Enlightenment models, Culadasa, and hemisphere lateralization

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness I have posited that all forms of awakeness seem to have something to do with increased right hemisphere activation, but Culadasa's description in the podcast seems different!

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · Apr 19, 2019

Oh! one thing I've been realizing is that it seems that almost everything people want to call "awakeness" is associated with right-hemisphere brain function. That is, they all involve an awareness of the limitations of re-presentation and a connection with what is present. 🤔🧠

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness Reading this Theravada quote (see adjacent tweets) it seemed that the subject in question was left-hemisphere attention (although as effectively integrated with right-hemisphere awareness.)

Transcendent Thinking @transcendence35 · Apr 21, 2019

@_awbery_ @xuenay "The integrative character of mindfulness is like the Minister-of-all-work of a King. He is wanted in putting through every project of the King. He is commissioned to organize and combine the workers and execute the tasks.

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness But then this distinction between LH attention and RH awareness itself comes from... Culadasa! Not sure of original source but this reddit post on /r/streamentry about McGilchrist's brain hemisphere work says Culadasa explicitly connects the two. reddit.com/r/streamentry/…

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness Meanwhile, tantric/dzogchen "result" as described in Spectrum of Ecstasy seems almost 100% about shifting to a primarily right-hemisphere-based form of consciousness. (Realizing now that this thread 👇 doesn't actually explain the relationship! #todo)

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · May 14, 2019

1/ Reading Spectrum of Ecstasy (thanks @QiaochuYuan & @Meaningness!) ...and the parallels between it and Iain McGilchrist's @divided_brain model are... like 100%? If it weren't for the fact that IM doesn't use the term "non-dual", these pages could literally from IM's book.

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness So! I still have only the foggiest ideas of how these all relate. Would love to hear thoughts from @_awbery_ or @Meaningness on the subject! Or maybe that needs to wait for me to explain how I see the hemispheres as connecting to nonduality.

Malcolm Ocean 🏴‍☠️ @Malcolm_Ocean · May 14, 2019

7/ I don't grok enough about the brain or about tantric non-dual awareness to have a precise model for how they relate, but I feel like we're on the cusp of this and I'm really excited about that. twitter.com/Malcolm_Ocean/…

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness Oh! One further thought is that I have a felt sense of a subtle connection between some of the descriptions of renunciate practice in this thread, and the disembodied philosophers of the enlightenment, eg Descartes.

Charlie Awbery @_awbery_ · Apr 20, 2019

@SupernormalMind @xuenay That’s from commentary on the section where monks are advised to contemplate the repulsiveness of the body. I’m much in favor of non-renunciative approaches and ideas. I don’t find them in the Sattipathana sutta.

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness Sense of "the body is a problem but by breaking it into parts we can reject it thoroughly." Here's Descartes re: the body, from McGilchrist's book, The Master and his Emissary. The screenshots are in two pairs—there's a jump of a few pages between them.

@_awbery_ @QiaochuYuan @Meaningness Now I'm wondering "was Buddhism originally like this, or did it evolve to be?" (Similar to the absurd opulence & authoritarianism of the Catholic church—absurd because it calls itself Christian and Christ seemed quite opposed to such opulence & authoritarianism.)