[FutureBuddha] The Coming Upaya

[Jundo]

Thank you, Bion. That kinda made me tear up, truly.

Funny how a paragraph about "dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine" can cause the heart strings to twitch, but it did. I wonder if my twitching heart strings themselves were just "dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine" at play??

I am not a total materialist, but I think that we can regulate and balance many of our more basic emotions soon. It is just that we are much like someone in 1923 trying to imagine genetic engineering in 2023.

Gassho, J

stlah

[Bion]

I wonder if my twitching heart strings themselves were just "dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine" at play??

[emoji23] Most definitely is!! [emoji14]
Also, you have a couple of PMs pending from me. HELP [emoji23]

[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Ryumon]

Clearly the mind is more than just neurotransmitters. As long as we’re looking at those chemicals, we need to look at the trillions of bacteria in our guts that synthesize those chemicals. It’s a very complex chain, and medications affecting emotion are very blunt instruments.

Drugs like this don’t even work:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2008/feb/26/mentalhealth.medicalresearch

But imagine if we could harness the placebo effect…

Gassho,
Ryūmon (Kirk)
Sat

[Jundo]

Clearly the mind is more than just neurotransmitters. As long as we’re looking at those chemicals, we need to look at the trillions of bacteria in our guts that synthesize those chemicals. It’s a very complex chain, and medications affecting emotion are very blunt instruments.

It is not for me or you to say. It is for the researchers, doctors, chemists and engineers. You are no expert, neither am I.

I feel like a politician or writer in 1958 saying, "I want to get to the moon." I leave it to the experts to figure out when (or if) we can get there.

I just have an educated hunch that, yes, we can get there.

Gassho, Jundo

stlah

[Shonin Risa Bear]

I'm not opposed to, for example, chemotherapy or radiation being available. But I appreciate that, should they be offered to me, I get to choose whether to avail myself of them. That for me might be the most significant aspect to all this.

gassho
ds sat this morning

[Seiko]

We love to believe we are above the chemistry of the brain, as if emotions were not just complex chemical reactions that come and go based on conditions. Higher or lower levels of dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine determine how we “feel” at any given time. Monoamine, for example, has been deemed as the substrate for emotions and medications we take for anxiety, depression or phobia target it to effectively “cure” us. So, it is not far fetched to think the more we study and understand the chemistry in us, the more we are able to manipulate it. It’s not like compassion or love or hate are magically beamed to us through a laser ray from the Buddha’s forehead. Through our practices we simply stimulate the production of these chemicals, the same way medications do.

Anyway, sorry for running over the three sentences.

[emoji1374] Sat Today

Ah Bion,
This reminds me that about 12 years ago I benefitted from Brain Working Recursive Therapy (BWRT). I was told that BWRT can change our automatic response to 'triggers' from some undesirable negative response to either a positive response or simply ambivalence - by building new neural pathways. It is often used to stop phobias or other irrational, negative responses that have become ingrained. It was successful for me.

This is mainstream medicine, not on the fringe, not an alternative therapy, and was given to me by the British National Health Service.

To me, it felt very similar to how zazen and precepts work on me.

Gasshō
Seiko
stlah

[Tokan]

Hey all

We love to believe we are above the chemistry of the brain, as if emotions were not just complex chemical reactions that come and go based on conditions. Higher or lower levels of dopamine, serotonin or norepinephrine determine how we “feel” at any given time. Monoamine, for example, has been deemed as the substrate for emotions and medications we take for anxiety, depression or phobia target it to effectively “cure” us.

This may be true, but what I find is that the social conditions many of my customers find themselves in require social solutions, or a change in thinking, medication only making them care less about the acute emotional state. This is such a tricky one because emotions are indeed chemical and electrical messages, but that does not mean the cure is necessarily in these pathways. If you have reasonable relationships and financial security, then the pills or neurochemical stimulatory therapy may be the answer, but if your life is a 'mess' you gotta tidy up! Of course, our emotional state is also a function of personality, even if the consequence is chemical signaling, and personality is perhaps that bit you are referring to as "above the chemistry of the brain" Bion (sorry inferring that!). Now, effective and 'simple' ways to change personality for the better, that's what I would be really interested to hear about, but that is a conversation I know people find 'scary'. But truly, 90% of my patients have maladaptive personality traits that medication or therapy is likely to have only say 50% effectiveness at best. We are clearly still learning to crawl here, no walking or running as yet!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Bion]

Hey all



This may be true, but what I find is that the social conditions many of my customers find themselves in require social solutions, or a change in thinking, medication only making them care less about the acute emotional state. This is such a tricky one because emotions are indeed chemical and electrical messages, but that does not mean the cure is necessarily in these pathways. If you have reasonable relationships and financial security, then the pills or neurochemical stimulatory therapy may be the answer, but if your life is a 'mess' you gotta tidy up! Of course, our emotional state is also a function of personality, even if the consequence is chemical signaling, and personality is perhaps that bit you are referring to as "above the chemistry of the brain" Bion (sorry inferring that!). Now, effective and 'simple' ways to change personality for the better, that's what I would be really interested to hear about, but that is a conversation I know people find 'scary'. But truly, 90% of my patients have maladaptive personality traits that medication or therapy is likely to have only say 50% effectiveness at best. We are clearly still learning to crawl here, no walking or running as yet!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

I am saying that all the relationships and healthy lifestyle, and financial security and all conditions just help the right chemistry come into existence or be maintained and then the right chemistry helps us achieve the emotion stability to have healthy relationships and a healthy lifestyle, to get financial security and etc[emoji1] It all matters cause it all depends on everything else, but not a single emotion can arise without the chemicals producing it. So if they they can be conditioned, they can be manipulated, as we do with therapy, meditation, drugs etc


[emoji1374] Sat Today

[Tokan]

I am saying that all the relationships and healthy lifestyle, and financial security and all conditions just help the right chemistry come into existence or be maintained and then the right chemistry helps us achieve the emotion stability to have healthy relationships and a healthy lifestyle, to get financial security and etc[emoji1] It all matters cause it all depends on everything else, but not a single emotion can arise without the chemicals producing it. So if they they can be conditioned, they can be manipulated, as we do with therapy, meditation, drugs etc


[emoji1374] Sat Today

You are absolutely right, there is a powerful positive feedback cycle here. I think what I am getting at, to try and a bit clearer, is that although all of what we experience ultimately has a neurochemical basis, much of which we are still breaking new ground on, I feel that the experience of being human is something more than the sum of the parts. Not that I personally believe in a soul or self that exists eternally (I'd be in the wrong place if I did lol), but that I don't think we have a grasp on what consciousness is. I guess in my work I see people who focus on the "give me a pill to make this go away" aspect of their difficult emotions. My view is admittedly skewed because most people seeking care for their mental health do not come my way, it is only when the wheels have fallen off that I see them, so we are focused more on palliation of symptoms than treatment of the cause, at first anyway. So I don't see so much of chemical manipulation to create better conditions taking place, more of a down-regulation of the intensity of emotion, but that can have an equal and opposite reaction in terms of also down-regulating motivation and helpful emotion. An interesting diversion on this thread for sure Bion, thank you!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Bion]

You are absolutely right, there is a powerful positive feedback cycle here. I think what I am getting at, to try and a bit clearer, is that although all of what we experience ultimately has a neurochemical basis, much of which we are still breaking new ground on, I feel that the experience of being human is something more than the sum of the parts. Not that I personally believe in a soul or self that exists eternally (I'd be in the wrong place if I did lol), but that I don't think we have a grasp on what consciousness is. I guess in my work I see people who focus on the "give me a pill to make this go away" aspect of their difficult emotions. My view is admittedly skewed because most people seeking care for their mental health do not come my way, it is only when the wheels have fallen off that I see them, so we are focused more on palliation of symptoms than treatment of the cause, at first anyway. So I don't see so much of chemical manipulation to create better conditions taking place, more of a down-regulation of the intensity of emotion, but that can have an equal and opposite reaction in terms of also down-regulating motivation and helpful emotion. An interesting diversion on this thread for sure Bion, thank you!

Gassho, Tokan

satlah

Right! Fortunately for us, our Way is that of seeing into the true nature of things, being able to fully grasp not one - not two, but also fully capable of acknowledging the reality of each moment. Nothing is just one thing, as we so well know.

As for myself, I do believe that in one sense, our human experience is just the sum of the parts: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind and their objects, whether we are fortunate to have all or just some. By nature, we are emptiness and also oneness; just conditions arranged in a different way each time.

I apologize YET AGAIN for running over the three sentences [emoji53]

[emoji1374] Sat Today lah

[Tokan]

Dogen - "What are words master tenzo?"

Tenzo - "1-2-3-4-5"

Maybe we should go for five sentences not three

Gassho, Tokan Satlah

[Bion]

Dogen - "What are words master tenzo?"

Tenzo - "1-2-3-4-5"

Maybe we should go for five sentences not three

Gassho, Tokan Satlah

I like three! [emoji1] Keeps me from rambling as if it were important what I said.

[emoji1374] Sat Today lah

[Tokan]

Yes haha!

To use another Dogen quote - sometimes I cannot stop myself being like a frog croaking pointlessly day and night

How to teach the true way to a frog??? Frog realises no-frog so, no frog - no croak, no croak - only serene reflection of the reflection on the frog-pond that is frog-less.

I don't even know what I'm talking about now!



Gassho, Tokan

satlah

[Jundo]

I'm not opposed to, for example, chemotherapy or radiation being available. But I appreciate that, should they be offered to me, I get to choose whether to avail myself of them. That for me might be the most significant aspect to all this.

gassho
ds sat this morning

Informed consent, and the right of the individual to make a voluntary, informed choice is vital. The same for chemotherapy or even a face lift or a hair cut! I believe that even convicted murderers and child abusers should have the full right to be informed, and to choose and refuse voluntarily, any treatment to mitigate their violent tendencies or sick desires in exchange for early release.

The one scenario I see where it might be involuntary (short of a real end-of-the-world-or-else situation which I hope we never see), is pacifying weapons and "love bombs" on a battlefield in place of the maiming and killing bullets and bombs that are there now, and are dropped on soldiers or civilians, including children. Nobody consents to be in a war, especially the terrorized non-combatants. I would much rather see "bombs" that cause enemies to embrace one another, rather than slaughter one another.

Gassho, Jundo

[Jundo]

You are absolutely right, there is a powerful positive feedback cycle here. I think what I am getting at, to try and a bit clearer, is that although all of what we experience ultimately has a neurochemical basis, much of which we are still breaking new ground on, I feel that the experience of being human is something more than the sum of the parts.

These are questions for the doctors and researchers, but my gut feeling (pun intended) is that you are right. No neurochemical or other physiological treatment can solve it all.

That said, my intuition is that we can treat effectively some "low hanging fruit" which would, alone, have big positive impact on society and the suffering individuals. For example, I am still hoping for an effective medical approach to alcohol and drug addictions, to cut the addictions even while, simultaneously, therapy and other responses should go hand-in-hand with any pharmacological approach. I think that better medical answers will come on that front, even if not yet.

As well, limiting "rage" in those prone to violence in anger, and limiting sexual urges in true sexual predators, will radically reduce such heinous crimes. Those steps alone will revolutionize life in our towns, in our families, for so many friends suffering in such ways.

Now, as "much higher fruit," I really hope (even if speculative) that increased empathy would also cause people to vote, for example, for leaders who would spend more on social programs, and to themselves volunteer, to do something about many of those social issues. Abusers would be less likely to abuse if they felt more the suffering of the victim. If we saw the homeless person in the street with the same eyes as if it were our their brother or mother homeless in the street, or hungry, and if we got as much pleasure from funding social programs as from video games, sex and ice cream ... well, I think that we would see some big steps in the right direction.

Even then, it would not solve everything, but it would be a great leap in the right direction.

Gassho, J

stlah