Neuroscientist Dr. Rick Hanson discusses mind, brain, consciousness, breath influence, empathy, healing from bullying, working with resentment, forgiveness types, awareness for yogic practice, timelessness, and resetting societal foundations in an enlightening conversation.
Levels of awareness in meditation practice lead to stability and trust in reality unfolding.
Forgiveness process involves clarifying injustices, finding compassion, and empowering actions to release resentment.
Deep dives
Levels of Consciousness in Meditation Practice
Meditation practice involves different levels of awareness: focusing on an object, being open to present moment experiences, recognizing awareness as a field, and eventually abiding as awareness. Through these levels, practitioners cultivate qualities such as stability and openness, leading to a background trust in the unfolding of reality.
Dealing with Resentment and Cultivating Forgiveness
To release resentment, it's crucial to clarify the injustice, bring compassion to oneself, identify authentic experiences that counter past feelings of rejection, and take empowering action. Moving towards forgiveness involves separating the grievance from your sense of self, recognizing justice, and considering disentangled forgiveness.
Personal & Political Engagement for Social Change
The need for societal change towards compassion and justice drives engagement with political and social structures globally. This involves founding a compassion coalition to align resources and efforts for lasting change, emphasizing values of compassion and justice at the core of governance and societal structures.
Timelessness and Transcendental Awareness
Exploration of timelessness involves ontological and phenomenological perspectives, touching on the possible existence of a transcendent eternal aspect of reality. While non-ordinary experiences like those induced by meditation may offer feelings of timelessness, the distinction between experiential and ultimate reality remains important.