The Rough Guide to Self Development Part Two Our Experience and Our Thinking

Our western culture emphasises linear rationality (such things as analysis, logic, sequence, prioritising and planning). So I’ll start our tour of the world of self-development here: it is a place that we are all familiar with – even if we don’t like it terribly much. The emphasis on linear rationality has lead to a reaction (at the social level this is the argument between the ‘Modernists’ and the ‘Romantics’) – some people rejecting it and blaming it for most modern ills.

Our Perceptions And What We Make Of Them
I want to start with our perception. What we perceive is what we talk about when we talk about something, it is what we think or feel or decide about when we think or feel or decide about something. There is our perception(s) and then there is our processing of them. It seems to me that there is something primary and secondary.

This distinction between our experience and processing of it is important I think, and so I want to give an example or two to make it clear if I can. If I take a bite of a sandwich I have purchased and recoil and spit out what was in my mouth I might tell my friend what happened by using some words. I might say, “It’s bad” or “Oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with it but something is” or “I don’t know what they put on that but it was weird”. Without words I could wrinkle my nose, shake my head or something else. I would have perceived something wrong and responded to this and then processed (to myself as well as my friend perhaps) by using words or other actions that aren’t the experience but are about the experience.

I want to make the distinction between our perceptions and our processing of them because we often ‘rush to judgement’. We tend to deal with the end of our processing instead of sticking with our experience. We may have decided (as a result of rotten teaching at school perhaps) that we don’t understand poetry; we may have discovered (as I did) that I can’t even read one page of Kant and concluded that we can’t read philosophy. (Fortunately before I was shown the page of Kant I had come across readable philosophy. In case you’re wondering I think Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the best philosophy book (about metaphysics) ever written.)

Conclusions Are Useful And Have A Cost
We use these conclusions to our processing as short-cuts in navigating life. (I don’t have to read every novel that comes my way before I know what kind of novels I like,) This is hugely useful, and has a cost. The cost is losing the richness of our experience.

Our conclusions are cerebral – they lose sensuality. Knowing something is different to knowing about something. Being taught about something is quite different to learning that something. This is put in an extreme way by the slogan, “Lose your mind and come to your senses”.

It’s valuable to distinguish our perception from our processing of it so that we can get back in touch with the richness of sensual experiencing. This can add much pleasure to our lives. The main way that this is achieved (in general) is slowing down. It is taking time to: chew a mouthful of food, distinguish the different colours of a sunset or a leaf, hear the different sounds in a piece of music or a birds song . . . the list is as long as our experience.

The problem with slowing down is those short-cuts that are such a big part of our lives. We find that instead of experiencing we are thinking about our experience. Our thinking gets in the way of our experience – and so our lives are impoverished. This happens remarkably quickly in my experience. To go for even a few seconds without thinking, a few minutes is extremely rare.

Mindfulness Practices
There are various “mindfulness” practices that alert us to how much we tend to think instead of experience. The most common are connected with watching our breathing. Breathing can happen without our conscious intention and is always with us, so it is a very good thing to show us how much we think. The easiest way is to just count your breaths. And note how soon you are thinking about this or something else instead of just counting. If this sounds simple, it is; if it sounds easy – then you have likely not tried to do it. Just being with your breath for twenty minutes a day can have huge benefits in staying calm and being less reactive. It can also become a lifetime study – and there is an extraordinary array of meditations that can guide you.

The forms of mindfulness practise can be pretty much as many as our experience. Betty Edward’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain has elements of mindfulness, as does the Feldenkrais method of bodywork, as can Tai Chi or qi gong (depending on how they’re taught) . . . just about whatever we do can be done mindfully. (Though we may need to start by doing it slowly.)

[I think it is a bit of a shame that these practices have been called “mindfulness” as this can be confused with thinking about something. But I think it is too late to change this now.]

Staying with our experience before we think about it awakens us to the richness of our experience and the ways in which our thinking can interrupt and impoverish our experience.

The World of Ojod
If we were to imagine a place where people lived in the world of their experience I think it would be something like this. I have labelled this place “Ojod”.

The people in Ojod awake in tune with their natural rhythm to the sights and sounds and smells around them. They feel their clothes as they dress and the floor beneath their feet.

In Ojod the crafts are valued and people are taught usually taught a craft – so they learn the value of taking their time and staying with one activity. In this way they experience the results of being mindful.

The people of Ojod have a vocabulary rich in adjectives – they are alive to their experience and the experience of describing their experience to others. They live with a vividness that comes from being in touch with themselves and the world around them.

It is a place where ‘teaching’ is interacting with what is being studied – not being told about it by someone else.

You can visit the land of Ojod anytime – it is as easy as just paying attention to your breathing or slowing down whatever it is you are doing. I think you will find that your visit will be refreshing and add richness to your life.

A Beaut Blog (squarely in the mindfulness approach) is Takuin’s Life Beyond the Image. It is also beautifully written.

If you loved this post please share it!

Hide Sites

Related posts:

1. The Rough Guide to Self-Development Part One Introduction
2. Rest: Eight Stages of Experience #1
3. Looking Around: Eight Stages of Experience #3
4. Focussing: Eight Stages of Experience #4
5. Satisfied? Eight Stages of Experience #7

Tags: mindfulness, perception, self development, thinking