CBNAD STONE -

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spent the vast majority of my life living in my head and emotionally numb from the neck down.

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5SENSES AND MIND

We have more than just five senses

As Michael Ashcroft pointed out, the idea that we humans have five senses — sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste—is a belief that dates back 2,000 years to Aristotle.1 

Back then, it was a decent guess, but neuroscience has advanced significantly since the days of ancient Greece. It turns out that we have at least four additional senses—and the most underrated and practical of them is known as interoception. 

The word has two parts: “intero–” refers to “internal” and “–ception” to “awareness.” In essence, it means awareness of our internal state, which includes learned associations, memories, emotions, and all the data running through the interconnected pipelines of the 100 billion neurons in your body.2

Intero-ception can be contrasted with “extero-ception,” which involves receiving data through the external senses. Most of us tend to prioritize external sense data—like endlessly refreshing a newsfeed after dinner when internally, our body is sending signals to recover and begin winding down.

In the center of the brain lies a remarkably sophisticated piece of biological machinery called the insula. This spongy core is the headquarters for cortical representation, which refers to how your brain processes all the information about your internal state. 

Imagine that this area of your brain is like one of those gorgeous 16th-century maps that had “here be dragons” scribbled over the yet-to-be-explored areas. In much the same way, you might think of these cortical maps in our brainstems as having smudges all over them that can only be restored and brought into higher definition through interoceptive exploration.

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r adams

The whole idea of spiritual life is to just get rid of all concepts and ideas and words and dogmas. All these things that you've carried around for years. When we free ourselves from these things we become totally light. 

[We] unburden ourselves of all this. Never look for new words and new sentences and new meanings. All you're doing is adding on to the garbage. Empty yourself out totally and completely and you'll be free."

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"The mind can accomplish anything, do anything. This is why I keep telling you do not try to change the condition. Because it will just change to another condition. Get rid of the mind and the condition will never come back. 

Drop the mind, not the condition. Get right to the cause which is the mind, the ego. The I-thought. When this goes everything else will go with it."

#Robert_Adams

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Jhana is different from enlightenment. Enlightenment changes you forever. Jhana is just a state you can enter during meditation sessions, then leave when the session is over. Enlightenment takes years or decades of work, but some people describe reaching jhana after a few months of practice. Hardcore Buddhists insist that jhana is good only insofar as it serves as a stepping stone to enlightenment; others may find extreme bliss desirable in its own right.

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