The Meditation of Learning and Neural Plasticity

This section describes how to use the process of Meditation to assist one in learning. It also describes the role of neural plasticity in the development of human consciousness. Humans, terrestrial primates, have the distinction of being able to utilize greater plasticity in behavioral expression than any other terrestrial species. The chimpanzee is closest to humans in total DNA makeup followed closely by the Gorilla. There are no differences in the gene maps of humans and chimpanzees as reported by some authors. Humans have 46 pairs of chromosomes while chimpanzees have 48, the #12 & #13 chimpanzee chromosomes fused being equivalent to human #2 chromosome. Others state that less than 2% difference exists between the human and chimpanzee genomes. Gorillas have 50 chromosomes. Humans have the more archtypical 2n number of 46.

Thus apart from being able to severely alter their immediate environment, pass along knowledge in a systematic manner, vocalize; man is quite similar in behavior to the great apes in most respects. It is my thesis that it is the ability to learn and utilize the capacity for plasticity which truely sets man apart from all other animals. Only man is not restricted to the expression of inherited instinctual behavior. Only man, so far, has the capacity for going beyond instinct; learning and making further abstraction based upon pattern recognitions, and acting upon them.

The process of meditation is geared to knowing the self. It is by nature a process which stimulates the developmental and integrative aspects of consciousness in all cases. It is the capacity for learned behavior which is mostly built in and not foreign to our neurophysiology. It is the focusing ability of the hindbrain centers which gives us the ability to alter our perceptions, to modify what our neurological filters allow us to focus upon and to alter our perceptions of and discern new patterns in the expression of the physical phenomena of our world. It is the willful expression of our frontal cortex which allows us to set new goals and lends us the drive to achieve those goals.

How then do we create a new reality, how then do we shift our paradigm, how then do we accomplish our new goals? How do we utilize the ability to learn and the ability to bend neural plasticity to create new behavioral expression?

The thalamus is the switching station for everything below (the hindbrain, the hypothalamus and the RAS) into the cerebrum and from the cerebrum into the rest of the body. It is the filter which the CNS uses to diminish and focus the content which makes it into our consciousness. It allows us to screen out that which we do not wish to pay attention to and thus to remain ignorant about. Being ignorant means that we do not give sufficient validity to that portion of the information which comes to us and thus we screen it out. Meditation affords us the chance to willfully check our flitering and to reset what is going to be screened out.

Hallucinogens do this without any preparation on our part and accounts for the consciousness expansion attributed to them. If we are unprepared to deal with this filter re-setting as a willful process, the benefits which might be accrued from the filter being suddenly removed most likely will not be integrated. This is why all "primative" cultures which utilize hallucinogens as a ritual in the rites of passage into adulthood make elaborate preparations with the individuals involved. These cultures accept that society promulgates "truths" which are not of personal experience. These cultures incorporate a process for the acquisition of "spiritual" knowledge which then becomes an extention of the personal experience of the initiate into the fabric of their society.

An example of a western center for renewal was at the Elysium Fields outside of Athens. For many generations, one family prepared(for a fee) the initiate to receive as a culmination of many months of self preparation an experience of profound consciousness expansion. Many of the prominant members of Athenian society through the decades participated in the rites there. This center was destroyed when the power of the early christian church in the area became strong enough.

Once again we become as children: drinking in all that comes to us in our interaction with our family members, our work, our play, our physical environment. Once again we decide what input to disregard and what to pay attention to. We find out what motivates us, what makes us afraid, what gives us joy and what makes us unique. We decide what we are going to become by what we allow ourselves to focus upon, learn about and to integrate. This is genetically predisposed and we see our predispositions. We model those whom we wish to emulate, we absorb the resonances of our family and partner, we integrate the aspects of their beingness into ourselves. Yet we are able to see what is me and what is not me. If we chose to alter what has been me and embark upon a new path of filter processing, we need to know what is me and what I am capable of doing and what I seek to acquire and intregrate. I learn to set the stage for new synaptic pathways and connections. I persevere and allow the new connections to become stable in my beingness. I learn to allow myself to change my filtering according to what I want to become in the immediate future.

The hardest part of changing is the inability of those around us to allow us to change. Now they do not know us anymore and they have to get to know us again after they had pigeon-holed us and "knew" us. Sometimes it is easier to go away and make new friends. This is what breaks up couples more than anything. Some people are so afraid of change, so threatened by the growth in another that they become belligerant. They are so afraid of loosing control over the other person that they begin to resort to any number of means of violence and oppression: physical, emotional and mental. Thus this pathway is frought with peril. Another reason that it is usually done in the setting of a religious retreat.

Learning is intimately involved with being able to focus on the task at hand. For this reason, it appears that some component of anxiety or perhaps a drop-dead event attached to the need, desire or will to become one with that which is to be learned is required. This is more or less the two-by-four which hits the mule on the head to get its attention. Once that attention is obtained, the next question to be answered is the depth of knowledge to be acquired and the persistence needed to follow through. Inevitably, it is the context of the learning environment or shall we say the necessity behind the motivation to learn the task at hand which is the most relevant. We make this decision everyday of our lives. We pay attention to and learn what we want, need and desire to learn. If we set up the proper mental mind set for the process, concept or behavioral attribute to be learned/acquired; we will seem to encounter those experiences and interactions which lead us to deal with the processes of learning/acquiring that particular skill. Thus we have adjusted our thalamic filter to sensitize our sensory input to the noticing of "new" information to be processed and integrated.

How long do we have before this exciting and challenging set of learning experiences becomes routine and a bore? How deeply do we want to become involved in the process of learning about the "it"? What drives us to the learning process, what is the source of our motivation? Do we "have" to learn it, or do we want to learn it? What I am getting at is how long does our perseverance last? When it no longer lasts to focus our attention, the learning mind set associated with the "it" to be learned passes away. All this is obvious. However, our true path in life as to what is to be assimilated, learned and integrated never fades into oblivian. It merely deepens in content, experience and understanding.

The "blue spot"(ceruleus means blue) located in the upper Medulla Oblongata is the seat of fear. The greatest test of learning and the modification of neural plasticity as a result deals with this center. As it is our fear which "freezes" our behavior, it is a lifelong struggle to overcome our fears and develop to the maximum of our potential. The only way to become truely "fearless" is to confront each event, emotion or thought which keeps us imprisoned in our own mind. Fear has its place in our behavioral repertoir. It is a vital aspect of our beingness. But as each aspect of our beingness needs to be in harmony with the whole of our beingness, so fear needs to focus our attention, have us think about what transpires and formulate a solution to the issue at hand. It is when fear becomes magnified in our minds out of proportion to its need, that we "freeze". Being frozen in the vast majority of cases means that we will not continue our development. We have become stuck forever at the point where we have frozen. This may be a physical development such as learning to dive from the 5 meter tower, an emotional development such as learning to socialize with the opposite sex or a mental development such as fear of mathematics. In any case, we will not grow and develop past that point which our fear has frozen in our behavior.

How then do we shatter this "frozen" barrier? The first step is to realize that the emotional beingness of our mind has coupled with a physical, emotional or mental trauma. Second, we need to come to grips with what trauma has occured. What are the circumstances of the trauma, the persons involved and the outcome which has led to our denial, pain and frustration. Lastly, we learn to dissociate our emotional beingness from the trauma. At this point we may again put ourselves into the same circumstances as before, with careful preparation beforehand, so as to learn to deal with the issue which caused us to freeze up.

The Walking and Standing Meditations prepare us for the emotional dissociation required. The Sitting Meditation takes us deeply into the workings of the psyche and allows us to bring up and deal with all the emotional garbage which we carry around on our shoulders and inflict upon the others around us. We learn to dissociate our beingness from the traumatic event. We learn to ground the disruptive energy and smooth our beingness. We become "dispassionate" concerning this event and others like it. Now we are able to view the event as a learning experience and to work through all the aspects of the event which lead to the one thing which caused us to "freeze". We learn to face our fears and to overcome them by being calm, thinking through the possibilities and reaching out to create new realities. Again patience with ourselves and the others involved is necessary. Patience and perseverence further!