My YouTube Channel - Discussion
Just added Freud's On Narcissism. Lots of insights here into how self-love can go awry, yet Echo is an example of when self-love is too low. Being in the atheist camp Freud and other Neo-Freudians look at religion as an attempt to bring back the fetal experience when all our needs are met. I'm probably going to have to go back to Nietzsche to see how psychoanalysis and analytical psychology was influenced by him.
https://youtu.be/p5bkxLpQ0Qo
Freud - On Narcissism
My subtitles are in English but I can tell I'll have to start translating into other languages since YouTube is so international. That's a whole pile of work.
https://youtu.be/p5bkxLpQ0Qo
Freud - On Narcissism
My subtitles are in English but I can tell I'll have to start translating into other languages since YouTube is so international. That's a whole pile of work.
If you are still taking recommendations for books to review. How about mine? 
The Awakened Ape. It's been on the best seller's list in Buddhism and Theravada for quite some time now.
The Awakened Ape. It's been on the best seller's list in Buddhism and Theravada for quite some time now.
Hi Richard good videos, good work, good resources and information. keep going with this high quality content in youtube
Jordi:
Hi Richard good videos, good work, good resources and information. keep going with this high quality content in youtube
Thanks for the support!
Here's a refurbishment of a prior video on Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams to account for the fact that this series is going to be longer than I thought since Freud ideas developed in a scattered way across many books and papers. 
Blog: http://psychreviews.org/dreams-sigmund-freud/
YouTube: http://youtu.be/dIxp32W5ris
Blog: http://psychreviews.org/dreams-sigmund-freud/
YouTube: http://youtu.be/dIxp32W5ris
New video on the internal commentator. It's mostly in the Advaita Vedanta style, but that's a good place to start and end for most people. Happy insights!
The Commentator:
Blog:
http://psychreviews.org/the-commentator/
YouTube:
https://youtu.be/auejzRGMa9s
Happy insights! The Commentator:
Blog:
http://psychreviews.org/the-commentator/
YouTube:
https://youtu.be/auejzRGMa9s
Richard Zen:
Stay safe from the stupid virus!
There is nothing safe within the 31 realms
(jusy kidding)Will try find time to check that vid, thanks!
Papa Che Dusko:
Richard Zen:
Stay safe from the stupid virus!
There is nothing safe within the 31 realms
(jusy kidding)Will try find time to check that vid, thanks!
I'm more worried about the economy now. So much Samsara!
This video is part of a Freudian exploration of WWI. It will move into Shell Shock/PTSD and then what was learned about the mind after the war.
During WWI, Sigmund Freud was able to stew over his theories, some early criticisms, but he also took stock of the Great War that interrupted everyone's lives. The life that people once new, in what was called the British Peace, the long peace that lasted 100 years, was over. Lives were uprooted, but there was also a lot of optimism on each side. There was a sense of adventure, until one faced reality and saw what adventure really was like.
Blog: http://psychreviews.org/war-sigmund-freud/
YouTube: https://youtu.be/eDgSz9LtjRk
Richard, I found this core idea really significant: "When one has had a frightening, negligent, or abusive background, the need to recreate those circumstances in order to try to master them psychologically can be both visible and tragic." in Part 4
Of course, this plays out quite visible during dark night stages of meditation, but wow, yes it plays out visible and tragically when the dynamic isn't consciously. When meditators really buy into the need to somehow "conquer" the dark night thier is a tendency to keep recreating the triggers they are trying to conquer and for really obstinate people (like myself) it takes hitting bottom before being willing to consider another approach.
I think that a big part of what gets learned through progressive stages of awakening is an alternative approach to this-versus-that style of mastery. There is an appreciation of a sort of "this AND that" approach which doesn't perpetuate the pattern. It's like we learn to extract the lessons we need to learn from both sides of a fightening situation, both the truth of the fear and the truth of the appropriateness of safety...
One related idea from Ken McLeod's writing... https://unfetteredmind.org/the-warriors-solution-passivity-and-freedom-4/
All reactive patterns have two poles which can be called the expressive and the receptive. The example of abuse, physical abuse makes this quite clear. When a parent abuses a child, strikes a child, that experience is usually so strong and so contradictory to what is meant to be happening in the parent-child relationship that the child cannot experience that event in attention. So something freezes. And the child splits into two. And these become the two poles of the pattern.
The one pole, the receptive, is an identity that forms around the experience of being hit and this becomes the victim. And the victim pattern, as it matures through life, is one of passive, of always trying to please, give away, always protective, defensive, hyper-vigilant, etc, etc. Familiar territory, Arlene? Yeah. Anybody who’s worked in psychotherapy knows this very well.
But the other pole also is planted in the child, and that is the expressive, which is the abuser. Because if you have been on the receiving end of abuse there is one thing that you know how to do, you know how to abuse. You know exactly how to do it. And that becomes a sadistic, dominating, belligerent, so forth. And in life a person will typically flip from one to the other. They will form a primary identity about one, but if they encounter circumstances in which that identity can’t function they will just flip to that other pole, because it’s the same pattern.
Student:
Ken: Circumstances. If you think of the bully/coward, if you challenge a bully they flip into a coward. But if you corner a coward they become a bully. And every pattern has those two poles and they flip. This is why we say, “the opposite of a reactive behavior is still the reaction.”
In the opponent’s world with child we meet what we could not face, dissolve that into energy, unite it with the other pole of the pattern, and dissolve that into the energy which it is and in this way come to experience both in attention. In this exercise we meet and experience what we could not face before, and in doing so that dissolves into energy, which is its nature. That energy is united with the other side of the pattern and we meet that and experience it. And that too dissolves into energy. So in this way we experience both sides of the pattern in attention leading to it’s dissolution.
Richard, does any of the ideas that I'm attributing to KMcL sound familiar to you? I think he didn't make it up, but got it from somewhere else. I've been interested in trying to track the source documents/references for this idea of trauma splitting into multiple views/identities/orientations.
p.s. lots of great links, including songs, in Part 5!
Of course, this plays out quite visible during dark night stages of meditation, but wow, yes it plays out visible and tragically when the dynamic isn't consciously. When meditators really buy into the need to somehow "conquer" the dark night thier is a tendency to keep recreating the triggers they are trying to conquer and for really obstinate people (like myself) it takes hitting bottom before being willing to consider another approach.
I think that a big part of what gets learned through progressive stages of awakening is an alternative approach to this-versus-that style of mastery. There is an appreciation of a sort of "this AND that" approach which doesn't perpetuate the pattern. It's like we learn to extract the lessons we need to learn from both sides of a fightening situation, both the truth of the fear and the truth of the appropriateness of safety...
One related idea from Ken McLeod's writing... https://unfetteredmind.org/the-warriors-solution-passivity-and-freedom-4/
All reactive patterns have two poles which can be called the expressive and the receptive. The example of abuse, physical abuse makes this quite clear. When a parent abuses a child, strikes a child, that experience is usually so strong and so contradictory to what is meant to be happening in the parent-child relationship that the child cannot experience that event in attention. So something freezes. And the child splits into two. And these become the two poles of the pattern.
The one pole, the receptive, is an identity that forms around the experience of being hit and this becomes the victim. And the victim pattern, as it matures through life, is one of passive, of always trying to please, give away, always protective, defensive, hyper-vigilant, etc, etc. Familiar territory, Arlene? Yeah. Anybody who’s worked in psychotherapy knows this very well.
But the other pole also is planted in the child, and that is the expressive, which is the abuser. Because if you have been on the receiving end of abuse there is one thing that you know how to do, you know how to abuse. You know exactly how to do it. And that becomes a sadistic, dominating, belligerent, so forth. And in life a person will typically flip from one to the other. They will form a primary identity about one, but if they encounter circumstances in which that identity can’t function they will just flip to that other pole, because it’s the same pattern.
Student:
Ken: Circumstances. If you think of the bully/coward, if you challenge a bully they flip into a coward. But if you corner a coward they become a bully. And every pattern has those two poles and they flip. This is why we say, “the opposite of a reactive behavior is still the reaction.”
In the opponent’s world with child we meet what we could not face, dissolve that into energy, unite it with the other pole of the pattern, and dissolve that into the energy which it is and in this way come to experience both in attention. In this exercise we meet and experience what we could not face before, and in doing so that dissolves into energy, which is its nature. That energy is united with the other side of the pattern and we meet that and experience it. And that too dissolves into energy. So in this way we experience both sides of the pattern in attention leading to it’s dissolution.
Richard, does any of the ideas that I'm attributing to KMcL sound familiar to you? I think he didn't make it up, but got it from somewhere else. I've been interested in trying to track the source documents/references for this idea of trauma splitting into multiple views/identities/orientations.
p.s. lots of great links, including songs, in Part 5!
The paralysis side of things is really interesting... Like how some tasks --- or even how thinking in a particular conceptual domain --- sometimes takes waaay too much activation energy to get started. Even if we ultimately get things done or accomplish the goal, it can feel needlessly exhausting or draining and yet, from the outside looking iin, it would seem to be no big deal to have done it. And so we kinda know something is going on, but because it isn't wildly painful or wildly fearful, its kinda hard to figure out where the actual psychological resistance is, yet there has to be something going on. It can be fun to just dig and uncover these subtle resistances in meditation. Sometimes there's suprising pay dirt -- a pocket of memories or unconscious "strategies" that are kinda shocking when they are seen in consciousness.
And it's interesting because at this level of subtilty, there are also other dimensions that come into play. Like I've noticed that all responsible people have to periodically go through adjustments where they realize "I don't have to get all of this done right now". While many people wait until a deadline, effective people often have the opposite problem of sometimes working too fast to check off their responsibilities. A lot of effective workers/professsionals will get odd resistances to working that are actually the body/mind saying "it's okay, you don't have to pursue work so hard" and this can be a good kind of adjustment, but it can feel so wrong. I've notice that most people need a friend or authority figure to say "I know you always meet the critical deadlines. It's okay to let stuff simmer on the backburner for a while, I know that YOU know when it will be appropriate to do the work and even if you wait until close to the deadline, I know you'll get it done." I had a friend do that for me, and I noticed that there was some aspect of my subconscious that did have a good understanding of when things really needed to be done and indeed I could "slack off" more without being irresponsible. But honestly, it took 5 years of trial and error (but most intensely the first year) before I could trust it.
And then there's the dimension of love, creativity, adventure... sometimes the paralysis is due to the heart yearning for something and all we know is "more getting things done" isn't the answer. This can be an odd kind of paralysis where the super-ego might allow us to slack off, but any attempt to explore new things (or the thing we know we want to do, but can't admit it) will instantly be labelled as frivolous. I've recently had a phase of this myself... and turning 50 years old kinda blew the dust off this dynamic and revealed it more clearly. In other words, the reminder of aging and mortality left me with the counter-thought: when on earth do you think you will have time to try these new things out? It's not like you have endless time left. I've made a pact with myself that I'll use the expression "sure, I'll try it!" more this year...
I kinda think that this dynamic ---- the paralysis-adventure spectrum ---- is one of nearly endless refinement. The body/mind needs to conserve energy to better survive, yet life is unfullfilling if we stay in our ruts, and yet nothing masterful is accomplished without putting ourself in a self-selected rut, yet nothing adds creativity than getting out of out of ruts, etc. It's not about choosing only one option, but kind of an artful dance we have to figure out.
(Well, that was a diatribe Anyway, thanks for evoking all these thoughts!)
And it's interesting because at this level of subtilty, there are also other dimensions that come into play. Like I've noticed that all responsible people have to periodically go through adjustments where they realize "I don't have to get all of this done right now". While many people wait until a deadline, effective people often have the opposite problem of sometimes working too fast to check off their responsibilities. A lot of effective workers/professsionals will get odd resistances to working that are actually the body/mind saying "it's okay, you don't have to pursue work so hard" and this can be a good kind of adjustment, but it can feel so wrong. I've notice that most people need a friend or authority figure to say "I know you always meet the critical deadlines. It's okay to let stuff simmer on the backburner for a while, I know that YOU know when it will be appropriate to do the work and even if you wait until close to the deadline, I know you'll get it done." I had a friend do that for me, and I noticed that there was some aspect of my subconscious that did have a good understanding of when things really needed to be done and indeed I could "slack off" more without being irresponsible. But honestly, it took 5 years of trial and error (but most intensely the first year) before I could trust it.
And then there's the dimension of love, creativity, adventure... sometimes the paralysis is due to the heart yearning for something and all we know is "more getting things done" isn't the answer. This can be an odd kind of paralysis where the super-ego might allow us to slack off, but any attempt to explore new things (or the thing we know we want to do, but can't admit it) will instantly be labelled as frivolous. I've recently had a phase of this myself... and turning 50 years old kinda blew the dust off this dynamic and revealed it more clearly. In other words, the reminder of aging and mortality left me with the counter-thought: when on earth do you think you will have time to try these new things out? It's not like you have endless time left.
I've made a pact with myself that I'll use the expression "sure, I'll try it!" more this year...I kinda think that this dynamic ---- the paralysis-adventure spectrum ---- is one of nearly endless refinement. The body/mind needs to conserve energy to better survive, yet life is unfullfilling if we stay in our ruts, and yet nothing masterful is accomplished without putting ourself in a self-selected rut, yet nothing adds creativity than getting out of out of ruts, etc. It's not about choosing only one option, but kind of an artful dance we have to figure out.
(Well, that was a diatribe
Anyway, thanks for evoking all these thoughts!)
shargrol:
Interesting -- I never quite put together how obsessional = superego, but that makes a lot of sense. Obsession has a high degree of pseudo-awareness but is strangely unobservant; having perceptions filtered through the superego helps explain the all-or-nothing lack of nuance and "obligation" feeling of obsession.
p.s. this is a very content rich summary -- thank you! -- i can already tell i'll want to read it a few times to reaaly get freud's thinking/model.
p.s. this is a very content rich summary -- thank you! -- i can already tell i'll want to read it a few times to reaaly get freud's thinking/model.
It's an early personality typology, but Obsessional involves that feeling when we imagine Objects/Entities in our mind and we get the feeling of Others and being watched. He connects this with religious attitudes of feeling an entity is watching you and judging you. Then he connects superstitious rituals with the placating of the internal object to avoid punishment. It's a way to control people without being there. We also can then do weird rituals and connect coincidences to them which reinforce the magical belief. In the modern day would be cults, tarot cards, and the such, where we project that they work and tend to focus on when it seems like they are working and ignore when it doesn't work. The feeling of helplessness keeps people wanting to believe. Heidegger also talks about this in a different way. We avoid being authentic because we have to face our past and our future death when we take responsibility. A lot of diversions, distractions and addictions are there to numb the effect, but if you're meditative enough you can detect that pang of morality before watching crappy TV, playing a video game or just coasting on the internet. It's very powerful and quite unconscious!
I would add some caveats. Freud squishes psychopaths and narcissists together in the narcissistic self-preservation side, but it's possible to follow an abuser in the mind and think you are doing the right thing. A perfect example is Moral disengagement where the Super-ego excuses let you do bad things with justification and condoning. Watch An Act of Killing and you'll see one gangster dry-heaving while talking about his executions of Chinese communists, while the other guy can talk about it without any bother. Empathy can be involved in the Erotic-Obsessional side, but if the excuses are motivating enough, one can do evil things with empathy.
Carl Jung of course aimed to find a lot more in that Super-ego than Freud did.
Is it possible that I'm not understanding because you are using narcissist in the modern sense and not the freudian sense?
This is somewhat hard for me to truly "get" because I've lived so much of my life as someone with a turbo-charged superego... actually, I'd say I was somewhere in the erotic-obssessional if I had to pick my patholgy.... and so it's hard for me to understand at a visceral level, but intellectually I can see that freudian narcissists really don't have much superego nor a need for being loved and that's the key diagnostic quality. It seems like the freudian narcissist has an overdeveloped ego that is largely uninfluenced by the "superior other" superego and "need to belong and be loved" of the id. As a result, very cold and singular.
It seems like a modern sense of narcisist is closes to Freud's Erotic-Narcissist. They are still defining themeselves in a kind of pseudo-relationship. Because they idendify so strongly with something as transient as a sense of self, which we know from meditation is created by conditions rather than being an inherently solid thing,so their sense of egoic self needs constant activity otherwise it goes away --- in the same way that air is there, but we don't feel it without motion --- and so there is a constant using of others to create a sense of self.
I think pure freudian narcissism is the same as psychopathy. A user and lacking any sense of mutuality of the erotic or inferiority of the superego.... rather the erotic aspect becomes the ongoing activity of pleasure-pain manipulation and obsessional/hierarchical aspect becomes ongoing activity of estabishing dominance.
It seems like schizophrenia is more on the narssistic-obsessional side, or perhaps a case of fairly pure obsessional. It seems like in this model that obsessional types are prone to psychosis.
Does that make sense? --- again, I'm still learning Freud's model, so I'm probably missing a lot.
"narcissistic type, is mainly to be described in negative terms. There is no tension between ego and super-ego (indeed, on the strength of this type one would scarcely have arrived at the hypothesis of a super-ego), and there is no preponderance of erotic needs. The subject’s main interest is directed to self-preservation; he is independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they are especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.”
This is somewhat hard for me to truly "get" because I've lived so much of my life as someone with a turbo-charged superego
... actually, I'd say I was somewhere in the erotic-obssessional if I had to pick my patholgy.... and so it's hard for me to understand at a visceral level, but intellectually I can see that freudian narcissists really don't have much superego nor a need for being loved and that's the key diagnostic quality. It seems like the freudian narcissist has an overdeveloped ego that is largely uninfluenced by the "superior other" superego and "need to belong and be loved" of the id. As a result, very cold and singular. It seems like a modern sense of narcisist is closes to Freud's Erotic-Narcissist. They are still defining themeselves in a kind of pseudo-relationship. Because they idendify so strongly with something as transient as a sense of self, which we know from meditation is created by conditions rather than being an inherently solid thing,so their sense of egoic self needs constant activity otherwise it goes away --- in the same way that air is there, but we don't feel it without motion --- and so there is a constant using of others to create a sense of self.
I think pure freudian narcissism is the same as psychopathy. A user and lacking any sense of mutuality of the erotic or inferiority of the superego.... rather the erotic aspect becomes the ongoing activity of pleasure-pain manipulation and obsessional/hierarchical aspect becomes ongoing activity of estabishing dominance.
It seems like schizophrenia is more on the narssistic-obsessional side, or perhaps a case of fairly pure obsessional. It seems like in this model that obsessional types are prone to psychosis.
Does that make sense? --- again, I'm still learning Freud's model, so I'm probably missing a lot.
"narcissistic type, is mainly to be described in negative terms. There is no tension between ego and super-ego (indeed, on the strength of this type one would scarcely have arrived at the hypothesis of a super-ego), and there is no preponderance of erotic needs. The subject’s main interest is directed to self-preservation; he is independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they are especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.”
shargrol:
Is it possible that I'm not understanding because you are using narcissist in the modern sense and not the freudian sense?
This is somewhat hard for me to truly "get" because I've lived so much of my life as someone with a turbo-charged superego... actually, I'd say I was somewhere in the erotic-obssessional if I had to pick my patholgy.... and so it's hard for me to understand at a visceral level, but intellectually I can see that freudian narcissists really don't have much superego nor a need for being loved and that's the key diagnostic quality. It seems like the freudian narcissist has an overdeveloped ego that is largely uninfluenced by the "superior other" superego and "need to belong and be loved" of the id. As a result, very cold and singular.
It seems like a modern sense of narcisist is closes to Freud's Erotic-Narcissist. They are still defining themeselves in a kind of pseudo-relationship. Because they idendify so strongly with something as transient as a sense of self, which we know from meditation is created by conditions rather than being an inherently solid thing,so their sense of egoic self needs constant activity otherwise it goes away --- in the same way that air is there, but we don't feel it without motion --- and so there is a constant using of others to create a sense of self.
I think pure freudian narcissism is the same as psychopathy. A user and lacking any sense of mutuality of the erotic or inferiority of the superego.... rather the erotic aspect becomes the ongoing activity of pleasure-pain manipulation and obsessional/hierarchical aspect becomes ongoing activity of estabishing dominance.
It seems like schizophrenia is more on the narssistic-obsessional side, or perhaps a case of fairly pure obsessional. It seems like in this model that obsessional types are prone to psychosis.
Does that make sense? --- again, I'm still learning Freud's model, so I'm probably missing a lot.
"narcissistic type, is mainly to be described in negative terms. There is no tension between ego and super-ego (indeed, on the strength of this type one would scarcely have arrived at the hypothesis of a super-ego), and there is no preponderance of erotic needs. The subject’s main interest is directed to self-preservation; he is independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they are especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.”
This is somewhat hard for me to truly "get" because I've lived so much of my life as someone with a turbo-charged superego
... actually, I'd say I was somewhere in the erotic-obssessional if I had to pick my patholgy.... and so it's hard for me to understand at a visceral level, but intellectually I can see that freudian narcissists really don't have much superego nor a need for being loved and that's the key diagnostic quality. It seems like the freudian narcissist has an overdeveloped ego that is largely uninfluenced by the "superior other" superego and "need to belong and be loved" of the id. As a result, very cold and singular. It seems like a modern sense of narcisist is closes to Freud's Erotic-Narcissist. They are still defining themeselves in a kind of pseudo-relationship. Because they idendify so strongly with something as transient as a sense of self, which we know from meditation is created by conditions rather than being an inherently solid thing,so their sense of egoic self needs constant activity otherwise it goes away --- in the same way that air is there, but we don't feel it without motion --- and so there is a constant using of others to create a sense of self.
I think pure freudian narcissism is the same as psychopathy. A user and lacking any sense of mutuality of the erotic or inferiority of the superego.... rather the erotic aspect becomes the ongoing activity of pleasure-pain manipulation and obsessional/hierarchical aspect becomes ongoing activity of estabishing dominance.
It seems like schizophrenia is more on the narssistic-obsessional side, or perhaps a case of fairly pure obsessional. It seems like in this model that obsessional types are prone to psychosis.
Does that make sense? --- again, I'm still learning Freud's model, so I'm probably missing a lot.
"narcissistic type, is mainly to be described in negative terms. There is no tension between ego and super-ego (indeed, on the strength of this type one would scarcely have arrived at the hypothesis of a super-ego), and there is no preponderance of erotic needs. The subject’s main interest is directed to self-preservation; he is independent and not open to intimidation. His ego has a large amount of aggressiveness at its disposal, which also manifests itself in readiness for activity. In his erotic life loving is preferred above being loved. People belonging to this type impress others as being ‘personalities’; they are especially suited to act as a support for others, to take on the role of leaders and to give a fresh stimulus to cultural development or to damage the established state of affairs.”
Of course we are all missing a lot (DSM has more than what Freud would have had experience with). It's a good starting point, but there are degrees of pathology. Schizophrenia is definitely on his obsessional side, but also when he talks about narcissistic-psychoneuroses. There are differences of degrees. A modern day narcissist is often described as someone with a preferred reality that steam-rolls over reality, and people, to find only the parts of reality that confirm the fantasy (Narcissist-Obsessional?). Anything that doesn't is attacked, by the Ego?, or ignored. Narcissists are still in a grip of reality much more so than someone with schizophrenia. Then you probably would have to add paranoia somewhere, probably Super-ego, and all the modern day personality disorder details have to be added.
Freud also compares the healthy behaviours vs. unhealthy ones (Life Drive vs. Death Drive). Outwardly destructive, and self-destructive behaviours have a dark pleasure to them and would have to be added to all the different types. Drives are another controversial subject, but the dark-side keeps coming back because it doesn't fit well with modern Positive Psychology notions. There are people who love self-development and all the steps on the way, but many people find it daunting, exhausting, neurotic, and want to lash out against it because they are looking for control.
The brain is the most complex thing we know of so it's only going to get more complicated as I move along.
Interesting!
I think the challenge most people have with Jung is they want to create intrinsically real "thing" out of what get's encountered as these raw forces like superego and id become deconstructed into something much more creative, primal, and liminal. All the semi-lucid urges and semi-fantastic images have to be honored as just that, rather than trying to make experience into some pantheon of independent entities.
This can also happen with the woowoo stuff that seems inevitable in medtation, the periods of almost channeled inteligence, encountering other beings within our mind, strange psychic intuitions, and magical synchonicities. These are easy to deal with if they are seen as momentary events consistent with those lables, which have already come and gone so no big deal. But human nature is to cling and reify and so people will always make more of a big deal than is appropriate and will always try to control/own/command these strange "powers". It's a fool's errand but we all need to take the fool's journey.
Jung's stuff has the potention to break worldviews out of their materialistic/elemental simplicity into something much more organic and creative... or people can freak out when they realize there is no controlling creativity and no guarantees and then they'll come up with a new system that basically shoves all the creativity back into box.
Cool, I think I'll check out Opponent process theory in the near future! Thanks again for this chat!
I think the challenge most people have with Jung is they want to create intrinsically real "thing" out of what get's encountered as these raw forces like superego and id become deconstructed into something much more creative, primal, and liminal. All the semi-lucid urges and semi-fantastic images have to be honored as just that, rather than trying to make experience into some pantheon of independent entities.
This can also happen with the woowoo stuff that seems inevitable in medtation, the periods of almost channeled inteligence, encountering other beings within our mind, strange psychic intuitions, and magical synchonicities. These are easy to deal with if they are seen as momentary events consistent with those lables, which have already come and gone so no big deal. But human nature is to cling and reify and so people will always make more of a big deal than is appropriate and will always try to control/own/command these strange "powers". It's a fool's errand but we all need to take the fool's journey.
Jung's stuff has the potention to break worldviews out of their materialistic/elemental simplicity into something much more organic and creative... or people can freak out when they realize there is no controlling creativity and no guarantees and then they'll come up with a new system that basically shoves all the creativity back into box.
Cool, I think I'll check out Opponent process theory in the near future! Thanks again for this chat!
This is more a thread to see what I've done recently. The YouTube channel is more organized, if people want to dig into old videos. This website has changed a lot too in its format, so I would keep it to just what is new.
I was already interested in psychology before and posted lots of Positive Psychology on this website before. It's not a "hardcore turn." I'm going mostly in order. I'll probably have to go back to the French school and William James, because of how influential it was to later psychologists.
I'll be taking a break from the meditation side of things because I'm going in order and Jung is next, and probably Adler. I also have Philosophical episodes I'm behind on. There will be some meditation from the Jungian perspective, and he's influenced many including Adyashanti, and it connects with Mahayana more easily. There are those on this website who are interested and some who don't care. That's fine. It's available for those following along. Freud took 3 years, so I'm hoping to do this more efficiently.
The typical meditators who do this are the types who meditate and then they study the brain because Nirvana is not anywhere near their interest. They want Jhanas and then to develop psychological skills and develop more personal character. This is especially true for a lot of Westerners, but I suspect some Easterners are curious.
These trends are in all Sanghas and most meditators have read other psychologists because they often need therapy BEFORE they attempt Buddhism, because what they ignore will interrupt their practice. [Eg. Daniel talks about The Shadow. It would be nice learn from the coiner of the term.] Again this is for those interested. Those not interested can ignore
The Jungian video here is just a warning about overstriving for those interested in Individuation. The Jung series in proper will be chronological so it will be all explained. Jung fans, from talking to some instructors years ago, have a tendency to overstrive and have trouble getting any pleasure in their developments so they give up, or their Heroic function is overused and tries to pretend it's other functions.
Posting knowledge about Analytical Psychology is okay, but at some point people have to try this stuff and incorporate it in their habits to get any benefits, as the above video gives instructions on how to do that. There's so much in there that I can easily use it as a reference for scores of other videos.
I was already interested in psychology before and posted lots of Positive Psychology on this website before. It's not a "hardcore turn." I'm going mostly in order. I'll probably have to go back to the French school and William James, because of how influential it was to later psychologists.
I'll be taking a break from the meditation side of things because I'm going in order and Jung is next, and probably Adler. I also have Philosophical episodes I'm behind on. There will be some meditation from the Jungian perspective, and he's influenced many including Adyashanti, and it connects with Mahayana more easily. There are those on this website who are interested and some who don't care. That's fine. It's available for those following along. Freud took 3 years, so I'm hoping to do this more efficiently.
The typical meditators who do this are the types who meditate and then they study the brain because Nirvana is not anywhere near their interest. They want Jhanas and then to develop psychological skills and develop more personal character. This is especially true for a lot of Westerners, but I suspect some Easterners are curious.
These trends are in all Sanghas and most meditators have read other psychologists because they often need therapy BEFORE they attempt Buddhism, because what they ignore will interrupt their practice. [Eg. Daniel talks about The Shadow. It would be nice learn from the coiner of the term.] Again this is for those interested. Those not interested can ignore
The Jungian video here is just a warning about overstriving for those interested in Individuation. The Jung series in proper will be chronological so it will be all explained. Jung fans, from talking to some instructors years ago, have a tendency to overstrive and have trouble getting any pleasure in their developments so they give up, or their Heroic function is overused and tries to pretend it's other functions.
Posting knowledge about Analytical Psychology is okay, but at some point people have to try this stuff and incorporate it in their habits to get any benefits, as the above video gives instructions on how to do that. There's so much in there that I can easily use it as a reference for scores of other videos.
I come at it from a slightly different but similar angle. Many people's strategy for using meditation practice to improve their life is "I hope this meditation practice fixes my life." This is not a real strategy. A real strategy would be "I will find and use a meditation practice that is designed to fix this specific problem in my life. I will assess whether it is successful by looking for noticible improvements over time. I will work on this until this weak link in my psyche is strengthened. And then I'll work on the next weak link."
Ulimately, I think the effectiveness of various meditations are up there with other modalities. That's my bold statement. But not in a naive "oh, I'll count my breath from 1 to 10 for 15 minutes a day, well most days, well except when I'm on vacation or traveling for work... and that will fix everything" way.
EDIT: adding on...
Now that I think about it, all of the meditation supported work that I found valuable also had a "practice this in real life" component, so this is very much in alignment with your idea of the importance of becoming.
Ulimately, I think the effectiveness of various meditations are up there with other modalities. That's my bold statement. But not in a naive "oh, I'll count my breath from 1 to 10 for 15 minutes a day, well most days, well except when I'm on vacation or traveling for work... and that will fix everything" way.
EDIT: adding on...
Now that I think about it, all of the meditation supported work that I found valuable also had a "practice this in real life" component, so this is very much in alignment with your idea of the importance of becoming.
shargrol
I come at it from a slightly different but similar angle. Many people's strategy for using meditation practice to improve their life is "I hope this meditation practice fixes my life." This is not a real strategy. A real strategy would be "I will find and use a meditation practice that is designed to fix this specific problem in my life. I will assess whether it is successful by looking for noticible improvements over time. I will work on this until this weak link in my psyche is strengthened. And then I'll work on the next weak link."
Ulimately, I think the effectiveness of various meditations are up there with other modalities. That's my bold statement. But not in a naive "oh, I'll count my breath from 1 to 10 for 15 minutes a day, well most days, well except when I'm on vacation or traveling for work... and that will fix everything" way.
EDIT: adding on...
Now that I think about it, all of the meditation supported work that I found valuable also had a "practice this in real life" component, so this is very much in alignment with your idea of the importance of becoming.
I come at it from a slightly different but similar angle. Many people's strategy for using meditation practice to improve their life is "I hope this meditation practice fixes my life." This is not a real strategy. A real strategy would be "I will find and use a meditation practice that is designed to fix this specific problem in my life. I will assess whether it is successful by looking for noticible improvements over time. I will work on this until this weak link in my psyche is strengthened. And then I'll work on the next weak link."
Ulimately, I think the effectiveness of various meditations are up there with other modalities. That's my bold statement. But not in a naive "oh, I'll count my breath from 1 to 10 for 15 minutes a day, well most days, well except when I'm on vacation or traveling for work... and that will fix everything" way.
EDIT: adding on...
Now that I think about it, all of the meditation supported work that I found valuable also had a "practice this in real life" component, so this is very much in alignment with your idea of the importance of becoming.
Richard Zen
Sorry, late reply. Yes Thanatos can be reviewed in multiple ways. The way Freud did it was to look at it as a need for rest, like in the Nirvana Principle and ultimately death. The Life Principle, which is bascially the Flow state, is great when you're in a Flow state, but it's frustration when skills and challenges don't match. For many people, that mismatch is normal life and they want rest from it. Without Enlightenment, or even to the level of Equanimity, it's sabotage of endeavour, and removing any negative comparisons with others, is a crude way of gaining blips of rest.
Sorry, late reply. Yes Thanatos can be reviewed in multiple ways. The way Freud did it was to look at it as a need for rest, like in the Nirvana Principle and ultimately death. The Life Principle, which is bascially the Flow state, is great when you're in a Flow state, but it's frustration when skills and challenges don't match. For many people, that mismatch is normal life and they want rest from it. Without Enlightenment, or even to the level of Equanimity, it's sabotage of endeavour, and removing any negative comparisons with others, is a crude way of gaining blips of rest.
)
shargrol
Wow, that crystalizes it for me. The death/sabotage instinct is the way the subconscious "just wants to make the whole thing stop". Makes total sense and explains why the person would be blind to the consequences of their choices, even though it would be obvious for anyone on the outside looking in... For example, I'm imagining the way Hitler thought it would be a great idea to fight a war with Russia in the winter -- it's a perfectly ideal and heroic and glorious way... to self-sabotage. (Sorry to jumping to using Hitler as an example, what a cliche! )
Richard Zen
Sorry, late reply. Yes Thanatos can be reviewed in multiple ways. The way Freud did it was to look at it as a need for rest, like in the Nirvana Principle and ultimately death. The Life Principle, which is bascially the Flow state, is great when you're in a Flow state, but it's frustration when skills and challenges don't match. For many people, that mismatch is normal life and they want rest from it. Without Enlightenment, or even to the level of Equanimity, it's sabotage of endeavour, and removing any negative comparisons with others, is a crude way of gaining blips of rest.
Sorry, late reply. Yes Thanatos can be reviewed in multiple ways. The way Freud did it was to look at it as a need for rest, like in the Nirvana Principle and ultimately death. The Life Principle, which is bascially the Flow state, is great when you're in a Flow state, but it's frustration when skills and challenges don't match. For many people, that mismatch is normal life and they want rest from it. Without Enlightenment, or even to the level of Equanimity, it's sabotage of endeavour, and removing any negative comparisons with others, is a crude way of gaining blips of rest.
)A better example if you want is drug addiction. The boredom, which happens outside of drug addiction as well, is so intense, and the withdrawal symptoms/resistance of letting go of the drugs, is so intense, there's a feeling of no way out (only more drugs and withdrawal symptoms), so a person prefers to end it all to stop the striving. The Subject > Object striving needs success all the time and confirmations of success to be seen everywhere, and drugs can be the crutch to bridge the gap. As drugs ruin your success with side effects, then all you have left is the drugs and no perceivable way out of stigma to look forward to for a redemption of more success. Even before the self-sabotage of suicide, there are self-sabotage situations because the brain projects a prediction that they will be rejected, so might as well sabotage and get the rejection over with.