And where is Drako? I'm trying to go...
Okay.
So, actually, this is not a good idea. I need... Sorry, I'm, uh, I like to have this part nice.
Sure.
So that we get a good shot.
One more perfection.
And do we want the area exactly at my time?
I'm sorry, what was that?
Did you hear me? Do we go on the air exactly at 8 o'clock my time in one minute?
Yeah, we can, uh, we're actually on air?
Uh, yeah, it's flexible, just whenever we want to start.
We're already on the air?
Yes, yes.
I got it. Okay, good.
Okay.
So, I think this is a good setup for me.
Um, I'm going to be back in just a second.
And we'll start up.
Great.
Yes, of course.
It's recorded, right?
Uh, what do you mean, recorded?
That Skype chat.
No, you can't record it.
You can.
On Skype?
Yeah, no.
Skype for business, yeah.
We haven't been.
Maybe we can ask to record a few more.
Because I think, uh, he's expecting it to be recorded.
Do you want to put the camera here?
Yeah, maybe we can.
Yeah, yeah.
Thanks.
Yeah, when he says on the air, it's where he's thinking that we are showing this to
other people as well at the same time.
Yeah.
Not just us.
I think so.
We can start recording.
Okay, great.
Oh, you can record.
I always thought you can.
I never used Skype.
Yeah, if we can record, we don't need this camera now.
Yeah, I think so.
I don't, um, we might need both.
I mean, just, just in case.
Yeah.
So, in theory.
Well, if we record this, we might as well record ourselves here.
Oh, yeah.
It's recording?
Let's do that.
It's recording, no?
Um, I'm not sure.
It is now.
It should be.
Okay, is it?
It's the red line.
Oh, yeah, it's true.
Yeah, it is.
Cool.
The red line you see in the corner and the timer.
Yeah.
You see?
Stop recording.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
20 seconds.
30.
Cool.
But we still did the full screen.
Oh, yeah.
Stop recording.
Who is there?
Animal.
Wow.
So, that's done.
Then let, let, uh, Matija record us then.
What do you think?
Us.
Yes.
Okay.
I think Zdravko slept because he's not picking call.
Shall we wake him?
Maybe it's good for him.
No, I think it's fine.
Okay.
So, making good knock on his door.
But, uh, he has a nice question.
Do you remember his question about the nightmare?
About the, yeah, about the code.
Uh, okay.
Okay.
Great.
How are you?
I am terrific.
I'm just gonna put a clock here.
So, I'll have a general idea of what time it is.
And, uh, it's great to see all you beautiful people in front of me.
And, uh, I am going to get to do the thing I most like to do, which is, uh, talk to people
about mindfulness.
So, just whatever questions you want, feel free.
Great.
Thank you.
Yeah, we're wondering, first of all, how you're,
your how you usually start your morning and what maybe morning routine you have in terms of
allowing yourself to go through the stress or stressful day without actually being involved
in that do you have any special technique or practice that helps you with it well what i do
do is um something that i call the asia algorithm that's an acronym a s i a
so is this going to be interpreted of from english into slovene
or are we are we going in english everything english in english yeah everything in english
okay great i didn't realize that was the concept
when i broadcast to russia we translate uh everything uh do you know victor shiriayev
Yes, yes, we know him. Yeah, so when I do programs with Victor, it takes a long time because he translates, but you're saying we're going to go in English then. Good, that will give me more time, but also I'm going to try to speak slowly and in small sentences.
So there is a procedure that you can use to make sure that your day is mindful.
Now I'm going to define mindful as being a kind of awareness when you are
concentrated, sensorially clear, and you have equanimity. Then we'll say that you're having
an experience mindfully. So concentration power is the ability to focus on what you want to.
Sensory clarity is the ability to keep track of what's going on, what's on the inside, what's on the outside, what's visual, what's auditory, what's body.
Keeping track, inner or outer activation, rest states related to see, hear, feel.
If we put smell and taste under body, that's sort of our whole sensory experience.
So the ability to know what you're experiencing with clarity, that's an important awareness skill.
So concentration, power, the ability to focus on what you want to focus on.
Sensory clarity, the ability to untangle the strands of experience, what's visual, what's auditory, what's somatic, what's inner, what's outer, and so forth.
And then there's a quality that I call equanimity, which is the ability to let the senses operate without self-interference.
So as equanimity goes up.
Inner friction goes down.
Or another way to put it is equanimity is the inverse of self-conflict.
So when you bring those three skills simultaneously to a given sensory experience, then we say you're being mindful.
So.
There is a way to structure mindfulness during the day.
So you ask me, what can I do or what can any other person do to make sure I'll be mindful today?
So the first thing is try to, as soon as you wake up, strategize about or I'm sorry, analyze the day to come.
situations for example today my first situation was take a shower my second situation was answer
some emails my third situation was do this program my after this I have to go to the bank
after that I have to go to my lab where we're doing research at the University so this is a
seek I'm sort of analyzing the day into situations and then the next step is and this is as soon as
good
part is Why is it looking like this? Some bad connection We
we don't hear you oh we don't hear you do you hear
you
recording maybe it will just when uh when our connection got broke you can uh pass yeah
Did you sleep well? Excellent. So let's call back.
Just look around. It's like at that moment when you know he's gonna say something interesting. Yeah.
And you know it's like this. Surprise!
Who's using the internet? I'm not using it. I switched off.
Hi. Hi there.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
yes I can arrange for you to see me I think
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Well, I guess.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Sorry, go ahead.
If you lose my audio, then I suggest we turn off the video so that it may be a bandwidth issue here, but it sounds like we're okay now, right?
Yeah.
Oh.
Maybe it's not about the recording. Do you think it's recording?
No.
No, it's not recording. It's the bandit.
And maybe it's in his place, what he said. We don't hear you. No. Stop our video. ...for Wi-Fi. Hm? No, stop our video. ...here, the worst place for Wi-Fi. Click on the camera. ...mother, mother, open the side of this building.
Alright, let's see.
But do you see that our Wi-Fi connection is strong on your laptop?
Mike?
It's strong enough.
Maybe we can try from the phone?
Yeah, I think that's gonna be better.
What do you mean from the phone?
Call from the phone.
Okay, I have my camera off.
Can you hear me okay?
Yes.
So let's try audio for now.
Okay.
Yeah.
Sorry about that.
Not sure what the problem is.
Are you having an okay signal on your end?
We think so.
Well, mine sure is.
Mine shows okay also.
So let's try it this way and we'll see how it goes.
Okay, great.
So I began by defining mindful awareness, three skills working together, concentration,
clarity, equanimity.
Now, the way you develop these skills is by doing mindful awareness techniques.
For example, Ivana, you were at the retreat and you learned see, hear, feel and a bunch
of other techniques.
Each of those techniques in general will develop concentration, clarity and equanimity.
So if you do an exercise, physical exercise, you'll find that you're able to do both.
You'll find that your strength, endurance and flexibility increase.
The result of exercise changes the fabric of body.
Well, the result of physical exercise changes the fabric of the physical body.
And the result of mindfulness, or we could call it meditation exercise, changes the fabric
is that it
of the body.
It increases the strength of attention.
And just as body health has these three aspects, strength, endurance, flexibility, attentional
health has three aspects.
You're strong in terms of your mind power.
If you have concentration, sensory
clarity, and equanimity.
Equanimity means you don't waste energy fighting with yourself.
Concentration means you can focus on what you want to focus on.
And clarity means you're not overwhelmed if too much is going on all at once because you've
trained yourself to track what part is see, what part is hear, what part is feel, and
so forth.
So to develop these basic mindfulness skills, you need to do mindfulness techniques.
But a mindfulness technique has another side to it.
It can also serve as a strategy.
In a certain life situation, I can apply this technique while I'm in that situation.
And it can help me deal with that situation in one way or another.
So each mindfulness technique has two mechanisms.
One is the ability to apply it helps with happiness.
On one hand, every technique develops concentration, clarity, equanimity.
So it elevates your base level of mind strength or attention strength.
On the other hand, the different techniques have you focus on different things and focus
in different ways.
and those focusing on different things and in different ways serves as a strategy for dealing with life situations.
So in order to understand how to be mindful during the day, you have to first understand what mindfulness is.
We explained that.
And you also understand how mindfulness is developed.
Well, you do techniques that increase your base level of concentration, clarity, equanimity.
But any of those techniques can also be looked upon as a strategy to deal with a life situation.
So at the beginning of the day,
now I'm getting back to your original question.
The original question is, what do I do in the morning to assure a mindful day?
Well, I do what anyone can do.
First, I analyze the day to come in terms of situations.
Some situations last a long time.
Some are a short time.
Some are.
Some are complicated.
Some are simple.
Some are pleasant.
Some are unpleasant.
Some are a mixture of both.
Some are neutral.
So I look at all the situations that will happen from this moment when I opened my eyes to the moment when I close my eyes tonight to go to sleep.
Among those situations, I decide.
In which situations am I going to do intentional mindfulness technique?
It's for most people not reasonable to keep a mindfulness technique intentionally going all day.
But in some of life situations, you should do.
An intentional technique.
At least a little bit each day.
So I decide where I'm going to put intentional techniques.
Usually that means at least 10 minutes in the morning early when I just do pure formal practice of some sort.
So that's my formal practice situation.
Then there'll be other situations in the day.
For example, in order what comes right now, I'm giving a presentation.
I'm not implementing an intentional technique during this presentation.
I'm just giving
the presentation. But when I'm done, I'm going to walk to the bank. That walk will take me a half hour. I'm going to do an intentional meditation technique during that walk.
After that, I'm going to ride to the lab. During that bus ride to the lab, I'm also going to do an intentional technique.
When I arrive at the lab, I'm going to be talking to other colleagues in our group.
I'm going to do micro hits of feel good, which is like focusing on the pleasant emotion of being with those people.
When I'm done with the lab meeting, I'm coming back here and I'm doing some research.
I won't be doing an intentional technique at that time.
So, you can see what I'm doing. I'm analyzing the day into situations.
Then I decide in which situations I'm going to intentionally meditate.
Usually it's simple situations like taking a walk or enjoying being friendly with other people.
Let me ask you, has my signal been okay?
Yes, we hear everything very well.
So, do you want to take a chance and go to audio, to video or just keep with what we've got?
Let's try.
Okay, we turned on our video.
Okay, and if you lose me, then we'll just have to go back to the video.
But you'll recall and we'll go back to audio only.
So, you analyze the day in terms of situations.
Then you strategize in which situation are you going to do intentional practice and what technique.
And the technique will often be a strategy that's good for that situation.
For example, when I'm with coworkers and we're talking, we're going to have lunch.
We're going to discuss things.
It makes sense that I would be radiating loving kindness to everyone in the background as an intentional technique.
When I do a walk, everything is very simple.
So, usually I'm doing, I'm focusing on expansion and contraction as my technique,
which is actually a very deep and demanding technique relating to flow of a certain sort.
Usually I'm focusing on that in the simple situation of doing walking.
And so, then at the end of the day, so you strategize.
And then still at the beginning of the day, you sort of motivate yourself.
Here's why you remember why it's important at least occasionally during the day while I'm moving,
while I'm doing something that's an action.
So, I'm not just doing it for the sake of life.
I've also got some intentional practice that I'm bringing into my ordinary life.
So, I motivate myself and that's inspire, A-S-I, I for inspire.
And then at the end of the day, the final A of A-S-I-A or Asia is I assess.
What did I follow through on in terms of strategies?
Which ones did I actually do?
What was the effect?
What can I do better tomorrow?
Or how do I want to build on this tomorrow, etc.
That's how you can end the day just as you're going to sleep.
If each day you go through the procedure upon waking, analyze the day, then, I'm sorry,
analyze the day, then strategize what techniques in what mode of practice, formal, informal,
what's the focus range, what's the instruction set.
These are the dimensions that determine a technique.
So, what technique in which situation and then like here's why I want to do that.
Here's what I learned yesterday.
Here's what I hope to learn today.
Inspire.
Look back.
Assess.
And then you're set to build for the next day.
Those four steps.
If a person does them every day, that
will guarantee that they have a component of practice that I call life practice.
If they also do occasional retreats, then they have the pillar called retreat practice.
And if you have those two pillars, plus you're able to get support and understand about giving support,
then you have all of the four pillars of mindfulness practice.
And it will be highly likely that you will be not 10% happier, but by the end of your life,
10 times happier than you could have been otherwise.
So long answer to a short question.
Amazing answer. I think that's a life strategy.
Actually, how to really improve the life happiness in the long run.
So, yeah, I'm impressed, actually.
Yeah, that's absolutely fantastic.
I was wondering, what do you think stress is in the brain?
Wow.
That is a science.
It is also maybe a speculative question.
Right.
So, a science answer to that, I am not prepared to give,
because I would have to look at the different ways in which,
stress is defined in neuroscience.
And, you know, this is very interesting, because very seldom do I get asked a question that is a new question for me.
I almost always get asked a question that I've been asked a hundred times.
So I have very facile answers, as you saw.
Right.
All you have to do is like, press the button and I'm off.
I'm a, I don't know if you could see, but it says magic robot.
Oh, okay.
Fantastic.
So you just turn him on and he'll give you these answers.
And he's a robot and he's magic, because he's studied for decades and decades.
He's a nice guy.
Um, that's my magic robot.
But this is a new question that I don't have a robot for.
All right.
And I will therefore have to investigate it because mindfulness-based stress reduction, MBSR, is the other main school of modern mindfulness besides my system.
MBSR and my system, Unified Mindfulness, are both modern mindfulness.
We're both developed interacting with science.
And because John has used stress in the name of his program, I would have to see how science has decided to define stress.
And so I would not give an answer to what is stress in the brain without doing some more research, actually.
But now you've inspired me to do that research.
I think I can answer you in a speculative way.
Please.
By that I mean I can look at my own experience, look at things that I would say are stress, and then sort of give you a subjective view of what might be going on there.
So let me see what I would come up with.
It seems to me that one component of stress, whenever we would say someone is under stress, we would say that they are having an unpleasant experience of their mind and their body.
So one thing we can say about stress.
I think is that it's a specific instance of an unpleasant mind-body
state.
So that's stress as a sensory experience.
Then there, whenever we think about stress, I think we not only are aware that it can
be a sensory experience, but we may be thinking about what causes the stress.
And I think those are called stressors.
So there might be external circumstances that trigger this unpleasant sensory event of stress.
So obviously one way to reduce stress is to change the external stressors.
So you reduce those.
that uncomfortable experience of being stressed.
But I would say that another way to reduce stress is through having equanimity with that uncomfortable sensory experience.
Because I think that the perceived suffering that you get from that uncomfortable sensory mind-body state is not a function only of the external stressors.
It's also a function of how much you fight with the sensory event of stress.
So by training yourself.
To fight, not fight, with the mental image, mental talk, emotional body sensation, and physical body sensation.
Those are the four components, sensory components, that potentially are present when you're having the experience of stress.
So an external circumstance.
Can cause stress.
However, if you have the equanimity skill and you don't fight with the mental image, mental talk, physical body sensations, and emotional body sensations of the stress.
Then that stress experience will cause you less and less suffering.
And equanimity is to the consciousness engine as oil is to the engine in your automobile.
So when you lubricate the automobile, it has two effects.
It reduces unnecessary heat and it frees up energy that is wasted in friction that is dissipated.
It saves on your use of fuel because you're using the fuel more efficiently.
So I would say analogously, when you bring the skill of equanimity,
to the mind-body state of stress, then that stress causes less suffering.
And also does not waste life energy.
Because remember, equanimity is the reciprocal or inverse of
stress.
So when you bring the skill of equanimity to the mind-body state of stress,
then you are bringing the self-interference or the piston grinding against the cylinder friction
in the consciousness engine.
So when you bring equanimity to the actual mind-body state of being stressed, as opposed
to which is a sensory experience, which is in contrast to the objective circumstances
that create the stress.
Which could be circumstances in the world or your health circumstances.
Your body can be stressed because of lifestyle decisions you've made and so forth.
So what happens then is, since
the equanimity is like lubricating the engine, it has the same two effects as oil in an automobile.
The first effect is less wasted energy dissipated, so more efficient use of life fuel.
And the second effect is reduction of heating of the engine.
Now what happens if the engine heats, it doesn't function well, and if it heats too much, it actually gets damaged.
Well, it turns out that when you have a mind-body experience of stress, and you don't have equanimity, there's a lot of suffering there.
And that's analogous to heat.
And that suffering means that you will respond to the heat.
Less effectively.
Your decisions and actions will be sub-optimal, because they're distorted by this heat.
And if the heat is bad enough, if a person suffers enough from stress, it will actually warp the engine.
They will actually become permanently damaged as a human being.
Less able to function.
Less able to function in the world.
People can be damaged forever by stress.
Well, not forever.
It can be repaired with mindfulness.
Everything can be repaired eventually.
But I would say that it's important to distinguish external reality or ground truth that may be causing the stress.
From the sensory event of mental image, mental talk, physical sensation, and emotional sensation.
That combination creates the mind-body experience, or body-mind experience, of being stressed.
If you bring equanimity to that experience, it will reduce the suffering and free up energy.
The reduction of suffering is good for you.
And the freeing up of energy is also good for you.
The reduction of suffering and the freeing up of energy is also good for others.
Because reduction of suffering means less distortion in your thoughts and actions.
So more skillful action in the world.
And the freeing up of energy, energy that's been bound up in friction,
is free for action because you've reduced inner friction through the mindfulness component called equanimity.
That energy is now available to take action.
Appropriate action in the world.
So action is a vector.
There's a direction.
My action is in this direction.
And there's a magnitude.
How much force am I exerting in this direction?
And how much force is there in a given direction?
Is an action.
We want to make sure that the action is the right direction.
And has enough force behind it.
So equanimity with the stress makes it likely that your response to the source of the stress
will be both more skillfully directed and more powerful.
More skillfully directed because there's not the distorting heat of suffering.
It's just a sensory event.
You're not as enmeshed in it as most people would be.
And then energy is now freed up.
So both the direction and the clout, the force of your action to deal with the stress
is likely to be improved by the equanimity skill.
So now I've given you a speculative answer.
What is stress?
And also a mechanism based on mindfulness for dealing with stress.
Your question though was a science question.
What is stress in the brain?
So if we follow the formulation, the speculative formulation that I just gave you,
then stress in
the brain is essentially lack of equanimity.
So then non-stress asks the question, what in the brain is equanimity?
And the answer is, no one knows.
But we're trying to find out in my lab, the SEMA lab at the University of Arizona, that
is one of the markers we're looking for.
We're trying to find, is there something we can identify in the nervous system that shows
when you're in a state of equanimity?
And if we can find that, I mean really find that, and prove it, and then make clinical
applications from that, we will be the first team that gets both the Nobel Prize for Physiology
or Medicine, and the Nobel Prize for Peace for exactly the same achievement.
So that would be pretty big in history.
Other labs are looking into this.
If I were to make a guess based on what I know so far, and once again this is a guess,
you can't hold me to it, I would say that equanimity may have something to do with the
ability of the different brain systems to be able to identify the different types of
sensory three circuits to interpenetrate without interfering. So do any of you play the drums? Anyone in that room play the drums? No. Any drum players? I have a little bit. I have, say what? Just a little bit.
things.
Okay, so professional drummers that I know talk about something called four limb independence.
It means they can move their right hand, their left hand, their right foot, and their left
foot without any interference between them.
They can all do completely different things, as though they're on autopilot.
But they're able to interpenetrate to make perfect decisions.
They can play perfect music, but there's no subtle interference between the different
limbs.
So you can try just two limbs on your left, even that is very difficult.
So we know in the motor circuitry that certain individuals through a combination of genes
and training are able to get to the right thing.
So we can use motor circuits to function in a way that they rhythmically, beautifully
interpenetrate, but there's no interference, there's no wasted energy from the right arm
fighting with the left arm.
So it is possible, it is plausible that the inner and outer visual circuits, the outer
visual circuits subtend.
Or create external sight.
The inner visual circuits create visual thought, mental image.
You have also outer and inner auditory circuits, physical sound, mental talk.
Metaphorically, you have the physicality of the body, but you also have the limbic system
which causes emotional type body sensations.
That's the limbic brain.
So you have metaphorically and sort of, you know, you can't do anything about it, but
you have an inner and outer feel systems in the body.
So if we just take those six systems, putting smell and taste under feel out maybe.
It's possible that if we were to look at the four limbs in a professional musician operating
interpenetrating without interference and then we would look at the see hear feel circuits
of say a formula.
50 or 60 or 70 year meditation master we might find that there's an analogy there
and therefore we found the neuronal signature of equanimity or
inter interpenetrating without interfering um you heard this idea here first no human being
has
ever spoken these words in public. It's something that we can be, we'll be looking into here, but we're not the only lab that's trying to find out the, the neural signature of what we might call the solution to stress, which is equanimity. So once again, long answer to a short question.
That's a wonderful answer. That's so good.
So we probably have time for a couple more, right? It's a one hour program, is that correct?
Yeah, go ahead.
I have more, but I want to open the floor.
Yeah, let's ask the question that we had about the, what?
Enlightenment.
No, the code. The code.
The code about enlightenment.
Oh, and then...
It wasn't about enlightenment.
It was about enlightenment in science, in modern science.
About what?
I think you can't...
Back in the day, it was about enlightenment in modern science.
Oh yeah, why you cannot get enlightenment without knowing the science.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
That's a good quote.
What is it?
So we're, we're thinking about your quote about how modern science might give us more
of that to reach enlightenment.
Yeah.
And yeah, just wondering, and also in your book you mention many things about sort of
applying a mathematical frame, a physical frame to the mind and to the brain to understand,
for example, suffering as a form of turbulence was one idea that I probably would have had
personally enjoyed.
Yeah, it was, that was just to give an example.
Oh.
You know, an easy example.
Not sure if it's true or not, but yeah.
I see.
Is that your intuition that it is true?
Turbulence.
So you know the joke about turbulence?
The physicist joke?
No.
About turbulence?
No.
Okay.
So, oh, who was this?
I don't know.
There's different versions of this. Let's see, so in one version the physicist dies and he goes to heaven and he meets God and God says, I'll answer two physics questions for you.
You could choose two physics questions and I'll tell you the answer.
And so the joke is the first physics question is why quantum physics?
Why, why at the fine level of space time do we get this physics that looks so different
from the meso level?
Why does, why does the micro level look so different?
so different from the meso level. At the micro level, it is, you can walk through walls.
But at the meso level, it's going to take you a long time to achieve that. Why are these
so different? That's the first question. And the second question is, what is turbulence?
And the joke is, the physicist says, I'm reasonably sure God can answer the first question.
what
That's how mysterious turbulence is. So from a real science point of view, if I could tell
you what turbulence was, if equanimity was non-turbulence, then...
Then I would get actually a clay prize, because I'd be able to probably, if I could, if you
could answer turbulence, I think you could probably answer the Navier-Stokes existence
and smoothness question, which is a million dollar mathematical question. Not entirely
sure of that.
But let's just say, if I knew what turbulence was, I would also be getting a Nobel Prize
and other prizes. So don't really know what it is.
know a little bit about it.
It makes a nice metaphor.
It's possible that it's even what's going on, that we're actually creating more laminar
flow in the energy and information in the nervous system.
But if I had to make a guess, I'm sorry, what was the question again?
Yeah, just whether your intuition was that turbulence would be a good frame for understanding
this.
Yeah, well, it's a good example, but science is science.
So it's a good metaphor, rather.
But science is not metaphors.
I can come up with endless metaphors where science seems to be similar to what happens
in mindfulness practice.
There's no end to them.
But the glory in science is not to the first person that states, that says something that's
new and important.
The glory or the credit goes to the first person that proves it.
So, I don't know.
The first person that can prove what equanimity is at a neurophysiological level will have
a major achievement.
If equanimity is laminar flow, literally, then that means that the underlying math of
the nervous system follows the first principles of conservation of energy, of energy, of energy,
and so forth, that are behind the continuity equations.
Those are the continuity equations that are behind the Navier-Stokes equations.
So, it would only be, presumably, it would only be turbulence if, in fact, the flow of
energy and information in the nervous system is a, represents a conservative field, and
I don't think it is.
I think it's a dissipative field.
So that's a different math.
The underlying math of the nervous system, oh, you've got to stop me with this, because
this is where I lose everyone.
So, my children won't let me go any further.
But let me just say that at least one important part of it is how these, the axons converge.
How they convey energy.
How the energy goes down the, the fibers.
Now, there's much, much more to the physiology of the nervous system than just how signals
go through fibers electrically.
It's entirely possible that there are other modes of communication in the nervous system,
that could be optic.
Could be pressure waves. Certainly there's the transmitter substances that are completely chemical.
But we can say this. The reaction of the signal, the electrical signal going down a fiber, is certainly an important part of how the nervous system functions.
Once you get into, really get into neuroscience, you realize the picture is much more complicated than that.
If we just look at that one thing, which certainly is significant, the underlying math of that is not the same as fluid flow modeled by Navier-Stokes.
The underlying math of that is dispersion in an active medium.
That electrical signal travels down the axon by the same physical principles.
Whereby a flame travels down a fuse.
It is propagation of flame, which is interesting because that's what the Buddha said connects life to life.
It's like one candle going out another candle.
Anyway, it is sort of interesting. That's a different math.
And that would require a different model of equanimity.
If you wanted to know my intuition,
um,
it would,
well, see,
these are complicated questions.
And I'm afraid I'm going to just lose your viewers because it's
what the hell is this guy talking about?
You asked me a highly technical question.
I will give you for the record the highly technical answer, at least it's here, and
some of this has never been, I've never discussed in a public forum, so you're drawing out of
me the cutting edge of my science hat.
But I suspect that for a wave of association to propagate subliminally below consciousness,
as that wave is propagating, it also has to get out of the way of the next wave of association.
So, if it doesn't die away quickly, then there's going to be a traffic jam, there's
going to be cross traffic for the next wave that's trying to get through.
So... I'm sorry.
Unless they can interpenetrate without interference.
That's right.
So, now, I don't know if there's a way to do that.
I know that there is an actual way that the waves can cross without interfering, but there's
an effective way whereby, if this is the first wave going this way, this wave dies out exactly
perfectly, just as this wave needs to go through.
So that the timing is absolutely perfect.
This does this, and just when this would reach it, it dies away, and this has a clear path.
So, it may have something to do with the, with unnecessary holding, so that this is still going while this is trying to cross.
And that, so, that's the way.
So, training away the unnecessary holding, so that the nervous system timing works more efficiently,
that would explain the increase in sensory clarity, because you have more information passing through,
it's not, there's not a log jam.
And that would also be related to the equanimity piece,
because they're effectively interpenetrating without interfering, even though they don't actually cross each other.
The problem is, there's more to it.
As something is spreading in the unconscious, on the surface, it's slowly coming to consciousness.
So there's actually two dimensions.
There's the dimension of spread in the unconscious, and there's the dimension of the unconscious.
And as that is growing, as the subliminal association wave is spreading,
it is simultaneously percolating up to surface awareness as a conscious experience.
As it's percolating up to the surface as a conscious experience,
the conscious mind turns back and starts to cross.
And then it starts to grab on to what's going on deep down there.
So here, I'm starting to be conscious, and this conscious is invested in pushing and pulling on the subconscious,
because it thinks it has to control things.
And that then causes interference.
The unnecessary messiness,
the messing around that the conscious mind, at its various levels, does with the subconscious,
I think that's what gets trained away.
And when a person goes into equanimity,
their surface conscious mind is learning, when it's appropriate,
not to turn back and interfere with what the subconscious is doing.
And I think that in our lab,
we may be able to show that that in fact is what's happening.
And we may be able to show that when we...
Do you still hear me?
Yeah, yes.
That when we impart a burst of ultrasound to the right circuit at the right moment,
that it, or perhaps just to the right circuit, it may not be time related, it may just be
location related.
If we disconnect a certain thing, what that does is it turns off the interference that
the surface levels are exercising on the unconscious, leaving the unconscious with functioning completely
on its own without this inappropriate interference that causes inappropriate holding that causes
a log jam in the subconscious.
If that's the case, then we will have found a relatively simple and hopefully safe, we
don't know for sure that ultrasound used in this way is safe, but hopefully safe, certainly
We will have found a relatively simple and hopefully safe way to induce perhaps profound
equanimity.
Now, if we get very, very lucky, we'll do that.
And then if we get even crazy lucky, it'll turn out that that is, creates neuroplasticity
that accelerates the acquisition of the other two skills, clarity and concentration.
Because the training you did with the artificial equanimity was so profound.
And once again, we'll get those two Nobel prizes.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
It was an amazing deep dive into understanding what is actually equanimity and what is going
on in the brain.
And as I understand, if we actually solve the questions that we discussed, we are going
to get at least three Nobel prizes and maybe some other prizes.
So my question is...
Well, I think two Nobel prizes.
One for physiology or medicine, because we discovered a new clinical mechanism.
And then one for peace, because that mechanism turned out to be strong enough to change the
course of human history for the better.
I hope that the next time we meet, we'll be able to talk about the!
kinds of things you wanted me to talk about because this is more on the
theoretical side although I think it will be very interesting to anyone that
has those interests. On the practical side I guess they can use some of the
other resources I have. Maybe we'll do this again if we didn't get enough off
of your practical list. Yeah and my question is like I'm wondering what how
generation of people in Russia and all over the world can support this kind of
research and support you for example in what you are doing in terms of...
You know that is really simple. First and foremost deepen your own practice.
Okay this is science and practice co-evolving.
So
! By each person deepening their experience with practice that's helping
this process. The second thing you could do is understand the spirit of science,
what the spirit of science is. You don't have to be a professional
scientist in order to enjoy the spirit of science. You don't have to be a professional scientist in order to enjoy the spirit of science.
As soon as you start to learn science in middle school or elementary school you're
already coming in contact with what I call the spirit of science. The spirit of
science involves a certain way to think about things and a certain way to feel
about things. And the way to think about things is involves mathematical maturity,
physical intuition,
critical thinking skills, and the ability to master the social culture of the science
world.
Those are sort of the intellectual skills that will allow you to understand the spirit of science. And then there are emotional skills. Learning to enjoy the beauty of a theory or a theorem, its symmetries, its depth, its power, its elegance.
This is all the art of science. So there's the science of science and then there's the art of science. And if you learn those, you'll understand the spirit of science.
And anyone can do that. It's free on the internet. No one will prevent you from learning science.
But the goal in science is not so much to learn this or that subject,
but to have an appreciation for what the spirit of science is.
There are certain things and a certain way to feel about things that make science fun and interesting.
And the best professional scientists are motivated by that spirit.
I would say understand, you know, deepen your own practice. Appreciate the spirit of science.
And then you'll be in an optimal situation to participate in this movement.
You can participate by maybe being a participant in a research.
You're actually a subject. Come to a lab and we, you know, put a Lycra on you or something.
You can participate by, if you have financial resources, you can donate them.
You can donate money, charitable donations to people that are doing good work in this field.
You can, if you understand both the spirit of science and you understand the spirit of contemplative practice or mindfulness,
then you can be in an optimal situation to be a...
a spokesperson for this movement.
The movement being the modern mindfulness movement.
So there's plenty that everyone can do right now to sort of catch the wave.
Okay.
So...
Yeah, I think...
I think we're good, huh?
Yes, yes. It was an amazing experience. Thank you. Thank you so much.
We'll keep in touch.
Thank you so much.
Yup.
It's been a real honor.
Yeah.
I hope we...
Yeah. Well, it was...
Like I said, this is my favorite of all favorite things to do.
So I don't know.
I think one of you is from North America, right?
Maybe Canada? Not quite sure.
I am from the Bay Area. Yes.
The Bay Area. Okay.
But I sense a little something.
Have you lived expat for a long time or...?
Yeah. I have been traveling for a while now.
So you would know who Norman Rockwell was.
Yes.
He was a very eminent painter of Americana, I guess we would say.
If you look behind me, I don't know if you could see, these are four original Norman Rockwells.
Oh.
These are actually sketches.
Wow.
And the main figure, this guy, that's the father of my student whose house I'm staying
in.
Wow.
And the little kid is her brother.
So this is a little bit of real Americana here.
This is like actually Norman Rockwell signed art.
Oh.
Wow.
And my guest here grew up with Rockwell being a friend of the family.
So anyway, I like that as a background, just it's very US or North American in a sense.
That's fantastic.
Nice.
Just for the culture.
Okay, very good.
Have fun.
Thank you for sharing your energy with us, Shenzhen.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Sure.
Yeah.
Bye-bye.
She's so cute.
Hello!
Yeah. Aww.
That was too...
Yeah, I want to hug him now.
Too complicated, huh? You were right.
Very much scientific.
Yeah, but I think it was like an orgasmic session for Mike. Look how much he rose.
Right.
I thought I really could keep up, and then I was like, what is he talking about?
Yeah, when he started, I was a little bit confused, so I need the...
Let's go to the wrap-up of the things.
Yeah, I think it's... How do you feel about the session?
Let's move a bit, huh? Can you? You can't? Okay, sit, sit.
I almost called you Zlavko.
Zlavko, yeah, maybe it's a Christian name, Zlavko.
You want to come in?
No, no, I'm alright here.
Come on, together.
Yeah, I only lost a little bit when he started to talk about this kind of stuff.
Yeah, I was surprised, do you have some comment?
And he was like, you know, I thought he's not following, but he's all like fully in, I feel that you're very concentrated, and you don't need to be like, observed into what's going on, so I understand what is going on there, yeah, yeah.
It's a simple principle, it's just, I don't know really how to explain it, I don't know, he's very funny.
But it's simple, it's just, I don't know how to explain this, but I'm not talking too much.
But it's like, you're the mindfulness.
Just, you let it flow.
You let it flow, and you simply let go, and you flow, and then it all flows in all directions.
And you're aware of both, or everything, it's just that, as he said, as he wrote, it's like, it's like a dream.
His words, it is interpenetrating, but not interfering.
We can call it that way, or any other way, but that's basically it.
So it's a, the nice thing is that people talk, and just living, basically.
But this is what people are, this is what we are as a science, culture, or civilization.
But, and that's what is the problem with us.
Because we are too much in the brain.
And if anyone went to the heart, then probably everything would change.
And what does it mean, like, from a scientific point of view?
Because we are definitely not talking about the heart as the heart, as the organ which is kind of taken care of.
Or you literally mean the heart when you talk about the heart.
It doesn't have to be the heart, it's like, located for a purpose.
Like a notion, like a notion.
For a human purpose.
Okay.
So how we can, like from a scientific point of view, explain this kind of different things, mind and heart thing.
So it's like conscious, subconscious, or it's something else more complicated going on there?
There is something that you would know, there is some, they call it the heart institute.
Which you sure know.
Yeah.
And they talk a lot about the heart.
But, yeah, it doesn't matter anyway.
So it's whatever you call it.
It's just a different level of existence.
Yeah, I understand what you're talking about.
That, like, we're, with Mike, we have this very scientific approach.
So when we kind of talk about heart, it means that we don't talk about, we talk about different level of what.
So I think that.
So the brain is layered?
That it started out, I mean, we're sort of built on old code, so to speak.
That we have what's sometimes called the lizard brain.
And then the monkey brain is built on top of that.
And then the human brain is built on top of that.
And I would say the core of the brain handles sort of very deep emotions, bodily sensory stuff.
And it's very, very foundational to how everything else works together and interlocks.
So it's like a natural instinct?
Yeah, yeah.
And just basic biorhythms.
Basic instincts.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, basic instincts and basic biorhythms that kind of run us at a very deep level.
And so I think often when people talk about the heart of things, it's talking about this sort of the deepest level of the brain where these very sort of primal rhythms live.
Mm-hmm.
So what's, what we're kind of.
Yeah.
Losing in our normal human society is losing this connection.
so we're kind of our wires and our neurons almost wire and fire in in human level and it's kind of interfere with the signals that are going on on the let's say this heart level which is limbic and what is before limbic system I guess like lizard and monkey brain so this is lizard and monkey brain
of the signal becoming less and where it's not getting up because we're kind of too much into the into the suppressing yeah I shouldn't be talking because then I get it it's exactly this we are trying to structure things mm-hmm and it's not about structure mm-hmm and if I would have to structure then this what you were saying from my point
of view point of view impression is actually not so much about this whatever you called it this is why we are evolving and it is about growing back into it or even a back into it it is just growing into it through the superior gift that we were given and this is the intellect the brain growing into a new level of existence which is
which is abandoning it in a certain sense I think that that evolution is in terms of not being evolved into the humans I think that the next level of evolution is actually being able to I kind of serve from level to level and being
able to master all the levels so not losing the connection with any of the levels because they are all useful for for us and aligning and building because if we talk about the stress stress is actually appearing when there is a destruction and where is a dissonance between between the
level the levels so and if we have kind of aligned and harmony stress I think what I think you can answer the question about the stress what is the stress in the
brain you can easily answer that sure yeah I'm so happy that we asked I think
that I'm very excited about the session because I think that Shenzhen enjoyed it
as well so it's not that we kind of only use him for our purpose but he also
enjoyed it and we'll ask him something that he get inspired to study as well and
it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that it's not that
easy because sometimes when he was coming to the a ask me anything oma oma
session so he has the sessions he was like okay he was just you know like a
robot answering the questions but as soon as you switch this shenzhen part
then you can see the real shenzhen and the real shenzhen is like unstoppable he
can talk about one thing for one hour and it's amazing so I'm super happy how
do you feel I feel so excited
but can
Can I say also how I see that brain stuff that you just discussed?
I'm a fan of this idea that whatever happens in the brain,
it's happening really on its own, right?
It's a physical organ which is just moving the neurons,
moving the chemicals and creating the illusion that it's me, right?
It's just on its own, the substance in the head.
But what he and what you were talking about,
about the next step of evolution,
what he was talking about,
like learning how to control this stuff, right?
And create the equanimity and so on, right?
It's literally like taking power for the first time ever over this organ.
Maybe.
Which is like otherwise,
for thousands and thousands of years,
it's just living on its own.
Right.
But that's what actually Buddha was teaching us to do.
So that's kind of taking the power of stepping back
and observing it as something as you build kind of an external observer
of what's going on.
And that's the question is like,
is it only the organ which is inside of us
or it's also something...
something outside
that is bigger than us. And this is the question that I don't think we can so easily answer.
Is it, what is, like, then we come to the question what is consciousness? Because this is something that gets on the way to answer this question.
And that's the biggest question in the world, I think, which this guy is trying to solve.
Well, you know, when you were talking about getting it on your own through mindfulness meditation practice, right?
It's still only you interfering with your own organs. So it's like, for me, it's almost like maybe you are again tricking yourself because it's the same thing.
But if you're creating the machine, which does externally, that's for sure you're taking control of the organ, right?
Because you're interfering in something that you have not tapped into in thousands of years.
One frame on this is that it's not about taking control and interfering.
It's about preventing the conscious mind from taking control and interfering.
In Shinzen's frame, there's this sort of wave propagation that's happening through the subconscious.
And that can get log jammed, as he said.
In a vote.
the waves can interfere or if things are working well then one wave stops and another wave starts
and there isn't this turbulence but then um uh the conscious mind um at least sort of the modern
conscious mind trained as it is for modern life uh it's very analytical and says hmm what's what's
going on there and reaches its hand down and tries to grab things and muddies the water creates
turbulence and um that's the the thing that i wouldn't necessarily say it's new but it's made
worse by modern life and uh basically instead of the frame of trying to take control of the brain
and interfere with it it's just about making the conscious mind not do that to the subconscious
mind and making them sort of
um
flow together
by external sure influence it i mean his his frame was hopefully this also
uh drives uh neuroplasticity which lets you get better at this as time goes on and then you don't
need the external thing eventually how i see it it's kind of uh you're training your mind to
evolve and to be able to do more and more and to be able to do more and to be able to do more and to
improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and to improve and
for the society while doing that or you're becoming like worse and then it's the question
because if you get to the research of the people who are long-term meditators they don't say that
they don't kind of describe it as something that they build so they can they say that there is just
the processes going on and they observe themselves as a bundle of the processes so there is even like
the sense if you talk with transactions and longer he will say that the sense of self disappears so
there is just you know lines of the processes so and that's that's the point that if you for
example can can make it faster the progress faster then that's kind of a new evolution of the human
being when we can reach this level yeah as you say I mean there's this frame of this is something
that you build and
there's this this criticism that frame called spiritual materialism that you're you're building
something and then you'll be protective of it and yeah it's just another trap so the question is how
not to fall into this trap what do you well how do you kind of keep building without how you keep
evolving without making yourself into this trap
If that was the only trap, it would be good.
I mean just working on I mean what philosophers would call your epistemology just trying to see
things as they are that that's something that isn't really in the building frame it's just
seen clearly frame and that seems to be the engine of everything else too okay or part of it not always Good. Good. Good. Good.
So, just to finish a session, a couple of follow-up, what we can do here.
Where is our presentation?
Oh, uh...