Diego Hangartner has almost 40 years of experience in researching the mind and lead for years the Mind and Life Institute. In the post How does the mind work? he summarized three key elements:
- our minds classify experiences as positive, neutral or negative
- time is a key component influencing our positive or negative classification of experiences
- the core driver of human behaviours is the quest for happiness and well-being (which is not equal to the quest for joy)
We are now going to see how to change behaviour based on intrinsic motivation and what the role of awareness is.
How to change our actions?
Majka: How can people stop being the spectators of their own lives and instead learn to become the directors?
Diego: When there is an input from the outside through our senses, this stimulus gets processed by our mind before it becomes pleasant, neutral or unpleasant. When we can observe this process in our minds, we become conscious of it. When the mind is stable and clear, we can consciously decide to intervene and change the “default” reaction.
Which means that we become the director of the movie. Have you ever been absorbed by a thrilling movie, the emotions racing high – and the electricity went off? Although the emotions have been thrilling, the moment the electricity goes you wake up and realize that it was just a film. You take over as your own director.
However, the precondition to direct the movie is to observe and become aware. In order to change how we react, we need first to pay attention to our experiences, understand how they unfold and what underlies them, and know what our mind does with them once they have appeared.
Awareness is the precondition to change our default reactions
Majka: It sounds easy, but in fact changing how we take decisions and behave can be very difficult.
Diego: For an untrained mind it is difficult to make decisions consciously and change behvaiour. But this can be changed through “training”.
The brain is the physical infrastructure supporting the mind. As scientific research has irrevocably confirmed the brain has the ability to change over time, which is called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity happens until we die.
By changing how we think, or how our mind works, we can influence the physical infrastructure of the brain. Meanwhile, the brain supports our mind and specific ways of thinking.
Similarly to a person that exercises regularly and develops muscles, if we want to consciously make decisions in our lives that make us truly happy, we can train our minds in order to develop the required infrastructure. Training this skill of the mind can be done by through contemplative practices like meditation. With these practices, we first learn how the mind works by mainly training the skill of paying attention to our experiences.
Awareness can be trained through meditation
Majka: What is meditation?
Diego: The Tibetan word for meditation is “gom”, which means “familiarisation”. In Sanskrit (and Pali), the word is “bhavana”, which literally means “cultivation”. Meditation can therefore be defined as “the intentional process of familiarization with the workings of the mind and the cultivation of positive qualities of the mind.”
Majka: Why does the practice of meditation help people to become happier?
Diego: There are many types of meditation. One type of practice helps people train the ability to focus and pay attention to what happens inside the mind. Other practices are aimed at cultivating positive qualities of the mind such as benevolence, kindness, compassion, equanimity, etc.
For example, when we pay attention we can learn to identify experiences that lead us to short-term pleasure, but not necessarily to long-term happiness and wellbeing. Actions like taking drugs, drinking alcohol, but also simpler things like checking our smartphone to see if a new message arrived, or how many likes we have on our last Facebook post.
In the beginning, these actions do create a pleasant experience, but as we keep doing them, they become addictions, compulsive actions we keep repeating to either get the next dopamine kick, or on the other side escape negative feelings by not having that experience. Unfortunately, we tend to seek higher thrills because small ones are not enough anymore. By becoming conscious of these behaviours and patterns, we gain the possibility to chose to stop them.
With awareness we discern between pleasure and happiness
Diego: When we pay attention to our experience, and what our perceptions do, we can discern actions that on the short term might lead to unpleasant experiences but on the long term will make us happier and more satisfied with our lives. For example: learning new skills might be difficult in the beginning but they might help us in the long term. By knowing the benefit we are more inclined to go through the difficulties of learning.
Majka: How can a person learn what makes her truly happy in the long term?
Diego: It helps to go through a process of introspection during which we become aware of what we really seek and what hinders the manifestation of our ultimate goal – of being well and happy. To go through this introspection process we need a stable and clear mind. We can learn to develop these qualities of our minds through a proper training supported by the guidance of qualified experts. I had the privilege of meeting highly qualified teachers, such as the Dalai Lama, and many others, who encouraged me to make the tools I learned available to others.
What is the link between awareness and global challenges?
Majka: How is this individual mind shift, of cultivating awareness and going through an introspection process , related to the global challenges we are facing today?
Diego: We have created the illusion that I, you, and all other beings around us are existing independently. Accordingly, we live within that illusion, and most of our actions are in opposition to the reality of interdependence. However, if we look deeper we are completely interdependent: all the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and the living environment are not independent.
Everything is somehow connected and in one way we are connected to it. Quantum physicists, weather researchers and chaos theorists, philosophers, mystics, yogis and the Buddha have all looked at this question in depth: none of them found phenomena that we can say exists independently, independent of something else.
Even our thoughts, our mind, emerges because of our experiences, memories and fantasies, which in turn depend on our environment. Deeper meditative exploration brings light to the illusion that we are independent, and such an exploration begins to reveal our interdependency.
We are completely interdependent
Now, if we speak about our environment, and since every single person is dependent on our environment and on others, then by understanding that we are interdependent the natural response would be that: s
Since I want to be happy and flourish, and because I depend on others, I therefore have a high interest in making those around me happy and healthy.
This corresponds to benevolence and compassion as we define it: benevolence is the felt wish for all beings to be happy and well, and compassion is the felt wish for all beings to be free of suffering and the causes of suffering.
Through the application of mental training and meditation, we profoundly investigate our attitudes and mindsets. We train our awareness which enables us to discern when our actions are not contributing to create a healthy and functioning surrounding, as well as the ability of changing our actions.
While we need to begin with our own mind, I do not see meditation to be useful just for one’s own sake – it is only in connection with enabling the welfare of others, including the planet on which we depend on, that developing mental clarity, kindness and wisdom are of any use. Ultimately, our personal flourishing depends on this connection.
Changemakers: to solve global challenges we need to embark on the inner search for the causes of happiness and wellbeing, and realizing that we are interdependent.
