[VIRTUAL ] Living In Your Head

"The greatest obstacle to pleasure is not pain; it is delusion."

• Stephen Greenblatt

“What is real? How do you define ‘real’? If you’re talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.”

• Morpheus (The Matrix)

DETAILS: This is another virtual meeting (and #14) of the Secular Buddhist / Meditation Meetup group where we’ve been discussing meditation and secular takes on Buddhist philosophy.

Hello all

What would it mean to you (and for you) if it was true that 100% of your felt experience is coming from thought in the moment? Stating this a different way - that 0% of your feeling is coming from anywhere other than thought?

One of my fav artists is Joe Walsh and he has a great song called "A Life of Illusion"

Sometimes, I can't help the feeling that I'm
Living a life of illusion
And oh, why can't we let it be
And see through the hole in this wall of confusion
I just can't help the feeling, I'm living a life of illusion

“Seeing” through the confusion is pretty much the definition of enlightenment. Enlightenment is a freeing of the mind.

But how do you "do" that?

On offer here is that with insight into thought and the illusory nature of reality, we examine the stories in our head that cause negative affect, and this understanding is freeing. What we are afraid or depressed about or angry “at” seems less solid, more transient - which it is.

We’ve talked about this before, but to reiterate here; evolutionary psychology teaches us that when we apprehend the world out there, we’re not really apprehending absolute reality but we are rather “constructing” it, coloring it as we go. The brain tends to make inferences about reality on indirect evidence, it was part of our overall survival mechanisms. Once we’ve seen a tiger jump from a bush after hearing a rustle, then behind every rustled bush thereafter we infer a tiger - just in case.

In Buddhist philosophy the terms “emptiness” and “formlessness” are concepts that refer to a similar idea; that the world you see, which seems so structured and solid, may not actually be so. This matters because in many cases we are not perceiving the world or the situation as it really is.

Join us as we discuss these concepts and how they impact our happiness.

Prior to our meeting, try to watch these short clips

• Watch or listen to this chat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsC-6oPkx3k (up to 4:45 at least) ..

• And this chat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67mQPO9YzNw

Two different explanations talking about the same thing.

Here are the details

LOCATION: Cyberspace! This meeting will be over Zoom.

Time: Tuesday 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83700142673?pwd=MyttQktDcUhrbmJ6aW5FRGRtd3ZoQT09

Meeting ID: 837 0014 2673
Passcode: meetmymind

NOTE: Please turn on your video!! We need you to be on camera to replicate your presence in real life. Let us see you :)

To get the full effect of a virtual meeting, make sure you change your display settings to gallery view so you get the Brady Bunch box look. That way you see everyone at once. Its pretty cool.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360000005883-Displaying-participants-in-gallery-view

AGENDA: A check-in to see how everyone is doing (depending on size) then a short discussion.

Then we will have a short guided meditation.