of Israel.’ Now, the expression ‘men of Israel’ can and often does refer to positive and spiritual thoughts and aspirations, that is, thoughts, ideas and sentiments that are spiritually enlightened, and not materialistic or carnal (that is, negatively selfish). Spiritually enlightened thoughts, ideas and sentiments are invariably loving, kind, compassionate, generous, and uplifting. They work for the betterment and improvement of not just the person who entertains them but also others as well. The unqualified expression ‘men’ is ordinarily used in the Bible to refer to thoughts, ideas and sentiments that are negative and selfish and often highly self-destructive, an example being a thought of resentment, hostility, or jealousy toward some other person. All such ‘men’ are the result of conditioned thinking on our part. I will have more to say about what I mean by conditioned thinking in the very next paragraph.

To me, the Bible verse quoted from Luke’s Gospel is saying that there will always be things that, according to our ordinary thoughts and ordinary thinking, will be impossible, but those things are possible when we ‘plug into’ a Power-not-ourselves. Now, our ordinary thoughts and thinking entail nothing other mechanical, reflexive thinking where we react---as opposed to rationally respond---to what happens to us from our conditioned thoughts. These thoughts are sometimes referred to as our ‘false selves,’ which are all those little ‘I’s’ and ‘me’s’ in our mind and daily thinking that we have formed, acquired and molded over our whole lifetime. (Note. Don’t let the word ‘false,’ in this context mislead you. These selves do exist as image in our mind. I am not saying they are unreal. It is simply the case that these inner experiences of mind do not represent our true identity. The latter is the person we are in the world.)

There’s more to it. Our conditioned mind, from which arise our so-called conditioned thinking, consists of all of our various likes, dislikes, attachments, aversions, beliefs, opinions, prejudices, and so on. Over time, these false selves (‘men’), which lie behind every feeling and emotion, harden into mindsets such as habits, addictions (whether to drugs, people, a certain lifestyle, or whatever), obsessions, and compulsions of innumerable kinds, and most people are in bondage to one or more of these things which we experience as strong feelings and emotions. When any of these false selves are active, they are always experienced as feelings and emotions.

As I’ve often said in my posts, these false selves, many of which struggle with each other for dominance in our mind, thinking, and daily life activity, but none of which are the real person each one of us is, have no power in and of themselves. Why? Because they are nothing other than mental images in our mind. To use metaphysical language, these false selves---and we have literally hundreds and hundreds of them inside our mind---are ‘men.’ No wonder the Bible verse speaks of things being ‘impossible with [these] men’! The trouble is that as and when we choose to identify the person we are---the latter being our true identity---with one or more of these false selves, mistakenly believing them to be the real person we are, we give these ‘men’ in our mind and life activity a certain pseudo-power that is invariably negative in both nature and effect.

Now, what is this Power-not-ourselves which supposedly can do what is impossible to ‘men’? Well, your Power-not-yourself may be different from mine. Even atheists have a Power-not-themselves. It may, for example, for them be a source of inward power under the guise of the person they are, in contradistinction to all those little, and often extremely negative and self-destructive, ‘men’ (and ‘women’ and ‘children’) of which I’ve spoken. You don’t have to call this Power God or Jesus or Buddha or anything like that. You don’t have to refer to it as a ‘Higher Power’ or ‘Higher [or True] Self’ as some people do, but that sort of terminology is OK if it means something to you. All you have to do is to accept---I mean, really accept, affirm, and internalize---the following important spiritual truth:

The ‘men’ (that is, the ‘false selves’) within my mind have no power to do anything positive or beneficial … whether for me or for others. These ‘men’ cannot be changed or reformed by themselves. However, they can be dissolved by the transformative power of ‘not-self’ (that is, a Power-not-oneself) which is infinitely greater than all these ‘men’ combined.

What, exactly, do I mean by the word 'spiritual,' when I refer to a 'spiritual truth'? Something is 'spiritual' when it goes beyond both the physical and the psycholgical. Some problems can be resolved only by recourse to a 'higher' (that means, 'other than self,' or 'not-self,' as opposed to some supposed higher level or order) power or principle. For example, just try getting one of these ‘men’ to remove himself from the centre of his own endeavours. It’s impossible. As William Temple said, ‘no effort of the self can remove the self from the centre of its own endeavour.’ Now, that’s a spiritual problem. It goes beyond the physical and even beyond what is ordinarily termed the psychological as well. We need a spiritual solution to solve the problem of the false selves and their consequences---all manner of pride, selfishness, self-centredness, self-absorption, self-interest, willfulness, and self-will run riot. These all result in feelings of self-inadequacy, self-consciousness, frustration, powerlessness, separateness.

To solve a problem of the spiritual kind---the type of problem outlined above---you need a spiritual solution. To rely upon ordinary conditioned thoughts and thinking in an attempt to rid yourself (that is, the person that you are) from the problem is doomed to failure. You need to find a Power-not-oneself---for only such a Power can relieve you of the bondage of self. There is, in Christian theology, an expression for this Power---it’s called the ‘grace of God,’ and this grace is said to be sanctifying in its effect---that is, it purifies. That’s what we need---to be made pure and free from the bondage of self. Again, never mind the fancy words or expressions. As the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti [pictured left] used to say over and over again, ‘The word is not the thing.’ The reality behind the word or the expression is all that matters.

Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Humanist, atheist, or other, we all need to be set free from the bondage of our conditioned thinking which is a veritable prison-house for us. We need get out of own way by dying to self and rising to newness of life. In order for that to happen we must undergo a spiritual transformation---a psychological mutation of great depth and intensity---but no effort of ourself can remove that self from the centre of its own endeavour. We need to rely upon---and humbly surrender to---a Power-not-ourselves. Only then are we truly able to experience the necessary ego-deflation at great depth.

Yes, the things that are impossible with the ‘men-selves’ in your mind are possible with a Power-not-oneself.

Now, that’s a transformative spiritual idea!

The photos (other than that of Krishnamurti)
were taken in Japan by the author.

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Monday, May 12, 2014

WHY NOT EXPERIENCE REALITY WITHOUT THINKING? NOW, THAT’S A GOOD IDEA!

‘Well, what are you, Ian? A realist or an idealist?’ a philosopher colleague of mind asked of me recently.

My reply, which I thought would phase him at least a little … except that it didn’t … was as follows: ‘I am both.’

This reminds me of something the American pastor Dr Norman Vincent Peale [pictured left] once said in a sermon in his church in New York City. He said, ‘I have been accused of belonging to both the fundamentalists and the modernists and that is a fact, I do.’

As I see it now, realism and idealism need each other, and involve each other. Each is made complete by the other. Indeed, there is, as I see it, no fundamental difference between them, strange as that may seem. Idealism is essentially a philosophy of becoming and coming-into-being whereas realism proceeds on the assumption that things have already come into being. Each of the two schools of thought complements the other in an overall philosophy. However, all that is for another day.

When it comes to teaching the law I use realism and empiricism, and stress to my students the principle of non-constitutive relations, that is, nothing is constituted by or is dependent upon, nor can it be defined or explained by reference to, the relations it has to other things. So, we have the person who holds the book in his hand, we have the thing held (viz the book), and we have something else as well---the act of holding. However, when it comes to explaining the workings of the human mind, and matters pertaining to the human spirit (eg faith, hope, and love), I tend to be an idealist.

Now, the realist or empiricist---well, at least some of them---will say that when it comes to the mental function we call cognition, we are talking about a relation between a subject and an object term, namely, a relation between the mind and its objects. So, we have the person who knows (or believes, thinks, remembers, or perceives) and the thing known (or believed, thought, remembered, or perceived), the latter existing independently of the knower (or mind). Well, I think all that is true as far as it goes, and I also think it’s very helpful---indeed, essential for a true understanding of what we are---to separate the person each one of us is from objects and creations of the mind. The latter include, most importantly, all of those hundreds of ‘selves’ that we create in our mind and which we mistakenly take to be the real person we are. (For a further explanation of that matter please see this recent post of mine.) However, I don’t think this realist account tells the whole story. Worse still, I think it is quite misleading and in some ways untrue. Let me explain.

Let’s focus on what actually happens in the human mind itself. You know, we don’t really understand thought or consciousness and what’s involved. There are various ideas on the matter, and some important discoveries have been made on the subject in recent years, but much that pertains to thought and consciousness remains a mystery. Be that as it may, this is how I see it---at least as respects thought and thinking. The idea in our mind that there is some ‘thinker’ or ‘thinking self’ within the mind is fallacious. There is no such thinker or thinking self---at least there is no thinker apart from the thoughts. There are only thoughts, and thinking, and it is the thinking that creates the mental construct, so to speak, of a notional (but not actual) thinker. The latter is, well, illusory in the sense that it has no separate, independent, and permanent existence apart from our thoughts or the person each one of us is. Yes, the thoughts come first, not the thinker. It is the thoughts, or more exactly the process of thinking, that creates the thinker. Actually, the thinker (that is, ‘thinking self’ in our mind) and the thinking are a ‘joint phenomenon,’ as the Indian spiritual philosopher J. Krishnamurti [pictured above right] used to say. They are not two separate processes or entities. Indeed, the so-called thinker/thinking self is not an entity at all in any real sense.

Now, some of you will say to me, ‘Well, Ellis-Jones, assuming for the moment that is the case, so what?’

My response is this. If the thinker in our mind is created by the process of thinking in our mind, a separation in thinking has taken place in our mind. We have the thinker---note, I am not talking about you, the person, being the thinker, but rather ‘something’ supposedly existent in your mind---and the thinking or thoughts. Yes, a separation has taken place in our mind, and it is an artificial one. This separation, although illusory in the sense outlined above, is nevertheless a division in our mind and thinking which is regrettable in a couple of respects. First, the separation or division is perhaps the major cause of our losing immediacy and directness in our moment-to-moment experience of life, Secondly, the separation or division is a cause of our developing what can only be described as a false or artificial personality---a personality that prevents us from seeing ourselves as we really are, and others as they really are. This separation or division has a momentum all of its own and spills over into our society and world at large. As I say, it is all most regrettable.

The bottom line is that there is no ‘watcher/watching self’ or ‘perceiver/perceiving self’ in your mind. There is just the thing watched or perceived together with our sensory perceptions of that object, with the object being the objective or causal condition (that is, ‘cause’). Well, is there anything we can do about this? There certainly is. First, try to understand that what I’ve described above---although seemingly counter-intuitive to perhaps many of you---is actually the case. The understanding and insight gained will help to free you from the bondage of separation or duality in our cognitive processes, and that will assist you in being able to see things as-they-really-are with directness and immediacy. You will then be able to penetrate the core of reality, and that is a wonderful thing. Krishnamurti wrote:

‘When you look at a flower, when you just see it, at that moment is there an entity who sees? Or is there only seeing? Seeing the flower makes you say [i.e. think], “How nice it is! I want it.’ So the “I” comes into being through desire, fear, ambition [all thought], which follow in the wake of seeing. It is these that create the “I” and the “I” is non-existent without them.’

In truth, there are only the following three ‘relational’ elements in order for a stimulus to be perceived: first, the sense-object (or simply the object in question); secondly, a sense organ; and thirdly, attention or consciousness. (It is more-or-less the same with our thoughts and thinking, except we have no sense-object and sense-organ involved as such.) Now, in order for there to be an immediacy and directness about our moment-to-moment experience of life, those three occurrences need to occur more-or-less simultaneously---that is, no separation. If those three events are not simultaneously experienced---and that will happen if we engage in thinking, analysis, comparison, interpretation, or judgment in connection with the object in question (be it external or internal)---then the chances are that what will be experienced will be nothing but ... the past! Yes, the reality of the immediate experience will subside. Indeed, it will die! Any consciousness of it will be in the form of an after-thought or memory, as we glance back to re-experience, and (sadly, yes) evaluate, a past experience.

There is, of course, a time for thinking, introspection, analysis, comparison, interpretation, and judgment. I certainly affirm the need for rationality. The trouble is, we think far too much, and we end up forfeiting our otherwise direct and immediate connection with the flow of life.

Now, go out there and look---really look, and just look, doing nothing but look---at a rose or some other flower. Don’t start thinking about the flower. Don’t start comparing the flower with other flowers you have seen. Don’t judge or otherwise assess the beauty of the flower. Just look at it---without there being any separation. Perceive the flower here and now. See it as it really is---as a new moment. That moment will never come again. Yes, this presence—indeed, omnipresence---of life is the whole of reality. It is all here and now, and it is all that there is. Life, you see, is not cumulative. It is from moment to moment---both being as well as becoming. Don’t let your experience of life die on you---not even for a moment. ‘Accept the offer of newness in the now,’ to borrow a wonderful line from the American spiritual teacher and writer Vernon Howard.

None of this will come easily to many of you, but may I suggest---only suggest---that you start to live this way … if only as an experiment. You may be pleasantly surprised at the change … as you come to see---really see---things as-they-really-are ... perhaps for the very first time.

The photos of flowers were taken by the author.

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Friday, May 9, 2014

POSITIVE THINKING, NEGATIVE THINKING AND MINDFULNESS

In the course of living I have changed my views about a lot of things. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have a huge amount of respect for the ideas of the late Dr Norman Vincent Peale [pictured left, and below], pastor, professional speaker, lecturer, broadcaster, counsellor, nonprofit leader, publisher, editor, syndicated newspaper columnist and the celebrated author of numeous best-selling books on personal development and spirituality including his 1952 all-time classic The Power of Positive Thinking. I also have a great deal of both respect and love for the man himself whom I heard speak in Sydney, Australia on two separate occasions. If I had to choose between the two, I would say---and indeed do say---that positive thinking is much better than negative thinking … any day of the week.

You know, although Dr Peale has been dead for over 20 years, he continues to be attacked by, among others, fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and some in the psychology business. The attacks are cruel, vicious, unfair ... and unrelenting. Dr Peale was attacked during his lifetime as well, but he out-loved his critics and carried on regardless. That’s one of the reasons I still love him, and I have derived for many decades now much benefit and inspiration from his books, sermons, and addresses. Most people don't know this, but Peale was many decades ahead of the times with his emphasis on the relationship between psychology and religious experience, and he was one of the first people---if not the very first---to combine depth psychology with religion. In 1937 Peale, in conjunction with the psychiatrist Dr Smiley Blanton, established at his New York City church a religio-psychiatric clinic. This was America's first service combining religion and psychiatry for the sake of mental health. It is known today as the Blanton-Peale Institute. I could say many more positive things about Dr Peale. The bottom line is this---Peale helped millions of people all around the world during his long lifetime, and his books on the subjects of bereavement and spiritual healing are especially worth reading even today.

Another reason I loved him---and still do---is that he saw an inner greatness in human beings, and sought to draw that out. He said this: ‘I would like to be remembered as loving people … and believing in people’s potential. They are greater than they think they are.’ I also love this saying of his: ‘There is a spiritual giant within you, which is always struggling to burst its way out of the prison you have made for it.’

Sadly, it’s those sorts of statements, which show that Peale took a ‘high’ view of man, that result in the spewing of so much venom against him and his ideas from Christian evangelicals. Actually, Peale was a conservative evangelical for the most part, but he tended not to use, that is, write and speak in, the language of the conservative evangelical.

There is much, much more that the conservative Christians dislike about Peale, including the fact that he was a Freemason, and the fact that he borrowed some ideas, thought-forms and language from New Thought in his sincere attempt to explain, and help people apply, the principles of Christianity. They also attack him for what they see as a more general religious syncretism in his writings and sermons. They dismiss his method of affirmative prayer as nothing other than auto-suggestion. They attack him for preaching both a 'theology of man' and a 'gospel of success,' for his public acceptance and non-condemnation of homosexuality, for appearing to question the truth of certain fundamental (in their view) Christian teachings, for combining religion and pop psychology, and for his having a 'high regard' (Peale's words) for psychiatry. They attack him for allegedly preaching universalism. They somewhat hypocritically attack him for his conservative politics and stances he took on some contentious issues, even though their own politics are almost invariably ultra-conservative. They accuse him of being a bigot---something he definitely wasn't (in that regard, please see this link)---even though they themselves are pretty good at being bigots. They go so far as to attack others who were his friends or who endorsed him or his books, including the Southern Baptist ordained minister and evangelist Dr Billy Graham. Guilt by association, that is---and very unfair. There is no end to it. Even Dr Peale's Wikipedia profile has been sabotaged by these narrow-minded people with an axe to grind so as to accentuate the negative and eliminate, or at least downplay almost to the point of nothingness, the positive about the man and his many achievements. Damn the lot of them, who do this sort of thing, I say. For the most part, they are being grossly unfair to Peale, and they have misinterpreted (I suspect deliberately in the majority of cases) his ideas and writings.

However, here’s where I have come to differ from Dr Peale and his ‘doctrine of positive thinking.’ Dr Peale used to say that whenever a negative thought enters into your consciousness, you should immediately replace that thought with a positive one. Sounds good advice, doesn’t it? However, I have come to the view that, ordinarily, the best thing to do is this---simply watch and observe your thoughts and feelings---a feeling being a felt thought, and the direct result of thought---with passive detachment. That is an integral part of mindfulness, you know. Do not feel any pressure or compulsion to change your thoughts or feelings. That takes time and effort---and thought substitution breaks what would otherwise be your direct and immediate moment-to-moment experience of life. No, simply watch and observe the negative thought or feeling dispassionately. In and of themselves, these thoughts have no 'content' and therefore no power to hurt you, so don’t give them any power they don’t deserve by even seeking to change them. Thought is simply a function of consciousness (or mind), with the latter being the total field in which thought functions.

Believed thought is a different matter. Believed thought is thought you have accepted as true irrespective of whether or not it actually is true. Belief adds 'content' to our thoughts and feelings and thus gives them a certain power they otherwise would not have. Believed thought is a matter you do need to be concerned with, for that sort of thought can have biochemical effects on the cells on your body. If you doubt that, I can only suggest you read Bruce Lipton's book The Biology of Belief.

Now, when a negative thought or emotion enters into your consciousness, don’t deny its existence or seek to override or counteract the thought or feeling with a positive one. Again, that is giving the thought or feeling more attention, recognition, and power than it rightly deserves. Observe and briefly note its existence, but spend no time---not even a nanosecond---evaluating, labelling, judging, or condemning that thought. Simply let the thought or feeling go.

In saying all of the above, I wish to stress that I am not advocating negative thinking. As I said above, other things being equal, positive thinking is ‘better’ than negative thinking, but at the end of the day, both types of thinking are just that---thinking---and thoughts and feelings have no power---I repeat, no power---in and of themselves to hurt you. End of story.

In fairness to Dr Peale---well, someone needs to be fair to him---I should mention that in many of his books he spoke about simply 'dropping' negative, unhealthy thoughts as opposed to actively replacing them with positive thoughts. This 'dropping' of unhealthy thoughts, as part of what Peale would refer to as 'emptying the mind,' is much closer to the mindfulness approach. (I recall Krishnamurti referring to meditation as the 'emptying of the mind,' and writing that the mind is empty 'when thought is not.') Peale also wrote about the need for daily practice of what he referred to as 'creative silence.' This again is something quite similar to mindfulness. He also wrote often about the psychological and spiritual principles of indirectness and non-resistance, and the need to stop struggling and let go. Finally, it should also be kept in mind that Peale tended to use the words 'positive thinking' to mean faith in God and Jesus Christ. He saw those things as synonymous, and made that perfectly clear in, for example, his 1980 book The Positive Power of Jesus Christ---a book which gives clear and unambiguous expression to his underlying conservative evangelical faith.

Some psychologists have attacked Peale’s doctrine of positive thinking on the ground that what is needed is ‘realistic thinking,’ not positive thinking. Well, these people have read little, or most selectively, of Peale, for he often stressed the point that that true positive thinking is realistic thinking. He wrote, ‘Positive thinking is realistic thinking … The positive thinker does not refuse to recognize the negative; he or she refuses to dwell on it. Positive thinking is a form of thought which habitually looks for the best results from the worst conditions.’ In his 1976 book The Positive Principle Today Peale wrote that positive thinking is 'a totality of sound thinking, dealing forthrightly and creatively with the facts of human existence. The positive thinker sees all difficulties and sees them straight. Nor he is abashed by them, nor does he seek an "escapist" out from them. ... The positive thinker is aware that only when the mind is cool, and under strong mental control, will it produce those dispassionate, rational, and intellectual concepts that lead to sound and viable solutions.' In other words, positive thinking---'tough-minded optimism,' Peale called it---is anything but wishful, fanciful thinking. It is, according to Peale, only through a 'sound intellectual process' that we can find solid, rational answers to our probems.

Now, there is definitely a place for a positive mental attitude. For example, when you are seeking to solve a problem, and are considering all the options, and evaluating your strengths and weaknesses as well as and the challenges, threats, and opportunities before you, I strongly recommend that you think positively---that is, optimistically but also realistically---about yourself and all the issues involved. However, when it comes to living out your moment-to-moment existence, and responding (as opposed to reacting) to the external and internal stimuli that constitute our ever-changing consciousness and experience of life, the best advice I can give you is simply to look, watch, and observe with choicless awareness and passive detachment.

Negative thoughts and feelings? Bah! Humbug!

Note. For those who are interested, here is a link to an address I delivered some years ago at the Sydney Unitarian Church, and here is another link to a book of quotations of Dr Peale which I compiled and then presented to Dr Peale's widow, the late Ruth Stafford Peale, to whom I spoke at length when I was on a trip in New York. I also met with the Peales' daughter Elizabeth Peale Allen who now chairs Guideposts, the Christian faith-based non-profit organization founded in 1945 by Dr and Mrs Peale.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

NEW STUDY SUGGESTS MINDFULNESS IMPROVES DECISION-MAKING

Decisions, decisions, and more decisions. Such is life.

As someone who has spent much of his working life in the practice and teaching of the law pertaining to the making of decisions by administrative decision-makers and others, not to mention making more than a few such decisions of my own, I read with great interest the results of a recent study suggesting that mindfulness improves the quality of decision-making.

Yes, according to new research from researchers at INSEAD and The Wharton School even one 15-minute focused-breathing meditation may help people make smarter choices. The findings are published in the February 2014 issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

People have trouble cutting their losses. This behaviour, often described as ‘throwing good money after bad,’ is driven by what behavioural scientists call the ‘sunk-cost bias.’

‘Most people have trouble admitting they were wrong when their initial decisions lead to undesirable outcomes,’ says lead researcher Andrew Hafenbrack (pictured left). ‘They don't want to feel wasteful or that their initial investment was a loss. Ironically, this kind of thinking often causes people to waste or lose more resources in an attempt to regain their initial investment or try to “break even.”’

Across a series of studies, PhD candidate Hafenbrack and his co-authors found that mindfulness meditation may help to counteract this deep-rooted bias. ‘We found that a brief period of mindfulness meditation can encourage people to make more rational decisions by considering the information available in the present moment, while ignoring some of the other concerns that typically exacerbate the “sunk cost bias,”’ explains Hafenbrack.

The research team conducted 4 studies to test the idea that mindfulness meditation could improve decision-making by increasing resistance to the sunk-cost bias.

In one online study, American participants reported about how much they typically focus on the present moment, and also read 10 sunk-cost scenarios---such as whether to attend a music festival that had been paid for when illness and bad weather made enjoyment unlikely---and then reported how much they would let go of sunk costs in each of them. The results revealed that the more people typically focused on the present moment, the more they reported that they would ignore sunk costs.

To test whether mindfulness caused an increased resistance to the sunk-cost bias, the researchers conducted an additional three experiments. In each, participants listened to a 15-minute recording made by a professional mindfulness coach. For one group of participants, the recording led them through a focused-breathing meditation that repeatedly instructed them to focus on the sensations of breathing. The other group of participants listened to a recording that asked them to think of whatever comes to mind, a practice that is not a form of meditation. Participants then responded to sunk-cost scenario questions. In the final study, participants also answered questions about the time period on which they focused -- that is present, past, or future -- and the emotions they experienced.

The results show that mindfulness meditation increased resistance to the sunk-cost bias in each of the three experiments.

‘The debiasing effect of mindfulness meditation in sunk-cost situations was due to a two-step process,’ said co-author Zoe Kinias. ‘First, meditation reduced how much people focused on the past and future, and this psychological shift led to less negative emotion. The reduced negative emotion then facilitated their ability to let go of sunk costs.’

‘This tool is very practical,’ said co-author Sigal Barsade. ‘Our findings hold great promise for research on how mindfulness can influence emotions and behaviour, and how employees can use it to feel and perform better.’

Post source. This post is based on materials provided by the Association for Psychological Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

Resource: Hafenbrack A C, Kinias Z, and Barsade S G. ‘Debiasing the Mind Through Meditation: Mindfulness and the Sunk-Cost Bias.’ Psychological Science, 2013; 25 (2): 369 DOI: 10.1177/0956797613503853

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MINDFULNESS BROADENS YOUR HORIZONS

THE MINDFUL LEADER

MINDFULNESS MEDITATION, MINDFUL LEADERSHIP AND GREY MATTER

THE MINDFUL WORKPLACE

Monday, May 5, 2014

‘WHAT AM I TO DO WITH MYSELF?’

‘What am I to do with myself?’ said one of my clients to me. Let's call her Mary (not her real name). ‘I feel so helpless,’ Mary said.

My reply to Mary startled her at first, then quickly began to annoy her, and then frustrate her immensely. (I can have that sort of effect on my cIients, not to mention others as well.) I said to her, ‘That’s absolutely wonderful that you feel that way. Now we can get somewhere. I was hoping you would eventually come to feel this way.’

‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’ Mary retorted. ‘Look,’ I said to her. ‘Feeling helpless, hopeless, and powerless is the foundation stone for real, lasting self-change. Now that you've worked out you're beaten, you're ready to discover, and then start living from, your real power centre, which is the very ground of your being as a person among persons.’

Well, it took me quite a while to convince her, but Mary is now an entirely new person. She has peace of mind, and her old, tired, worn-out, negative ‘false selves’ have been dissolved. Well, most of them anyway. She is working progressively on the rest of them. You see, Mary is now living, one day at a time, and one moment at a time, from her ‘True Being,’ that is, as the real person that she is.

Pathway in ornamental garden,
Greater Tokyo Area, Japan.

Photo taken by the author.

We use the word ‘self’ in two different senses. Firstly, we use the word to describe the ‘person’ each one of us is---the ‘real you,’ so to speak---and that is a most legitimate use of the word. However, we also use the word to refer to what we mistakenly perceive to be our real identity. Let me explain. We perceive life through our senses and our conscious mind. Over time, beginning from the very moment of our birth, sensory perceptions harden into memories formed out of aggregates of thought and feeling. In time, the illusion of a separate 'witnessing self' emerges. However, the truth is that our mental continuity and sense of identity and existence are simply the result of habit, memory and conditioning. Also, genetics has a bit to do with it as well. Hundreds and thousands of separate, ever-changing and ever-so-transient mental occurrences harden into a fairly persistent mental construct of sorts which is no more than a confluence of impermanent components (‘I-moments’ or ‘selves’) cleverly synthesized by the mind in a way which appears to give them a singularity and a separate and independent existence and life of their own. The result is a 'self'---or, as we will see, lots and lots of 'selves'---that are little more than bundles of memories from and out of which thought arises, or rather reacts to stimuli whether internal (eg other such bundles of memories, that is, 'I's' and 'me's') or external.

Now, it is through this perception of an internally generated sense of 'self' that most of us ordinarily experience, process and interpret all external reality. For example, if you see yourself as inferior to others, you will invariably find that life takes you at your own estimation of yourself, so don’t be surprised if you find yourself being treated as a doormat. Your every experience will tend to confirm what you fear most---‘I am indeed inferior to others, and others think so, too.’ Ditto if you perceive yourself as full of fear. Your life experience will be one long self-fulfilling prophecy, and you will find yourself identifying with Job in the Bible who uttered those immortal words, ‘For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me’ (Job 3:25). In other words, we tend to become the embodiment of all the negative self-images we have of ourselves.

Lake Ashi, Hakone, Japan.
Photo taken by the author.

These negative self-images and misbeliefs, when we identify with them, dominate our daily lives, thoughts, feelings, and actions, operating as some sort of unseen enemy. They haunt and hound us, and rob us of peace of mind and emotional equanimity. The funny thing is these self-images have no power in and of themselves except the power we, the persons that we are, give them by, firstly, our belief in them, and secondly, the attention and time we give them in our mental and emotional life. Who or what is this 'I' or 'me' that is inferior or fearful? Call out to 'it.' Does it answer back? If it does it's more than likely it's another 'I' or 'me' doing the answering. It's all quite tragic ... and silly ... and unnecessary. There is a much better way to live. There is a way out!

Unfortunately, the mental construct of ‘self’---indeed, hundreds of ‘selves,' that is, 'I's' and 'me's,' in the form of our (often negative and destructive) likes, dislikes, attachments, aversions, cravings, habits of thought, prejudices, beliefs, opinions, and so on---which we have each built up over many years by thought and habit, and then reinforced by words spoken as well as memories of the past, imposes severe limitations on how we see life. All too often, life’s experiences are filtered through a distorted lens comprised of the totality of our various self-images. We fail to see things as they really are because of this distorted lens. You see, how you experience what happens to you in life will be determined very largely by your self-image, that is, how you see yourself.

Now, this is the really important part of what I have to say. Your self-image---actually, you have a multitude of self-images in your mind---is not the real person that you are. These self-images, although quite persistent because we choose to identify with them and hold onto them, and mistakenly believe that they are the ‘real me,’ are false and illusory. That doesn’t mean these mental images don’t exist in your mind. No, not at all. It simply means that these images are brought about by memory, and thus thought, and therefore have no separate, independent, and permanent existence in and of themselves from the real person that you are . Get the picture?

Well, I almost hear you ask, as my client did indeed ask as well, 'What can I do about this state of affairs?' The answer is---a lot.

The first thing to do is to accept that you are a ‘person’---a vital and integral part of life's self-expression. That is what you are. You are not that 'I' or 'me,' whether under the guise of your so-called 'witnessing self,' ‘transcendental self,’ or ‘ego-self’---all of which are essentially the same thing---that are nothing more than the aggregation of the hundreds and thousands of ‘I-moments’ you have manufactured in your lifetime. Nor are you any of the other false selves with which you habitually identify (and thereby perptuate) and which you mistakenly believe to be the ‘real you.’ However, the reality is that this supposed 'real you' is nothing but (to use the words of the Indian spiritual philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti [pictured above left]) 'self-centred activity, the self that is always asserting, the self that demands fulfilment, the self that perpetuates itself through identification, the self that is constantly in action and creating its own centre and therefore isolating itself.'

The second thing to do is to recognize that you are always in direct and immediate contact with internal and external reality---that is, with what is---except when you put barriers between yourself---that is, the person that in truth you are---and reality.

Once you have fully accepted that fact, you can start to live differently. To do that, you need to observe life as if there were no observer. A familiar theme of the Indian spiritual philosopher Krishnamurti was the need for observation 'without the observer.' Why? Because where there is an 'observer' there is a conditioned mind and a conditioned point of view. In other words, where there is an observer, there is a distorting lens which experiences, processes and interprets---and distorts---all that happens in our lives through an amalgam of thoughts, feelings, images, memories, beliefs, opinions, prejudices and biases---all of which is the past and for the most part conditioning. And for goodness’ sake never, never, never try to ‘throw out the window’ or directly expel your ‘false selves.’ That will only drive them more deeply into your mind. ‘What you resist, persists,’ as the saying goes.

I offer no methods or techniques (heaven forbid) for getting rid of your false selves, except to say that self-observation is the key to successful living. It is the ‘handle’ by which you become and live from the reality of your ‘True Being,’ that is, the person that you are. I love these oft-cited words from author P D Ouspensky (In Search of the Miraculous), who is quoting his teacher George Gurdjieff [pictured below right]:

'Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes, He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening. By observing himself he throws, as it were, a ray of light onto his inner processes which have hitherto worked in complete darkness. And under the influence of this light the processes themselves begin to change.'

You cannot change or reform your false selves, but there is no need to do so in any event. What needs to be done is to ‘dissolve’ your false selves. The first thing to do is to understand the process (an unfortunate word, for it makes it all sound far too mechanical) of formation of the false self/selves. The next thing to do, and keep on doing, that is, practising each day and throughout each day, is self-observation---letting it (whatever it may be) be as it is in you, but being willing for it to move and change.

Self-observation of your thoughts, feelings, and actions as they arise or occur---if undertaken with passive detachment and choiceless awareness (that is, with no judgment, justification, analysis, attitude, comment, interpretation, interference, criticism, or condemnation) of what unfolds as your inner and outer reality from one moment to the next---will in time break down your identification with your false selves as a result of the insight gained from the process of self-observation itself. When you truly observe the process of your thinking, and cease being ‘an observer apart from the observed’ (to use Krishnamurti’s words), which means you see the whole movement of your thoughts, and your feelings, as well as your actions, choicelessly in the sense explained above, then the very act of self-observation puts an end to thought. The result? The false selves are dissolved because they are simply the creation of thought, habits of thought, and conditioning---all of them thought. No thought, no false selves---and over time a psychological mutation occurs that is of tremendous depth and profundity. You have become a light unto yourself. Yes, it’s a wondrous thing to behold. Self-change from self-knowledge from self-observation. (Note. The reference to 'self' in the expressions 'self-change' and 'self-knowledge' is a reference to what we actually are as persons among persons. As to the expression 'self-observation,' the word 'self' has an expanded meaning as described above.)

In some spiritual traditions this whole process is referred to as ‘surrender’ or ‘letting go,’ with the idea that there needs to be a re-surrender and further letting-go whenever one becomes aware of something---in particular, some false self---that is holding us back from fully being the real person that we are. It doesn’t matter what you call it. The only important thing is that you dissolve your false selves through ongoing---yes, it must be undertaken on a progressive basis---self-observation.