Is Fixation 'THE' Necessary Cause for Suffering

You'll recall our conversation about necessary causes. I find this very interesting because.

As I mentioned.

App.

1 layer of necessary cause going to have a deeper layer of necessary cause underneath it, OK that may or may not be evident until we investigate.

So.

Sasaki Roshi.

Who as we speak? Is 104 years old. The oldest Living Zen Buddhist master and still as a complete functional teaching load at that age.

He talks about a necessary cause for suffering also it's clearly related to Tom ha. But it's not the same word. He doesn't use that very all that that uh there is a word in Japanese that means Tom Hotshoe Jocko.

But I hardly ever heard him talk about.

Shoe Jocko.

Instead, he says.

G ko or quartesolo quota, Liaros Goodnight, meaning it is not a good thing to fixate itself. He talks about fixation.

As a necessary cause of suffering all you have to do is Unlearn. The habit of fixation and you can pass all the koans and you will be enlightened and happy So what I find interesting in this formulation is that he uses.

Are related but different word?

Suddenly, but significantly different word for the necessary cause for suffering and then the connotation.

It has positive well it has a very different I mean, if you say.

Craving it has a certain reverberation if you say fixation even though it's?

Related it has another reverberation in the reverberation of fixation as well. That's starting to sound like a global physical parameter in the information processing circuitry of the nervous system global physical parameters. I got it. Yeah, examples of global physical parameters in nature would be viscosity.

In a hydro dynamic system.

Or.

Resistance or impedance in an electrical system.

OK resistance in a blue to talk about a Potters wheel having friction wasn't that one of the.

I don't I seem to vaguely remember a metaphor like that. But I don't remember the specifics well if it has fiction versus when it moves smoothly.

We're going to have to look that up that sounds extremely interesting. If you will find that form that might be wow. We should definitely look that that's a homework assignment so.

And actually friction in a mechanical system so if something analogous to.

Electrical resistance or hydro dynamic dynamic viscosity or friction and so forth if something analogous to that is also a necessary cause for suffering then that sort of makes us think well. That's starting to sound more like talking about.

The brain and the nervous system.

OK, whereas craving is somewhat. I mean, sure we know there are centers, etc. Etc were connected to a sense of self. That's craving versus fixation that something is happening in the system that's sort of like something that either happens in nature, things freeze. They Mount OK, So what is particularly interesting is if we think about a parameter like?

What's called the Reynolds number analysis?

A characteristic of flows flow systems, OK, though there's a way of computing a parameter, which characterizes the flow.

Regiment flow regime, so I won't go into the details. Obviously, but if you have a flowfield annetts. Reynolds number exceeds a certain value, then it goes turbulent.

But if it doesn't isn't in that at that level. It's smooth and Lamb and are.

So.

If.

Suffering were analogous to turbulence in the flow of the senses. I'm not saying it is OK, but let's say it were.

Then we could model and if

If.

Not if none if non turbulence, OK were.

Or if the turbulence was dependent on some sort of parameter that we could identify with the physical functioning of the nervous system for example. There's something called the attentional blink, which I won't go into the details but it basically measures how much fixation. There is in your moment by moment concentration and that can be measured. Now, with science by the movement of the IE mean or you mean you take the.

It's a blink metaphorically not physically that's why I said, I'm not going to go into details. There's a lot to say about it, you can look it up on the Internet. But Essentia Lee, It's something that can be measured now with reaction times.

And it's physical it's not subjective, it can be object. Ivli measured and it's thought to correlate with the degree to which one is inappropriately holding on to things.

Really, yes, wow and therefore.

But there's a judgment their appropriate inappropriate well. No there's not and that's why I'm not going to go into the whole basically well I guess I have to now.

Let's say that you're given a sequence of a sensor events and your job is to track the sensory events.

Uh.

If you inappropriately hold on to a previous event, you're going to blink or miss theorizing of the next event. Oh yeah, So what they found is in meditators. There's less of that seeming to indicate and that's more presents well related to sensory clarity, but it's also related to the equanimity of not inappropriately holding so we're already be getting to get some.

And this is completely object if it doesn't require any self report because it's either sought are you did I mean, it. I mean that's a self report but it's not really because they presented an either quicker. You don't. It's not like well. Yeah, I remembered that I'm going to tell you OK. So it's very object. If in what it's measuring now. I'm not saying that that correlate Stew? What Sasaki Roshi calls fixation.

But it's already beginning to be a glow it doesn't matter what you're attending to this phenomenon could be in any of the senses. It's already beginning to look at possibly another necessary cause for suffering if something like the attentional blink is related to what Sasaki Roshi calls fixation and then you can untrained that or

Maybe cause an intervention that prevents it OK of some sort. I don't know waht OK, but let's say it's possible to do that. Now we're talking about eliminate ING.

Other kinds of necessary causes for suffering or let's just say that we take the early Buddhist want an ha.

So.

When you have time uh you can't have all you gotta do experience. Nirvana is get away. Get rid of. Don ha In other words. All you gotta do is knock that card and the House of Cards that is the suffering falls.

Well let's say that what the printer called Tanha is actually on the second tier of that House of Cards.

Let's say that at a deeper tear there's something that has to happen physiologically in your nervous system for ton hot to arise.

Hypothetically that it's not unreasonable.

So if

And that means any and all time high and not just craving for cocaine or shopping. But any and all let's say there is a necessary cause.

Behind the necessary cause.

And the necessary cause that is behind a necessary cause is completely neural physiological in nature.

Then there could be interventions that directly address that and our physiological, so you knockout you knockout the physiological.

Necessary condition for Tom ha. Therefore, you knockout Tom Ha therefore you knockout.

What blocks perfection?

So theoretically are potentially any piece of research into craving.

If it were done very deeply might unlock.

A key physiological mechanism.

What I find interesting is that you can get you can't get much funding for research on enlightenment?

But you can get funding for research on drug addiction.

That's funny and

But if research on drug addition were were too.

Go very, very deep and very, very broad. It's possible that the necessary cause for ton heart could be found.

And eliminate it.

Which would mean if we take the Buddhist model that?

There would be a physiological and don't ask me what time 'cause I don't know if I did know I get the Nobel Prize? I have no idea is it? Is it some super kind of biofeedback is it. F MRI biofeedback isn't TMS stimulation is it on what they call dreads which it sounds bad, but now it's designer designer drugs for designer receptors. It's like the cutting edge of the cutting edge of neuroscience.

Anyway, who knows Watt, but if there were a way to knocked out the necessary cause for the necessary cause that it was purely physiological than Nirvana would actually simply happen now, what I find the delicious notion is that?

You can get funding for craving research and you could get funding for deep and broad, craving research and you could get funding from Republicans glad for deep and broad, craving research. Therefore, it could come to pass that Republicans response become responsible for the entire world of becoming Buddhist.

There we go.

Is good?