Maybe this is the right place to ask/discuss this, and maybe not—if it’s not; say so and I’ll stop.
IIRC you (or maybe someone once mentioned hearing about people who try to [experience the first jhana][1] and then feeling pain as a result, and that you didn’t really understand why that happened. There was maybe also a comment about “don’t do that, that sounds like you were doing it wrong”.
After some time spent prodding at myself and pulling threads and seeing where they lead… I am not convinced that they were doing it wrong at all. There’s a kind of way you can end up where the application of that kind of comfort/pleasure/positive-valence is, of itself, painful/aversive/immiserating, if not necessarily enduringly so. Reframing it
I don’t have a full explicit model for it, so here’s some metaphors that hopefully collectively shed light:
Hunger beyond reason, hunger for weeks, hunger to the point of starvation. A rich and lavish meal set before you, of all your favorite foods and drinks, prepared expertly. A first bite—overwhelming; so perfect and so intense. You toy with the idea of eating nothing more and find you can neither eat nor decline—at least not comfortably. You gorge yourself and die of refeeding syndrome.
Dreams of your childhood home, of the forests around it, of the sparkling beauty of the night sky. The building was knocked down years ago, the forest cut, the sky bleached with light pollution, all long after you moved away anyway.
Like the itch/pain of a healing wound, or of a limb fallen asleep, or an amputated limb. Like internal screaming or weeping, suddenly given voice.
Like staring at something dazzlingly bright and incomparably precious, even coveted; especially one that you can’t touch or even reach—a sapphire the size of your fist, say, or the sun. What would you even do with those, really, if you could grab them?
Not sure if my terminology is correct here—I’m talking about doing the meditation/mental-action process itself. You know, the one which causes you tons of positive valence in a way you like but don’t want.
I feel like this is the wrong place for your comment. Your comment is a response to a claim someone (maybe me) made at a place on the Internet other than this blog post. I believe that other place is where your comment should go.
Maybe this is the right place to ask/discuss this, and maybe not—if it’s not; say so and I’ll stop.
IIRC you (or maybe someone once mentioned hearing about people who try to [experience the first jhana][1] and then feeling pain as a result, and that you didn’t really understand why that happened. There was maybe also a comment about “don’t do that, that sounds like you were doing it wrong”.
After some time spent prodding at myself and pulling threads and seeing where they lead… I am not convinced that they were doing it wrong at all. There’s a kind of way you can end up where the application of that kind of comfort/pleasure/positive-valence is, of itself, painful/aversive/immiserating, if not necessarily enduringly so. Reframing it
I don’t have a full explicit model for it, so here’s some metaphors that hopefully collectively shed light:
Hunger beyond reason, hunger for weeks, hunger to the point of starvation. A rich and lavish meal set before you, of all your favorite foods and drinks, prepared expertly. A first bite—overwhelming; so perfect and so intense. You toy with the idea of eating nothing more and find you can neither eat nor decline—at least not comfortably. You gorge yourself and die of refeeding syndrome.
Dreams of your childhood home, of the forests around it, of the sparkling beauty of the night sky. The building was knocked down years ago, the forest cut, the sky bleached with light pollution, all long after you moved away anyway.
Like the itch/pain of a healing wound, or of a limb fallen asleep, or an amputated limb. Like internal screaming or weeping, suddenly given voice.
Like staring at something dazzlingly bright and incomparably precious, even coveted; especially one that you can’t touch or even reach—a sapphire the size of your fist, say, or the sun. What would you even do with those, really, if you could grab them?
Not sure if my terminology is correct here—I’m talking about doing the meditation/mental-action process itself. You know, the one which causes you tons of positive valence in a way you like but don’t want.
I feel like this is the wrong place for your comment. Your comment is a response to a claim someone (maybe me) made at a place on the Internet other than this blog post. I believe that other place is where your comment should go.
Got it, thanks. I’ll see if I can figure out who that was or where to find that claim. Cheers.