{"id":6560,"date":"2013-03-25T16:17:08","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T21:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=6560"},"modified":"2013-03-26T05:38:07","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T10:38:07","slug":"what-a-bodymind-can-do-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2013\/03\/25\/what-a-bodymind-can-do-update\/","title":{"rendered":"“What a bodymind can do” update"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Supermind<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a>, part 2<\/a>, part 3<\/a>.\u00a0 (Please note that this version has corrected a minor error in the originally posted article, and added a bit more information at the end.)
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“What A Bodymind Can Do” was an attempt to map the possibilities of human perception, action, and realization by synthesizing Shinzen Young’s systematization of mindfulness meditation practices (primarily Buddhist, but with reference to others) with a process-relational framework rooted in Whiteheadian process metaphysics and the triadic phenomenology of C. S. Peirce.<\/p>\n

It included a diagrammatic “map” of those possibilities, which I am now providing an updated version of in this PDF <\/a>(and see below).<\/p>\n

The map is best visualized as a kind of Rubik’s Cube, with three rows, three columns, and three levels intersecting with each other to create nine domains, along with the relations between them.<\/p>\n

The three sets of three terms classify the following strata.<\/p>\n

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1. Sensory modes (seeing, hearing, feeling)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sensations and perceptions are grouped into three modalities in this system: the visual,<\/strong> the auditory,<\/strong> and the bodily-felt<\/strong>. The latter includes the tactile, olfactory, gustatory, kinesthetic, visceral, affective, and emotional; these are grouped into “felt-out” (the first four) and “felt-in” (the last three) based on whether the sensations refer to relata that are “internal” or “external” to the bodymind in question. (See #3 below for more on this.)<\/p>\n

These three modalities can be conceived as developing somewhat autonomously over the course of human evolution, and as arising somewhat separately over the course of human ontogenesis: first we feel<\/em> (in the womb), then we start to hear<\/em> (the mother’s heartbeat and voice), finally we learn to see<\/em> (especially once we emerge from the womb). [*See note at bottom.] But in practice, they all get quite blurred and interactive.<\/p>\n

Distinguishing between the three is mainly a matter of convenience; it serves as a hook onto which mindfulness practitioners can hang their impressions, sensations, and perceptions as they observe them arising and passing. Sensory blurring and\/or interaction occurs all the time in human experience, however, and it can be considered a form of cross-modal “flow” (described below).<\/p>\n

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2. Relational category (sensing, acting, realizing)<\/strong><\/p>\n

These are based in Peirce’s triad of categories: firsts (or firstness), seconds (or secondness), and thirds (or thirdness). Entire books have been written about Peirce’s categories, their relationship to logic, phenomenology, semiotics, and the categories developed by earlier philosophers, such as Kant and Hegel.<\/p>\n

But for understanding my use of them here, it is enough to distinguish them on the basis of number of relata, as follows:<\/p>\n