Daniel T:
-If you have taken MPH, I'd be interested in reading any comments you had on its effects, especially in relation to meditation.
With MPH: More pleasure, more mindfulness, more agitation / craving. Concentration can overall be quite high, but despite that, I'm not sure I ever achieved anything like Visuddhimagga-type jhana this way, due to the extra agitation.
With caffeine: more mindfulness, more variability compared to MPH in how much concentration is attained, no impedient to Visuddhimagga-type jhana (though it's far from easy for me to attain).
Presumably MPH stimulates some brain circuits that need to go off for jhana, whereas caffeine is more selective.
attention:
-I remember reading somewhere (likely that hansen book) that it's something of a positive feedback loop, which matches up with qualities of 2nd Jhana. Ie, apply effort, get piti/sukha, decide to continue to apply effort, that effort is less effortful in 2nd. As I understand it, the reason why this works is the behavior of attention itself is a function of levels (maybe not just levels but kinds) of dopamine saturation in different parts of the brain. So if the research was done, this would suggest people in different nanas would have different configurations (roughly) that create those effects(and those areas would match up with parts of theory...like how the A&P is commonly associated with vivid sexual/emotional/dream/etc content.
Could you explain what the part in bold means in relation to the part before it?
Agree about the jhanas being a shutdown, at least with conscious parts of the brain we're accustomed to using in daily life (other parts not so sure).
Some of the brain is obviously still functioning, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Surely the brainstrem or autonomic regions. Surely whatever parts are involved with the relevant jhanic factors.
sex:
-This bit surprised me as I've never really thought about it, but my intuition is that sex and meditation hold so many similar qualities you should be able to combine aspects of both. I'll note that I think the key is getting a handle on the sensual *desire* part. If you're not (in your words) desiring for the world (ie, the sexual experience) to become a certain way, the energy+sensations experienced while sexually aroused seem to me like they'd be quite powerful meditative objects.
I would say that the energy+sensations you're talking about are most likely tied in with sensuality (desire for the world) in unexpected ways. That's one thing I've found surprising and deep about this path...lots of very innocuous-looking stuff is linked to desire and craving in unexpected ways. (cf Jill's "rat poop" story.)
I agree that the energy+sensations can do interesting things as objects for meditation, but to the extent that they're linked to sensuality, I would say they're not suitable for (Visuddhimagga-style) jhana. It's probably analogous to MPH: they stimulate brain circuits that need to be inhibited, even if they also stimulate brain circuits that would otherwise help the practice.
About the nature of the energy+sensations...
It honestly doesn't occur to me that I could have sex without jhanic qualities arising these days. I think some of the married folks on here would agree. At the very least, arousal->alertness does something beneficial there.
I would be surprised if most people didn't report that typical sex is like A&P in some ways, or like 1st or 2nd jhana (as described in MCTB ) in some ways...but, I would say that A&P/etc. aren't like Visuddhimagga-style jhana
at all. And the difference, as I see it, is that Visuddhimagga-style jhana has no sensuality, and so has no real resemblance to things that involve sensuality. And that's why I think sex is an ineffective way to develop concentration for that style of jhana.
Not an airtight argument, but something to consider.
If you're interested in PCEs or have practiced in a way that's moved your experience in that direction, it might be interesting to see what kinds of experiences are present during sex typically, and what has to drop away to move more in the direction of a PCE. (Maybe this is what tantric sex is about; I dunno.) I think the result would be sex that's increasing less sexual in the "normal" way. No idea what value it would have as a practice.
I think the difference between the effects/systems relating dopamine, endorphins, etc, is at the heart of my question. To clarify: I think being informed about these things helps practice (especially on the sila side of things, or at least that's how I feel right now), as on a conscious level there's some sense of the underlying factors that go into sensations. Consciously, I believe this helps me identify less with many sensations, see them with more clarity, and expend less time/effort doign so (see the 3Cs faster as the tone of "i feel like this partially because of this..." is less sticky than "this feels good/bad!!!")
If you accept the liking vs. wanting distinction in the article you linked, one way to approach it through the neuroscience lens might be by repeatedly asking yourself "do I like this, or do I merely want this?", where "this" is whatever apparently-positive experience you're having. If the brain system was completely transparent (if you could easily distinguish between what you like and what you want without liking), it probably wouldn't work so well, so the assumption should probably be that distinguishing the two is difficult (that wanting is often mistaken for liking, or wanting is seen as a kind of liking) but, like any skill, is something that you could get better at with practice. (Also, probably worth keeping in mind that 99% of experiences will be mixes of liking and wanting; in that case you can ask "what part of this is liking, and what part of this is wanting?")
I wouldn't think that liking vs. wanting in neuroscience is exactly analogous to pleasure vs. desire in Buddhism (as part of neuroscience "wanting" is merely behavioral), but it would be interesting to see how far one could take the analogy in practice.
Not sure if it's exactly what you had in mind. I don't think I can provide any detailed information regarding neurotransmitters / etc.
On a different note, if "I feel like this partially because of this..." helps phenomena become less sticky, do you think "I feel like this because of numerous causes and conditions" would equally help?