___________________________________________________****************************** BACK ****************************** See also: "After a Stroke, a Scientist Studies Herself : NPR" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91861432 AND: 'My Stroke of Insight-A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey' by Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor http://drjilltaylor.com/ www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/1430300612 See also: 'Wesley The Owl' by Stacey O'Brien www.amazon.com/Wesley-Owl-Remarkable-Love-Story/dp/1416551735 ADDENDUM *************** "No memory, no desire and no understanding." W.R. Bion W.R. Bion A Seminar held in Paris July 10th 1978 http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/bion78.htm Excerpt: [...] http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/bion78.htm Q. Would you say something about what you have described as a catastrophic situation. Bion: The word 'catastrophe' has also to be understood in the light of something which goes in the opposite direction. I think of it as 'breaking down' which is very close to the metaphor, 'breaking up'. In an analytic situation the analyst is concerned with trying to make conscious, trying to bring to awareness something which the patient has often spent his life trying to make unconscious. There are two people in the room who come together at the same time, in the same place, but the directions in which they are thinking are different. They could agree if the analyst consented to become very disturbed and afflicted with the same kind of neurosis or psychosis as the patient, but it is usually supposed that the analyst should not lose his capacity for being aware of the world of reality, although he may be drawing attention to a world of a different form of reality. The simplest example I can give is this: we are in the state of mind which is usually known as being awake or conscious and aware of what is taking place - so we think. But when we are asleep we are in a different state of mind. This division into day and night is not very illuminating, but I think it is useful if one can retain the valuable quality of being able to go to sleep, as well as the valuable quality of being able to wake up. That 'marriage' often seems not to be harmonious. For example, patients may admit that they had a dream but they don't take it seriously; they don't feel disposed to tell you where they dreamt and what they saw. They say, 'Oh, I just dreamt it'. I don't know why they 'just dreamt it'. If the acorn said, 'Oh, they're just roots', what would one think? After all, even an acorn on an oak owes something to the roots. So what is one to make of a patient who thinks he 'just dreamt it'? Freud considered that dreams ought to be treated with respect - I think that is the most important part of his work, but I don't believe we have got anywhere near to reaping the consequences of treating dreams with respect. [...] http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/bion78.htm _/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~ Wilfred R.. Bion, 1897-1979 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Bion http://knowledgerush.com/kr/encyclopedia/Wilfred_Bion/ W.R. Bion A Seminar held in Paris July 10th 1978 http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/bion78.htm *************************************** Beckett and Bion by Steven Connor This paper was written for the Beckett and London conference which took place at Goldsmiths College, London in 1998. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/skc/beckbion/ EXCERPT: ------------------------------------------------------- The ascertainable facts about [Samuel] Beckett's period of psychoanalysis with Wilfred Bion are, like the prayers of the lukewarm soul, faint and few. Beckett was a young man of 27 who had taken the first steps in his literary career, with the publication of 'Whoroscope', Proust, Echo's Bones and, shortly after beginning analysis, More Pricks Than Kicks. After his years of promise and freedom at the Ecole Normale, during which time he came to know Joyce and begun to make out a reputation and literary career for himself, Beckett had suffered a series of reverses. The terms of his fellowship required him to return to teach at Trinity College Dublin; Beckett loathed teaching and quickly sank into his characteristic condition of shabby apathy and depression. During the year, his father, who seemed to have been an important counterweight to his domineering, demanding mother, died of a heart attack. It may be that Beckett experienced this as a confirmation of the loss of his second father, Joyce, who had broken angrily with him after Beckett's abortive affair with Lucia, who was herself sinking more and more inexorably into illness. Beckett underwent something very like a breakdown; he resigned his fellowship at Trinity, and it seemed he would be unable to make a living as long as he was in Ireland. His depression expressed itself in endless unshiftable colds and flu, boils and cysts and panic attacks accompanied by palpitations and sensations of suffocation. He was persuaded by his friend Geoffrey Thompson that his symptoms might be of psychosomatic origin and managed to persuade his mother in turn to let him come to London in late 1933 specifically in order to undertake analysis. Early in 1934 he began therapy at the Tavistock Clinic with Wilfred Bion (Knowlson 1996, 175-81). [...] http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/skc/beckbion/ *************************************** Bion's O - An Open Gate between Eastern and Western Psychotherapy Tel Aviv University Psychotherapy Program Bion Forum (c) Jonathan Harrison, 2006 http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 [...] Truth and reality Bion (1970) used O as a sign for experience, ultimate reality, the thing-in-itself, or truth. In Bion's terms, nondual therapy can be described as facilitating the student's access to O, and then encouraging him/her to extend that being. Fenner (2003) stated, "The function of nondual therapy is to introduce people to the unconditioned aspect of their existence and then deepen and stabilize the experience." Alan Watts (1973) stated that spiritual work and meditation are about connecting to reality. He explained that this is necessary as in general we are not in contact with reality because we confuse reality with the way we think about it. Consequently we try to manipulate things, hold on to things we like and get rid of things we do not like, unaware that these 'things' have no inherent existence and are only thoughts. The resultant inevitable failure leads to the so-called negative emotions such as frustration, anger, impotence, envy, loss of control, fear and degraded self-image. So Bion's fascination for me is in his attempt to touch the truth. This is what he meant by O, the ineffable truth of experience, including ourselves and the world in which we think we live. In particular Bion was interested, as are all psychoanalysts, in the mind of the analysand, which he knew he did not and could never know. He commented in his prologue to A Memoir of the Future (Bion, 1991), "The definitory hypothesis is intended to be taken and applied in all seriousness in the practice of psycho-analysis by those who wish to confront what they believe to be 'facts', as near to noumena as the human animal is likely to get. This may be 'never'; with Kant, I hold that the thing-in-itself is unknowable." [...] http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 Bion's unstructured listening Bion's no memory, no desire seem to me to allude to something similar, although not identical, to Buddhist wisdom, essential for the ideal of containment. He believed that, "...it is easier to 'forget' what you know and 'forget' what you want, get rid of your desires, anticipations and also your memories so that there will be a chance of hearing these very faint sounds that are buried in this mass of noise." (Bion, 2005). He recommended (Bion, 1970) that, "In every session the psycho-analyst should be able...to be aware of the aspects of the material that, however familiar they may seem to be, relate to what is unknown both to him and to the analysand. Any attempt to cling to what he knows must be resisted for the sake of achieving a state of mind analogous to the paranoid-schizoid position. For this state I have coined the term 'patience', to distinguish it from 'paranoid-schizoid position', which should be left to describe the pathological state for which Melanie Klein used it. I mean the term to retain its association with suffering and tolerance of frustration..."'Patience' should be retained without 'irritable reaching after fact and reason' until a pattern 'evolves'. This state is the analogue to what Melanie Klein has called the depressive position. For this state I use the term 'security'. This I mean to leave with its association of safety and diminished anxiety. ....a sense of achievement of a correct interpretation will be commonly be found to be followed almost immediately by a sense of depression." [...] http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 Reality and illusions To become O means resting in the unconditioned mind. Nothing special is required, just to rest quietly and relax in the deep realization that, as the Dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu (1984) explained, "All phenomena which are seen or heard, however many of them there may be, are like so many false images, even though they may appear to be very diverse. Thus we can conclusively determine that they are merely a magical display of the mind... The nature of the mind is from the very beginning empty and without a self." Buddha said, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world." Bion (1970) stated similarly but in different terminology, "The analyst must focus his attention on O, the unknown and unknowable. The success of psycho-analysis depends on the maintenance of a psycho-analytic point of view; the point of view is the psycho-analytic vertex; the psycho-analytic vertex is O. With this the analyst cannot be identified: he must be it. Every object known or knowable by man, including himself, must be an evolution of O. It is O when it has evolved sufficiently to be met by K capacities in the psycho-analyst. He does not know the 'ultimate reality' of a chair, anxiety, time and space, but he knows a chair, anxiety, time and space." Here Bion distinguishes explicitly between concepts (K) and the reality they purport to represent (O). Whereas being O signifies resting in the unconditioned mind, K signifies knowledge, concepts, mental structures, the conditioned mind. [...] http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 Summary I have tried to indicate some areas where Bion, as a western psychoanalyst, views the mind and reality in some ways similar to those of those of eastern nondual psychotherapy. If this gateway is sensitively explored it may have a potential for greater understanding beyond both eastern and western psychotherapies, synergizing the ancient and deep eastern appreciation of reality and nondual "being" with western achievements in mental model building. This synergy could encourage the use of psychoanalytic models, but with humility, as Bion clearly intended, that is without stumbling and actually believing in them. Models and theories represent our efforts to relate to reality, not reality itself. The distinction is vital for mental health and peaceful human cooperation, the reduction of racism and war and the tolerance of pluralism. Bion's main contribution to the art of psychoanalysis may have indeed been humility, without which compassion and true healing are probably impossible. http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 References Bion (1970). Attention and Interpretation. London: Karnac Bion (1991). A Memoir of the Future. London: Karnac Bion, W. (2005).The Tavistock Seminars. London: Karnac Eigen, M. (2004). The Electrified Tightrope. NJ: Jason Aronson Ehrlich, S. (2003). Experience--What is it? Int J Psychoanal 2003;84:1125-1147 Feldman, E. (2005) Bion's O - An Open Gate - Some thoughts about Bion's Attention and Interpretation pages 26/27: Reality Sensuous and Psychic. Tel Aviv University Psychotherapy Program, Bion Forum Fenner, P. (2003). In Prendergast J., Fenner P., Krystal S. (2003). The Sacred Mirror: Nondual Wisdom and Psychotherapy. St. Paul: Paragon House. Freud, S. (1912). Recommendations to Physicians Practicing Psychoanalysis. S.E. vol. 12 Grotstein, J. (1997). Bion's "Transformation in 'O'" and the Concept of the Transcendent Position". Presented at the Bion97 Torino Conference. Grotstein, J. (2000). Who is the Dreamer that Dreams the Dream? Hillsdale: The Analytic Press Harrison, J. 2006). Analytic Meditative Therapy as the Inverse of Symbol Formation and Reification, Journal of Religion and Health, Apr 2006, Pages 1 - 20, DOI 10.1007/s10943-005-9004-7, URL 7 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-005-9004-7 Longchen Rabjam (1998). The Precious Treasury of the Way of Abiding. Junction City: Padma Publishing Norbu, N. (1984). The Cycle of Day and Night. New York: Station Hill Ray, R.A. (2001). Secret of the Vajra World. Boston: Shambhala Rubin, J. (2005). Psychotherapy and Buddhism. New York: Plenum Seng Ts'an (c. 550), the third Chinese Patriarch of the Cha'an School, in the gatha: "Have Faith in Your Mind" Watts, A (1973). Alan Watts Teaches Meditation. Los Angeles: Audio Renaissance Tapes. http://www.simplymeditate.org/?p=57 ****************************** BACK ****************************** "When you meet the Buddha, you kill the Buddha" - Shahid Najeeb Issue #4 - December 2003 Seeking the spirit of psychoanalysis This paper was presented as a public lecture of the APAS on 28 August 2003 in Sydney www.psychoanalysisdownunder.com/downunder/backissues/issue4/355/when_you_meet EXCERPT: [...] The marrow of psychoanalysis The marrow of Bodhidharma was inherited by his disciple Hui-k'o, who in fact went on to become the second patriarch of the Zen school. As we have seen Hui-k'o expressed his understanding by his profound silence. It is expressed in silence because words and symbols, no matter how expressive, cannot accurately convey the essence of the understanding. Words have as much a capacity to distort meaning as they have to convey it, as much capacity to block understanding as they have to facilitate it. If we are to accurately understand the essence of psychoanalysis, then it will have to be an understanding that is beyond words, indeed beyond any sense modality. Bion said that we have to 'intuit' the truth of psychoanalytic experience. He said if we are to have any chance of being able to so, we must rid our minds of all conceptual frameworks. We must divest ourselves of frameworks of the past, called 'memory', or frameworks about the future, called 'desire'. I need to clarify that Bion's silence is not the absence of sound. It is only the absence of noise in much the same spirit that artists quietly produce while the rest of us prattle on noisily about creativity. Only if we have the capacity to stand quietly like Hui-k'o, our minds empty of all thoughts, concepts and noise, then and only then can we intuit the truth of psychoanalytic experience, which is what the whole complex structure of psychoanalysis rests upon. Intuition thus is the essence, the very marrow, of psychoanalysis. Once upon a time psychoanalysts talked about 'transference' by which were meant the unconscious endowments of the psychoanalyst with features from the analysand's past. Then psychoanalysts talked about the 'countertransference', which were the internal experiences of the psychoanalyst that were the counterpart of the transference feelings and sometimes produced by them. When we talk about the intuitive aspects of psychoanalysis we include both transference and countertransference feelings but we tend now to think of them as being different dimensions of a shared experience. This experience is usually enacted and misunderstood by both participants till it is intuitively grasped and understood. Sometimes the intuitive understanding is there right from the beginning but we fail to recognize it, till it forces itself upon us and we have no choice but to see it, understand it and hopefully use it. More often is something that is ill-formed, ill-defined, fleeting, ephemeral and almost always gives us reason to relegate it to the unlikely, the irrelevant, the magical and the fantastic. Intuitive understanding is hard to formulate. It has something to do with feelings and patterns or perhaps patterns of feelings. These patterns probably keep recurring till they press themselves on our awareness and can then be recognized. Sometimes it is contained in images and unlikely fantasies and sometimes it is contained in behaviour that we recognize as being stupid but unexplained. But whatever it is and however we are able to grasp it, I think most psychoanalysts would agree that it is the essence of meaningful psychoanalytic experience. [...] www.psychoanalysisdownunder.com/downunder/backissues/issue4/355/when_you_meet *************************************** GROUP RELATIONS: AN INTRODUCTION MAKING ABSENCES PRESENT: THE CONTRIBUTION OF W. R. BION TO UNDERSTANDING UNCONSCIOUS SOCIAL PHENOMENA by David Armstrong http://www.human-nature.com/group/chap3.html [...] When he was working as a psychiatrist at The Tavistock Clinic before the Second World War, a young, highly talented but so far rather unproductive Irish writer, came to see Bion as a patient. The writer was Samuel Beckett. At the time Beckett had published a study of Proust and a few short stories and poems, but little else. Later, after he had left treatment, he was to begin working on the unique, strange, unfamiliar sequence of novels and plays that made his name. [...] http://www.human-nature.com/group/chap3.html *************************************** Dialectical Behavioral Therapy [DBT] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy QUOTE: "Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a psychological method developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, to treat persons with borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of mindful awareness, distress tolerance, and acceptance largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice. DBT is the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be effective for treating BPD. Research indicates that DBT is also effective in treating patients who represent varied symptoms and behaviors associated with spectrum mood disorders, including self-injury. The key elements of DBT are conventional behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy, along with its signature concepts of dialectics and mindfulness. Dialectical thinking, similar to its role in philosophy, is introduced as an alternative to intense, polarized emotions. Rather than reacting to events as either perfect or unbearable, patients are encouraged to recognize multiple viewpoints and bring them "into dialogue." Mindfulness is taught as a method for becoming aware of one's actual, realistic experience in the moment, and separating it from fears about the future or rumination about events about the past." [...] Cont. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy Dialectical Behavioral Therapy http://behavioraltech.org/resources/mindfulness.cfm QUOTE: "Mindfulness Skills have emerged as an important focus of several empirically supported treatments. Dialectical Behavior Therapy for borderline personality disorder, mindfulness-based cognitive behavior therapy for depression, and mindfulness-based stress reduction are based in mindfulness. The roots of mindfulness practice are in the contemplative practices common to both eastern and western spiritual disciplines and to the emerging scientific knowledge about the benefits of 'allowing' experiences rather than suppressing or avoiding them. Mindfulness in its totality has to do with the quality of awareness that a person brings to everyday living; learning to control your mind, rather than letting your mind control you. Mindfulness as a practice directs your attention to only one thing, and that one thing is the moment you are living in. When you recognize the moment, what it looks like, feels like, tastes like, sounds like -- you are being mindful. Further, mindfulness is the process of observing, describing, and participating in reality in a non-judgmental manner, in the moment and with effectiveness. At the same time, mindfulness is the window to acceptance, freedom, and wisdom." http://behavioraltech.org/resources/mindfulness.cfm Mindfulness in psychotherapy: an introduction http://apt.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/13/2/147 The Miracle of Mindfulness http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_of_Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh _/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~_/~ It's always just NOW. Or as that weird Munchkin, E c k h a r t T o l l e, likes to pontificate: "Stillness Speaks: When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the I Am that is deeper than name and form. [...] Nothing that comes and goes is you. 'I am bored.' Who knows this? 'I am angry, sad, afraid.' Who knows this? You are the knowing, not the condition that is known." http://www.eckharttolle.com/ Eckhart Tolle -- "The Power of Now" ::: If you cannot be at ease with yourself when you are alone, you will seek a relationship to cover up your unease. You can be sure that the unease will then reappear in some other form within the relationship, and you will probably hold your partner responsible for it. All you really need to do is accept this moment fully. You are then at ease in the here and now and at ease with yourself. But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can't you just be yourself? When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself into two: "I" and "myself," subject and object. That mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself - "you' and "yourself" merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no "self" that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. When you are enlightened, there is one relationship that you no longer have: the relationship with yourself. Once you have given that up, all your other relationships will be love relationships. ::: -- Eckhart Tolle "The Power of Now" Chapter 8 http://airamerica.com/content/eckhart-tolle-power-now-chapter-8 http://eckharttolle.com/the_power_of_now ||||||||||||||||||||||| Airborn Jellyfish Alert! Unstuck In Time ...* circa: 1997 http://pweb.netcom.com/~mthorn/basin_qa.htm _______________________________________________________ "On the outskirts of a city, there's a reservoir in a watershed..." http://pweb.netcom.com/~mthorn/zooo1999.htm _______________________________________________________ Someone, Winifred Grace Barton, an 86 year old woman in Ontario, Canada, recently sent me this YouTube link... [circa: 2009] Thousand-Hand Guan Yin http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=xgHmSdpjEIk ....to which I replied: Dearest Bodhisattva of Compassion, Ultraterrestrial Prankster High-Priestess, Mahatma Winifred Grace Barton : Thank you for that. Tat Tvam Asi. Unfortunately, my archaic dinosaur 'puter with un-upgradeable software is not up to the task of playing the YouTube video, but 'Google' always comes in handy: "As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart A thousand hands will naturally come to your aid As long as you are kind and there is love in your heart You will reach out with a thousand hands to help others" -- Zhang Jigang, (born December 25, 1958)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Jigang ....the choreographer of 'Thousand-Hand Guan Yin' http://www.taoism.net/guanyin/home.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guan_Yin QUOTE: Guan Yin is the bodhisattva of compassion, http://www.taoism.net/guanyin/home.htm revered by Buddhists as the Goddess of Mercy. Her name is short for Guan Shi Yin. Guan means to observe, watch, or monitor; Shi means the world; Yin means sounds, specifically sounds of those who suffer. Thus, Guan Yin is a compassionate being who watches for, and responds to, the people in the world who cry out for help. Bodhi means wisdom or enlightenment; sattva means being or essence. Put the two together and you get bodhisattva, a being who is enlightened and ready to transcend the cycles of birth and death, but chooses to return to the material world in order to help other people reach the same level of enlightenment. This is the ultimate demonstration of pure compassion. [...] There is a phenomenon sweeping through Asia which is still relatively unknown in the West. [...] It is a stunning stage performance called Thousand-Hand Guan Yin. [...] The most incredible thing about the performance is that all the dancers are deaf. They are members of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe. None of them can hear the music - this makes their choreography a truly amazing achievement. The difficulties and challenges they encountered in training are beyond imagining. [...] http://www.taoism.net/guanyin/home.htm () () () () () () () () () () () () () Meanwhile... I was recently thinking about the 'vow' that a Bodhisattva makes. A somewhat daunting, down right terrifying sort of vow, to renounce nirvana, final extinction, etc. for the sake of any and all remaining conscious sentient beings trapped in unrelenting cyclic bondage to material reality - to remain in the cycle to help them out of the cycle, a concept in itself, perhaps, a bit narcissistic if it isn't truly 'selfless', which raises all sorts of complicated psychological meanderings of the mind. Years ago, in my mind's eye, I imagined a short story (never wrote anything down) about a truly ancient Bodhisattva who had returned so many gawd damn times to whatever hell hole existence that was populated by stubborn sentient beings, that he (or she) was a bit frayed around the edges, worn out, tired, having second, third, etc. thoughts about the 'old vow', thinking maybe about 'blowing off the whole enterprise' to youthful-soul folly, wondering maybe about forgetting the 'vow' and moving on. I think I placed this tired Bodhisattva as the owner of a coin- operated Laundromat in a dingy city. I don't recall if it had any sort of tangible plot, just the basic idea. It would make an interesting play or movie in the right hands, maybe Zhang Jigang, David Lynch, and Charlie Kaufman the guy who wrote Being John Malkovich. Anyway, only someone trapped in samsaric illusory material universe sentient looniness would even conceive of such a goofy scenario, therefore, I bow my head to thee, dearest Bodhisattva of Compassion, Ultraterrestrial Prankster High Priestess, Mahatma Winifred Grace Barton, a true example of a contemporary Bodhisattva of Egyptological Initiatory Contactee Experience who never fails to make one's heart smile. Catch ya later. --MT, Present Moment. () () () () () () () () () () () () () **************************************************** ADDENDUM *************** A 'Working' CONCLUSION TO THE 11:11 SAGA: The Ex-Watcher angel, formerly known as Malak Taus. MT [Written: Monday, May 11, 2009, 6:15 PM - KALIphornia] http://pweb.netcom.com/~mthorn/11_11.htm 
* Owlsley XY says 'Hi!'
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