Actual Freedom ~ Frequently Flogged Misconceptions

RESPONDENT: You use the word ‘feelings’ but isn’t it more accurate to say ‘thinking’ as anger, sadness, etc.

RICHARD: No, anger and sadness are emotions/passions (aka affective feelings).

RESPONDENT: i.e. ‘feelings’ are actually thoughts i.e. ‘no one likes me’ ‘I am alone’ etc.

RICHARD: The thought ‘no one likes me’ is not the (affective) feeling of being collectively disliked; the thought ‘I am alone’ is not the (affective) feeling of aloneness.

RESPONDENT: There are sensations behind thought i.e. tightness, heaviness, sinking feeling, I give you that but the problem to be examined is the thought which creates the tightness (unhappy) feeling.

RICHARD: Have you never been frightened by a sudden and unexpected loud noise (for example) before you could think? Are you not aware that the freeze-fight-flee instinctual reaction is also observable in other animals than the human animal? Have you not read about the laboratory tests demonstrating that feelings come before thoughts in the perceptive process? Has it not occurred to you that a baby is born with (affective) feelings ... which is well before thinking begins? Moreover, as all animals are born with instinctual passions, such as fear and aggression and nurture and desire, are you suggesting they can think?

RESPONDENT: Of course animals can think, they have a brain don’t they? They have a memory don’t they? If they have a brain then they have memory and if they have memory then they will have thoughts. One follows the other as a thought is just a memory inside the brain.

RICHARD: Just for starters ... if, as you say, animals can think – that they can conceive in, or exercise the mind with, or form, or have in the mind, an hypothesis, a theory, a supposition, a plan, a design, a notion, an idea, or can conceive of mentally as in meditate on, turn over in the mind, ponder, contemplate, deliberate or reflect on and come to the understanding in a positive active way and form connected objectives or otherwise have the capacity to cogitate and conjecture and choose mentally (as in form a clear mental impression of something actual) – then how is it that when a famine or drought occurs they languish and/or die just as plants do?

RESPONDENT: Anyway you say that feelings come before thought and we should examine feelings – easy said than done – what is a feeling then?

RICHARD: An emotion and/or a passion ... none of which exist in actuality (hence no moods, or auras, or souls/ spirits do either).

RESPONDENT: To me a feeling is a physical vibration or ripple inside the body.

RICHARD: There are no (affective) vibrations or ripples inside this flesh and blood body ... it is all so clean, clear, and pure, here in this actual world.

RESPONDENT: What is your definition of an ‘affective feeling’?

RICHARD: An affective feeling is any one of the affections – the emotions and/or the passions – none of which are actual (hence no identity is either).

RESPONDENT: Some say emotion is a feeling e.g. hot sensation in head combined with a thought e.g. – ‘I look stupid’ but there are two things that make up emotion – thought and sensation in body.

RICHARD: Again, have you never been frightened by a sudden and unexpected loud noise (for example) before you could think?

Furthermore, are you not aware that the freeze-fight-flee instinctual reaction is also observable in other animals than the human animal?

Moreover, have you not read about the laboratory tests demonstrating that feelings come before thoughts in the perceptive process?

Even more to the point, has it not occurred to you that a baby is born with (affective) feelings ... which is well before thinking begins?

RESPONDENT: Now if we break this down it shows the thought ‘I look stupid’ comes first or at least the same time as hot sensation, it goes hand in hand, it cant be one without the other.

RICHARD: Are you so sure, upon breaking it down, that the thought of looking stupid (of being as if a fool for instance) always comes before, or simultaneous to, the feeling of stupidity (of feeling foolish for example) ... that there is no occasion whatsoever where the feeling induces the thought?

RESPONDENT: You said in your email that the feelings are creating the feeler.

RICHARD: Yes, from birth onwards, if not before (thus prior to thought developing), an affective ‘self’ forms as the baby feels itself and its world ... and even when cognition develops the circuitry is such that sense impressions go first to the affective faculty (which colours the cognitive faculty) and perpetuates/reinforces that feeling of ‘being’ or ‘presence’. Thus the feeling ‘self’ (‘me’ as soul) exists prior to and underpins the thinking ‘self’ (‘I’ as ego) ... the thinker arises out of the feeler.

RESPONDENT: So it seems logical to me that the feelings, must exist prior of the feeler, because the creator must exist prior to its creation, right?

RICHARD: I would not put it that way – ‘the creator’ and ‘its creation’ – as it conjures up an impression of a cause separate from its effect whereas, if you were to intimately examine this, feeling it out for yourself, you will find that you are your feelings (‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings) and your feelings are you (‘my’ feelings are ‘me’).

In hindsight it probably would have been better if I had never baldly said that the feelings *create* the feeler in the e-mail you refer to (further above) as I usually say the feelings *form* themselves into the feeler (as a feeling of ‘being’ or ‘presence’) as that better describes the process. For example:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘And from what stuff are we made of (our identities) anyhow that it cannot be determined by any magnetic scanning?
• [Richard]: ‘Primarily the identity within is the affections (the affective feelings) – ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’ – as *the instinctual passions form themselves into* a ‘presence’, a ‘spirit’, a ‘being’ ... ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself. MRI scans, and all the rest, cannot detect a phantom being, the ghost in the machine. (...) Put expressively the affective feelings swirl around forming a whirlpool or an eddy (which vortex is the ‘presence’, the ‘spirit’, the ‘being’): mostly peoples experience ‘self’ as being a centre, around which the affective feelings form a barrier, which centre could be graphically likened to a dot in a circle (the circle being the affective feelings) which is what gives rise to the admonitions to break down the walls, the barriers, with which the centre protects itself.
Those people who are self-realised have realised that there is no ‘dot’ in the centre of the circle ... hence the word ‘void’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25a, 10 June 2003).

I put it in that expressive way because it is not possible to separate out the feeler from the feelings it is ... just as it is impossible to separate the whirlpool or the eddy – the vortex – from the swirling stuff which is the cause of it (a whirlpool or an eddy – a vortex – of water or air, for example, is the very swirling water or air as the one is not distinct from the other) ... hence ‘I’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’.

RESPONDENT: So the feelings are innative to the human being, that means they are actual. Instead the feeler is a real entity, but not actual.

RICHARD: Again I would not put it that way ... just because the genetic-inheritance of the instinctual passions is actual – deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), being a nucleic acid in which the sugar component is deoxyribose, is a chemical substance – does not necessarily mean that a feeling engendered by that genetic software programme, such as the feeling of fear for example, is actual – any more than the fearer it automatically forms itself into by its very occurrence is actual – especially as you go on to say that the feeler is a real entity but not actual (which implies that the fearer is not the fear – as in ‘I’ am *not* ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are *not* ‘me’ – which, at the very least, smacks of denial if not detachment/ disassociation or even full-blown disidentification from one’s roots).

Now, I could go on from this to say that the feeling is a movement, a motion, and not a thing, as there is no such happening as a stationary (static) feeling and that it is this very movement or motion of the feeling in action when it occurs which automatically forms the feeler (such as in the whirlpool of water/air analogy above) but, again, it would be far more fruitful if you were to intimately examine all this, by feeling it out for yourself rather than just thinking about it, and if you were to actually do so – literally feel it for yourself – you will surely find out, just as ‘I’ did all those years ago, that you are your feelings (as in ‘I’ *am* ‘my’ feelings) and your feelings are you (as in ‘my’ feelings *are* ‘me’).

The actualism method is an experiential method ... not an intellectual method (an analytical method, a psychological method, a philosophical method) or any other self-preserving method of inaction.

RESPONDENT: So we have reality and actuality. Reality comes from the Latin word ‘res’, which means thing. A thing is manmade.

RICHARD: Not necessarily ... the word ‘thing’ is a generic word and can refer to any object/ entity whether geological/ biological or manufactured/ fabricated ... whatever has a discrete, independent existence (whether it be material or immaterial as in concrete or abstract/ physical or metaphysical) and is not a relation or a function, and so on, is a thing.

It is a very wide-ranging word.

RESPONDENT: And man can not do anything without thought and feelings. Right?

RICHARD: No, I have been doing everything for over a decade now sans feelings ... and, just like anybody else, do many things without thought (scratching an itch, for instance, or walking).

A case could probably be made that the majority of things one does are done on auto-pilot.

RESPONDENT: A tree is not man made, so is a tree a thing or a no-thing?

RICHARD: A tree is a thing ... all objects/ entities are things.

RESPONDENT: To make a thing we use ingredients from nature, like wood, iron, etc., but we put them together with factual thought. So a table, a chair, a car are things. Trees, mountains, animals, are not. Right?

RICHARD: No, trees, mountains, animals are things ... just as pieces of wood, lumps of iron, and so on, are.

RESPONDENT No. 00: ‘Mindfulness of Feeling’. (By Bhanthe Henepola Gunaratana). <ARTICLE SNIPPED FOR SPACE>

RICHARD: I read the article you posted through twice and I am referring to it again as I write. As you were interested enough in the subject of feelings to post the article, what was it that you wished to discuss? There are several issues I could raise, but of course I cannot have a dialogue with Mr. Bhanthe Henepola Gunaratana on this List.

1. He does not differentiate between affective feelings and sensate feelings – and states this fact clearly – so I was wondering if you have anything to say on the importance of separating out the two for clarity.
2. He talks of people ‘clinging to the pleasant feeling and rejecting the unpleasant’ in contrast to the more enlightened one ‘neither clinging to the pleasant nor rejecting the unpleasant’ ... do you consider this approach valid?
3. He says: ‘We defend ourselves saying, ‘I have every right to defend my feelings when somebody hurts my feelings’. When you universalise your feelings you become more mindful about not saying anything to hurt anybody’. Is this a healthy approach?
4. He teaches: ‘Pay total attention to your own feeling and begin to notice the pleasant feeling behind your unpleasant feeling’. This is in contradiction to No. 2 above.
5. He finishes with: ‘If you mindfully watch your own mind and feelings, you can see very clearly and unequivocally that what you feel is your own creation and that you are totally responsible for it’. As all sentient beings are born with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire – bestowed by blind nature – how do you think he could say that ‘what you feel is your own creation and that you are totally responsible for it’?
6. He finishes with: ‘Mindfully watching the continuous change of your own feelings can make you abstain from emotional reactions and make you see the truth of your own feelings. Mindfulness of feelings will not cause you to think obsessive thoughts or abusive thoughts or harmful thoughts. By unmindful thinking you abuse your mind. The abused mind always generates abusive feelings, which always is painful’. Do you think that it is the mind that generates feelings – be they pleasant or unpleasant – as he says?

RESPONDENT: Emotions seem to be reactions involving sensations but they are immediately evaluative.

RICHARD: They are reactions, yes. Are all affective feelings reactive? Are sensate feelings – void of the affective reaction – at all reactionary? Which of the two is the peaceful way to operate and function in the world of people, things and events?

RESPONDENT: In a way, they are another feedback loop. The two emotional extremes of distress or flat affect are usually symptomatic of disorder. Krishnamurti spoke of dying to one’s emotions but that does not in my opinion mean that emotions (or thoughts) are avoided.

RICHARD: One would not want to avoid anything whatsoever ... one is scrupulously honest with oneself because, after all is said and done, it is one who has to live this life. Dishonesty is not ‘bad’ ... it is silly.

RESPONDENT: Only what is allowed to flower can die away.

RICHARD: Do you mean by this that the affective feelings can end completely? That is: no affective faculties for the remainder of one’s life? If not, then what does ‘flower and die away’ mean?

RESPONDENT: The emotional ‘body’ moves between the poles of like and dislike and when there is a free movement without inhibition or direction, there is great energy.

RICHARD: Is this ‘great energy’ affective in origin?

*

RICHARD: [Point No. 2.]: ‘He talks of people ‘clinging to the pleasant feeling and rejecting the unpleasant’ in contrast to the more enlightened one ‘neither clinging to the pleasant nor rejecting the unpleasant’ ... do you consider this approach valid?’

RESPONDENT: If there is no identification with thought or feeling or any function, there is no clinging or grasping. So it is a matter of being free to observe, i.e.: no identification.

RICHARD: What if there were no one to identify with ‘thought or feeling or any function’in the first place? Would this not eliminate the on-going necessity to be ‘non-clinging’ and ‘non-grasping’? That sounds like hard work to me ... always having to be alert because clinging and grasping will always come sweeping back in when vigilance is inevitably relaxed. Besides, what does ‘flower and die away’ mean, anyway, if it comes back again?

You see, because Mr. Bhanthe Henepola Gunaratana does not differentiate between affective feelings and sensate feelings, he has to ‘neither cling to the pleasant nor reject the unpleasant’. Thus, with this grab-bag of sensate and affective feelings undifferentiated, one would have to allow the whole dang lot to ‘flower and die away’ ... and one would be simply numb. One would be able to sit upon a hot stove and not know that one’s bum was on fire until one saw the smoke rising!

Also, one misses out on the sheer delight of the eyes resting upon colour and shape; one misses out on the joy of the nose inhaling aromas; one misses out on the lusciousness of the tongue tasting food; one misses out on pleasure of the ears hearing sound; one misses out on the delight of the skin touching and being touched. All this is because people like Mr. Bhanthe Henepola Gunaratana (presumably of the Buddhist Tradition) cannot be bothered differentiating between the affective feelings and the sensate feelings. What manner of wisdom is this?

*

RICHARD: [Point No. 3.]: ‘He says: ‘We defend ourselves saying, ‘I have every right to defend my feelings when somebody hurts my feelings’. When you universalise your feelings you become more mindful about not saying anything to hurt anybody’. Is this a healthy approach?’

RESPONDENT: It is not clear what he meant by universalising feelings.

RICHARD: He meant that scriptural adage about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you ... thus the affective feelings rule the world.

RESPONDENT: Feelings or reactions are factual and have an effect and as such are treated with due respect.

RICHARD: Yea verily ... and therein lies the problem. This ‘respect’ ultimately means respect for physical force, for if one upsets another’s feelings sufficiently, they will become violent. Thus, through violence, people’s precious feelings rule the world ... and look at the mess it is in.

*

RICHARD: [Point No. 4.]: ‘He teaches: ‘Pay total attention to your own feeling and begin to notice the pleasant feeling behind your unpleasant feeling’. This is in contradiction to No. 2 above’.

RESPONDENT: Paying full attention is not grasping after. There is a difference between trying to avoid or alter the unpleasant, and seeing what is pleasant, interesting, or instructive in what is superficially an unpleasant feeling.

RICHARD: But ... do you not see that his advice about ‘neither clinging to the pleasant nor rejecting the unpleasant’ is only skin-deep? He actually wants to get past the superficial and cling to the deeper feelings (affective feelings). In fact, if he were to go all the way, he would become those deepest (affective) feelings ... he would ‘be’ them’ (and we all know what they are ... Love and Compassion). He would ‘be’ Love. He would ‘be’ Compassion. Then he would say that Love and Compassion are not feelings at all ... he would say that they are a state of being.

Golly gosh ... he would be a Buddha!

*

RICHARD: [Point No. 5.]: ‘He finishes with: ‘If you mindfully watch your own mind and feelings, you can see very clearly and unequivocally that what you feel is your own creation and that you are totally responsible for it’. As all sentient beings are born with the instinctual passions of fear and aggression and nurture and desire – bestowed by blind nature – how do you think he could say that ‘what you feel is your own creation and that you are totally responsible for it’?’

RESPONDENT: What is brought about mechanically or blindly continues unless there is awareness and understanding of how it is these energies, compulsions, habits, etc are actually operating. They operate through identifications and attachments. It is our responsibility to bring about a natural order which means to understand what is disordered.

RICHARD: But the ‘natural order’ is these instinctive passions ... or do you say that what blind nature endows all sentient beings with at birth is un-natural? Is this understanding of yours not back-to-front? Why not do something un-natural? Why not dispense with what is the ‘natural order’? After all, it has bought nothing but mayhem and misery thus far in human history.

*

RICHARD: [Point No. 6.]: ‘He finishes with: ‘Mindfully watching the continuous change of your own feelings can make you abstain from emotional reactions and make you see the truth of your own feelings. Mindfulness of feelings will not cause you to think obsessive thoughts or abusive thoughts or harmful thoughts. By unmindful thinking you abuse your mind. The abused mind always generates abusive feelings, which always is painful’. Do you think that it is the mind that generates feelings – be they pleasant or unpleasant – as he says?’

RESPONDENT: Yes, it seems that egoistic feelings stem from what he calls an abused mind.

RICHARD: You say ‘it seems’ ... do feelings, in fact, originate in the mind?

(Bearing in mind that he means, by the term ‘mind’, thought and thinking ... and not the physical brain).

It has been demonstrated that the basic passions originate in the brain-stem (popularly called the ‘reptilian brain’) of all sentient beings ... even those without a cerebral cortex. As thinking and thought exist only in the human cerebral cortex, how can he say that ‘emotional reactions’ (which all animals have) are generated by the mind? Does he know what he is talking about?

Is his wisdom, in fact, nothing but psittacisms?

Did Mr. Gotama the Sakyan (if there ever was such a flesh and blood person anyway) know about the ‘reptilian brain’ being the seat of passion?

Is this why Buddhism has been ineffective in bringing about Peace On Earth despite two and a half thousand years in which to do so?

There is as much suffering now as back then.

RESPONDENT: The more mind is identified, not aware, not free to observe, the greater the suffering. The mind that is boundless, not entangled with transient thoughts, feelings and sensations is ecstatic.

RICHARD: Yeah ... and therein lies the enticement of those deeper feelings: ‘ecstatic’, eh? Ecstasy is affective.

Self-aggrandisement once again.

RESPONDENT: Many feelings are felt only when the thinker is thinking on it, but when the thinker stops and there’s silence those feelings also stop, seeming that the thinker and the feeler are only the two sides of the same coin.

RICHARD: The surface emotions, the agitated feelings, stop but not the deepest, most quiet feeling of being ‘me’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being which is ‘being’ itself).

RESPONDENT: Yes, the surface ‘conscious’ thinker stops and then the surface emotions also stop, but whereas the thinker and his worries are still boiling in the deepest of conscious the deepest emotions and wishes would not stop. In this way, the thinker and the feeler can be the same yet.

RICHARD: If so, then this is not yet ‘silence’ ... ‘silence’ is when the thinker is not. That is, ‘silence’ is pure feeling (usually called ‘pure being’ or ‘a state of being’).

RESPONDENT: I mean when there’s a bit of silence because conscious thinking stops for a while. Then, the associated feeling (fear when thinking on whatever) also fades away seeming that it was a thinking dependent process. It seems that there’s not fear if there’s not re-cognition (thought, conscious or unconscious). Fear seems to be a physical response to factual events, triggered when a threat is re-cognised. Fear wakes up the body in a nanosecond and provokes a movement of fleeing or attack; it promotes survival, it seems natural and good for survival, a momentary physical response to factual event, like sleep or be thirsty. When child, a small dog is a factual threat and there’s fear, but when we are grown up and 195 tall the small dog is not a factual threat and there’s not fear. Fear rises or not as a physical bodily response to threats. But when there’s a thinker operating and the response of fear is triggered by interpretations and hopes from this thinker, fear becomes an insane response. You point out that, when there’s not thinker (‘I’ as ego or first I), remains the feeler (‘me’ as soul or second ‘I’) as source of fear and it must fade away, but I can not understand this.

RICHARD: It all depends upon one’s aspirations ... does one aspire to only be free of thought-induced fear (what you call the ‘insane response’ ) or does one also aspire to be free of ‘natural’ fear (what is mostly called the ‘sane response’)?

Can there be peace-on-earth whilst one is still subject to the sane response (‘natural’ fear) from time-to-time?

*

RESPONDENT: When mind is in this situation observing a sunrise, without the thinker operating, there’s only the sense of beauty without the sense of a feeler feeling it.

RICHARD: Rather, without the sense of a personal feeler feeling it: impersonal feeling. That is, pure feeling or pure being (sans the personal identity) is impersonal identity or impersonal ‘being’.

RESPONDENT: It seems that the sense of observer and feeler does not exist then, only exists apperceptive awareness as what is observed (the sunrise) and the feeling (‘beauty’) without a sense of a feeler feeling it.

RICHARD: I can easily agree that when the observer is the observed there is only observation as that ‘what is observed (the sunrise)’ ... except where there is ‘the feeling (‘beauty’) without a sense of a feeler feeling it’ (impersonal feeling) there is impersonal awareness ‘as what is observed (the sunrise)’ ... and not apperceptive awareness. Although I do not have the corner on the phrase ‘apperceptive awareness’, this impersonal awareness is best called ‘choiceless awareness’ here so as to avoid confusion of terms.

RESPONDENT: In this way, the thinker and the feeler seem to be the same again. Do you consider this observation correct?

RICHARD: If the observer is the observed (and there is only observation as that ‘what is observed (the sunrise)’ ) then, yes, this observation is correct. However, apperceptive awareness, in the way I am using the term, is when ‘the feeling (‘beauty’) without a sense of a feeler feeling it’ (impersonal feeling) is not. It is bodily awareness ... as the senses (and not through the senses).

RESPONDENT: I see, ‘personal’ and ‘impersonal’ feelings, I think I grasp what you are conveying here: when there’s not thinker remains yet a feeler (a being who can feel), and these feelings are impersonal (without an ego-thinker feeling it), and in this state there’s also impersonal (choiceless) awareness. Right until here, but you are going beyond and pointing that there’s an state where this impersonal feeler also fades away, and in this state there’s ‘apperceptive’ awareness, [‘bodily awareness ... as the senses (and not through the senses)’]. I cannot understand this because it seems to me that an ‘impersonal feeler’ is inherent to be alive, how can exist a being if there’s not an impersonal feeler?

RICHARD: It is the ontological ‘being’ which cannot exist if there is not an impersonal feeler ... not the flesh and blood body (a human being).

RESPONDENT: Without grasping the last, I can not understand what do you mean by ‘apperceptive awareness’ and why is it different of impersonal (choiceless awareness). Can you elaborate further on it?

RICHARD: Yes, ‘choiceless awareness’ is where the fragment (the ontological ‘being’) is the whole (an autological ‘being’ usually capitalised as ‘Being’) ... whereas ‘apperceptive awareness’ is where the fragment – and therefore the whole – has ceased to be (‘being’ and/or ‘Being’ itself is not).

*

RESPONDENT: The feeler seems to be a thinking-dependent process in the first case and independent of conscious thinking in the second.

RICHARD: The ‘thinking-dependent process in the first case’ is all-too-common and leads to the notion that thought creates feelings. They do not ... thought can only trigger off the prior existing feelings.

RESPONDENT: Many feelings as shame are triggered off by thought when remembering past lived experiences stored as memory and the thinker lives them anew, giving rise to the feeling of shame anew, so that the rising of the sensation of discomfort called ‘shame’ seems to be just a process dependent of the thinker and of memory. The instinctive bodily sensation named ‘shame’ seems to be a natural reaction when the thinker is making a situation of insecurity through his interpretations. In this way, it seems that thought as thinker is not the primordial creator of instinctive bodily sensations, but also there’s not the rising of the instinctive discomfort named as ‘shame’ without the action of the thinker.

RICHARD: Indeed it is so that ‘thought as thinker is not the primordial creator of instinctive bodily sensations’ if by ‘bodily sensations’ you mean bodily feelings (affective feelings) ... and there is no ‘natural reaction’ called ‘shame’ . Shame, and all its variations (such as embarrassment, humiliation, mortification, disgrace, dishonour, ignominy,) are cultivated feelings, socialised feelings, cultural feelings. Speaking personally, I have no shame whatsoever (hence no pride nor its antidotal humility).

RESPONDENT: By bodily sensations I don’t mean affective feelings, I mean bodily physical responses of discomfort to a threat (rubor, tachycardia, sweating ...). When the threat is to our self image then, this physical discomfort associated to a thinking process on self image, is named ‘shame’. The threat is an illusory thinking process but it is a threat, so that the bodily physical response also arises. The thinker seems to be again the problem, making an illusory self image and later a threat to this self image, triggering a natural physical response to the illusory threat, and naming all it as ‘shame’.

RICHARD: I will put it this way: the ‘natural responses’ (such as the heart pumping furiously; the palms sweaty; the face ruddy; knuckles gripped; body tensed and so on) never occur where the instinctual passions are not.

RESPONDENT No. 45: Many feelings are felt only when the thinker is thinking on it, but when the thinker stops and there’s silence those feelings also stop, seeming that the thinker and the feeler are only the two sides of the same coin. On the other hand, when observing a sunrise and the conscious thinking is stopped a feeling of beauty can also rise in silence, seeming that the thinker and the feeler are different. The feeler seems to be a thinking-dependent process in the first case and independent of conscious thinking in the second.

RICHARD: The ‘thinking-dependent process in the first case’ is all-too-common and leads to the notion that thought creates feelings. They do not ... thought can only trigger off the prior existing feelings.

JAMES: Are you saying here that thought triggers off the prior existing feelings that are being generated by the instinctual passions? In other words the feeling is already there before the thought?

RICHARD: Yes. The second case (the thoughtless ‘feeling of beauty’ described further above) is the demonstration of this being factual (as is the instant instinctive feeling of fear, for another example, in an imminently dangerous situation). It has been exhaustively tested and scientifically (repeatable on demand) demonstrated that feelings come before thought in the perception-reaction process.

And the child, from birth onwards at least, develops an emotional memory of danger and safety in the ‘reptilian brain’, even before thought, thoughts and thinking commences, as an environmentally-learned supplement to the instinctual passions genetically endowed. There is some research indicating that this ‘environmental-learning’ begins in the womb (through the baby’s more positive response to the mother’s voice-tone, after birth, as contrasted a more negative response to a stranger’s voice-tone).

I did not know of any research when I started to actively discover all this 20 or more years ago: I was the biological progenitor of four children and I was able to intimately participate in the child’s world thanks to the deliberate activation of naiveté (despite the recognised risk of becoming a fool, a simpleton). And, as I was a single parent for a number of years, it became increasingly and transparently obvious that the instinctual passions – the entire affective faculty in fact – was the root cause of all the ills of humankind. One has to actually dare to care, of course, before it is transparently obvious ... which is a very dangerous thing to do

For to dare to care is to care to dare.

RESPONDENT: ... once again: If you get pleasure from sex which is based on mutualness, it is not merely sensate. It involves thought processes.

RICHARD: Perhaps this may help: in the perceptive process sensory perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary.

RESPONDENT: Can you elaborate?

RICHARD: I already have on many an occasion ... as you expressly said [quote] ‘it involves thought processes’ [endquote] the following instance may be particularly apt:

• [Co-Respondent]: ‘The self is nothing other than conditioning, the thinker/ feeler/ doer is thought.
• [Richard]: ‘As feelings demonstrably come before thought in the perceptive process this is but a shallow understanding.
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘Why divide the process up?
• [Richard]: ‘I am not dividing the process up ... that is how it operates naturally (as is borne out by laboratory testing): sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary.
The sensate signal, a loud sound for example, takes 12-14 milliseconds to reach the affective faculty and 24-25 milliseconds to reach the cognitive faculty: thus by the time reasoned cognition can take place the instinctual passions are pumping freeze-fight-flee chemicals throughout the body thus agitating cognitive appraisal ... and whilst there is a narrowband circuit from the cognitive centre to the affective centre (through which reason can dampen-down and stop the reactive response) the circuitry from the affective faculty to the cognitive faculty is broadband (which is why it takes some time to calm down after an emotional reaction).
Not that I knew anything of these laboratory tests all those years ago ... but it is always pleasing when science proves what one has already sussed out for oneself.
(...)
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘By dividing the process up, I mean, why bring in the aspect of time or chronology?
• [Richard]: ‘Again, I am not bringing in sequence (the chronology of time) as that is what happens of its own accord ... and it is so easy to find out for oneself this is so that science is not required at all: there is a loud noise; there is an alarming feeling-freeze-fight-flee [reaction]; there is thought seeking to evaluate.
Ergo: sensate perception is primary; affective perception is secondary; cognitive perception is tertiary.
As animals other than the human animal display this ‘fright-freeze-fight-flee’ instinctually passionate reaction it is patently obvious that the feeling self is primal and the thinking self derivative ... and that the thinking self is, fundamentally, affective in substance. Moreover, there is some evidence that awareness of being this primordial ‘self’ – as in ‘self’-consciousness – has arisen in other animals: the chimpanzee, for example, can recognise its image in a mirror as being itself and not another of its species (such as the canary does for instance) and there are preliminary reports that the same may be happening for the dolphin.
Further to the point, as the essential affective feelings are in situ before thought first arises in infancy – a baby is born already feeling – it becomes even more obvious that the feeler, as an embryonic feeling being, is innate in sentient beings ... that the already existing basic set of survival passions form themselves into being the intuitive presence which, at root, is what any ‘me’ ultimately is long before the thinker comes into being.
Any and all conditioning, be it familial, societal, peer-group, or environmental imprinting, needs substance to latch onto, sink into, and be ... it all washes off a clean slate like water off a duck’s back. (Richard, List B, No. 12r, 16 January 2003).

Innocence is something entirely new to human experience.

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