In my last post on Vipassana meditation I declined to go into the theory of how Vipassana works, because there simply wasn't enough space.
In Vipassana, sustained attention to a mental habit with the intent of not reacting to it "unwinds" the habit. I will attempt to describe how the process may work on hardware (neural) and software (mental) levels.
Neurally our brain and nervous system is made up of connections called synapses. The synapses come together to form what is called the neural network. Synapses can change over time due to stimulus. Donald Hebb proposed in the 1940s his theory that gives us the term "neurons that fire together, wire together", the scientific equivalent of "use it or lose it".
The theory shows how with repeated stimulus between certain neurons, the synaptic strength increases, and with lack of stimulus, the strength fades. It shows how the brain and nervous system reconditions itself over time.
I propose that conditioned mental habits form a kind of synaptic circuit in the system which is sustained at a subconscious level. By bringing it to attention we gain the ability to not react if we choose, the same way we can control our breathing, but only focus our attention on it.
This can explain how research conducted on buddhist monks have shown significant rewiring of the brain, such as increases in gamma wave activity. Other studies are making neuroscientists revise the upper limits of what they thought the brain was capable of.
Vipassana has long been concerned with the experience of the meditation process. Through discussion and sharing, many common elements have been compiled over thousands of years.
The theory then is not primarily concerned with the physical structure of the body, but rather the experience of the person. It is for that reason that I refer to it as an experiential theory. It attempts to explain the "software" of the mind.
This meditation has the fundamental concept of Sankharas or Samskaras. This refers to what could be translated as mental habit patterns, like our neural circuits above.
Like in neural networks, through repeated conditioning, our mental habits grow stronger. In Vipassana, Sankharas refer to any kind of response to internal or external stimulus that has been conditioned in the mind. They can be emotional responses to physical sensation, words, visual or other sensory input. Anything that is a reaction to stimulus can be considered a Sankhara, provided it has been conditioned in the mind.
What is considered conditioned or unconditioned is not always obvious, however after many years of practicing, a meditator becomes more familiar with the unconditioned nature of mind and this provides an experiential comparison. A reflex to physically withdraw from a source of pain is an unconditioned response, but the feeling of anger or other emotional response is conditioned. This is the "second arrow" we often shoot ourselves with (See the parable of two arrows).
Sankharas lay dormant until activated by stimuli, in a way like ticking time bombs. A person who has many Sankharas usually feels helpless in the face of the external world, as they are easily affected by external events. Sometimes they feel helpless against their own mind. Their mind is chaotic and not in their control. By a process of removing these, the person begins to feel more free and more in control of their life.
In the model, Sankharas require energy from the mind to maintain their strength. Like we can imagine an electrical circuit that needs to be fed electricity to be maintained. When we bring to attention a meditation object, it activates a Sankhara. Whether this comes from a feeling, an emotion, a sound, or any other external or internal sensory input, our attention triggers the reaction pattern that is stored in the mind. The key aspect is to observe these objects with nonreactivity, a skill referred to as equanimity in Vipassana.
Buy observing objects without reacting, the strength of the reaction begins to wane and it follows a process in the reverse direction to conditioning. This deconditioning continues until the Sankhara is removed completely.
This has the effect of freeing energy for the mind in the way that removing processes from task manager frees up resources for the CPU. Removal of Sankharas allow the mind to become clearer and more objective, hence the meaning of Vipassana as "to see things as they really are".
