Conditioning exercises (such as metta meditation), seek to strengthen a neural pathway, often for a feeling. For example, metta meditation seeks to increase a persons feeling of compassion, leading to further happiness for them and creates incentive for their actions to be more moral towards themselves and others.
Concentration exercises are a type of conditioning exercise designed to train a fundamental skill, the ability to focus attention towards one object. They are exercises that strengthen our willpower over our subconscious mind and likely result in a strengthening in the functions of the brain that are involved in attention.
Vipassana, and other deconstructive meditations are harder to describe, and function very differently.
To understand this, it helps to also realize the concept of the neural network.
In my last post on the 3 minds, I mentioned that the network of neurons in our body doesn't end in our brain, but extends to our body, our gut and our nervous systems. This is called the neural network, and understanding these functions has lead to a booming field of artificial intelligence.
Artificial neural networks are now being used to aid in processing complex tasks with a large number of inputs in a similar way as humans do.
The system is based on how biological neural networks (that's us) function, and they fundamentally comprise of 3 layers:
The input layer and output layer are simply where information comes in and out. But the hidden layer has some interesting characteristics from the point of view of meditation.
In a neural network (unlike a traditional computer network), the path from input to output is not defined. Instead the system has to find its own route from input to output.
To do this, the hidden layer contains a few parameters to help it decide. Two it contains are filters and weighting.
Filters decide what information will be passed along, and which will not. This cuts down the amount of input data to be processed. Adjusting the filters changes the input the system has available to use.
Weighting is the importance given to certain types of input over others. It determines what information is considered more important than others.
When these are refined over time, the system "learns" and optimizes its function by creating the desired output while filtering out unimportant data and weighting the most important data more strongly.
This system is designed to replicate as close as possible how our brain and nervous systems process information. In our minds, the data is all the information we receive from our senses. When we engage in conditioning type exercises, we are trying to create a desired output (feeling) and by applying this attention over time, the system strengthens the pathway that leads to that output.
Vipassana works at a deeper level. In Vipassana, the process is to not seek a specific output (feeling) but instead to learn to observe what input is present without judgement or rejection.
I believe that Vipassana is working at the level of hidden layer parameters, like in the neural network above.
By seeking to not cling to or push away certain sensations, we are changing the filter values in our hidden layers.
This is what meditators talk about by being in the present moment. Most of the time, we are not aware of most of the things occurring in the present. We do not pay attention to all the smells, sounds, sights, and feelings that are occurring in every instant. By learning to be mindful, we are trying to increase our awareness of what is occurring, right now. It is a state of open mind, and when our filters adjust, we experience it as our mind "expanding" and becoming "vast" or "wide" or "expansive". It is a wondrous experience to have.
The result of this is that we change what input we become aware of, and having new information (even when the externalities of our life don't change) allows us to learn new things, and empowers us.
Secondly, by seeking equanimity, or nonreact as some psychologists are starting to call it, we are changing our weighting parameters.
Subjectively, we are all conditioned to feel that some information is more important than others, and this allows us to function in the world. However, when this conditioning becomes inappropriate for our current situation, the weighting values in our mind perpetuate old reactions, and they don't change to the new situation.
For example, most of us are still sensitive to specific insults that we were exposed to as children in school. When we were sensitive to these insults it was important for us to be part of a group. However, as an adult the risk of social rejection is much lower. The part of the mind that acknowledges these insults as important needs to change to adapt to the adults new social situation. If it stays stuck, we have an adult that has a harder time functioning in the world.
This focus on equanimity changes the way we weight information coming to us. The result of this is that how we feel changes. It is hugely satisfying to have the power to change how you feel about external situations you can't change. It creates joy and positivity in a person because they experience that in the long-term, they can become happier and happier, no matter their external situation. It can become so addictive, that many external forms of change no longer feel as satisfying, hence why many meditators start to retreat from the world after decades of practice.
This retreat is by no means necessary, and depends on the person. What this method gives instead, is an extremely powerful tool to be able to change the fundamental parameters about how we feel about ourselves, the people around us and the situations we find ourselves in. The cost of it is thousands of hours of hard work, but virtually everyone who experiences the benefits of it will continue to practice it for the rest of their life.
