[Don Salmon]

Hi Nathaniel

It’s Bhante Henepola Gunaratana a Buddhist monk. Here are his books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bhante-Henepola-Gunaratana/e/B002LADY6O

I believe he is first mentioned on page 1873 of “The Matter With Things.”

I read a few of his books some years back and found him to be a very clear writer but rather doctrinaire in terms of Theravada Buddhism.

I personally think there is at least one other book that is FAR closer to the essence of what Iain is addressing: “The Way of Effortless Living,” by Loch Kelly. Loch works with the non duality laboratory at New York University, and has been a subject in numerous experiments. He studied traditional Theravada Buddhism as well as Dzochen and Mahamudra practices from Tibet, North India and Nepal. He has been “translating” these practices into modern simple forms for over 25 years and his work is VERY very accessible.

Good luck with your search. In any case, the essence of it is very simple:

There is an open, non controlling awareness within which all experience unfolds.

you can learn easily to be aware OF it – it is still, silent, vast spaciousness. But even more simply, imagine a dog. Now erase the image of the dog. What remains? Awareness, spacious, unbounded.

Loch has several dozen brief exercises along these lines. After you become comfortable learning to be aware OF spacious awareness, you will discover – quite spontaneously at some point – you can be aware FROM spacious awareness, and finally, as you “drop into the Heart,” aware AS spacious awareness.

As you abide more and more like this, you will find the entire universe transformed, and all the things Iain tries to write about that we think and analyze or even feel, become viscerally obvious. As more and more people recognize this, science, politics, economics, health care education and all other aspects of human life will be utterly transformed.

[Don Salmon]

I think you’re right on the mark – in a way.

Two things:

(1) From the viewpoint of most contemplative philosophies, particularly Indian, the reverse is actually the case. That is, it’s not that an outer action shaped our consciousness, but that Consciousness (not human, but Divine) was shifting, and the results showed up in the human mind AND human behavior.

(2) I’ve been saying this on this channel since it’s inception, have rarely been successful in getting it across, but as a clinical psychologist whose main work has been teaching various forms of attention, I would say at least practically speaking, we NEVER use one particular form of attention to the exclusion of another.

Also, the overall state of consciousness is radically different from age to age (as poet Owen Barfield pointed out, the “matter” that physicists study today didn’t really exist 500 years ago!!!)

So the kind of selective, narrow focused attention that was emphasized some 10,000 years ago, is radically different from the same form of attention today. Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart is coming out in August with what promises to be the best book on philosophy of mind ever written: “All Things Are Full of Gods.” Hart points out, as does Jean Gebser and Owen Barfield and Sri Aurobindo and countless others, that in the age of myth which began some 10 thousand years ago, fairies and subtle beings and devas and all kinds of things we think of as superstition were commonly perceived. It was understood that lightning, for example, WAS caused by the Gods, which is NOT in contradiction to the scientific “explanation” (which is really a description and not an explanation at al)

Well, I just wanted to post a few radical suggestions. the world is infinitely more complex and more strange than our modern science and most modern philosophy (at least, the abstract kind we wrongly label “materialist”) even dream of.

[Don Salmon]

Hi all – psychologist here, involved in complementary/mind-body medicine, using mindfulness for pain management, CBT-I for insomnia, and much more.

All 3 letters are quite beautifully stated.

A friendly challenge; i don’t see anything concrete in what all have summarized from Iain’s work that is fundamentally different from the mechanical/organic duality that has been well articulated in various complementary medicine writings over the past 50 years.

This is not a critique of iain’s work – it’s important, as he writes often in defense of his neurological thesis, to reach people this way who otherwise flatly reject integrative medicine.

But I often wonder – since neuroscience AND biology are at present so permeated with physicalist and dualist assumptions – how much do we lose by elevating materialist science above contemplative writings which – to me at least – have infinitely more dimensions of consciousness developed over thousands of years than any of our current attempts to link neuroscience and consciousness?

not a critique – just something to inspire further contemplation.

[Don Salmon]

well, Daniel, one thing you could try is not to have your first post be an attack on everyone in a discussion.

Did you see where I asked you about my comment on human caused climate change?

Did you see that, as of 2007, there was still no way to determine if a person who accepted the science on human contributions to climate change was of one political orientation or another?

So I’ll ask you a question or two and see if we can listen to and respect each other.

1. Tell me how one’s view of the science related to climate change is associated with one or another political view.

2. My understanding is that the climate change issue has been purposely politicized because there is an assumption that any way to address it involves government overreach and undemocratic manipulation of markets. So my question is, given that over the past 4 to 5 years, a majority of conservative politicians now accept the science regarding human contributions to climate change, if I think that government, market AND personal responsibility are all needed for a solution, does that mark me as a close minded, bigoted person unable to see the “other” side? If you think so, what “other” side are you referring to?

By the way, if you want to put a label on me, I don’t consider myself Left or Right (I am of the opinion that at best, those terms were already useless when I was close to your age, in the 1970s). Contemplative anarchist (a la Gustav Landauer and Aurobindo Ghose) is the closest I’ve ever found to something I resonate with, though the Catholic view of subsidiarity comes fairly close as well.

[Don Salmon]

In case you don’t recall, I’m referring to a post where you criticized everyone else in the post as being lost in the LH and unable to empathize with other points of view.

not a great way to start.

But I’m eager to get to the same goal as you. In 2019, I invited 20 people – 10 liberals and 10 conservatives – to a group meeting to experiment with each person attempting to amiably and empathically articulate the view of those who disagreed with them. It didn’t go well, but I’d love to see more attempts like that.

[Don Salmon]

Oh, I see.

Maybe it’s different here. In mainstream medicine the doctors objectively have no time. When I’ve been to integrative practitioners who are quite capable of that kind of wondrous sustained attention, if they have limited time, I still feel it.

perhaps it’s a special quality about you.

[Don Salmon]

Thanks Whit, fascinating historical observations.

Daniel, just a reminder – I, and I imagine Whit, were perfectly content to leave this conversation, but you just restarted it. If you don’t want to talk to us, don’t.

Meanwhile to respond to your comment regarding our lack of understanding of any of Iain’s views, when I’ve spoken with him in those live Zooms, he’s always agreed with my overviews of his various theses.

Furthermore, before this channel was completely overhauled in September 2022, I had, for a few months, written numerous posts for the previous site which no longer exists, as far as I know.

Evidently, one of the administrators of the current site assessed my understanding of Iain’s work as excellent, and reached out to me to request that I post regularly here to encourage others to post.

Finally, with regard to capitalism, a few observations. Iain considers unregulated capitalism to represent pure and profoundly unbalanced left hemisphere thinking. To allow market forces, which see value only in what can be “objectively” measured is something that not only is purely LH, but in more traditional Christian language would be considered demonic.

To connect this with Whit’s observations regarding Trump’s cult followers, remember that the Southern Baptists were formed in the early 1850s (or was it 1849; I don’t recall precisely) specifically with the intent of promoting white Europeans as the supreme Christians, and black Americans as fundamentally inferior. This dualism is also very LH, and relates to the predominantly categorical thought and the kind of dominator hierarchy (as well as typically LH paranoid style of thinking) that is widespread among Trump’s supporters.

You though we were being insulting when we pointed out paranoid elements of your letters, but there are actually passages toward the end of “The Master and His Emissary” that describe with remarkable accuracy the kinds of statements you’ve made.

So once again, if you hadn’t written, I would not be writing this. If you would like this to stop, don’t write.

[Don Salmon]

Dan, I had already stopped. If you would refrain from mentioning us again, I don’t think either of us would return to your posts.

[Don Salmon]

well, you were right, Whit, and I was wrong. Remember earlier I suggested we be nicer to Dan and hear him out?

As his comments have receded from the factual, objective world further into delusion, I notice how much more this feels like conversations I’ve had with patients at Bellevue, VA centers and other psychiatric centers.

I don’t know how it is in England and elsewhere, but now that I live in the Southeastern US, it’s quite striking how people conditioned from childhood to believe in a completely fact-less, delusional form of Christianity find it very easy to slip into belief in materialistic delusions.

I don’t think it’s irrelevant that the largest faction of Trump supporters are the Southern Baptists, and that this branch of Christianity was founded on a mission to prove black people are inferior to whites.

[Don Salmon]

I’ve just received a telepathic message from Marjorie Taylor Greene. She is worried she may have to get the Gazpacho police, as she shares concerns with Lauren Boebert regarding the possibility of wonton killings (that is, death by dim sum) . Already, we’re discovering that numerous airports during the Revolutionary War were closed due to such rhetoric, and the reptilian beings from Alpha Centauri are somewhat restless as well. And consider the laser beams from those satellites above California!

[Don Salmon]

However, I haven’t given up hope!

Do you have any concrete suggestions how to open up a more experiential, integrated R/L brain exploration?

[Don Salmon]

Sophia, I agree with you. I’d prefer not to engage this way. I was hoping with some simple logic to draw Daniel into a compassionate, open minded interest in exploring multiple perspectives, but I don’t see any possibility of that yet.

[Don Salmon]

You know, I’ve been in dialog groups since the 1980s. It’s hard work and takes significant maturity. The very first, the absolute ground rule of all dialog (and keep in mind, I was trained to lead dialog groups by an expert Buddhist teacher who researched over a dozen forms of dialog over the course of several years in a doctoral program) is you have to demonstrate a willingness to express the “other” side’s viewpoint before criticizing it.

Based on everything you’ve written here, starting from your particularly pugnacious initial comment, i would say you’re not ready for the first class in how to engage in dialog.

I was hoping, based on your obvious desire to write sincerely about this, you might be willing to at least attempt to look at your inability to approach a dialogic view, but – as I’ve often encountered before when people claim to want to engage in dialog who aren’t ready for it – you’ve simply used this desire as a pretense to defend a one-sided position, and ultimately, the ultimate anti dialog stance, prove you’re right and the other is wrong.

And not even prove – since you haven’t even once attempted to engage in rational interaction – basically – to have an excuse to push one perspective without demonstrating even a remote interest in ascertaining what others think and feel, much less even the possibility that there might be some legitimacy in another perspective.

I hope I’m wrong, but so far, you haven’t given us much hope that you may have some sincerity and want to develop some actual, concrete dialogic skills

[Don Salmon]

I just set a private message to you. If you don’t see it, feel free to write me at donsalmon7@gmail.com. Thanks!

[Don Salmon]

Hi again Daniel:

You know, I’m going to offer you a little challenge.

Do you want to attempt a conscious dialog?

There was an 8 part PBS series several decades back. A liberal and conservative were invited on a specific issue. My favorite episode is when a Leftist pro Castro intellectual was invited and a Rightist anti-Castro intellectual was invited.

The format was:

First guy states his position, 2^nd guy restates it to first guy’s satisfaction.

The anti-Castro guy went first. The pro-Castro guy LITERALLY could not get ANY words out of his mouth that were negative about Castro.

It was a model of how NOT to have a dialog.

So here’s an idea. I got the impression from your first comment – in which you took everyone else to task for being biased, lost in the LH, having no empathy for the ‘other side’ – maybe you could try a more dialogic approach:

“Hi folks, I’m Daniel, I’m working on a book on how we can communicate our different views in a respectful way. I’m going to start by modeling this.

I think ‘x” about this particular issue. I’m now to going to try to describe the opposite position, and make an attempt to say how I see the validity of it from others’ perspectives”

or something like that.

I don’t know if you saw my comment about climate change, but that could be a great place to start.

What do you think?

(by the way, even if your comment was not to me, would you possibly be willing to acknowledge it may not have been as ideally dialogic as you might have wished? And if you want to start with climate change, I’d love to start there. As far as I can see there is now almost universal agreement on the science, but intense disagreement about the means. I’d love to explore what it would be like to have a calm, empathic, gentle dialog about the means.

Congrats, by the way – this is an urgently needed practice. Let’s see if we can model it together!