#VolitionalBody

Consciousness, Meditation and the Four Qualia

This is Post 38 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

The four brahmavihāras are a description of Consciousness, and of our innately compassionate nature, and together they give us a very powerful approach to meditation. This extremely important ancient Indian framework for personal transformation is unfortunately however, very little known and poorly understood. I am very keen to do what I can to help the brahmavihāras to be better known – the world sorely needs this practice and this understanding.

In my efforts to find ways of making this approach to meditation more accessible, I have developed a somewhat simpler, and more experiential approach, which supports the original brahmavihāras framework, and which I call the Four Qualia. I have been introducing this Four Qualia framework in detail in recent posts (here, here and here), and I recommend that you read those articles first – as they will provide context for this one. I hope, students of meditation and non-duality will find that these four Qualia – these four ever-present, but subtle and difficult-to-define experiences – provide a useful foundation from which the brahmavihāras can more easily be integrated into their practice and their understanding.

The Four Qualia are a mandala framework, and can be approached in meditation as a mandala-cycle – usually starting with the Eastern Quadrant. The exploration of the Four Qualia that I have set out below however, is presented in the order that is suggested by the stupa – by the natural hierarchy of the subtle bodies and chakras – and which I have described previously (here). Those wishing to incorporate this approach into their meditative enquiry, may wish to return to this article several times.

Embodiment, the Physical Body, and Appreciative Joy

The Qualia associated with the experienced reflection of Consciousness in the Physical Body, is Embodiment. When we sit to meditate, and we bring the word Embodiment to mind, we find that we can use it as a pointer to the whole experience of embodied Consciousness in the field of the Physical Body. Continue reading

August 30, 2018

The Asura Realm – Intuition and the Egoic Will

This is Post 34 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Before we can go further in our exploration of the wisdom of the green Northern Quadrant of the mandala, we need to ask why it is that the perceptual function of Intuition-Volition, which Buddhist tradition speaks of in terms of the samskaras skandha, and which so naturally finds expression as Empathy, and as a compassionate recognition of the needs of ourselves and others, should so often manifest instead as fear and dis-integration, and as actions characterised by deep inhumanity. This takes us to the heart of the distinction between resting as Consciousness on one side, and living in egoic identifications on the other.

When we are in identification with egoic psychological parts, Intuition serves those parts in a crude self-serving way, primarily by anticipating dangers and unmet needs, and therefore generating anxiety and fear. Our reflex response to that intuitive mode of perception is to act to manipulate our internal and external world in the light of those fears. While Intuition and Volition are entirely integrated on the level of Consciousness, in the egoic psyche they give rise to fused pairs of psychological parts. Often the vulnerable, predominantly intuitive part is more deeply exiled from awareness, and the more volitional part, which carries and energy of protection, defence and attack, is more conscious in the personality.

The Psychology of Bullies and Bullying

If these pairs of parts predominate within the psyche, they can form a narcissistic dissociation – a deeply unconscious and defensive psychological dynamic, which usually manifests in a range of extremely unconscious, violent, and unethical behaviours. These destructive and self-destructive behaviours might be described psychologically as sociopathic or psychopathic, but they are actually much more common than those diagnostic terms might suggest – and are very frequently seen as personality traits in many of the ‘successful’ high profile individuals in politics, in business, and in the military and its intelligence agencies – the people who shape the culture of our world.

One part in each of the pairs of psychological parts has an intuitive recognition of a vulnerability or threat, while the other part carries the impulse to control that vulnerability or threat. And the greater the unconscious fear and vulnerability of the intuitive part, the more destructive and heartless will be the volitional impulse of egoic control, to protect from vulnerability by destroying the threat, or otherwise preventing the emergence of the vulnerability into awareness. This is the stark truth of the deep heartlessness that we face in the egoic psychology of the green Northern Quadrant – which is also, paradoxically, the quadrant of Compassion. Continue reading

July 21, 2018

The Yin and Yang of Love and Compassion

This is Post 33 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. It continues the theme of the previous article, which you can read here. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.

In this article we are once again in the territory of the Northern Quadrant – if we use the traditional directions of the Buddhist mandalas – so we are also addressing what Jung called the perceptual function of Intuition. Intuition is probably the most difficult of the four cognitive-perceptual functions to define, but as a starting point we can say that Intuition is that function of Consciousness by which we perceive dynamics, patterns, processes, and motivations – in the world; in the people in our lives; and in ourselves.

Intuition is the function by which we recognise volitional processes. These include our needs, desires, wishes and wants – and also our fears and the energies of aversion and of ‘not-wanting’ that arise in connection with fear. Volitional, in this context, means pertaining to the Will, and to the energies of desire and motivation – energies that can be unconscious or conscious; egoic or suprapersonal. The highest form of intuition is empathy – our responsive, unflinching, and compassionate recognition of the needs and desires of others, and of ourselves. Empathy and Compassion can therefore be seen as two sides of the same experience. They are closely related and are in many ways interchangeable – indeed they are related in exactly the same way that Intuition and Volition are related.

To rest as Consciousness and to recognise, through Intuition, that an energetic reflection of the compassionate and creative energies of Consciousness are always present in the field of the body, has a profoundly transformative effect on our experience of volition – the fearful Egoic Will begins to undergo a healing process. This blissful self-surrender into effortless and fearless compassionate connection, is a key feature of all the genuine spiritual paths.

But while this will begin to arise naturally as we rest as Consciousness, it requires an expansion of our vision of what it is to be human being. We need to acknowledge the mysterious and benevolent energetic dimensions of the universe, which are always present in our lives – and inherent in the ever-present experience of Consciousness.

Intuition and Volition – Empathy and Compassion

When we learn to rest as Consciousness, and become familiar with the somatic experience of the Volitional Body – the deepest of the four surface bodies, and the one associated with the Heart Chakra – we come to recognise, usually with some surprise that, at core, our motivations are always compassionate and life serving. Continue reading

June 15, 2018

Feminine and Masculine – Energy and Presence

This is Post 32 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.

In this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series, I have frequently drawn on the wisdom that Carl Jung articulated in his mandala-form psychological model of the ‘Four Functions of Consciousness’, as we have been exploring the corresponding mandala of the four brahmavihāras – the ancient Indian ‘attitudes’ of Consciousness that were adopted so enthusiastically by the Buddha. Also, drawing on the Tibetan Buddhist form of the mandala, I have, in recent months been looking in detail at the dichotomies within each of the first three Quadrants of the mandala. Sometimes these dichotomies appears as clear oppositions, but I have endeavoured to show that they can also resolve into relationships in which we recognise the two poles as expressions of the same archetypal principle – but manifesting as dysfunction and limitation on the egoic level, and as wisdom and supreme benefit on the level of Consciousness. We saw this in the apparent opposition of the egoic Thinking function and Equanimity in the East; then the apparent opposition of the egoic Sensation function and Appreciative Joy in the South; and most recently the apparent opposition of the egoic Feeling function and Loving Kindness in the West.

In each of these polarities, I have been highlighting the spiritual choices that are presented to us in life, between the ‘attitudes of Consciousness’ (the brahmavihāras) that we experience when we rest naturally as Consciousness, and the egoic expressions of the same archetypal principles, that we experience when we fall into identification with psychological parts. By exploring the imagery of the Buddha’s Six Realms, we have seen that the extreme of egoic identification through Thinking (rūpa skandha) is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Hell Realms, or Narakas (here); that the extreme of egoic identification through Sensation (vedanā skandha) is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Human Realm (here); and that the extreme of egoic identification through Feeling (samjñā skandha) is expressed in the archetypal psychology of the Preta Realms (here).

The Northern Quadrant – Compassion versus the Egoic Will

I would like now to move on clockwise round this mandala, to the Northern Quadrant, where we shall be looking at the egoic function of Intuition / Volition and the corresponding Volitional aspect Consciousness, which expresses itself in the brahmavihāra of Compassion. In Buddhist tradition, the archetypal Buddhas who preside over the Northern Quadrant are the male Buddha Amoghasiddhi and the female Buddha Green Tara, who embody two aspects of the All-Accomplishing Wisdom.

In the next few articles I will be addressing the core of the egoic will, that deep volitional aspect of the egoic mind, which the Buddha personified, in an extreme but very illuminating way, in the archetypal imagery of the Asura Realm – a realm of demonic, power-seeking anti-gods, or ‘Jealous Gods’. It is extremely valuable to have a familiarity with, and an acceptance of the style of egoic identification with Intuition/Volition (samskaras skandha), which the asura archetype represents – our envy-based, and fear-based drives for control. By first recognising this category of obscuring egoic energies (the kleshas of Buddhist tradition), we can in turn learn to let them go, and can thus reveal the universally present and universally benevolent spiritual energies that are hidden by them. Continue reading

May 26, 2018