Issue 23: Focus On Superwellbeing
"the ceiling of how good life can be is so much higher than I was told was possible" - Nick Cammarata
If you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to enter a state of panic, you know how fear can build on top of itself to create a state which is literally intolerable. But did you realize that the same dynamic of a feedback loop of emotion can go the other way: into pure joy? This is the essence of the meditation practice known as the jhānas.
And what’s more, practitioners say that there are distinct stages to the process of discovering the jhānas which are relatively consistent and can be identified. If you’re feeling a certain thing, you are in jhāna 2, or 7, or whichever it may be.
Psychotherapy, in general, seeks to take people out of a sub-optimal state and return them to ‘normal’, i.e. more or less the same as everyone else. But, as you may have noticed, everyone else is really not that happy. In fact I’m sure you know many people in your life who are, while maybe not suicidally distressed, perpetually angry, disappointed, cynical, complaining; terminally sad and unfulfilled. The upper end of these sorts of states of mind is within what is considered ‘normal’.
But what if we could instead get used to states which were way above the ‘normal’? Teach people techniques to heal their personal and generational trauma, feel their pain, be at home in their own skin and their own lives… AND THEN teach them how to feel amazing, connected, orgasmic, compassionate, overflowing, blissful…? This is what is referred to in some of the linked articles in this issue as ‘Superwellbeing’. And it is possible, so why don’t we do it? We may have to let go of who we thought we were, and face some tricky moments of self-realization, but the key is: Superwellbeing is worth it! It’s a cliché, but an additional benefit is: when we turn on our own light, it helps others to turn theirs on too.
Table of Contents
Links
A Meeting of MINDS - Dr. Bruce Damer
There's Finally a Psychedelic Caucus in Congress—Here's What They're Doing
The Benefits of Self-Soothing Touch: A New Study
Consciousness As Recursive Reflections - by Scott Alexander
Exploring Co-Dependent Arising and Enlightenment with Frank Yang and Pippa
Scientists Are Researching a Device That Can Induce Lucid Dreams on Demand
Robot Controlled by a King Oyster Mushroom: Blending Living Organisms and Machines
Altering Consciousness with Advanced Meditation | Scientific American
Technological Metamodernism with Stephen Reid
ismy.blue: Discover Your Perception of Color
Focus On: Superwellbeing
Manufacturing Bliss
How to do the jhanas
Tuesday brunch: reaching the first Jhana - by Jules Evans
Neural Annealing: Toward a Neural Theory of Everything – Opentheory.net
What if you could have a panic attack, but for joy?
Simple instructions on how to enter the first jhāna
Dharma Seed - Creative Samadhi
Jhourney’s “super secret” master plan
Nuggets From The Archive
Lizard Brained Fuck Monkeys and the Path to Enlightenment
Oneness Is Real. And So Are You
The Awful Norm: What Patriarchy Has Done to Everyday Sex — The Dirt
What Is Consciousness? Insights from Richard Smoley
Werner Herzog: Wheel of Time
Events
How Our Heart Shapes the World
Online. Wed 2nd Oct 2024, 7pm – Wed 6th Nov 2024, 9pm BST
This 6-week course presented by Adventures In Awareness will explore some of the ways that ‘metta’, or loving kindness can be developed through meditation and visualization. The course is by donation.
“Metta functions … to transform our way of seeing, to transform something in the very way we feel and perceive the world and our existence.” - Rob Burbea
Centering in Stability: Maturity in Moments of Crisis
Online. October 8. 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm (CEST)
This class will be hosted by Kristen Timmer of Thomas Hübl’s Pocket Project, and will discuss how to remain calm and centered in a crisis, despite possibly never having been given the tools to do so during our upbringing.
Links
A Meeting of MINDS - Dr. Bruce Damer
As Alexander Beiner highlighted recently in our Future of Consciousness seminar, this gathering of thinkers and experts in the field of psychedelics and consciousness (including him) - named MINDS - has highlighted the potential for these substances to facilitate not only profound insights and personal growth but particularly ‘outsights’: new ideas for solving wicked problems in the real world. The MINDS meeting brought together individuals from various disciplines, including neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology, who shared their perspectives on the nature of consciousness and the role that psychedelics can play in expanding our understanding of it.
There's Finally a Psychedelic Caucus in Congress—Here's What They're Doing
The Psychedelic Caucus is a group of US politicians who are pushing to end the prohibition on psychedelics and explore their potential therapeutic benefits. Led by California Senator Scott Wiener, the caucus aims to raise awareness about the scientific evidence supporting the medical use of psychedelics for conditions such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Members plan to introduce legislation that would reschedule certain psychedelics, making them available for research and potentially for medical use, and to promote education and outreach on the topic. By normalizing the discussion around psychedelics, the caucus hopes to continue the national conversation about mental health and treatment options.
The surprising benefits of self-soothing touch | BBC Global
A new study highlights the benefits of self-soothing touch, demonstrating that participants who practiced this technique for just 20 seconds had significantly lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol compared to a control group, despite their self-reported stress levels remaining unchanged. The practice involved placing hands over the heart and belly, thinking kind thoughts, and sending feelings of warmth and kindness to oneself, particularly while reflecting on recent mistakes. This micropractice combines self-compassionate thinking with touch, helping individuals to self-regulate and reduce stress.
Consciousness As Recursive Reflections - by Scott Alexander
Scott Alexander, best known for his seminal ‘Meditations On Moloch’ essay, explores the concept of consciousness as a series of recursive reflections, with each level building upon the previous one to create a complex and self-referential system. According to this idea, conscious experience arises from the interactions between different levels of processing, from basic sensory inputs to higher-level abstractions and interpretations. This perspective suggests that consciousness is not a single entity or property, but rather an emergent phenomenon that arises from the recursive relationships between these different levels, creating a dynamic and constantly shifting landscape of self-awareness and perception.
ON REINCARNATION (How To Dissolve 'Bad Karma') @ Tulum MEXICO
Related to the idea of consciousness building up as a series of recursive feedback loops, Frank Yang explores in his inimitable style the Buddhist concept of ‘co-dependent arising’. This essentially means that everything is empty and derives its apparent existence from the relative context in which it is perceived. The deep realization of this ultimately leads to freedom from clinging to any thought or sensation… what is known as ‘enlightenment’. He and Pippa also talk about reincarnation and the jhānas.
Scientists Are Researching a Device That Can Induce Lucid Dreams on Demand
A startup is developing a device - the Halo - that uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and electroencephalography (EEG) to induce lucid dreams on demand. The goal is to create a device that can stimulate the brain's default mode network, allowing users to become aware of their dream state and potentially gain control over their thoughts and actions while dreaming. By combining tDCS with EEG, researchers aim to pinpoint specific regions of the brain responsible for inducing lucidity and manipulate them in real-time. “Recreationally, it’s the ultimate VR experience. You can fly, you can make a building rise out of the ground, you can talk to dream characters, and you can explore.” He didn’t mention the other thing, but we can use our imaginations I suppose…
Robot controlled by a king oyster mushroom blends living organisms and machines
Scientists have developed a biohybrid robot that combines living fungus with robotic components to create a new type of machine. The device, which resembles a mushroom, uses mycelium - the vegetative part of a fungus - as its "muscle" to move and interact with its environment. This innovative design allows the robot to adapt to changing conditions and respond to stimuli in a way that is not possible for traditional robots. The creation of such biohybrid machines could have significant implications for fields like search and rescue, environmental monitoring, and even healthcare, where their ability to navigate and interact with complex environments could be valuable.
Altering Consciousness with Advanced Meditation | Scientific American
Researchers at the Meditation Research Program at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Hospital are using advanced forms of meditation to alter consciousness and explore its neural basis. By combining techniques like transcendental meditation, mindfulness, and sensory deprivation with neuroimaging tools such as fMRI and EEG, scientists can gain insights into how the brain changes during these states. One study found that experienced meditators showed increased activity in areas associated with attention and decreased activity in regions linked to self-referential thinking, suggesting a shift towards a more unified and expansive sense of consciousness. These findings have implications for our understanding of consciousness and potentially offer new approaches to treating conditions like anxiety and depression.
Technological Metamodernism with Stephen Reid
On this episode of the Buddhist Geeks podcast, Vince Horn discusses with Stephen Reid how Buddhist practice can address our contemporary crises through a blend of contemplative and ethical action. They explore how meditation, right action, and ethics form a continuous cycle of practice that adapts to changing life conditions. The conversation goes into Transparent Generosity, Open Source Dharma, and adopting Holacracy for organizational practice. Vince also highlights EcoDharma, which addresses the ecological crisis, and Integral Dharma, which integrates various modern perspectives to deepen practice and its application in the real world.
ismy.blue
Remember that famous meme, The Dress, where nobody could agree what color it was? Well this is a more scientific version of that idea; an app using which you can see where on the spectrum of people who have taken the test you fall in terms of where you delineate blue and green. It’s easier to do it than explain it, so just check it out!
Focus On: Superwellbeing
Manufacturing Bliss
Nadia Asparouhova goes into the ancient and modern history of the jhānas, and how a growing community in the Bay Area is exploring this meditation technique that promises transformative mental states without external substances. Originating from Buddhism, jhanas are eight states of consciousness that can induce blissful experiences which range from euphoria to peacefulness. Historically reserved for advanced meditators, jhanas have seen a revival, and the practice has gained traction among technologists and meditation enthusiasts, with companies like Jhourney offering retreats to teach these techniques. Despite skepticism and limited scientific research, early studies suggest jhanas may alter brain activity similarly to psychedelics. Jhourney's retreats report high success rates in achieving jhanic states, suggesting these blissful experiences might be more accessible than previously thought.
How to do the jhanas
Here Nadia Asparouhova shares her inspiring personal journey with the jhānas; how she got into them, how she reached each one with different flavors of meditation or concentration, and what the effects on her life have been since doing all that.
Tuesday brunch: reaching the first Jhana - by Jules Evans
Jules Evans shares his conversation with renowned meditation teacher Daniel Ingram on the jhānas. “With more attention, these things get stronger, generally. It's not just secluding the mind and concentrating. It's actively nourishing positive qualities, figuring out how to amplify them.”
Neural Annealing: Toward a Neural Theory of Everything – Opentheory.net
“Annealing involves heating a metal above its recrystallization temperature, keeping it there for long enough for the microstructure of the metal to reach equilibrium, then slowly cooling it down, letting new patterns crystallize. This releases the internal stresses of the material”. Neuroscientists are exploring a new approach to understanding the human brain and consciousness called ‘neural annealing’, which seeks to develop a comprehensive theory that explains how the brain processes information—and, as in the annealing of metals—how to release its internal stresses. This framework proposes that the brain is not simply a collection of individual neurons, but rather a complex system that undergoes continuous reorganization and adaptation through a process known as neural annealing.
What if you could have a panic attack, but for joy?
More background on the jhānas. Neuroscientific research reveals distinct brain activity patterns during jhānic states, suggesting a reduction in 'top-down processing' that allows for a more direct experience of sensory input. Despite growing accessibility through programs like Jhourney, practitioners emphasize that jhānas require dedication and are not a quick fix. The practice challenges our understanding of consciousness and reality, offering insights into the human mind's vast potential and inviting further exploration of these powerful meditative techniques.
How to Jhana — with Michael Taft
Simple instructions on how to enter the first jhāna from meditation teacher Taft. Give it a try and let us know in the comments here how you got on?
Dharma Seed - Creative Samadhi
The late, and very influential, meditation teacher Rob Burbea on the jhānas, transcript here.
Jhourney’s “super secret” master plan
Jhourney is a company (not affiliated with The Elevator, although we might be up for them sponsoring us) which is hosting online and offline meditation retreats and the starting point for many people’s ‘jhana journey’ (hence the name). This is their ‘secret’ plan for scaling ‘superwellbeing’.
Nuggets From The Archive
Lizard Brained Fuck Monkeys and the Path to Enlightenment
This is a brutally honest essay about polyamory and neo-tantra in the West. What people say, and what actually ends up happening, in these communities are very often two different things. The points ‘Higherogamy’ makes are valuable because he has clearly had extensive direct experience of practicing tantra and polyamory, and is coming at them not from a cynical ‘this can never work’ perspective, but from a more conscious view where he knows what it takes for one’s words and actions to be coherent.
Oneness is Real & So Are YOU! 😱
Jessica Nathanson from The Glorious Both-And discusses with author Tim Freke the harm done by non-dual teachings when they insist that ‘the individual’ has to be ignored, or even done away with completely. They agree that it is possible to be able to connect at will with the reality of non-duality without having to give up one’s precious individual qualities.
The Awful Norm: What Patriarchy Has Done to Everyday Sex — The Dirt
Rosalind Atkinson is someone well worth following on Twitter. She’s a yoga teacher who regularly posts insightful nuggets well outside the cliched fare of most social media spirituality. Here she goes into more depth about the harsh reality of what patriarchal attitudes have done to kill the sensitivity around sensual and sexual relating which should be our birthright. “I now believe all of this is a normal response to trauma — the trauma of ‘normal,’ more-or-less aggressive sex. And yes, I’m talking about innocent teenage relationships with lovely men, right through. Women aren’t ‘less into sex.’ We’re just less into sex that is really not that great for us — and not really even about us.” Everyone who wants to genuinely make love should read this.
What Is Consciousness?
Richard Smoley, one of the speakers in our Future of Consciousness seminar, unfolds his theory of consciousness, its complex nature and the challenges in defining it scientifically. He discusses various theories, including those proposed by neuroscientists, religions and philosophers, highlighting the difficulty in pinpointing the exact relationship between brain activity and conscious experience. His definition ultimately lands on “consciousness is the capacity to relate self and other”, yet from this simple starting point, goes way deeper, and his reflections are well worth considering.
Wheel of Time | Buddhist Documentary | Werner Herzog
The classic 2003 documentary by Werner Herzog, missing from YouTube for a long time, is now available again. It highlights the Kalachakra sand mandala created for the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra initiation: the creation of the intricate artwork which is then summarily swept away back into nothingness in order to emphasize the Buddhist notion of impermanence.
 | A guest post by
|