M.A.

The Mind Illuminated - A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science.pdf CULADASA (JOHN YATES, PH.D.) AND MATTHEW IMMERGUT, PH.D. WITH JEREMY GRAVES THE MIND ILLUMINATED A COMPLETE MEDITATION GUIDE INTEGRATING BUDDHIST WISDOM AND BRAIN SCIENCE pg. 478-481 STAGE NINE Mental and Physical Pliancy and Calming the Intensity of Meditative Joy CALMING PĪTI AND MATURING JOY (Cont.) Useful Practices for Calming Pīti and Maturing Joy By repeatedly focusing your attention on the breath and ignoring everything else, you can sustain pīti, allowing joy to mature as the mind grows unified. However, if you’ve been practicing the luminous jhānas, you can speed up your progress by regularly moving through the higher luminous jhānas (see Appendix D). The 2nd jhāna has the same quality of mental excitement and intensity as a completed Stage Eight and early Stage Nine, but with the greater stability of absorption. Moving to the 3rd jhāna is just like successfully achieving the goal of Stage Nine; the intensity and agitation are gone, and there is only a serene pleasure and happiness. The 4th luminous jhāna is like Stage Ten, with only tranquility and equanimity. Therefore, these jhānas can help habituate you to the calm pīti of the mature form of joy. Other practices that help calm pīti have the added benefit of being conducive to Insight. These include the Meditation on Dependent Arising (page 304), and Finding the Still Point and Realizing the Witness (page 318). Another extremely powerful practice for calming pīti and generating Insight is meditating on the mind. MEDITATING ON THE MIND Meditating on the mind itself 3 involves bringing attention and awareness together in a completely open state. Essentially, you’re fusing attention and awareness. To achieve this, you expand your scope of attention until it includes everything in your field of conscious awareness, both extrospective and introspective. This is similar to how you expanded your scope of attention to include the whole body in Stage Six, except that you’re expanding it to include much, much more than just bodily sensations. And, as with the whole body practice, the amount of conscious power required for attention to encompass so much is enormous. That means much of the excess mental energy made available through unification can get put to immediate use, instead of just agitating the mind. Meditating on the mind itself involves bringing attention and awareness together in a completely open state. Essentially, you’re fusing attention and awareness. Start either from the Still Point, or from an exclusive focus on the breath with strong metacognitive awareness. Expand your scope of attention gradually at first. You’re working against the natural tendency for attention to contract around a particular object, so each time you expand the scope a little more, rest for a while in that larger, more open space. Make sure that everything within that scope is perceived with equal clarity before moving ahead. Whether you start with the attention focused on the Still Point or the breath, Whether you start with the attention focused on the Still Point or the breath, awareness should be almost entirely metacognitive. When you expand the scope of attention until it includes everything in awareness, the entire field of conscious awareness is the focus of attention. The object of meditation is the mind itself, and the distinction between attention and awareness disappears. As you know from the practices you did in Stage Eight, metacognitive awareness can include extrospective content; in other words, you can be metacognitively aware of external sensory information passing through the mind. Therefore, allow your mind to project both sensations and purely mental objects into consciousness. Hold a clear intention to allow things to come and go in peripheral awareness, but in a slow and gentle way, rather than as a flood.

Consciousness_and_the_Universe__Quantum_Ph_-_Roger_Penrose.pdf Consciousness and the Universe Quantum Physics, Evolution, Brain & Mind Editors Sir Roger Penrose University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Stuart Hameroff, M.D. University of Arizona, Arizona, Subhash Kak, Ph.D. Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma (Cont.) pg. 269-272 Chapter 14 Decoding the Chalmers Hard Problem of Consciousness: Qualia of the Molecular Biology of Creativity and Thought Ernest Lawrence Rossi1 & Kathryn Lane Rossi2 Professors of Neuroscience1 and Psychotherapy2, La Nuova Scuola Di Neuroscienze Ipnosi Therapeutica (The New School of Therapeutic Hypnosis) and l’Istituto Mente-Corpo (The Mind-Body Institute), San Lorenzo Maggiore, Italy. 1,2 Directors of The Milton H. Erickson Institute of California Central Coast, 125 Howard Ave., Los Osos, CA, 93402, USA. Abstract This update and decoding of the Chalmers hard problem of consciousness integrates philosophy, psychology and the humanities with current evolutionary concepts of molecular biology. We summarize research that suggests how the natural variation and selection of molecular processes in primordial RNA world evolved into RNA/DNA transcription/translational dialogues with the qualia of human experience in rhythms of performance, stress and healing today. Pilot research on a new creative psychosocial genomic healing protocol, which activates the bioinformatics of qualia-dependent gene expression associated with stem cell healing and a reduction in chronic inflammation and cellular oxidation stress, is now a priority for translational research on human health and well being. KEY WORDS: Chalmers, consciousness, DNA microarrays, dreams, evolution, experience-dependent gene expression, psychotherapy, qualia, RNA world. 1. Introduction This paper reviews Chalmers (1996) “Hard Problem of Consciousness” that was originally formulated as follows: “The really hard problem is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. . . Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? . . . Here, the topic is clearly the hard problem – the problem of experience. . . What makes the hard problem hard and almost unique is that it goes beyond problems about the performance of functions. . . Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience? . . . There is an explanatory gap between functions and experience, and we need an explanatory bridge to cross it. . . A full theory of consciousness must build an explanatory bridge . . . To account for conscious experience, we need an extra ingredient in the explanation . . . What is your extra ingredient, and why should that account for conscious experience?” (pp. 6-13). Throughout this paper we will note the “extra ingredients” we are contributing to bridge the explanatory gap between biological functions and the qualia of psychological experience for a more satisfactory theory of consciousness to guide further research. 2. Darwin’s Daily & Hourly Work of Evolution We introduce a new perspective on bridging the explanatory gap between the qualia of consciousness and their biological functions by quoting what Darwin wrote about the daily and hourly operation of evolution in chapter four of The Origin of Species. “It may be said that natural selection is a daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.

OceanofPDF.com_Galactic_Diplomacy_Getting_to_Yes_with_ET_-_Michael_Salla.pdf Galactic Diplomacy Getting to Yes with ET Michael E. Salla, M.A., Ph.D. pg. 186-189 CHAPTER 6 Extraterrestrials Among Us Contact Testimonies of Extraterrestrials Among Us (Cont.) Significant in Adamski’s description is how the two extraterrestrials could pass off as businessmen. Aside from a penetrating stare, nothing struck him as unusual in their appearance. Adamski goes on to explain how he went with them in their car to travel to a remote desert location: Together we left the lobby, I walking between them. About a block north of the hotel, they turned into a parking lot where they had a car waiting. They had not spoken during this short time, yet inwardly I knew that these men were true friends. I felt no urge to ask where they proposed to take me, nor did it seem odd that they had volunteered no information. An attendant brought the car around, and the younger man slid into the driver’s seat, motioning me to get in beside him. Our other companion also sat with us on the front seat. The car was a four-door black Pontiac sedan. The man who had taken the wheel seemed to know exactly where he was going and drove skillfully. I am not familiar with all the new highways leading out of Los Angeles, so I had no idea in which direction we were headed. We rode in silence and I remained entirely content to wait for my companions to identify themselves and explain the reason for our meeting. [378] What’s significant here is that the two extraterrestrials possessed a car and knew how to navigate on the newly completed Los Angeles highway system. This is no mean feat and suggests that the extraterrestrials had taken the time to learn the road traffic rules and how to navigate through Los Angeles. The next passage is quite remarkable for the information Adamski reveals: Lights and dwellings thinned as we left the outskirts of the city. The taller man spoke for the first time as he said, “You have been very patient. We know how much you are wondering who we are and where we are taking you. I acknowledged that of course I had been wondering, but added that I was entirely content to wait for this information until they chose to give it to me. The speaker smiled and indicated the driver. “He is from the planet you call Mars. I am from the one you call Saturn.” His voice was soft and pleasant and his English perfect. I had noticed that the younger man also spoke softly, although his voice was pitched higher. I found myself wondering how and where they had learned to speak our language so well. [379] What’s interesting here is Adamski’s observation that the two extraterrestrials could speak the English language so well without any hint of an accent. What follows in the next passage is truly remarkable insofar as it reveals the true extent to which extraterrestrials have merged with the ordinary human population. As the thought passed through my mind, it was immediately recognized. The Martian now spoke for the first time since our meeting in the hotel. “We are what you on Earth might call ‘Contact men.’ We live and work here, because, as you know, it is necessary on Earth to earn money with which to buy clothing, food, and the many things that people must have. We have lived on your planet now for several years. At first we did have a slight accent. But that has been overcome and, as you can see, we are unrecognized as other than Earth men. “At our work and in our leisure time we mingle with people here on Earth, never betraying the secret that we are inhabitants of other worlds. That would be dangerous, as you well know. We understand you people better than most of you know yourselves and can plainly see the reasons for many of the unhappy conditions that surround you. [380]

OceanofPDF.com_US_Army_Insider_Missions__Space_Arks_Underground_Cities_n_ET_Contact_-_Michael_Salla.pdf Us Army INSIDER MISSIONS Space Arks, Underground Cities & ET Contact Volume 1 MICHAEL E. SALLA, PH.D. BOOK EIGHT OF THE SECRET SPACE PROGRAM SERIES pg. 209-212 Chapter 15 Joint US-China Mission to Giant Space Ark Under the Atlantic Ocean (Cont.) This is a fascinating observation by JP about how the extraterrestrial ark would react to different visitors. The Mexican Aztec group was allowed to proceed far ahead, presumably because their genetics and consciousness were compatible or were recognized by the advanced technology that allowed access into the tunnel. However, when the Chinese tried to do the same, they were blocked by the craft, which recognized some incompatibility. Could this have anything to do with Communist China’s materialistic philosophy influencing behavior and beliefs, thereby precluding the kind of consciousness necessary for gaining access deeper into the ark on their own? JP continued his account of what happened as the multinational mission members moved forward in their exploration of the ark: So, when we went in … everything started going slow, like … slow motion, and we felt like peace and happiness. And then the Chinese, after we started going in, the Chinese were behind us, following us. So, we were going little by little. And then in the distance, you could see lights of certain kinds of crystals like moldavite, like shining into the walls. It was beautiful and you could see certain kinds of plants that glow. Amazing, it was a mind-blowing experience … Everybody was almost in a chain [formation], because we were like holding each other to get to this particular spot. And after we got to a particular place where it was full of plants that glow, we saw the little Mexicans out in the distance, but we couldn’t reach them. We screamed, we talked to them, but they couldn’t hear us. But we still saw them keep going, but it’s slow motion, but they probably, like was … gone, but we could still see the reflection of their bodies, like leaving, like disappearing, like you could see [them] disappear. This disappearance of the Mexican Aztec group was unanticipated. But the Mexican scientist/translator accompanying them stayed with the rest of the US and Chinese mission members. JP recognized one of the Chinese scientists as the same person he witnessed during his visit to the ancient space ark found on the Moon: So, we got to this location and then the Mexican scientist that was there, he stayed with us and the other little people that were Mexicans they left, and … we didn’t see … [them] no more … We were also investigating the walls the writings of the walls and that same Chinese archeologist that was on the Moon he was there as well, I saw him. But the guy that I was with on the Moon was not there. There was another different guy there, investigating the writings and all that, and we were there just … to be with him and make sure … he did his work right. The other guy was told to watch over the Chinese because they wanted particular information that they didn’t tell us that they found on the Moon. It is noticeable that even though the US and China were conducting a joint mission to explore the submerged craft, there were still deep suspicions on both sides that the other was holding back key information vital to mission success. It appears that this is going to be a perennial problem between the US and China as they collaborate in future joint missions to other planetary bodies containing remnants from ancient civilizations or extraterrestrial technologies. In the following extract from our Skype call, JP responded to one of my questions: