Gilbert Wat

Writing about the intersection of Technology, Life and God. Partaking a journey to reveal the Order. 1% better every day is 37.7x better after a year.

5 minute read

Introduction

After a few short stories, a follow-up on “Generative Suffering” is here!

Here I will attempt to convince you that attention is why practicing mindfulness can be transformative to your life in a “technologist” angle. If you are anyone who is in the technology industry, you might find the metaphors here familiar.

So let’s refresh our memory on the core idea of generative suffering. We established that the mind will always generate new thoughts, even if it is not stimulated by the environment. Normally, those are fleeting thoughts and it will come and go. But if you hang on to some thoughts that cause you to suffer, you will suffer. It would be even worse if we act on those thoughts, speak badly based on those or act in revenge towards those thoughts. Your relationship with yourself and your neighbors will be damaged. But one might ask, how can I discern and minimize those thoughts?

Overview of the mind

The above is a diagram of a holistic view of your mind, heart and soul and its relationship with reality. It is a scientific fact that in every second, there are over 11 million bits of information that goes into your brain through the five senses - sight, hearing, smells, taste and touch. But our brain can process only 10 bits of information every second. So we have to choose where to put our attention. This is an automatic process, just like your eyes will automatically focus on where you want.

Another fact is our brain is very malleable. Our thinking pattern can be the product of our environment and how we perceive them. Stroke patients can recover and rebuild synaptic connection within weeks if given proper therapy. Some research also suggests that real experience can be substituted with imaginary experience, as our brain doesn’t distinguish between real or imaginary experiences.

You can also imagine there is a qualifying mechanism that prioritizes and filters things you have experienced into your mind. I can draw a parallel to our product conversion pipeline: The question of, “how do you select what leads are qualified?” will determine how successful your conversion pipeline will be. The same goes for your brain. If you are filtering and prioritizing the wrong information in your experience, you will ultimately lead to a life of failure.

Attention and how do we all choose where to put it

But how does your mind choose what to put your attention on? Or we could ask: why do we focus on a certain detail of an experience? We need to all make some assumptions first. Assume we all agree that there is a living soul inside everyone. I would approximate that the soul is the core of an individual human experience and driver of our activities. And there is a part of the soul which is using intellect to direct our attention, and this is called – nous. Also the kardia is the essence of your soul.

There are two hypotheses.

The first hypothesis is that your nous will select information from your experience based on kaar. So your soul will direct your attention and judge along the way if your experience is pleasant or not, meaningful or not, positive or not. It is a 24/7 ongoing process and there is no way you can stop it. Those attention and judgement will feedback to and change the texture of your soul.

Another hypothesis is that your nous - if left untrained, will not be able to direct the attention properly in the brain. And our brain is an organ that is good at reacting to stimulation, both externally and internally. And it will direct its attention to the things that stimulate you, rather than information that builds up a meaningful experience on truths.

Both of the hypotheses direct to: what if your mind is being tuned to process the real experience and come up with a narrative that is not living? A living narrative is that your experiences are joyful, meaningful, productive and prepare you for a better future. In reverse, a dying narrative is everything around you drives you into a corner, you are trapped and cannot move, and your future is grim. All you have been experiencing is meaningless.

This is the darkening of the souls.

Consequences of a darkened soul

If you fail to discern those thoughts with your nous, which you will definitely do in your life, you let external negative thoughts land on the essence of your soul. And the darkening of your soul will further cloud the judgement of your reality.

What are the consequences of a darkened soul?

  • Focus on the negative and toss out the positive in your real experience.
  • Detach yourself from reality.
  • Treat your neighbors poorly and cultivate an isolated lifestyle
  • A person with an isolated lifestyle is easier to succumb to pleasures, which are all fleeting

To make the matter worse, the darkening of the soul is subtly a flywheel. The more you forego love and chase fleeting pleasure, the more lonely you will be. Those are not authentic connections. And those insecurity and anxiety those fleeting pleasure brings you will eventually make you focus on the negativity of humanity. And the cycle goes faster and faster. Eventually your brain will be programmed to view the world in scarcity, manipulation and calculation. As we illustrate below.

Garbage in; Garbage out.

So how can you recognize the state of your soul? Of course the best way to do so is to have a spiritual director. But what if you don’t have one? How to do it exactly? I can share a method in my next series. You only need a pen and pieces of paper and you need to craft out 30 minutes of your time, sitting alone in a quiet place to practice for yourself.

Reference

Brain processing power - https://www.npr.org/2020/07/14/891140598/understanding-unconscious-bias Brain processing power for conscious mind - https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/thinking-slowly-the-paradoxical-slowness-of-human-behavior DILEXIT NOS from Pope Francis - https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/20241024-enciclica-dilexit-nos.html Youtube from Orthodox Father about nous https://youtu.be/J6L-x6esSns?si=a0WIGIIkcFqPtALQ Neuroplasticity - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK557811/ Neuroplasticity on Imaginary experience - https://medium.com/firing-and-wiring/the-science-of-imagination-3a711f6cfa33 Definition of soul - https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm

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