What is consciousness? Comatose are aware

Sam Jones, Washington Post, 11/2023; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Trapped in a body that's out of its mind.

Some brain injury patients may appear to be in a coma, but they are not. They are processing at least some of what is happening around them but cannot physically respond.

Without a physical response, a physician might assume that a patient hasn’t understood, said Dr. Sudhin Shah, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. Referring to the patient, she said, “Unfortunately, it could be that you were processing, you were understanding, you were wanting to talk to me. You just can’t.” More: Some coma patients may be conscious. and new research could identify them.

• Am I conscious? I feel unconscious because I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual. Others can or are they just imagining it?
• Signs one is a 'highly sensitive person' — the missing personality type, according to some researchers

(Guns N' Roses) Axl Rose reflects on life inside a coma in "Coma"

I fall asleep when I meditate

Sayalay Susila (sayalaysusila.net), edited by Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly

Q: How do I deal with sleepiness?

A: There are many ways to deal with both kinds of sleepiness, sloth (physical) and torpor (mental). Sometimes, we must find the external cause of sleepiness. For example, don’t meditate right after eating. If you do, you'll be overwhelmed by both sloth and torpor. The same will occur if you meditate when you are already too tired. If sleepiness comes, here's help:

• Open the eyes. Look at light. This will brighten the mind. [Looking at the internal light also helps]. Reciting some of the Buddha's words and temporarily putting aside the object of meditation will also make the mind more alert. Scanning the body up and down makes the mind more attentive. Pulling on the ears is also extremely effective to energize the brain; there are many acupressure points on the ears that connect right to the brain. Do standing meditation instead of sitting. Worrying about falling down on the person in front of you will probably keep you awake.

I'll also share my own way of staying awake. It is more difficult but very effective. The very moment I notice sloth and torpor, I just look at them, and they are gone. However, this method requires alert mindfulness. Most people are unable to be aware of subtle laziness right when it arises. By the time they notice it, the laziness has already gained momentum – body swaying and head nodding. By this time, it is too late to apply this method. If your mindfulness is precise and you are clear on what is happening in the mind, the moment you know sloth and torpor, they disappear.

• I'm worried. Is the Mandela Effect real? (reasontalk.com)

A Buddhist Valentine's Day (sutra)

Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price)

I think I'm cute, but my partner doesn't love my love of sports (newravel.com).

Happy Valentine's Day! Sex, love, hooking up instead of intimacy (mademan.com)

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Modern dating (for shy people)

(Negeen Dargahi) Review with pictures of the four best cell phone dating apps for introverts

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Nothing Higher to Live For: A Buddhist View of Romantic Love

Ven. Nyanasobhano (Leonard Price, accesstoinsight.org)

Alcohol is the great lubricator, intoxication leads to intoxication and stupidity (NR).

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Roses are red love poem

If it is possible to live with a purpose, what should that purpose be? A purpose is a guiding principle, a philosophy, or a value of sovereign importance that informs and directs our activities and thoughts.

To have one is to live seriously -- though not necessarily wisely -- following some track, believing in a hub to the wheeling universe or a sea toward which we flow or an end before which all the hubbub of civilization subsides. What is your purpose, friend, or what should it be?

Perhaps most of us do not come to a clear conclusion in the matter, but this does not mean we have no purpose, only that we do not recognize it or admit it or even choose it for ourselves. In the unhappiest case nature simply takes its course, which is a turbid meandering through the swamps of desire. If life means nothing then only pleasure is worthwhile; or if life has meaning and we cannot get at it then still only enjoyment matters -- such is the view of brutes and some sophisticated philosophers. 

Valentine's Day box of chocolates...with no chocolate in them (Henry Payne cartoon)

 

Hello! Dating is awkward (newravel.com).

It slips into the unconscious by default when we hold no other, but we are reluctant to entertain it and will rather, if we think about it, take as our purpose support of family, search for beauty, improvement of society, fame, self-expression, development of talent, and so on. But it might be fair to say that apart from these or beneath these the fundamental purpose of many of us is the search for love, particularly romantic love.

 

The love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man is often the floor to which people fall after the collapse of other dreams. It is held to be solid when nothing else is, and though it frequently gives way and dumps them into a basement of despair, it still enjoys a reputation of dependability.

This much? - That much!

No matter that this reputation is illogical -- it still flourishes and will continue to flourish regardless of what is said in any book. Love, or possibly the myth of love, is the first, last, and sometimes the only refuge of uncomprehending humanity. What else makes our hearts beat so fast? What else makes us swoon with feeling? What else renders us so intensely alive and aching?

The search for love -- the sublime, the nebulous, the consuming -- remains sacred in a world that increasingly despises the sacred. When the heroic and the transcendental are but memories, when religious institutions fill up with bureaucrats and social scientists, when nobody believes there is a sky beyond the ceiling, then there seems no other escape from the prison of self than the abandon of love. With a gray age of spiritual deadness upon us, we love, or beg for love, or grieve for love. We have nothing higher to live for.

 

I love ya, Brenda! Brenda? (buzzcontrol)

Indeed, many take it on faith that romantic love is the highest thing to live for. Popular literature, movies, art, and music tirelessly celebrate it as the one truth accessible to all. Such love obliterates reason, as poets have long sweetly lamented, and this is part of its charm and power, because we want to be swept up and spirited out of our calculating selves.

"Want" is the key word, for in the spiritual void of modern life the wanting of love becomes increasingly indistinguishable from love itself. So powerful, so insistent is it that we seldom notice that the gratification is rare and the craving relentless. Love is mostly in anticipation; it is an agony of anticipation; it is an ache for a completion not found in the dreary round of mundane routine. That we never seem to possess it in its imagined fullness does not deter us. It hurts so bad that it must be good. More
 

Love is my religion. It's a stupid religion as I pretend it's altruism when it's selfish craving, self-involved pining, and egotistic wasting away waiting for fulfillment from someone/something. It's disappointing (unfulfilling), but I have nothing higher to live for!

• SUTRA SUMMARY: This discourse relates the story of the Buddhist monk, the Buddha's cousin, Tissa, being brought to the Buddha because he has been complaining of his distaste for the monastic life. By means of an allegory, the Buddha teaches him how he can attain nirvana, and promises to help him to do so. (S.iii.106f.)

SUTRA: Love's Languor is a Drug
Maurice O'Connell Walshe and Ven. Thanissaro/Geoffrey DeGraff (trans.), edited by Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (Tissa Sutra, SN 22.84)

This monastic life is sooo dull, cousin. But look how fine my ascetic robes are.

"Depravity of Seigen" monk haunted by illicit affair

SAVATTHI, ancient India - [Thus have I heard.] On one occasion Ven. Tissa, the Blessed One's cousin, told a large number of fellow ascetics, "Friends, it is as if my body is drugged. I have lost my bearings. Things are not clear to me. My mind keeps being overwhelmed with sloth and torpor. I lead the pure life dissatisfied. I have uncertainty about the Dharma (the Buddha's teachings)."
 
Then a great many ascetics went to the Blessed One and on arrival bowed and sat respectfully to one side. Sitting there, they reported: "Venerable sir, Ven. Tissa, the Blessed One's own cousin, has told a large number of ascetics, 'Friends, it is as if my body is drugged. I have lost my bearings...I have uncertainty about the Dharma.'"
 
The Blessed One told a certain monastic, "Come, in my name, call Tissa, saying, 'The teacher calls you, my friend.'"
 
"As you say, venerable sir," he answered and went to Ven. Tissa and said, "The Teacher calls you, my friend."
 
"As you say, my friend," Ven. Tissa replied. He went to the Blessed One, bowed, and sat respectfully to one side. The Blessed One said to him, "Is it true, Tissa, that you said, 'Friends, it is as if my body is drugged. I have lost my bearings. Things are not clear to me. My mind keeps being overwhelmed with sloth and torpor. I lead the pure [celibate] life dissatisfied. I have uncertainty about the Dharma'?"
 
"Yes, venerable sir."
 
"What do you think, Tissa: In one who is full of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for physcial form, does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair as a result of change and alteration to one's form?"
 
"Yes, venerable sir."
 
"Good, Tissa, good. That is how it is for one who is full of passion for form.
 
"What do you think, Tissa: In one who is full of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for feelings...perceptions...mental formations [constructions, fabrications], does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair as a result of change and alteration to one's mental formations?"
 
"Yes, venerable sir."
 
"Good, Tissa, good. That is how it is for one who is full of passion for formations.
 
"What do you think, Tissa: In one who is full of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for consciousness, does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair as a result of change and alteration to one's consciousness?"

• [These five -- form, feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness -- are the Five Aggregates or Groups of Clinging, the very things we most identify with and think of as "self" and other. But as they are ever-changing, they are unable to bring lasting fulfillment. They will change and disappoint. They are not "self." Yet, these are the "things" (components, processes) we most cling to in ignorance.]

"Yes, venerable sir."
 
"Good, Tissa, good. That is how it is for one who is full of passion for consciousness [i.e., awareness through the six senses, with mind as the sixth].
 
"Now what do you think, Tissa: In one who is free of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for form, does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair as a result of change and alteration in one's form?"
 
"No, venerable sir."
 
"Good, Tissa, good. That is how it is for one who is free of passion for form.
 
"What do you think, Tissa: In one who is free of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for feelings... perceptions... formations, does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair from change and alteration to one's formations?"
 
"No, venerable sir."

"Good, Tissa, good. That i how it is for one who is free of passion for formations.
 
"What do you think, Tissa: In one who is free of passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, and craving for consciousness, does there arise sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair as a result of change and alteration to one's consciousness?"
 
"No, venerable sir."
 
"Good, Tissa, good. That is how it is for one who is free of passion for consciousness.
 
"What do you think, Tissa -- is form constant or inconstant?"
 
"Inconstant, venerable sir."
 
"And is that which is inconstant fulfilling or disappointing?"
 
"Disappointing, venerable sir."
 
"And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, disappointing, subject to change as, 'This is mine. This is my 'self.' This is what I am'?"
 
"No, venerable sir."
 
"...Is feeling constant or inconstant?" "Inconstant, venerable sir."...
 
"...Is perception constant or inconstant?" "Inconstant, venerable sir."...
 
"...Are formations constant or inconstant?" "Inconstant, venerable sir."...
 
"What do you think, Tissa -- is consciousness constant or inconstant?"

• [Consciousness (vinanna) is not a solid or single thing but a composite process, the awareness that comes about through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin, or mind.]

"Inconstant, venerable sir."
 
"And is that which is inconstant fulfilling or disappointing?"
 
"Disappointing, venerable sir."
 
"And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, disappointing, subject to change as, 'This is mine. This is my 'self.' This is what I am'?"
 
"No, venerable sir."
 
"So, Tissa, any form whatsoever -- whether past, present, or future, internal or external (here or in others), obvious or subtle, mundane or sublime, far or near -- every form is to be seen as it actually is with wisdom (right understanding) as, 'This is not mine. This is not my 'self.' This is not what I am.'
 
"Any feeling whatsoever...
 
"Any perception whatsoever...
 
"Any formations whatsoever...
 
"Any consciousness whatsoever -- whether past, present, or future, internal or external, obvious or subtle, mundane or sublime, far or near -- every consciousness is to be seen as it actually is with wisdom as, 'This is not mine. This is not my 'self.' This is not what I am.'
 
"Seeing thus, the instructed noble disciple of noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with formations, disenchanted with consciousness. Through disenchantment, one becomes dispassionate. Through dispassion, one is fully liberated. With full liberation, there is the knowledge, 'Fully liberated.' One knows, 'Birth is ended, the pure life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for this world.'

The PATH

"Tissa, it is as if there were two people, one familiar with the path, the other unfamiliar with the path. In that case, the one unfamiliar with the path would ask the one familiar with the path about the path.

"The second would say, 'Come, good friend, this is the path. Go along it a little further and you will see a fork in the road. Avoiding the left fork, take the right. Go along a little further and you will see an intense forest grove. Go along a little further and you will see a large marshy swamp. Go along a little further and you will see a deep drop-off. Go along a little further and you will see a delightful stretch of level ground.
 
"I have made this analogy (allegory), Tissa, to convey this meaning: The one unfamiliar with the path stands for an ordinary, uninstructed worldling.

"The one familiar with the path stands for the Wayfarer, worthy and rightly awakened. The fork in the road represents uncertainty. The left fork represents the eightfold wrong path -- that is, wrong view, wrong intention, wrong speech, wrong action, wrong livelihood, wrong effort, wrong mindfulness, and wrong concentration. The right fork represents the Noble Eightfold Path -- that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. The intense forest grove represents ignorance. The large marshy swamp represents sensual desires. The deep drop-off represents anger and despair. The delightful stretch of level ground represents nirvana.
 
"Be happpy, Tissa! Rejoice! I am here to exhort you, I am here to guide you, I am here to instruct you!"
 
That is what the Blessed One said. Gratified, Ven. Tissa delighted in the Blessed One's words.

Who was Ven. Tissa?
G.P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names

Grown old without yet seeing nirvana

(14) Tissa Thera was the son of the Buddha's paternal aunt, Amitā (2). He entered the Buddhist Monastic Order and lived in a woodland settlement. But he was proud of his rank and irritable and capricious in his conduct. He once came to the Buddha in tears because his fellow ascetics had teased him on account of his talkativeness (S.ii.282; MA.i.289).

On another occasion, the Buddha using his psychic faculty (eye) saw Ven. Tissa sleeping with his open mouth during the siesta and, sending a ray of glory, woke him. Ven. Tissa's heart was filled with anguish, and when he confessed to his fellows his mental laziness and distaste for spiritual exertion, they brought this to the attention of the Buddha (which led to this sutra). The Buddha instructed him, as recorded in this Tissa Sutra, at the end of which he became an arhat or fully enlightened person (Thag.v.39; but see v.1162; S.iii.106f; ThagA.i.105).
 
In a past life, in the time of Tissa Buddha, [the person who became] Tissa swept the leaves from the foot of the bodhi tree. He is evidently identical with Bodhisammajjaka of the Apadāna (Ap.ii.457f).
 

The Dhammapada aphorisms

The Dhammapada Commentary (i.31ff) calls him Thullatissa. He entered the Monastic Order when old and became fat through idleness. He spent most of his time in the Waiting Hall draped in rich robes. Monks, taking him to be a great elder (Mahā Thera) with many as a monastic and therefore likely to be enlightened, begged for  the privilege of performing various services for him, such as massaging his feet. When they discovered his lack of spiritual attainments, they reviled him, and he sought out the Buddha. The Buddha, however, asked him to obtain their pardon for having failed to show them due honor. When he refused, the Buddha related to him the story of Nārada and Devala. (Narada was the Bodhisatta, the Buddha-to-be, in a former life as an ascetic; for the story see Devāla).

Sports? 7 Things To Do On a SOLO Valentine's Day This Year (bankrate.com)

Life in Hell: Binky tries to apologize to Sheba. (Matt Groening, Life is Swell)

Primary Questions: An ongoing Series (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)

The Five Hindrances (definition)

The Five Hindrances (nivarana) are obstacles to the mind. They blind our mental vision. In the presence of them, we cannot reach Neighborhood-Concentra-tion (upacara-samadhi), Full- Concentration (appana-sama-dhi), or clearly discern the truth.

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They are:

1. Sensuous Desire (kamacchanda)
2. Ill-will (vyapada)
3. Sloth and Torpor (thina-middha)
4. Restlessness and Scruples (uddhacca-kukkucca)
5. Sceptical Doubt (vicikiccha)

In the beautiful similes in A.V. 193,

• Sensuous Desire is like water mixed with manifold colors;
• Ill-will with boiling water;
• Torpor with water covered by mosses;
• Restlessness with agitated water whipped by wind;
• Sceptical Doubt with turbid and muddy water.

Just as in such water one cannot perceive one's own reflection, so in the presence of these Five mental Hindrances, one cannot clearly discern one's own benefit, nor that of others, nor of both.

Regarding the temporary suspension of the Five Hindrances on entering the first absorption [jhana], the stereotype sutra text (e.g., A. IX. 40) runs as follows:

"One has cast away Sensuous Desire; one dwells with a heart free from sensuous desire; from desire one cleanses one's heart.

"One has cast away Ill-will; one dwells with a heart free from ill-will, cherishing love and compassion toward all living beings, one cleanses one's heart from ill-will.

"One has cast away Sloth and Torpor; one dwells free from sloth and torpor; loving the light, with watchful mind, with clear consciousness, one cleanses one's mind from sloth and torpor.

"One has cast away Restlessness and Scruples; dwelling with mind undisturbed, with heart full of peace, one cleanses one's mind from restlessness and scruples.

"One has cast away Sceptical Doubt; dwelling free from doubt, full of confidence in the good, one cleanses one's heart from doubt.

"One has put aside these Five Hindrances and come to know these paralyzing defilements of the mind. And far from sensual impressions, far from unwholesome things, one enters into the first absorption [jhana], and so on."

The overcoming of these Five Hindrances by the absorptions [jhanas] is, as already pointed out, a merely temporary suspension, called "Overcoming through Repression" (vikkhambhana-pahand).

They disappear forever on entering the Four Supermundane Paths (ariya-puggala): That is,

• Sceptical Doubt disappears forever upon reaching Stream-entry;
• Sensuous Desire, Ill-will and Mental Worry on reaching Non-returning;
• Sloth, Torpor, and Restlessness on reaching full enlightenment (Arahatship).

—For the origination and overcoming of the Five Hindrances, see A. I, 2; VI, 21; S. XLVI, 51. See also The Five Mental Hindrances by Ven. Nyanaponika (BPS, Wheel 26).