Chapter 2 : THE MONKEY LOSES HIS BALANCE

Forget the Monkey, Tame the Hedgehog and the Horse.
Animals need both their broadband and focussed sensory abilities to survive.
And, either focussed or broadband, they are now. They are not lost in abstract thought.

EMPATHY WITH ANIMALS
BROADBAND SENSING

Chapter 2 :
THE MONKEY LOSES HIS BALANCE

This Chapter might need a bit of concentration – It is long, but i'm sure it's clear - and it's sure to get better in a month or so, - maybe needs splitting in two Chapters - but i think it works well now.

MEMORY
Humans became very successful at doing things with our five sensitive feelers (feet, hands and head), because we could use abstract thinking and remember. Our memory was wired far more efficiently than other animals. We developed systems of abstract words and symbols to communicate with. We could process ideas quickly and learn to repeat an amazing amount of tricks, not only with our bodies but also with our minds.

We have to remember and repeat an ever increasing number of thoughts and actions from an increasingly young age with reading, writing and maths. And as we grow older increasingly complex and specialised co-ordination: operating machines, cooking (if it's not just rice), playing football. And our culture's abstract ideas make increasingly complicated connections: calculating the speed of light, even asking "why am I?" and programming computers.

And all our individual repeated thoughts and actions, our repetitions, reconfirm themselves and ourselves with every repetition. They are our habits, they establish a feeling of security, they confirm us and our position and sense of purpose in relation to our world. It is a multi-efficient system.

THE PRACTICAL LEARNING SYSTEM
Let's get a bit deeper into this very efficient memory system we have.

Human babies don't have sufficient instinctive talents to survive. First we have to learn, and to learn, first we have to focus. Without focussing we can do nothing and learn nothing and we can make no progress in life.

In all but specialist job training like wine connoisseur, perfumer, aroma therapist and master chef, taste and smell are ignored.

But from the earliest age we have to concentrate and focus with our mind to think; with the eyes and ears to read and write and listen; and with the body to coordinate and train football.

When we focus and learn something, it immediately connects with our memory. We see a tree, we learn 'tree', we remember 'tree' and the next time we only need to vaguely notice a new tree and it brings back the associaton ... to be aware of every tree and have to relearn it everytime would be ridiculous, so it's automatic, that's efficient, animals do it too. Habitual repetitive ruts are essential and basicly they are efficient.

There seems to be only one small enigmatic querk in the system so far. When we focus on anything, we directly limit and inhibit our general awareness of the many other things which are happening now.

This specialisation, this narrowed perspective on life is necessary for survival. But it is the start of a dissociation from the wholeness of our sense of reality.

There is another problem which i believe has never been identified: The one sided emphasis on focussing and learning is happening always earlier in the modern world, overwhelming and usurping our broadband abilities at an increasingly young age. However this doesn't seem to cause any practical problems, because we don't need broadband abilities in the modern world, we need focussed and memorised abilities.

In our modern culture, it is when our focussing learning memory system is connected with feelings of pleasure and pain that it develops problems.

THE PLEASURE FACTOR
When we think, see, hear, smell, taste or touch something specific, - and it causes pleasure - we want it, we want to repeat the pleasure (or if it causes displeasure, to avoid repeating it).

Focussing doesn't automatically lead to wanting. Look at a wall, focus on it, you don't want it; focus on the floor, a bus, a tree, you don't want them all. It is only when we focus and it causes pleasure or displeasure that it sometimes - depending on the degree of pleasure or displeasure - leads to wanting.

We repeat what is pleasurable. We avoid repeating what is unpleasurable. This is also basicly efficient. Even if the 'memory repetition', is unpleasurable it gives us a sense of direction and a basis to compare, evaluate and guide other experiences. It gives us something to want.

And wanting always lead to focussing. If you want a bicycle or a french fry, you will focus on it. Even when you daydream it is about something specific, you are focussing on it. If you want something, you will keep thinking about it, repeating the thought, periodically focussing on it, until you do it, or buy it, or get it. Then the focussing may stop for a while - except as a 'self-confirming memory' - till the next time you want it.

THE FEEDBACK LOOP
So focussing and pleasure lead to wanting, and wanting leads to focussing. This is a self perpetuating system. When pleasure (or displeasure) are experienced, then focussing and wanting form a feedback loop supporting each other.

We could develop this idea and explore how it leads to our modern human sense of purpose in life: looking forward to future pleasure, the feeling of having somewhere to go and something to do ... but for our practical purposes it's enough to know that focussing, pleasure and wanting all support each other.

This 'focussing pleasure wanting repeating' system is generally efficient, except in cases where the focussing and wanting increase exponentially under their own momentum.

Vicious circles, obsessions, fixations, compulsive behaviour, traumas, (all often caused by repetitious dysfuctions in the childhood environment); these are usually the first big practical disadvantage experienced by individual humans, and the main big inefficiency in the self perpetuating focussing wanting system.

Our lives are full of smaller everyday examples of emotionally fixed repetitious habits. Some are positive, some negative, but with the increasing complexity, and often the conflicting directions between all the different types of repetition and wanting – it leads to confusion.

In 2020 there are thousands of examples of therapies and religions which exist as a response to this confusion: different ways to control or pacify the thoughts and feelings.

THE MONKEY MIND
The many attempts to train or tame 'the monkey mind' are very creative and verstaile.

There are some systems of meditation which practice 'letting go' and forms of worship which 'wait for God', these are associated with broadband sensing. Improvised dance, music and acting are also closely related.

There are some religious ways which rely on focussing. Ways involving will power and concentration, duty to God, self-control and renunciation, all these, to some extent, directly reject worldly desires and the pleasures of the senses.

I find these ways very noble and pure. I have great respect for their followers. Broadband sensing could be practiced without feeling any pleasure, and maybe to great effect, but i have no experience with this. I find it preferable to understand how focussing, pleasure and wanting function, and then use this driving energy.

All the other therapies and religious ways indirectly use, stimulate and generate the self perpetuating system of Focussing + Pleasure → Wanting : Repetition. And there are thousands of creative ways of using the system efficiently.

Then, the essential point is: if knowing, finding and being in touch with yourself, relief from guilt or envy, feeling peace, truth and well-being; - cause pleasure, peace or satisfaction in any way, then (even if you have self destructive tendancies - if you have the slightest sense), you will want to do it again. You will want to repeat whatever caused the pleasure.

This applies to all the creative arts, therapy sessions, intellectual disciplines and most religious meetings. And all these forms of therapy, study, dance, painting, meditation or prayer can result in a degree of peace and satisfaction.

Religions have a second deeper level. And the occasional Ghandi shows us that the religious way can lead to (at least near), absolute freedom and peace.

But when any good actor could convince me that he is Ghandi, and these days there are so many magnetic, charismatic, 'video-genic' individuals with just the right upbringing and emotional background to be happy anyway - AND also, so very many religious ways :- then which God or guru can we trust?

If only it didn't require so much blind belief and whole hearted devotion, ... it's all too difficult for modern man. It was easier in the old days, when there was only one belief system available in our culture, and that belief was confirmed by everyone around us.

And even if the goal is a paradoxical goal-less-ness, achieved by focussing on zen koans. More often the promise of eternity, oneness, heaven or freedom from karma, the start is always wanting this goal, and the method always focusses on something.

And this causes a practical problem. Trying to pacify the wanting and thinking system by focussing on something specific or sublime, is still using the system, it's still relying on it, supporting it, affirming it and inevitably stimulating all the associated repetitions.

This is probably why St. Paul said you can only find God through Faith alone - Through the Grace of God. When something 'out of the box' occurs, like a Zen trick, something which shakes our sense of reality. We can apparently only make ourselves available and open for Bodhidharma's (Zen) 'sudden enlightenment'. And this happens spontaneously after years of dedicated repetition of a worship or meditations practice.

With an intense thirst for the truth, purity and years of selfless devotion some exceptional people find nirvana, salvation, absolution or love. But there are absolutely no guarantees.

I respect and value many of these traditional ways. But in the present jungle, they are all too difficult. And any new way, adds to the choices and divisions in our culture.

So, how can we tame or train the monkey mind? Is there any way of finding a bit of reliable peace and truth? anything we could find a consensus of opinion about? And i say ignore the stupid monkey, let's start by noticing the hedgehog and the horse.

And then, our ability to observe, coupled with our abilities to think abstractly and creatively about life, offers the obvious simplest way out.

Observation of animals shows how they need to balance their focussing and broadband abilities in order to survive.

We ignore our broadband ability. We have lost this balance in life.

THE BALANCE
Just notice how any blackbird pulling at a worm, continually checks for predators, not only when eating possibly as part of the digestive functions, but also while pulling at the worm (watch www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfGHobavGqw for at least the first 25 seconds).

Modern humans almost always and exclusively use (and in modern daily life are over compensating with, as a form of displacement activity, see Chapter 9) all our undoubtedly very clever talents from focussing and abstract focussing, i.e. with our thoughts, our learning and thinking abilities.

Except for sleeping, humans have no everyday balance for all our focussing and thinking activities.

We are ignoring and forgetting our inborn ability to experience life from a broadband perspective. We have literally lost our balance.

Most humans have never even thought of using their senses like this. If we did think about it we would consider it useless. We have no need for it in our daily lives. Our ancestors fears and daily insecurity have been overcome. We have accomplished all they always wanted. There is no need to be on the watch, or ready to be watchful, through the whole day. The original practical use of broadband sensing is obsolete and redundant.

But there are a number of side effects, like the feeling of being part of everything and wide awake. One of these side effects is easy to experience and rationalise and i believe more than ever, relevant for human life today: the effect broadband sensing has on destimulating and de-energising abstract thinking; of slowing and stopping the self perpetuating memory systems.

BROADBAND SENSING
Without focussing you can't go anywhere or do anything. Without focussing, (and feeling pleasure) you can't want. Without focussing on anything (and enjoying it) you can't want to repeat it.

Sensing in the broadband way doesn't lead anywhere else. It doesn't lead anywhere because you need to focus to want or do anything. The only thing broadband sensing leads to, if it is peasurable, is the repetition of broadband sensing, but then that's it.

Just trying to stop thinking doesn't work, but if you stop focussing, it defuses, unplugs and takes away the regenerating basis for thinking and wanting. It devolves the system.

Sensing like this is an exception to the normal rules governing the repetition of pleasure. By going broadband like animals do, the focússing stops and the repetitions degenerate – and you are NOW, (in a very gentle, everyday and not mind blowing way).

The experience of broadband sensing (at first especially seeing and listening), is usually a pleasure; but always, and for humans the greatest pleasure is simply the experience of stopping or slowing the thoughts – i experience this - i remember this - i want to repeat it - and then all i have to do – is just do it.