{"id":4047,"date":"2011-05-30T07:08:25","date_gmt":"2011-05-30T12:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=4047"},"modified":"2011-05-30T09:38:33","modified_gmt":"2011-05-30T14:38:33","slug":"what-a-bodymind-can-do-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/30\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What a bodymind can do &#8211; Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Working with <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shinzen_Young\">Shinzen Young<\/a>&#8216;s system of mindfulness training, which I&#8217;ve described here <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/07\/subjectivity-impermanence-dark-flow\/\">before<\/a>, and thinking it through in the process-relational logic I&#8217;ve been developing   on this blog (and  elsewhere), is resulting in a certain re-mix of Shinzen&#8217;s ideas, and of Buddhism more generally, with Peirce&#8217;s,  Whitehead&#8217;s, Wilber&#8217;s,  Deleuze&#8217;s, and others&#8217;. Here&#8217;s a crack at where it&#8217;s taking me&#8230; <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>I&#8217;ve divided this into three parts due to its length. Part 1 builds on Shinzen&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shinzen.org\/MeditationTraining\/5_ways_to_know_yourself.htm\">5 ways<\/a> to know yourself as a spiritual being,&#8221; which presents five core mindfulness practices, to develop a basic classification of ways in which the human bodymind can know itself and the world. Part 2 deepens the model by pushing beyond traditional dualisms through incorporating what Shinzen calls &#8220;flow,&#8221; which is analogous to the central insight of process-relational philosophies about the fundamentally processual nature of subjectivity or mentality, objectivity or materiality, and the dynamic and interdependent relationship between the two. Part 3 provides some concluding thoughts and caveats.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wuwei.name\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4081\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/wuwei.jpg?resize=106%2C125\" alt=\"\" width=\"106\" height=\"125\" \/><\/a><em> <\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As I&#8217;ve written here <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/07\/subjectivity-impermanence-dark-flow\/\">before<\/a>, Shinzen Young&#8217;s system is one of the most comprehensive practical systems of mindfulness\/meditation training I&#8217;ve ever come across. Based in the Zen (Shingon) and Vipassana traditions of Buddhism, but developed with reference to numerous other traditions including Vajrayana and Christian mysticism, the system is also deeply resonant with the process-relational themes explored on this blog.<\/p>\n<p>What follows is an attempt to expand and develop Shinzen&#8217;s approach so as to encompass not only meditative techniques but the full range of options available to the human bodymind, whether meditative or spiritual in intent or not. This will be done with particular reference to the logical and phenomenological categories of C. S. Peirce and, to lesser degrees, the process philosophy of A. N. Whitehead and the AQAL system of Ken Wilber.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Starting Out: Two Categories, Two Orientations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Shinzen speaks of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;source=web&amp;cd=3&amp;ved=0CCMQFjAC&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shinzen.org%2FRetreat%2520Reading%2F5%2520Ways%2520To%2520Know%2520Yourself.pdf&amp;rct=j&amp;q=shinzen%20%22focus%20out%22&amp;ei=8qzZTbPbIsTi0QGUx_X8Aw&amp;usg=AFQjCNEwr0-q8eOBEx_9Su1MRbzeyTzRmQ&amp;sig2=7SjYs54tHw0yKNQ5DGNteQ&amp;cad=rja\">five ways<\/a> of meditation &#8212; &#8220;focusing in&#8221; (on subjective states or internal perceptions), &#8220;focusing out&#8221; (on objective states or external perceptions), &#8220;focusing on rest,&#8221; &#8220;focusing on the positive,&#8221; and &#8220;focusing on flow.&#8221; These can be lumped together  into two overarching categories or modalities: observation (or noting), and cultivation.<\/p>\n<p>Meditative techniques generally fall into these two categories. Some, like Vipassana or insight-based approaches, train the mind to <em>observe<\/em> dispassionately everything that arises in the mental field. Others work by <em>cultivating<\/em> specific states through the use of visualizations, sounds, prayers, chants or mantras, bodily postures and movements, feeling states (such as <em>metta<\/em> or &#8220;loving-kindness,&#8221; solidarity with all sentient beings, or identification with a particular deity), and the like.<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;five ways&#8221; can also be classified in terms of their orientation, which can be either toward &#8220;internal&#8221; or &#8220;subjective&#8221; phenomena, or toward &#8220;external&#8221; of &#8220;objective&#8221; phenomena. For the moment, let&#8217;s pretend those are mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n<p>Shinzen&#8217;s &#8220;Focus In&#8221; is a form of observation focused on  the &#8220;subjective&#8221;  pole of experience, with specific reference to bodily-felt emotional sensations, visual images, and mental talk &#8212; or what Shinzen calls &#8220;Feel,&#8221; &#8220;Image,&#8221; and &#8220;Talk.&#8221; The goal of focusing-in  is to tease out the component elements of subjective experience as it arises.  &#8220;Focus Out&#8221; does the same with the &#8220;objective&#8221; pole of experience, with reference to the visual, the auditory, and everything else &#8212; or &#8220;Sight,&#8221; &#8220;Sound,&#8221; and &#8220;Touch&#8221; (with smell, taste, and the kinesthetic senses loosely subsumed into the latter). The goal of focusing-out  is to &#8220;anchor&#8221; oneself in the present moment. In his more recent iteration of these methods, Shinzen calls these six, respectively, Feel-In, See-In, Hear-In, and See-Out, Hear-Out, Feel-Out (see his diagram <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shinzen.org\/Retreat%20Reading\/Subjective-Objective%20Triad.pdf\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>The remaining methods &#8212; &#8220;Focus on Rest,&#8221; &#8220;Focus on the Positive,&#8221; and &#8220;Focus on Flow&#8221; &#8212; all fall generally into the second modality of &#8220;cultivation,&#8221; since they require intentional focus on <em>specific<\/em> states and\/or the intentional <em>generation<\/em> of those states (i.e., restful, positive,  or flow states). In the more recent model these are all related to the triad of See-Hear-Feel, so we get See-Rest, Hear-Rest, Feel-Rest, See-Flow, Hear-Flow, and so on (though the directional orientation of rest and flow states, i.e. whether they are &#8220;in&#8221; or &#8220;out,&#8221; is lost in this version; but, as we will see, this may not be a problem at all).<\/p>\n<p>All of these methods have the common goal of developing three skills or capacities in the practitioner: greater concentration, greater mental and sensory clarity, and greater equanimity in the face of life&#8217;s exigencies.These in turn contribute both to the practitioner&#8217;s happiness and, indirectly, to that of others.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tweak #1: <em>What Else Can a Bodymind Do?<\/em><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So far, the discussion of meditative methods has  implicitly presumed two things: a  relatively inactive body (seated, or something like it), and  a  relatively  cognitively settled  mind. In other words, these methods tend to refer   to what a <em>seated meditator<\/em> can do. Shinzen additionally  speaks  of &#8220;practice in motion&#8221; (which includes practice while doing yoga or  moving around in other ways) and &#8220;practice in life,&#8221; but these are  treated as extensions of the more basic forms of mindfulness training.<\/p>\n<p>In the interest of blurring the boundary between <em>meditation<\/em> and <em>life<\/em>, and thereby building up a more general framework for understanding the bodymind and its possibilities, I would like to add <em>activity in the world<\/em>, or what we might call &#8220;normal body,&#8221; and <em>regular thought processes<\/em>, or &#8220;normal mind,&#8221; to the model.<\/p>\n<p>To do this we would have to add at least one, and probably one-and-a-half  categories to the two we have so far (observation and cultivation).<\/p>\n<p>The &#8220;half a category&#8221; would simply be a recognition that the other categories are reflections or developments on a process that  typically goes on more or less by itself: thoughts, actions, and significances arising of their own accord, in response to previous thoughts, actions, and significances. So the completely <em>un<\/em>reflexive mind would be a mind before <em>any<\/em> intervention whatsoever, including that of observation.<\/p>\n<p>The full category I wish to add is that of <em>interpretation<\/em>,<em> <\/em><em>semiosis<\/em>, or <em>meaning-making<\/em>, i.e. the making sense of things in the way we normally do this <em>or<\/em> in specific and cultivable ways, such as those of science or of some tradition of analytic learning or education. Semiosis or interpretive meaning-making is what, <a href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=Wfe2t_qzaHEC&amp;pg=PA462&amp;lpg=PA462&amp;dq=pleroma+creatura+bateson+%22steps+to+an+ecology+of+mind%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=htcc0vTAWh&amp;sig=FQNsENxPI-zsV56JXbj0zmDFzLQ&amp;hl=en&amp;ei=rmLaTZS7BInLgQeu9N1X&amp;sa=X&amp;oi=book_result&amp;ct=result&amp;resnum=3&amp;ved=0CCQQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\">in Gregory Bateson&#8217;s terms,<\/a> turns <em>Pleroma<\/em>, or the world of quantifiable but &#8220;meaningless&#8221; action and reaction, into <em>Creatura<\/em>, which is the world of meaning, sense, and &#8220;differences that make a difference&#8221; &#8212; the world in which there is <em>(a) world<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It may seem artificial to separate interpretation from observation, as this would suggest that a &#8220;pure,&#8221; <em>non<\/em>-preinterpreted observation is possible, which is disputed by many influential cognitive and social-scientific models. But this distinction allows us to posit that there is at least a moment, or a &#8220;<em>turn<\/em> towards the things themselves,&#8221; in Observation (I&#8217;ll  capitalize these three terms to indicate when I&#8217;m using them in a technical senss) which makes it\u00a0 different from the more synthetic and dialectical orientation found within the <em>Interpretation<\/em> of phenomena.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, neither Observation nor Interpretation  normally occur outside the context of <em>Action<\/em>: all are connected to each other within the &#8220;enactive embeddedness within a world&#8221; that (embodied, extended, embedded, enactive) cognitive science takes as the fundamental status of human cognition. (I&#8217;m presuming that the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.springerlink.com\/content\/1568-7759\/9\/4\/\">4E&#8221; version<\/a> of cognitivism is the cutting edge of that particular field of study, so if you disagree with that and are still with me, you may start your disagreeing here.)<\/p>\n<p>C. S. Peirce&#8217;s logical categories, however, suggest that a distinction ought to be made between these three, both because the moments are logically different (as I hope will become evident) and because anything less than <em>three<\/em> moments makes it impossible for us to distinguish between more or less <em>accurate and coherent<\/em> observations and interpretations. I&#8217;ve written about this elsewhere, but I trust the usefulness of the triadic categories will become evident as we proceed.<\/p>\n<p>The result of these one-and-a-half additions is a framework that looks like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">(0) <strong>Free Activity<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">Mindbody doing what it does; things arising as responses\/results of previous arisings; the normal course of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da\">Prat\u012btyasamutp\u0101da<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buddhanet.net\/cmdsg\/coarise.htm\">Dependent Origination<\/a>, i.e. the causal nexus within which all things arise based on their dependence on all manner of previous arisings.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">(1) <strong>Observation<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">Noting the arising of things as they arise. To be consistent with  Whiteheadian, Peircian, <em>and<\/em> Shinzenian interpretations, this noting should also be considered a &#8220;feeling&#8221;: one notes what has arisen, feels or &#8220;tastes&#8221; it, and then allows it to go on its own course  without  attaching anything of &#8220;self&#8221;   to it. Here we&#8217;ve added a step to the normal course: it&#8217;s a very small step &#8212; mere (feelingful) observation &#8212; but a crucial one. Most forms of the first category of meditation mentioned above fall into this category of (minimal) action.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">(2) <strong> Intervention<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">Resisting and\/or replacing normal arisings with others; cultivating specific states or modes; mental exercises with specific goals in mind. Most forms of the second category of meditation fall into, or at least find their primary home, in this second, more obviously <em>active<\/em> category.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">(3) <strong> Interpretation\/Meaning-Making<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 60px\">This includes all manner of conceptual thought, deduction, reasoning, generalization, and realization. The latter term is meant to suggest that this third moment is not separate from the first two, but in fact includes and builds on them.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve added  numbers to make this schema consistent with Peircian phenomenology. The numbers don&#8217;t exactly correspond to Peirce&#8217;s categories of firstness, secondness, and thirdness,  but they come to a useful approximation of them.<\/p>\n<p>Recall that Peirce&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Categories_%28Peirce%29\">categories<\/a> are <em>logical<\/em> categories: <em>firsts<\/em> are things in and of themselves: pure qualities, potentialities, singularities irrespective of any others; <em>seconds<\/em> involve encounters between two terms or entities, and are always characterized by activity and resistance, action and reaction; and <em>thirds<\/em> involve the mediation of two terms by a third, resulting in patterns, generalization, meaning, habit, law. Firstness is potential; secondness is <em>Pleroma<\/em>, brute actuality; thirdness is <em>Creatura<\/em>, the &#8220;worldness&#8221; that includes representation, generality, and meaning. These are not existentially separate: secondness requires firstness; thirdness requires secondness and firstness; and the actual universe consists of all of them, in endlessly differentiating proliferation.<\/p>\n<p>Observation is a <em>turning<\/em> of the mind toward the firstness of what&#8217;s arising in the mental-perceptual field. To the extent that this &#8220;turning&#8221; is already an encounter between one thing and another &#8212; mental contents arising, and a mental observer that is  produced through the very action of observation or &#8220;turning&#8221; &#8212; it becomes, or is always becoming, a form of secondness, not a pure firstness. But the point is to try to get as close to firstness as possible. If the observation affects what is being observed (as some argue always occurs, to some degree), then the injunction here is simply to &#8220;observe <em>that<\/em>, too.&#8221; It is the orientation <em>toward the arising firstness<\/em> that makes it Observation.<\/p>\n<p>Analogously, Intervention, in this system, is not a mere automatic response. It is an <em>intentional<\/em> response, which  involves a <em>turning to<\/em> what&#8217;s there <em>and an action<\/em> upon it or in response to it. Alternatively, it may be an action <em>replacing<\/em> what would normally arise: for instance, the recitation and focusing of one&#8217;s mind upon a mantra so that  the mental field will not be taken over by other habitual activities. The goal is to cultivate particular states of mind, which may be restful (&#8220;meditative&#8221;), trance states of one kind or another, or states valued for their positive valence in a particular religious or meditative system (e.g.,  devotional, compassionate, solidaritous, identification with deity, etc.).<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Interpretation in the sense meant here also involves the intention of making sense of the activity in question.<\/p>\n<p>Each of these, however, has its common or &#8220;normal&#8221; forms as well as  the specific, cultivated (or cultivable) forms they take within meditative or yogic training, and I will refer to both below. Furthermore, to say that action or interpretation is &#8220;intended&#8221; is to beg the question &#8220;intended by what, or by whom?&#8221; and one&#8217;s answer to this &#8212; for instance, by &#8220;the self,&#8221; or by &#8220;the process of conditioned arising that envelops a mental-bodily field,&#8221; or something else &#8212; already depends on an onto-epistemological interpretation of what arises. (If you believe there is an active <em>self<\/em> &#8220;behind&#8221; everything your mind does, then you&#8217;re already committed to a dualistic position that the rest of this article is intended to get us beyond.) But let&#8217;s leave that aside for the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Now, here is where things start to get interesting. If we add  the two orientations &#8212; &#8220;in&#8221; and  &#8220;out,&#8221; that is, toward the subjective and objective poles of experience &#8212; and apply each of the three &#8220;movements&#8221; of Observation, Intervention, and Interpretation to them, we arrive at a more fully rounded conceptualization of the possibilities for human bodyminds, which looks as follows. (Note, however, that it still remains within a traditional dualistic understanding of self and other, subject and object, etc.) For simplicity&#8217;s and mellifluity&#8217;s sake, let&#8217;s replace  the term &#8220;intervene&#8221; with the word &#8220;act.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">1a) OBSERVE IN: Observation of internal states<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">1b) OBSERVE OUT: Observation of external states<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">2a) ACT IN: Respond\/resist\/replace\/cultivate internal states<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">2b) ACT OUT: Respond\/resist\/replace\/cultivate external states<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">3a) INTERPRET IN: Generalize\/theorize internal states<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px\">3b) INTERPRET OUT: Generalize\/theorize external states.<\/p>\n<p>Here we have added the two most basic activities of normal human waking consciousness to the picture. &#8220;Act Out&#8221; is equivalent to <em>acting in the world<\/em>. &#8220;Interpret Out&#8221; is equivalent to <em>making sense of the world<\/em>. The development of specific, reliable methods for doing the latter is something every society tends to engage in; in ours it is called  &#8220;science.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The combination of the two &#8212; <em>acting<\/em> (intervening-out) and <em>processing<\/em> those actions and their results (interpreting-out), or changing the world according to an analytical understanding  of how it ought to be changed &#8212; is what most forms of <em>critical social theory\/praxis<\/em> aim for. In less coherent forms, they are what people&#8217;s lives, at their best, tend to be  about: doing things,  reflecting on what we&#8217;ve done,  and learning in the process to do things better. The movement between these is a continuous one between observation (awareness), intervention (action), and interpretation (theory), with a constant generation of Peircian &#8220;thirdness&#8221; &#8212; the realization of meaning, sense, and pattern &#8212; in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Note, also, that we now have not only Shinzen&#8217;s Focus-In and Focus-Out techniques, but also his Focus-on-Rest and Focus-on-the Positive. Focus-on-Rest  is a particular form of Intervention, i.e. the cultivation of <em>restful<\/em> states. (Or  one can think of it as a combination of Observation and Intervention: first one finds restful states in one&#8217;s awareness, then one rests in them.) In meditation, these are typically internal states: for instance, the finding of spaces of silence in between the bits of internal &#8220;mental chatter,&#8221; and the resting <em>in<\/em> those spaces. But  they can also be the finding and resting in restful states in the world of sight, of sound, of touch, or of any combination of these.<\/p>\n<p>In this model, however, the cultivation of restful states can also involve the <em>generation of <\/em> external states, that is, through action intended to have an effect in the world. This is what people have done traditionally through, for instance, the  creation, maintenance, and use of sanctuaries, temples, meditation rooms, altars, sand mandalas and tangka paintings, retreats and spas, and the like;  through the practice and cultivation of silence; and through  responding to others&#8217; anger with quiet, empathic understanding, or to war with nonviolent resistance. Focus-on-the-Positive is the same sort of thing: it can include the cultivation of positive <em>internal<\/em> states and of positive <em>external<\/em> states. More broadly, this category is, of course, action for positive change of any kind, whether incremental, reformist, or revolutionary.<\/p>\n<p>Here I should mention, however, that I&#8217;ve always felt a little bit of hesitation when I&#8217;ve heard Shinzen speak of focusing on &#8220;the positive.&#8221; The cybernetic holist in me always thinks &#8220;why just the <em>positive<\/em>?&#8221; Don&#8217;t negative (and neutral) states also have a role to play? In Tantra and in western magical practices (as in chaos magic), there is a place for the visualization and imaginative taking-on of negative states, such as those represented by wrathful deities. Perhaps we don&#8217;t want to encourage this sort of thing outside the appropriate circumstances, but since the framework I am building is intended to encompass not just meditative practice but <em>all<\/em> practice, and humans have a long-cultivated capacity to intentionally produce negative, or mixed positive-negative, states, then these should be accommodated within the model as well.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/hans.wyrdweb.eu\/tag\/egypt\/page\/2\/\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/SriYantra-300x300.png?resize=171%2C171\" alt=\"\" width=\"171\" height=\"171\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>For Part 2 of this 3-part article, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/30\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-part-2\/\">please click here<\/a>. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working with Shinzen Young&#8216;s system of mindfulness training, which I&#8217;ve described here before, and thinking it through in the process-relational logic I&#8217;ve been developing on this blog (and elsewhere), is resulting in a certain re-mix of Shinzen&#8217;s ideas, and of Buddhism more generally, with Peirce&#8217;s, Whitehead&#8217;s, Wilber&#8217;s, Deleuze&#8217;s, and others&#8217;. Here&#8217;s a crack at where [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[688977,4422,691847],"tags":[4417,16839,4463,16870,23314,16840,423],"class_list":["post-4047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geo_philosophy","category-process-relational-thought","category-religion-spirituality","tag-buddhism","tag-meditation","tag-mindfulness","tag-peirce","tag-practice","tag-shinzen-young","tag-whitehead"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-13h","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4287,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2011\/05\/30\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4047,"position":0},"title":"What a bodymind can do &#8211; Part 2","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"May 30, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This continues from the previous post, where Shinzen Young's model of core mindfulness practices was expanded into a system of classifying what a human bodymind can do. Here the model is deepened following the process-relational insights that are at the core of Shinzen's system as well as of other (especially\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Philosophy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2011\/05\/work.3741708.2.flat550x550075f.spiritual-art-chi-flow-mind-eye-heart-power-and-the-primitive-mirror-soulbeing-275x183.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5518,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2012\/01\/26\/in-a-nutshell\/","url_meta":{"origin":4047,"position":1},"title":"In a nutshell","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Shinzen Young lays it all out: http:\/\/youtu.be\/ciEbP0_I064 He has also started blogging (to add to his other\u00a0 online\u00a0 presences). As I've mentioned in this space a few times before, I've learned a lot from him, especially about the relationship between a process-relational metaphysics (which is how I would describe Shinzen's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Philosophy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Philosophy","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/geo_philosophy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/ciEbP0_I064\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/03\/25\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":4047,"position":2},"title":"&#8220;What a bodymind can do&#8221; update","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"March 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The following provides an updated diagram and some further notes pertaining to my three-part article \"What A Bodymind Can Do.\" The earlier parts can be read here: part 1, part 2, part 3.\u00a0 (Please note that this version has corrected a minor error in the originally posted article, and added\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Spirit matter&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Spirit matter","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/religion-spirituality\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Supermind & Son","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images4.wikia.nocookie.net\/__cb20090120223243\/pdsh\/images\/thumb\/1\/16\/Supermind_%26_Son.jpg\/250px-Supermind_%26_Son.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1164,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/12\/07\/subjectivity-impermanence-dark-flow\/","url_meta":{"origin":4047,"position":3},"title":"subjectivity, impermanence, &amp; dark flow","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"December 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I think the idea and image of dark flow streaming out of our universe has also been resonating with me because of the work I've been doing using Vipassana teacher Shinzen Young's system of mindfulness training. 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