Ep. 13 - Awakening from the Meaning Crisis - Buddhism and Parasitic Processing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 เม.ย. 2019
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Podcast Links:
•Anchor: anchor.fm/john-vervaeke
•Google Podcasts: www.google.com/podcasts?feed=...
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Books in the Video:
• Stephen Batchelor - The Awakening of the West: The Encounter of Buddhism and Western Culture
• Stephen Batchelor - Buddhism without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening
• Stephen Batchelor - Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism
• Stephen Batchelor - After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
• Marc Lewis - Memoirs of an Addicted Brain
Series Playlist: th-cam.com/users/playlist?list...
Facebook: / vervaeke.john
Twitter: / vervaeke_john
Thirteenth episode of Dr. John Vervaeke's Awakening from the Meaning Crisis.
This is the most meaningful and awakening material I have ever encountered in my life. You could live 10 lifetimes and never encounter anything this deeply rich and beneficial. My only hope is that John gets to experience his deserved recognition during his lifetime. Because generations of people in the future will know the name Vervaeke like they know Newton, Galileo, and Einstein.
Thank you for your very kind and encouraging words.
Yes, I read Jordan Peterson and recommended him to someone that recommended John to me. He is writing about everything I went and am going through. He is brilliant.
I second this
@@johnvervaeke WHAT IS E=MC2 IS dimensionally consistent, AS TIME is NECESSARILY possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE; AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE); AS WHAT IS E=MC2 is taken directly from F=ma; AS the rotation of WHAT IS THE MOON matches the revolution; AS the stars AND PLANETS are POINTS in the night sky. Consistent WITH WHAT IS E=MC2, “mass"/ENERGY involves BALANCED inertia/INERTIAL RESISTANCE consistent WITH/AS what is BALANCED electroMAGNETIC/gravitational force/ENERGY; AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE) !!! SO, what are OBJECTS may fall at the SAME RATE !!! WHAT IS GRAVITY IS, ON BALANCE, an INTERACTION that cannot be shielded (or blocked). Consider the man who IS standing on what is THE EARTH/ground. Consider what is THE EYE ON BALANCE !!! Now, consider what is the TRANSLUCENT AND BLUE sky !!! (What is THE EARTH IS ALSO BLUE !!!) Again, consider WHAT IS E=MC2 !!! c squared CLEARLY (AND NECESSARILY) represents a dimension of SPACE ON BALANCE, AS TIME is NECESSARILY possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE; AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE). It ALL CLEARLY makes perfect sense ON BALANCE, AS BALANCE AND completeness go hand in hand. Great.
By Frank Martin DiMeglio
In understanding SPACE, what is gravity, TIME, AND time dilation (ON BALANCE), it is important is it to understand what is a BALANCED displacement of what is SPACE. ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is gravity ON/IN BALANCE.
Consider what is E=MC2. TIME is NECESSARILY possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE. Consider TIME AND time dilation ON BALANCE. (c squared CLEARLY represents a dimension of SPACE ON BALANCE.) Indeed, the stars are POINTS in the night sky ON BALANCE. The rotation of WHAT IS THE MOON matches the revolution. Consider what is THE EYE, AND notice what is the TRANSLUCENT AND BLUE sky ON BALANCE. NOW, consider what is the BALANCED MIDDLE DISTANCE in/of SPACE. CLEARLY, BALANCED inertia/INERTIAL RESISTANCE is fundamental (ON BALANCE). “Mass"/ENERGY IS GRAVITY. ON BALANCE, consider what is the orange (AND setting) Sun. “Mass"/ENERGY involves BALANCED inertia/INERTIAL RESISTANCE consistent WITH/as what is BALANCED electromagnetic/gravitational force/ENERGY, AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE); AS gravity/acceleration involves BALANCED inertia/INERTIAL RESISTANCE (ON BALANCE) consistent WITH E=MC2, F=ma, TIME, AND time dilation ON BALANCE. This CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY represents, DESCRIBES, AND INVOLVES what is possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE, AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY (AND NECESSARILY) proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE). Notice what is the fully illuminated (AND setting/WHITE) MOON ON BALANCE. Great. TIME is NECESSARILY possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE. Indeed, inertia/INERTIAL RESISTANCE is proportional to (or BALANCED with/AS) GRAVITATIONAL force/ENERGY; AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE). This CLEARLY explains what is E=MC2 AND F=ma ON BALANCE, AS TIME is NECESSARILY possible/potential AND actual ON/IN BALANCE !! (Consider TIME AND time dilation ON BALANCE.) Great. Indeed, consider WHAT IS THE EARTH/ground ON BALANCE. I have mathematically proven why the rotation of WHAT IS THE MOON matches the revolution, AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY (AND NECESSARILY) proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE). Consider TIME AND time dilation ON BALANCE, AS the stars AND PLANETS are POINTS in the night sky ON BALANCE; AS c squared CLEARLY represents a dimension of SPACE ON BALANCE. (Consider what is THE EYE ON BALANCE.) I have mathematically proven what is the fourth dimension, AS ELECTROMAGNETISM/energy is CLEARLY AND NECESSARILY proven to be gravity (ON/IN BALANCE) !!! I have explained why what are OBJECTS may fall at the SAME RATE.
By Frank Martin DiMeglio
It really is amazing. Having sat and served at Vipassana centres in several countries and drunk ayahuasca 200+ times. I now finally understand how it all works .
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” - Carl Rogers
Yes! That is absolutely right! I've been deceiving myself for too long.
In an over saturated world of hype and self help libraries, Mr. Vervaeke gives us real tools for change.
this guy is on another level. his lectures are so good
On the one level they are, but on the other, he's saying something fairly obvious in an unnecessarily complex way: the reason it's so hard to get out of ruts like depression is that you're trying to dislodge a thought pattern with a thought pattern.
@@amanofnoreputation2164 yh true but i think the way he has defined things(usually more complex than needed) earlier on in the series makes the actual more complex things he tries to explain later much easier to understand and clear.
it’s also only fairly obvious cus we use these terms so regularly (built into our grammar) eg. “insight” but john is good at bringing back it’s true meaning to help us understand them better.
@@amanofnoreputation2164 The complexity comes from the fact that he’s connecting so many things together, like Buddhism, neuroscience, western philosophy, and evolutionary psychology. And the point of that (and the point of the whole series of lectures) is to provide a comprehensive solution to the meaning crisis that converges all of these ways of explaining things that have become popular recently
@@amanofnoreputation2164 For me his lectures are like mindfullness. We kinda know what he is telling but John forces viewers not to see through them but to see at them.
Been practicing and studying Buddhism for 30 years, This is the clearest elucidation of the core tenets I've heard to date. Thank you.
This episode is so mindblowing, everything I've been struggling with for the last years makes sense now.
2 years on, how do you find yourself now?
@@ToriKo_ Much better!
@@trissvelvel8499
Good on you! 😊
25:00 "the very processes that make you adaptively intelligent... also make you vulnerable to self-destructive behaviour"
thanks for this.
Yes...it's a great insight. However, it occurs at 35:00 ;)
@@meinking22 my bad. Thank you for this.
In other words, your potential for maladaptivity can only come from your adaptiveness
Ressonates so much with the criacionist mith of genesis. The tree that gives you the knowledge of the good and evil will kick you of the garden of the Eden.
Been using every free minute to warch this series. Never ever heard of him, but caught his name in a Jordan Peterson interview. Really love these lectures ❤ Thanx John for making this available
Eastern wisdom traditions have always emphasized on experiential technologies. Prof Vervaeke has done a good job of emphasizing this aspect of Buddhism. Buddha's psychotechnologies cannot be propositionally learned. Intellect only goes so far; one needs to actually engage in serious practice of eight-fold path.
In fact, in Hindu spiritual tradition, "Vigyana Bhairava Tantra" is a very important text. In that, Paarvati, the divine consort of Lord Shiva, has some profound questions for Shiva. The questions are somewhat ontological in nature: "Oh Shiva, what is your reality?", "What is this wonder-filled universe?", "what constitutes seed?", "who centers the universal wheel?", "What is this life beyond form pervading forms?", "How can we enter it fully, above space and time, names and descriptions?" and then she demands, "Let my doubts be cleared." Here, as you can see, she isn't asking Shiva to answer her questions, instead, "clear my doubts."
Shiva clears her doubts, not by answering the questions, but simply giving her 112 techniques of meditation. It is claimed that this is the most comprehensive text of every possible meditative practice ever known to humans. Shiva does not engage in intellectual/philosophical discourse. Philosophical speculation, intellectual meandering is shunned by Shiva. Tantric traditions let us know that only methods, practices, techniques in the form of experiential technologies can resolve our doubts (the ontological questions we struggle with). No amount of philosophical questioning and intellectual discussions can resolve our questions on life, meaning of life, suffering, transient nature of all our experiences and so on. Mind is fickle. Answers to questions would only lead to more questions. Doctrine is meaningless. So, just take these 112 techniques, practice each one of them and see for yourself which one will take you to the state of enlightenment.
To know the ocean, you need to swim in it; you cannot understand what ocean is by listening to an academic explaining it from the shore of an ocean. Prof John, I am happy to say, is not just an academic trying to "objectively" explain Buddhism, he is asking his listeners to actually practice the techniques, the eight-fold path, various psychotechnologies the world has inherited from wisdom traditions. Immerse yourself in experiential technologies to seek transformation. Mere intellectual seeking will take you nowhere.
I found this comment helpful. Thank you!
This reminds me of "qualia".
Holy shit I’ve been reading so many books trying to gain wisdom, from philosophy to psychology to behavioral economics to mysticism and this lecture series connects them all together what a ride.
If you truly contemplate this material deeply then it will profoundly charge your life. Its a true blueprint of the mind and it shows us how we're the architects of our own demise.
Excellent lecture!
For anyone wondering, the depression study referenced is called
"Depression as a systemic syndrome: mapping the feedback loops of major depressive disorder"
(Wittenborn et al, 2016)
Very helpful, thank you.
I think it is this one: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4737091/
Thanksssss!
Thank You
Solution to orient self towards a higher ideal, and away from a lower ideal.
Depression is being stuck in purgatory with no higher or lower references so end up looping.
I am an artist, my whole life is a sequence of multidisciplinary creation. It seems to me that I am in meditation at the time of creation. Things happen without my prior planning. Everything is flowing and I am in a tremendous awakening.
I have only recently become interested in the subject of self-awareness, meditation and mindfulness. Your series arouses in me an intellectual curiosity to learn and understand the historical, cultural and psychological processes of body and mind. I will continue to watch the following episodes
Thank you for your generosity in making your knowledge and experience on the subject accessible to everyone.
same :)
Ditto 👌
I've been having eye-opening experiences since childhood - but this particular lecture feels like everything has fallen in exactly the right place and nothing will ever be the same. I know insight will keep happening, but it feels like it will be primarily joyful, not devastating. Before, meditation was a dream I used to have of myself, but essentially a chore. Now I actually look forward to meditating. Now I can see myself doing this practice for the rest of my life. Thank you for that. I hope someday I'll be able to do for someone else what you have done for me.
Great series John, this Ep. 13 has really helped me with my addiction to alcohol problem and it's ability to adapt to quickly, to your current environmental focus which is conditioned. Your colleague Mark D. Lewis on his Reciprocal Narrowing is correct and needs more attention from all who serve in that field of addiction. What's really amazing is a J. Krishnamurti was speaking about this in 1978 Titled: Can you observe sensation without identifying with it. To you John and your colleague Mark, you both have changed a life for the better. Thanks
Thanks for the reference to the other movie, very insightful.
Different language/approach, to observe this process of indentification as 'an actor in the arena'.
This is exactly the kind of secular, logical, and scientific material that I have been searching for the last 5 or more years. I hope Dr. Vervaeke gets the recognition he deserves for explaining such deep subject matter in simple layered concepts that lay people like me can understand. I am eternally grateful that I stumbled upon the 'Awakening from the Meaning Crisis' lecture series.
Found this guy through Jordan Petersons podcast. Amazing lectures.
Same as me! For the first time i have a feeling that i spend my holidays in the right way, by listening to these lectures, meditating and trying to understand what is going on in my head and my life
Likewise as well as Lex Fridman
So much power in the idea of addiction as a reciprocal narrowing, a participatory learning of a lack of agency. The addiction as a disease model does not completely resonate with me (an addict in recovery) although it did help to allow me to stop the cycle of self blame and get help.
I have often wondered about how to help those who are still suffering from addiction. I wonder if it has something to do with enlarging the addict’s world though agape-ic love. There is something here I am trying to grasp.
What you are saying is excellent.
"Man is free to the extent he knows who he is."
I was reading books on Buddhism in high school, but I could never get into the meditation thing. Now that the problem has been so articulately explained to me here, perhaps I can finally make full use of these "psychotechnologies". Thanks so much for these videos!
Buddhism in general has been hard for me to study. It tends to be a very jargon-intensive domain, and of course, none of the jargon can be properly translated, which leaves it rather inaccessible.
@@aaronnelson6699 It is, and a lot of the advanced Eastern teachers are stuck with that jargon and can't teach to Westerners. Some of the best explainers: Adyashanti, Rupert Spira, Shinzen Young, Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass. But most of all Alan Watts.
The four "ennobling provocations" - that carries the sense and intention so well! Words are only pointers, but these words point more clearly than most formulations to what the Buddha wanted to convey.
Thank you so much, Mr. Vervaeke. I have learned so much by watching and listening to your lectures.
As an addict, this hit me so hard. I never bought in to addiction as a disease and now I'm understanding why. I've been having so many epiphanies lately.
The Parasitic process concept was a lightbulb moment 💡.
"It (higher states of consciousness) doesn't give us any good theories about the metaphysical structure of reality."
During a Ayahuasca ceremony I journeyed to a hyper dimensional space where the shaman was waiting for me. In this shared space he helped me work on my shadows which we did not previously discuss in 3d spacetime. The next morning the shaman and I were the first ones up. We were preparing breakfast for the group. While we were cutting up fruit, without me telling him, he described what he encountered in me while he was doing his work. He perfectly described my inner experience and the dynamics of my relationship with my wife which was something I was wrestling with at that moment in hyperspace. While John may be right that my experience can't be used as scientific evidence for a theory, at the same time this experience put big holes in the untested metaphysics of materialism, for me. Science should be agnostic when it comes to metaphysics. Why is that not so with materialism?
I don't think it is gnostically materialistic. I think it adheres to methodological naturalism because that's all it has determined to work, which I believe is often conflated with materialism, but in regards to metaphysical naturalism/materialism it makes no claims at all.
What I will say, not to discredit your experience at all (I've had similar experiences myself), is that it is entirely possible that the hyperspace and seemingly external realities that we experience through psychedelics are absolutely tethered to the illusions and productions of the physical brain. The psychedelics expand what we are capable of comprehending and the shaman is versed in an entirely new perspective on this as he is capable of comprehending the patterns that arise in different people as they come to him for the enlightenment. He's not only experienced the new possible modes for thought first hand, but he's also experienced how the different modes effect different people.
The shaman might use a spiritual tradition to convey this, and what he is capable of comprehending might seem supernatural, but if you reduce his experiences down, the differences between that which is natural and supernatural might very well become boiled down to semantics that describe casual chain reactions of our physical brains.
What I've learned from my psychedelic journeys is that "I" am not my thoughts and behaviors. This I've come to know through coming into knew modes of thought that are so wildly different from how I've previously conceptualized who I was that I experienced them to be different entities entirely. The new modes of thinking brought about by the psychedelics were so alien to my brain that to comprehend them I had to see them as different beings, but really they were me, interacting with myself through these completely different patterns of thought.
The immaterial realm that we can access might just be so alien to what we have understood to be material that we have to conceptualize it through supernatural ideas. The supernatural might very well exist, but its existence might be entirely natural.
@@justinthillens2853 you had me at “methodological naturalism.” So many people conflate it with reductive materialism…I can’t even…
I feel like this video is an example of true synchronicity.
Everything said by you in this specific lecture seems like you were speaking directly to my soul.
Thank you so much for helping me find the agency need to redirect my life.
I hope all of you can find someone that can positively impact my your life as much as Prof. Vervaeke has done to for me.
I am sincerely grateful for all your work and your love for humanity.
I hope to meet you one day to thank you properly. Keep up the great work in spreading true wisdom.
Listening for the 3rd time and each time enjoying it more and in a deeper way. John, thank you!
John, Fabulous talks. I am really enjoying them and they are endlessly fascinating. I think the first of the 4 noble truths is actually simpler than you’ve described. I think Dukkha is better translated as “unsatisfying”. “All is suffering/unsatisfying” because everything is subject to the 3 characteristics (annica, dukkha, and anatta). Because everything is impermanent (anicca) it can’t be a lasting source of satisfaction and is therefore inherently unsatisfying (Dukkha). We spend all of our time chasing after impermanent desires and suffer when we lose them, fail to get them, or get more of what we don’t want. Because we believe in the separate “doing” self as opposed to being in the “being” mode like you described, we chase after desires that are impermanent, empty, and ultimately a source of suffering. We can’t gain satisfaction from ANYTHING - that’s the whole point. When we release the attachment to the “doing mode” and realize Anatta or no-self we become enlightened. The source of suffering is attachment and desire of ANY kind. If we desire a little we suffer a little, and if we desire a lot we suffer a lot. The more we chase after, hold on to, and cling to the unsatisfying the more suffering we have.
I have heard the same definition of dukkha as unsatisfying from a Zen teacher named Muho. It really does make sense to me too, but I really liked the explanation from John Vervaeke here too. I must say that I am deeply impressed and satisfied with this series here which gives an excellent explanation of so many topics I am interested in but wouldn’t be able to express in such a clear manner.
So.. the mechanism, on which you explained the heroine addiction, the relationship between agency (identity) and arena and how it reinforces the parasitic processing and how it all feeds on itself, could also explain, why there is many (lets stick with the soldier example, but we can see this among any other identity we cling on to too tightly) veterans that have anxiety and depression? Because they still fully identify with them being a soldier (and an active one), so they still see themselves as agent of the arena which they have lost. So they are, like the tennis player on a football field struggling to find meaning which again leads to failure and that increases the anxiety and the parasitic processing cycle starts to turn around and around... I am coming from a personal coach and nlp perspective, so this kinda deepens my knowledge, what is behind of what I already know.
so that the drug is the agency
I can't believe this is free! It's a master class on the meaning of life!
Amazing. But as an alcoholic in recovery via the 12 steps I can’t help but compare that to this. Which is to say the 12 steps is just another path to enlightenment to break the narrowing of options and the world we self impose. Unfortunately AA gets a bad rap, which I understand, it’s filled with very sick people (myself included), but from the transformation I’ve experienced in AA it is a similar tool to the 8 way path. I am so grateful to John and this series for the insights I’ve gotten into myself and the world. I don’t want to know these things for knowledge’s sake. I want to understand what he’s talking about so I can overlay onto my own life and the never ending project of spiritual growth. After watching John I’m not even sure what the world spiritual means anymore, I feel its meaning changing.
This is brilliant.
It makes me wonder, with regard to addiction and society at large, whether, when we are in a war-like state, such as war on drugs, war on terror, war on....., we spiral downwards into closed minded addiction,
whilst, we might be better served by stepping back, re-framing the arena, before marching into arbitrary endless battle.
This is the most important video I've seen in my life. Extremely relevant. I wish all people in Buddhist community watched it. Sending much love to you, John!
Wow - those lectures are gold. Thanks for sharing the gold you've mind, Mr. Vervaeke.
When you talked about how the standard model of addiction is wrong and that it is about a reciprocal narrowing of the agent-arena relationship (which I think is highly akin to Jordan Peterson's idea of narrative - of being a character in a drama), I thought that maybe that's why psychedelics seem to be so promising to fight addiction. Because these mystical-type experiences elicit such an existential shock and make people reconfigure their narrative/agent-arena relationship and straighten themselves out.
I've made the flowchart at 34:10 my desktop background. It's been very helpful, thanks as always John!
The world Dukkha reminded me of "Dawkha" or دوخة in arabic which refers to impairment in spatial perception and impairment of stability. It can be used to mean vertigo, presyncope, imbalance or a nonspecific feeling such as dizziness or clumsiness. Maybe an Arabic etymologist is needed but it is nevertheless a great metaphor or an exaptation of the term perhaps.
In British English, "Mad" still retains its original meaning and does not mean angry. This episode was superb and the cognitive processes involved make perfect sense when spelled out, I'd never thought of it this way. I know when I finish this series I'm going to have to go right back to the beginning to go through everything a 2nd time!
Mad means crazy in the UK
I love John's provocative outbursts: THE OPIOD CRISIS! ---Surprising and memorable provocations. The humor helps me time stamp different concepts and think on them. I don't know if he means to do that, but wouldn't surprise me.
This was a great lecture. I was so terrified till the reciprocal narrowing part and then I realised the reason for the enlightenment pursuit. This is so crucial for everyone. Hope young people, teenagers, can have an access to this content.
I have read, listened to, and watched this lecture 6+ times now. I have the following remarks that I do not think are negligible.
1.) While it is true that the chemical dependency is not 100 % contingent on the substance (or behavior) itself, the neurophysical pattern of the substance / behavior's use is VERY REAL. Let's not push brain chemicals to the side, because we REALLY need them to describe the nature of this loss of Agency.
2.) I dig this idea about the Buddha's creation of a counteractive participatory system to combat the threat of how craving threatens Agency. HOWEVER I think that the ennobling provocation of the Eightfold path is only SECONDARY to the Luster of the Three Jewels. If we're REALLY going to talk about aspiration, the spoked wheel has serious limits.
God Bless John Vervaeke if for no other reason than I think he *actually* cares.
I can feel my self growing. This lecture series is worth more than both my university degrees
Wow this episode is very powerful.. i feel that it touched many aspects of my own life. Seeing your life being explained on a white board is just Mindblowing.
"Addiction is fundamentally the loss of agency". That's a good and fascinating definition
This lecture reminds me a lot to one particular book I read a long time ago The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh. He says that it is a wrong view to see everything as suffering Buddha teaches Nirvana. when you embrace suffering as a mother you smile at it, you take care of it, and you start suffering less.
This is why a successful person spirals upwards receives miracles and wonders by adaptation of its agency. Vise versa, self destruction spirals down and adapts chaos and suffering. It works both ways. Thanks for video. This is using science to explain the law of attraction.
my husband got a major breakthrough listening to this one....Thank you thank you, thank you!...
.much love and greetings from Québec!
I'm going to be reading a portion of this next week at my Recovery Dharma meeting. God bless Dr. Vervaeke!
This is mind blowing. Amazing John. Great lecture.
much crescendo. Bravo
It is truly wonderful to be able to learn, through your presentation, about these extreme experiences and insights that our human predecesors have been able to achieve.
For someone who tends to get stuck in anxious (and self-destructive) thought patterns this lecture is very helpful!
Brushing up on these lectures is even more exciting than learning it the first time.
Thank you John for this entire lecture series for Awakening from the Meaning crisis. The aftermath of covid has really hit all of us hard financially, your generosity in providing this and the mediation series for free, is something I am so grateful for.
These episodes have been extremely eye opening, intellectually and spiritually deep and engaging. I am an artist and have the privilege to listen to your videos while in a state of flow ( a term I have learned from you to describe these moments), which helps sink all this valuable information in. Having estranged parents and not many friends, your lecture series has thoroughly helped me in navigating life, explaining the bouts of existential crisis and given me a different way of thinking/observing society. I have also watched your talks about Ai and immensely appreciate all your work, views, research and admirable passion/diligence in all you do.
I can only hope that you get all the accolades and joy you deserve. Thank YOU so much for your time and attention.
Much love and gratitude from Australia.
This is an intellectually stunning video.
I love the passion with which he presents, it makes you realise how real this stuff is, makes you apply it to your own life and not just try to learn it intellectually. So different from most lecturers.
Your work is of insane quality. One of the leading minds of this age.
Absolutely brilliant. Thank you! Helps me pull together 100 strands of my PhD on "the cultivation of the inner observer".
Brilliant episode 🙏
Thank you 😊
Powerful lecture!
Great lecture as always. Just noting that in the eightfold path there is also the Right Effort (will to resist evil) as part of the consciousness group. For anyone wanting to practice this could be fatal if one spoke of the wheel is not 'suffered' through. 🙏☺️
Hi John, Really enjoyed the lecture. One thing that I strongly disagree with is how you discount the transcendent experience as capable of providing insight to the metaphysical structure of reality. Rather, it is ONLY the transcendent experience through which we can find the philosophers stone, etc.
All transcendent experience has a few hallmark traits, with the 'enlightenment' experience being the culmination of those traits. The first trait is an expansion of your consciousness. You identify with the entire crowd, the entire concert, the entire church, the entire tribe. The second is a reduction in ego, the 'sense of self'. The language people use is often "I felt one with (insert group)". The third is the idea of 'rebirth'. There is also a very profound shift in perspective that can break the particular incarnation of dukkha they are suffering with. An example of this in the western tradition would be someone who is 'under the conviction of the holy spirit', who 'confesses their sins', turns from those particular habits and lives life reborn.
Enlightenment, the big 'transcendent experience' takes these traits to their logical conclusion. This is the metaphysical reality, the pearl of great value. The ego dies. Whatever 'YOU' are stops being. There is no more John - but rather John is a particular construct of ideas and patterns. The destruction of the ego takes everything else with it - there is no 'earth', no 'time', no 'space' - all these concepts and labels on things wash away. At the same time, consciousness expands to infinity. It is no longer bounded by the ego, no longer sees the world through the eyes of John, and in that moment reveals itself as 'God'. You may feel as though you are dying and starting over again and again and again - 'rebirth'. There is the feeling of familiarity, like going home - an instant recognition with the craziest experience imaginable. There is the sense of "I have done this before, millions of times".
The end result is the understanding of nonduality. Atman (the stuff of our reality) is Brahman (God)... and YOU are that. This is why suffering ends... because the ones who have been 'enlightened' see themselves, others, the world, etc. as all part of one God taking on many forms. Those forms have all forgotten what they are - an intentional self limitation on the part of the one God so that it can experience 'the other' while still being ONE.
The best analogy is that of a dream. When you dream at night, your mind invents other people, cars, buildings, etc... and it all 'makes sense' in that dream. This world of duality is the product of Your mind, and nothing in that dream is truly separate from the mind that dreamt it. Our reality is like that dream, but the consciousness dreaming it is 'God'. Enlightenment is like becoming a lucid dreamer - fully in the dream but also fully knowing that it is one consciousness dreaming it all. The crisis of meaning ends with this recognition and we begin to treat everyone and everything (awake or not) like they are divine... because everything is.
Except not everything is divine. Monism is a false stance. (Just as Dualism is a false stance). This is carefully examined at meaningness.com
Love the whole series. Very timely for me, deeply interesting and provoking many interconnections and insights. (Ps. I am a Dutch psychologist, Siddha, participating in contemporary Mystic Thomas Huebl's Pocket Project around the topic of presencing unresolved (frozen) intergenerational and collective trauma.)
Thanks, John! Episode 13 the best yet! Huge deep study on Buddha, Have read Batchelor's "Buddhism Beyond Beliefs", a great lesson in letting go of "hard answers" as your "parisitic" phase in the addictive state. This is 55 minutes of intense coverage of human activity, Bravo!
I believe it is ‘Buddhism without beliefs’, not ‘beyond’.
No, Thank You for sharing this to us!
Mind blowing 🤯, 💘
Holy crap, this was amazing. Best lecture so far.
While I find this lecture extremely satisfying on a cognitive psychology level I wish it would address the role of physiological manifestations of addiction like withdrawal syndromes. Loss of agency and reciprocal narrowing are dead on in terms of describing the psychological experience of addiction but from where does the biological aspects arise? Awesome lecture dude!
It might have to do with physical addiction vs psychological addiction which I think are not the same
Thanks John.
Dukkha is also unavoidable physical suffering, from which our agency is denied.. Ageing, sickness, death, injury..
It's no wonder that they named the parasite "Mara", or in Christianity- "Satan".
Thanks for the talk John!
Love the slides, want more slides for all the lectures. Great approach to the subject that appears to resolve the flaws of past attempts to explain the topic.
Listening to earlier lectures in this series, I had thought the lectures were so good that there is no way they could possibly get any better. I was wrong.
Heard of buddhism statements some time ago, but this explanation, based on such profound models...
That inspires me very much, thank you John!
Can`t believe there are three times more lectures to go) So exited that this exists
Thank you John! Much love!
Bravo! best lecture so far
Thank you John. Wisdom, Practical knowledge, insight, spirituality and more.
Superb. Great to hear that you and Marc Lewis are tight.
This is a good one.
I appreciate YOUR time JV ❤️🍄
This lectures is providing explanation the question i had in the previous one , interesting
This is such a good video
Fantastic.... the spiritual disciplines
This is so helpful!
So valid
Amazing
There can't be much more room in this man's brain: what a mind!
This video is very good
Statements made following Time Stamp 33:49 summarize this episode brilliantly. Succinct explanation of how our brains may trip us up, even as they are doing what they are designed to do! 🧠💥
This lectures need to be translated to all languages. Are they? Im sharing this with my kids and anyone I find receptive to it. Thank you JV. this is fantastic.
to this same point...honestly we need to figure out how to catalog (put into searchable text) the burgeoning library of youtube wisdom (and other video / audio repositories). I love listening to conversation - it's better than reading - but I can't easily find quotes (none of us can)... and I think making them searchable would help us in the telling of the story, to have video quotes of great minds and great insights at our fingertips.
Def connected to this ty !
Punk, gonna watch again
Thank you John
This channel is going to blow up soon. I can feel it.
Dr. Vervaeke, thank you for this unconventional perspective that can provide motivations for engaging in the Buddhist form of life. Towards the end of this talk, I was left wondering about the feasibility of this form of life, given the rampant individualism of Western culture. While I concede that the Buddha himself is claimed to have gone off alone, to have relied on himself for his own enlightenment, for the layperson engaging these teachings within contemporary times, it seems crucial to have a Buddhist community for the path. My question is whether the Buddhist solution to parasitic processing is feasible in our socially fragmented arena?
the first claim is: Suffering EXISTS.
I'd like to defend "all is suffering" from the perspectve of Nargaguna, Hua-yen, Diamond, Lotus, Nirvana Sutra. Goes like this "Void and non-void are void, so they are non-void." Keep with me. All life, all forms, all thoughts, each breath of being is fundamentally empty. To not realize this is to suffer. Ergo, all life is suffering. It is not necessary to bring in an observer of suffering. See SengChao's golden lion. Just because you can dissect "this is suffering", "this is not", it does not follow that you have made any meaningful distinctions.
I go him full endorsement ...he's on point ...try and pay close attention to details ...comprehension is of the utmost importance ... And yes thank you so much for your help and support ...and all the efforts you put in this monumental task of putting thousands of people on earth on their true path... You are. The Profit ... Gods Speed E=M×C2...
This episode is definetely painful. You havent the faintest idea about Eastern spirituality, professor, although I admire your articulate expression.
Thank you. I am beginning to pick texts you cite to read.
I listen to these at work. Today im sitting down watching the video, i feel like i missed so much good detail.
Muy agradecida por tanta información ,Mi Gracias.