Ignoring things: how-to

End in Sight, modified 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 11:01 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 11:01 AM

Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 1251 Join Date: 7/6/11 Recent Posts
Tarin recently posted some advice concerning feelings which appears to have caused many people to re-evaluate the way they have understood actualism's position with respect to feelings, as well as the way they choose to relate to their feelings. In light of this, I thought it would be good to clarify what I had in mind concerning a common piece of advice I give, which is to ignore various things.

To ignore something is decidedly not to deny its existence or dissociate from it. in fact, one cannot ignore something without acknowledging it and its role in mental life. Ignoring something can be understood in this way: if a person is ruminating and dwelling on some negative thought or feeling, it is clear that their attitude towards the thing is not dispassionate, but is fueling it. However, even the act of actively attending to something ("going and looking at it") fuels it, and so a countermeasure to that, a way to remove the fuel, is to withdraw from the active act of attention. But, to withdraw from fueling something is both to acknowledge that 1) one was fueling it, and 2) the thing being fueled is real and harmful, 3) the act of fueling it is unskillful, and 4) the situation needs to be dealt with for those reasons.

Here is an illustration. Ignoring requires acknowledgement. Note that the object being ignored (here a person) must be clearly recognized in order to serve as the target of the practice. (Distinguish "ignoring" from "being oblivious" or "failing to notice".) http://udleditions.cast.org/indira/docs/call_of_the_wild/glossary-images/shunned.jpg

In sum, there is a way to understand the advice to ignore something as advice to psychologically dissociate from it, but my suggestion is actually tilting in the other direction. Dissociation is likely to be unhealthy and lead to psychological problems, shadow stuff, or (at best) not a lot of progress along the path.
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 11:56 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 11:56 AM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Can you distinguish what you're saying from what you think of as naivete, if you think there is a difference?
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End in Sight, modified 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 2:45 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 2:44 PM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 1251 Join Date: 7/6/11 Recent Posts
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
Can you distinguish what you're saying from what you think of as naivete, if you think there is a difference?


Naivete is an actualism-specific concept, and I never incorporated into my practice as such, so I have some understanding of it, but would not claim enough to make the kind of precise distinction you're asking for.

Perhaps the main way that the two would be thought to differ is that ignoring something begins with an act of volition (de-allocating attention, or 'attention', to the thing being ignored), whereas naivete seems more non-volitional, non-reflective, planning-free, etc.

I also see similarities between "letting go" and naivete, and perhaps those two would be closer (letting go is in some ways a more advanced form of ignoring), but again, I'm not sure they line up completely and I couldn't make a precise enough distinction to say why, for the same reasons.
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Jeff Grove, modified 12 Years ago at 2/2/12 2:29 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/2/12 2:29 AM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 310 Join Date: 8/24/09 Recent Posts
The basic motivation behind the action plays a key part for example if there is a desire to avoid something all the resolution in the world will not change anything, alternatively an action without the desire can undermine the habitual emotional reaction
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Daniel M Ingram, modified 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 1:21 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/1/12 1:21 PM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 3268 Join Date: 4/20/09 Recent Posts
what looking at something does to that something varies widely depending on lots of things

but often it goes something like this:

something is there and vague

more attention makes it more clear

pleasant things become moreso, painful things become moreso

with further attention both then tend to become lessso

finally some new perspective emerges about the thing

this is a very gereral pattern about a complex subject

it is possible to decide to ignore something at each of those stages

and the effect and quality of doing that may vary depending on how much clarity there was about the thing and the maliability of one's concentration
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Steph S, modified 12 Years ago at 2/2/12 10:39 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/2/12 10:11 PM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 672 Join Date: 3/24/10 Recent Posts
so, since this posted in the "inspired by actualism" seciton, allow me to interpret via whatever actualdlfjhadsljfhl i think i know/have practiced.

ignoring is to acknowledge and then set aside, yep. and going further with the possible reason people are having trouble with suppression, dissociation, not really reducing impacts of emotions that you've touched on here:

eis:


if a person is ruminating and dwelling on some negative thought or feeling, it is clear that their attitude towards the thing is not dispassionate, but is fueling it. However, even the act of actively attending to something ("going and looking at it") fuels it, and so a countermeasure to that, a way to remove the fuel, is to withdraw from the active act of attention.


emotion pops up, sticks around for however long, might stick around longer if there's a ton of proliferation or diving deep into it. the unrefined practitioner starts investigating the emotion *while* it is still present. proliferate, proliferate, maximize, delusion, head spin, emotion deepens and changes course, turns into something else, one loses track of what initial emotion was.

the refined practitioner treats it like this... emotion pops up, is not entertained, goes away. important: it goes away (on its own). *then* the line of questioning begins as to what belief, idea, identity thing brought it up in the first place. the mind at this point, after the emotion has gone away (it's best to wait til back at ee or pce... even neutral gets scant results), is clear and sensible and can reason objectively (without the delusional tailspin that would have occurred had investigation started in the midst of the emotion). memory structures/thought processes related to emotions can then be broken down - dispassion for the emotion, and untangling of the proliferation. voila!

i know this second version might seem really simple and obvious... but i'm guessing alot of people are still doing the first version.
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Stian Gudmundsen Høiland, modified 12 Years ago at 2/3/12 1:36 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/3/12 1:35 PM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 296 Join Date: 9/5/10 Recent Posts
Good stuff, Steph. Helped me. And I agree with EiS emoticon
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End in Sight, modified 12 Years ago at 2/3/12 9:53 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 2/3/12 9:52 PM

RE: Ignoring things: how-to

Posts: 1251 Join Date: 7/6/11 Recent Posts
Steph S:
the refined practitioner treats it like this... emotion pops up, is not entertained, goes away. important: it goes away (on its own).


Important: that you pointed that out, whereas I forgot to. It clarifies what I meant.

Two concrete examples of ignoring things, in case it benefits someone:

1) You're angry. You can get absorbed in your anger (fueling it), ruminate on what you're angry about (fueling it), think about how you became angry or the fact that you're angry (fueling it), observe your anger equanimously (fueling a related experience, "feeling anger equanimously"), or withdraw the energy that you're investing by default into it, in which case it goes away or is lessened all by itself. And then you can safely examine how you became angry, if you like.

2) Everything is strobing ("seeing the tail end of vibrations"). You can get absorbed into the perspective of 'I AM'' that comes with that (fueling it), you can look at the strobing equanimously (fueling a related experience, "observing the strobing equanimously"), or you can stop actively looking at the strobing, in which case the strobing stops to some degree all by itself. And then you can safely examine whether the strobing was related to the progress of insight or was related to something you did that agitated you, if you like.

"Feeling anger equanimously" is a kind of experience of anger. "Observing the strobing equanimously" is a kind of experience of strobing. These experiences are less "sticky" than their counterparts, but if the goal is to return to a wholesome state, ignoring the original experience can often be more effective than replacing one unwholesome thing with a somewhat less unwholesome thing. Related to this observation:

the unrefined practitioner starts investigating the emotion *while* it is still present. proliferate, proliferate, maximize, delusion, head spin, emotion deepens and changes course, turns into something else, one loses track of what initial emotion was.
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