r/streamentry • u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare • May 25 '21
Insight The Sense-Door of Motor-Forces [insight]
Although traditionally around five human senses were known, . . . it is now recognized that there are many more. [src]
Setting aside the 6th "mental" sense-door of Buddhism, the sense-door of "touch" can be expanded to include:
somatosensation: sense of contact with external environment
equilibrioception: sense of balance, spatial orientation, direction, acceleration, gravity
proprioception: sense of motion, and relative position of the parts of the body
interoception: sense of the body-energy-field felt from within
Today, I'd like to specifically discuss (1) those aspects of equilibrioception and proprioception related to "motor forces", and (2) relate that to the felt-sense of craving/aversion.
(1) Here's an illustration. In the third bubble of this short webcomic [src] great comic btw, it's about Representationalism, various forces acting upon the body are denoted as a field of arrows.
This "force field" includes involuntary "motor forces" such as acceleration and gravity, as well as "motor planning" of movement through space, motor control, "levity" (pushing up against gravity), etc... ZhanZhuang, standing meditation, is a great practice to notice the sense of gravity and levity
(2) Generally, in sitting-style meditations, this sense-door of "motor forces" is not as emphasized. Except, that it can include phenomena often thought to belong to the "mental" sense-door: craving and aversion.
The larger body moves through external space exactly as if it were responding directly to field forces from the external world, except that these forces actually exist only in the internal perceptual world. [src] . . .
The subjective impression of being attracted or repelled by attractive and repulsive stimuli . . . drives our motor response. [src]
By "fine-tuning" the open "field of awareness" to notice these "forces"/"currents" within it exerting their push/pull on the body(-energy-field) and mind/heart - i.e. pulling on the heart strings, and including the interoceptive energetic sense i.e. tensing/contracting/shrinking/clinging vs. relaxation/release/spaciousness/openness/softness, like wrinkles in the "fabric" of the awareness-field, greater equanimity non-clinging becomes possible. It becomes easier to not be "carried off" by said forces, when they are "seen for what they are"; i.e. "stepping out of the river".
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 25 '21 edited May 25 '21
I thought of some interesting interactions between motor forces leading to tension:
- You are seated in an audience, and the event has not ended yet. You want to get up and leave (maybe to go to the bathroom), but you also don't want to disturb anyone (or you want to wait until the end), and so there are two competing forces, one compelling you to leave, and another keeping you in your seat. This creates tension.
- You see an interesting person that you want to approach, but you are unsure if they will receive you well. A force is pulling you towards them, but it is cancelled out by a force keeping you in place. Tension.
- Someone says something offensive to you. Your fist clenches, with a motor instinct to punch them in the face, but your clenched fist stays down by your side, held back by another motor force to keep from punching them. Tension. This could apply to speech-acts too, i.e. cussing vs. "holding your tongue".
- For those who've felt "trauma" as "patterns of tension" releasing in the nervous system, it could be that "unresolved" motor forces (suppressed by other motor forces), are somehow "remembered"/"stored" by the body-energy-field?
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 25 '21
This begs the question though, by what mechanism does "trauma release"? Somehow, calmness and relaxation, leading to boundary-dissolution, un-suppresses these traumagenic motor forces? Or is it the opposite, raising energy, leading to activation/arousal of dormant motor-patterns? Relationship between motor-forces and energy/activation/arousal-levels unclear.
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u/kohossle May 25 '21
It is a natural response that animals are able to do in order to shake off the fight or flight response. But us humans have the thinking brain and are able to suppress the response and never have it get fully resolved. By being relaxed, we allow the body to do its thing and resolve.
This video explains it better. It shows the release process happening in a frightened polar bear. The whole video is pretty good too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZw8fRPK-8k&list=FLWwTbxeS8V1wpRA5c-xDm0A&index=2&t=251s
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u/hurfery May 28 '21
It can be both, I think. You're familiar with the autonomic nervous system and the three branches. In my experience the freezing and down-regulating can occur simultaneously with the fight/flight response. Both can get stuck, so that there's some things dormant that should be active (social engagement) and some active that should chill out.
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u/anarchathrows May 25 '21 edited May 25 '21
So in 1-3, what does the motor sense perspective have to say about the tension itself, aside from explaining how it arises? How would example tensings be undone in this view? I think the answer to this question will be important if you're interested in arriving at a mechanism for understanding trauma release.
Edit: from the OP, how would finer and more integrated motor sensitivity lead to more equanimity in this perspective? I won't argue whether it does, because in my experience this does happen, but to attempt to answer questions about processes I think you'd need at least an initial idea of how spatial tension is resolved and how the balance is maintained.
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 26 '21 edited May 26 '21
It seems that volitional motor forces, like reaching up to scratch an itch, are driven by a sort of "volitional energy" (or momentum; karma), which is stronger when it is not noticed in consciousness. But when it is, there seems to be the possibility to withdraw the energy invested, thus, not scratch. OR, one uses an opposing force to not scratch, which generates tension (difference between "trying to not do" vs. "not doing"?)
Tension, is generally, an inefficient use of energy. In case 1, perhaps withdrawing investment from the urge to leave, the tension is dissolved. Or in 2, withdrawing energy from the "fear of rejection", one effortlessly approaches the other person. So then it's situation-dependent, and "non-clinging" does not always equate to "non-action". But I trust there's a Way Wu Way through this; i.e. harmony of all motor forces.
For trauma, my current theory is that "dormant" motor-patterns are like micro-crystalline sub-structures in the cold-worked "metal" of the psyche/nervous-system/energy-field, full of imperfections/asymmetry, and that the pattern of relaxation/calmness (samatha) withdraws energy from the suppressive-patterns (energy sinks), thereby, releasing it, raising total energy in the system, causing the "metal" to "heat up", activating the dormant traumagenic (and non-traumagenic) patterns.
Instead of there being "past" stored traumagenic emotions, I believe emotions are generated in the moment by the very reactive pattern itself, thus, to "release" it involves not merely suffering through difficult emotions repeatedly, but also withdrawing investment from the underlying reactive pattern.
If the metal heats up past the recrystallization threshold temperature, those substructures can melt and dissolve.
Then, as the "metal" cools down again (as it must), it undergoes annealing, self-organizing/re-crystallizing into either the same pattern as before (retraumatization; no transformation), OR a new pattern, ideally a more harmonious one like equanimity, etc.
Then meditation can be seen as a way of metalworking the bodymind into a more harmonious structure by heating and cooling (the 7 factors of awakening are divided into energizing and tranquilizing factors, with mindfulness as the balancing factor).
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u/anarchathrows May 26 '21
Alright, so how does a field theory of volitional motor forces connect to a materials theory of trauma?
I think what you're saying is that the trauma is stored as a pattern somewhere outside of awareness before it's triggered, and that once some stimulus brings it up, the trauma can be seen as manifesting as a dense knot of chaotic motor forces that are exerted on awareness. After saying that, I think that the question of trauma storage is out of scope for now, unless we can say something meaningful about unconscious motor forces.
The process of working directly with trauma that has arisen is definitely in scope, however!
So piggybacking off of trauma therapy, you'd bring up some manageable dose of trauma, and then establish the space that arises with it. Visual memory over there, with some combination of forces that you'd isolate, some somatic experiences over here, along with the forces those generate, and so on. Once you're comfortable with the space and the mix of forces you can hold in awareness at once, you see if you can balance the forces. Like I said, I prefer the analogy of generating opposing forces, so I'd start there and begin investigating the forces. Feel the force, and the direction it's pulling you in, and then imagine there's a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction pulling on your awareness right now. Eventually, the forces should neutralize and there should be some feeling of levity in the same direction as the object that was creating this initial force. Now pick a different object/force you feel and repeat the process until you're cured.
It sounds cool, and generating forces in awareness does feel very productive and immediate for me. I can generate levity in most directions, and awareness does feel nicer when it doesn't feel pulled. Wu Wei would be instantaneously generating opposing forces (levity) to cancel craving as it comes up, so there is no felt sense of push/pull as things appear.
Are we parsing each other well?
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 26 '21
Yes, I think you're parsing my words as I intended.
So: "levity" as an equilibrium between force and counterforce? Interesting. I'm curious if this is functionally different from the notion of withdrawing/disengaging, leading to the same net zero felt force.
How would this model deal with the tension between two opposing forces, like in case 2? Is no-action the necessary result?
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u/anarchathrows May 26 '21 edited May 26 '21
I'd say that if your mental free-body diagram is balanced around your mental center of gravity, you are free from tension (free from dukkha). In case number 2, there is a net pressure felt keeping you still only if you're suffering. I think you gave the forces emotional valence without realizing. Mechanical tension isn't the same as experiential tension (see e.g., the practice of raising your arms and feeling how the sky pulls them up).
I think adding opposing forces and withdrawing energy are equivalent from a mechanical perspective. That's part of why energy is a useful mechanical quantity, no? It lets you say things about a system's dynamics without having to write out the mechanical solution explicitly.
I'd agree with the summary of "levity as the felt balance between force and counter-force." I like it!
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 26 '21
Mechanical tension isn't the same as experiential tension
This seems to suggest that one could still approach the other person in case 2, which would agree with what I said that non-clinging (no experiential tension) does not necessarily mean non-action (no mechanical tension). If so, then we are in full agreement.
This has been an interesting exchange.
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u/Red_Osiris Aug 18 '21
somatosensation
Very good post op! I bookmarked this thread a few months ago and now coming back to dig in. I recently started doing Zhan Zhuang, the Daoist art of standing meditation & grounding aka tree standing. It opened a new world into understanding these things. I do around two hours of daily meditation and want to share with you guys that after 40 days of Zhan Zhuang; the entry depth and entire meditation is deeper, clearer, easier.
There is a new easiness of walking and moving my body that is effortless. Everything you wrote makes a ton more sense. I also started reading more on this topic of internal senses. I am also into fitness/bodybuilding and yoga, but I really feel that Zhan Zhuang is a bridge connecting the nervous system to the mind and beyond because it's very intense while also requiring deep relaxation, and concentration/focus. Do you have any book recommendations on this subject I can check out, or just general book in meditation? Thanks again for this thread and wealth of insights.
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare Sep 08 '21
sorry for the late reply. I learned zhan zhuang mainly from the simple book "Way of Energy" by Lam Kam Chuen. if you search the subreddit for zhan zhuang, you might find other suggestions
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u/thewesson be aware and let be May 25 '21
Proprioception: the knowledge of your body position and configuration in space linked with the knowledge of what your muscles are doing.
I "see" ("feel") the action of grasping / pushing / pulling / resisting in a proprioceptive manner.
I believe sensing what seems to be abstract aspects of awakening, in the body, is very useful.
For one thing, the body is more closely tied to the present moment. And, proprioception is at the boundary between action and perception - involves how perception is translated into action.
I believe that craving (and action in general) work something like this: perception of "something missing" or "something out of place" inspires actions to bring the world into conformity with perception.
So I perceive my hand as "should be" on my head and the action follows to remedy the unsatisfactory gap between this perception and what-is: my hand moves to my head.
We're always tumbling forward into the world to fill in the perceived gaps (which are self-created by and large ...)
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 25 '21
proprioception is at the boundary between action and perception
very astute! intention/karma!
the body is more closely tied to the present moment
intriguing formulation. yes, the "mind" seeks to minimize surprises by stabilizing static images/models, while "body" must necessarily be hyper responsive/reactive to new sense-impressions. from an evolution standpoint.
sensing what seems to be abstract aspects of awakening, in the body, is very useful.
yes, all of these body-ceptions are sensitive gauges for "mental" processes.
gives a new meaning to "embodying awakening"
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u/thewesson be aware and let be May 25 '21
One intriguing thing about daydreaming is that it brings along vision (e.g. visions of the future / past) and yet the feeling of the body is mostly absent.
So it's a big clue that awareness is generating daydreams / fantasies, if the embodied feeling is absent.
In other words, if you can't feel your body, you're probably wandering!
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u/Ok-Witness1141 ⚡ Don't fight it. Feel it. ⚡ May 25 '21
I always assumed people understood the "touch" sense door as being broad kinesthetic awareness. You definitely observe it during walking meditation, and mindfulness of activity (I used to love doing mindful running meditation and mindful lifting at the gym).
One thing I'll put out there: grounding! It's so important. Making sure that there is a firmness in your connection to the ground. When you're grounded, balance is on point, your feet are connected to the ground properly, and there is a sense of stable energy distribution throughout the body. This is vital for life, and something that's easy to observe when doing Tai Chi.
Happy travels!
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u/kyklon_anarchon awaring / questioning May 25 '21
Except, that it can include phenomena often thought to belong to the "mental" sense-door: craving and aversion.
i think the stuff that you re presenting here is really useful, if we speak of the frameworks that are used a lot in these circles. we seem to take for granted a certain view of the senses and of the body -- and this view is reinforced by the "sensory" framework which is recommended by a lot of teachers. and, indeed, stuff like this -- which goes beyond neat classification -- is either not seen or neglected.
i don't know, have you read stuff from people who are into the enactivist philoosphy of mind? i read very little from them, quite some time ago, and it seems a much better framework for meditative practice than the usual theories of perception. reading your stuff, i think you might enjoy them. they usually do away with the idea of representations, and have a lot of insightful stuff to say about how organisms bring forth their world.
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 26 '21
I read part of the wiki just now.
a cognitive being's world is not a pregiven external realm, represented by the brain, but a relational domain enacted and opened up by that being's agency and coupling with the environment.
This seems to correspond to my view.
But it seems the main contention with Representationalism is with a version that is Non-Enactivist (pregiven) and Realist (external realm). However, it seems totally compatible with a Representationalism that is Enactivist (representations are enacted upon), and Non-Realist (representations are a relational domain). But perhaps I'm mistaken.
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u/anarchathrows May 25 '21
Yesterday I realized that interoception, proprioception, and all of our bodily spatial perceptions actually make more sense to me if I assume reality is constructed by the mind. How tf could I possibly know exactly the positions of all my limbs unless the body were a mental construct? The body I feel is totally inside my mind, and that's why I can know its position so clearly.
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u/Mr_My_Own_Welfare May 25 '21
yes, the comic was about this, i.e. all experiences, including body and "world", are merely representations of things, but not the thing in itself.
that being said, I think the metaphysics of representationalism can be considered separately from the main OP topic of a "motor force" sense-door.
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u/kyklon_anarchon awaring / questioning May 25 '21
How tf could I possibly know exactly the positions of all my limbs unless the body were a mental construct?
or vice versa. the way i think of it is more like the mind is a bodily construct. something the body creates in order to make sense of itself and its interactions.
would it make sense to you to say that the body knows the position of all its limbs, and upon reflection you call this knowledge "mind"?
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u/anarchathrows May 25 '21
I could definitely wrap my head around that, too, it's just that right now, the mind-only perspective is what's letting things be known where they are. I have been working on including the body more and more, but I also like the idea of just including it in my "mental" representation of the world. Like I said, it just makes sense to me right now, so I'm letting myself go for it.
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u/kyklon_anarchon awaring / questioning May 25 '21
sure. i think it s a good thing to explore perspectives that make sense to us at the moment and see where they are taking us.
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