Root access to the brain (major edit II)

seth tapper, modified 5 Years ago at 6/10/18 12:46 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/9/18 1:49 PM

Root access to the brain (major edit II)

Posts: 477 Join Date: 8/19/17 Recent Posts
If one takes a purely materialistic view of reality and accepts that the "mind" and consciousness and all experience is the product of a physical brain,  it offers access to what I would call the root or overmind.   This is not the same as real "enlightenment", there is still an implicit, very subtle sense of self, but it is close.  The explanation below is not from a materialist perspective, but from the view inside a human mind.  From a materialist perspective, of course, nothing is really happening.  

 When the brain holds a self image of being meat with no mission to perform, problem to solve or narrative to follow it stops caring about the contents of consciousness,  because those contents are obviously meaningless and with out consequence.  It is not a supernatural feeling, it feels like the ordinary experience of not thinking something is important.  The contents of the mind are obviously just meat.  The mind realizes it has been pretending a pile of meat with a hair trigger nervous system is some kind of supernatural being in a world full of supernatural beings.  

In this state, the brain is not lost in what I call Type I and Type II mind states.  

Type II mind states are ones in which there is a self and it is experiencing a world of meaning with consequences and narratives.  A regular human mind state.  Seth Tapper did that, wants to do this, is worried about Trump, etc.  There is always some aversion or fear in the mind, even if apparently subtle. (most of us carry around a huge ocean of aversions and fears, but we have it buried in the subconscious).  We usually consider these mind states to be true and important and being in touch with ourselves and often God. 

Type I mind states are ones in which things just arise and occur and there seems to be no particularized self.  We call these mind states things like the flow, just being or even Jhanas.   These mind states feel free and like the goal of meditation, but they are also delusional and arise in a series of subconscious contexts and meaning systems where there is an implicit self that is enjoying or even just experiencing the contents of the mind.  Seeing through these mindstates is very difficult because the aversion that is their seed and causes their fabrication is so subtle and so much less than in the Type II mind states that the brain is satisfied with them, even attached to them, and seeks to just dwell in those states.  Within a purely materialist view, even the most blissed out and not attached and selfless mind states are just meat spinning on a planet. This understanding allows the brain to begin to contemplate the fabrication of reality itself.  

Root States are mind states in which the mind truly accepts that it is empty of meaning or consequence.   The whole drama has been a nonsense and existed only inside some meat. There is still a knower implicit in the arising of this experience, so while this state feels free of aversion - like laughing - a subtle self is still being fabricated, but it seems like the last mind state before the unfabricated.  It does not feel supernatural, just normal not being an idiot and thinking meat is meaning.

A simple and quick path to this insight: (Please - if anyone is following this and has not discounted me as a nut already, let me know if any of the exerices below work for you at all. ) 

One way to experience the sequence from Type II to Root mind states is to try and relax a muscle in your arm.  First, try to use intention to do it.  I command you to relax! Of course, the muscle probably contracts in response or does nothing.   Now, let your attention just sit upon the muscle and watch a cycle occur.  At first the tension in the muscle seems painful and even emotionally painful and the mind is full of aversion and desire for the muscle to relax.  It feels like a self is suffering and has no control over the pain.  The more one pointed your attention on the muscle, the more dramatic this experience will seem.  This is a typical Type II mind state and these types of mind states arise in response to both apparently physical and emotional pain (anxiety is a form of emotional pain in this model).  

Try to maintain your attention on the muscle in contraction.  This is harder than it sounds,  the mind will try to run from the pain and attention will shift on its own, either to other sensations or get lost in a story of some kind caused by an association the mind makes between the pain and some subconsious narrative you have been hanging onto.  If you can keep holding the attenion on the muscle long enough a phase change will happen, the emotional and physical pain will become just a muscle in contraction and most of the aversion leaves the mind.   

This is similiar to the experience of looking at one of those pictures that the mind can see in two ways, but not both at the same time.  
http://www.sommer-sommer.com/brainfacts/10-ambiguous-images-how-does-your-brain-interpret-these-pics/

We have all experienced spasms and things and know the feeling, but you can try it yourself.  In the moment when the experience transforms from a self having pain to a just a muscle in contraction, the mind shifts into a Type I mind state.  It is no longer Seth Tapper in pain, but an experiencer or knower confronting a natural phenomenon.  It is not quite that neat, but works as a pointer.  


If you can hold attention on the spasm even longer, eventually, often with a laugh, the mind realizes it is the one creating the tension in the first place and lets go and the tension in the muscle is released.   This mind state is what I call a root mind state.  Consciousness seems to become in control of the fabrication of its own pain and naturally stops.   This root state sees all suffering and pain as self delusion and feels perfectly happy and satisfied.  It usually lasts only a moment, but with practice and a commitment to shedding non materialist or non empty models of reality, it becomes a natural and stable state of mind.  It feels like being present and rational and at ease.  Agency is moot as there is nothing to be done.  Laughing or the states after a big laugh is a close mind state that everyone has experienced. 

Expanding the field of attention: 

Just the way you can take your attention and place it on a particular muscle and wait until the mind achieves root access and then releases, one can take her attention and place it upon the entire field of experience in consiousness and then wait until the mind achieves root access and then releases.   This is much easier to do in a materialist framework (at least for me) than in other models as the mind accepts that its entire experience is meat easier than it accepts other more solipsistic or spiritual frameworks.  Just as with the muscle in the arm, at first it will feel like the field of experience is really too painful to experience at once and attention will shift on its own.  You will get lost in narrative, etc.  With practice, eventually one can hold attention on the entire field of experience long enough for the phase change to happen into a Type I mindstate and you start to enter Jhanic mindstates.  The longer you can hold the attention, the less aversion is produced and the "higher" the jhana the mind enters.  These type I mind states also have an implicit narrative and self - if you know you are in one, then a subconscious narrative and knower is being fabricated.  

Here the project is not to hold attention longer, but to maintain a materialist framework even as the apparently supernatural mindstates arise.  It is difficult to believe that these jhanas are being produced on earth in a neural network, but that is what is happening. (from a materialist view).   When this realization reaches consciousness while in a type I mind states, another phase change happens and the root mind becomes the conscious mind.  It has all been nonsense from the start!  Just meat.  It is hard to describe how free and normal this mind state feels - there is no fear in it and that is a tremendous difference than even the jhanas where some subconscious fear is still bubbling.  This mind state is a door to nirvana and egress from the fabricated labyrnth of our meaning systems, narratives and self myths. 

A purely materialst view makes it possible to live life with out losing root access - I am sure other views do as well - because no other mind states makes any sense.  The meat is quivering, the mind states are arising, and it is all the product of a meaningless network of neurons. Knowing this provides direct access to the root. 
seth tapper, modified 5 Years ago at 6/11/18 1:22 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/9/18 2:12 PM

Body Scan As Access ( Edited)

Posts: 477 Join Date: 8/19/17 Recent Posts
Body Scanning as access to root states: 

One way to experiment with this paradigm is to body scan, say from toes to top of head, and label each muscle - meat.  Try to really be grounded and rational and accept that in the real world it is just nerves, tendons and tissue.

Once you feel grounded and edible, try to notice whether you are in a Type I or Type II mind state.  The tell tale sign is suffering - if you feel disatisfied, then it is a Type II mind state.  If you feel selfless and satisfied, it is type I.   The more time you spend labeling mind states, the less the brain identifies with them as being beyond its control and having meaning or importance.  Eventually, root access becomes more readily available.  The feeling of entering the root is one like hearing the punchline of a joke, the whole world shifts from tension to release and any concerns you have ever had are revealed to be nonsense.  You can't miss it.  

Also, just to be clear here, I am not claiming anything.  The stuff above is true to the best of my ability to see, but Type II mind states still arise for me all the time. 
seth tapper, modified 5 Years ago at 6/11/18 1:32 PM
Created 5 Years ago at 6/11/18 1:30 PM

Finding Root mind in daily life

Posts: 477 Join Date: 8/19/17 Recent Posts
The more that I practice noting the mind state that I am in, the more root mind becomes the default mode for the brain.  In the past, Type II mind states would arise and I would suffer, Type I mind states would arise and I would cling and when root mind states arose, it felt so supernatural that I could not comprehend how those mind states related to regular life or how they could come and go.  

Grounding this sequence of mind states in materialism has enabled me to use the regular rational mind that crosses the street to comprehend the root mind and now, whenever strong disatisfaction arises, the brain labels the mind state as Type II and finds its way back to root.  This works even when confronted with strong anxiety triggers and physical pain.  I have not exposed the it to war, famine or tragedy, unless you count the G7. 

( I use mine and me and i and stuff, because using the third person - this brain, etc, feels stilted.  It creates lots of pardoxes in the language , however, so I wonder if anyone thinks i should switch to a more system description rather than a first person perspective.) 

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