Positive States of mind and being - Part 1 Flashcards
WHat was the one general point of agreement b/w west and east philosophy?
material world unpleasant; to be transcended → to live a more fulfilled and happy life
When is transcendence possible according to western philosophy?
mostly after death → Western thought, could not be achieved in our own lives
• Not many opportunities to get beyond the unpleasantness of the material world while we are still alive
When is transcendence possible according to eastern philosophy?
transcendence possible during life, personal ability to transcend the unpleasant material world while we are here
- Philosophy and religion _____ in West and separate from psychology, _______ in the East
- seperate, intertwined
- Western religion is not about the human mind, it is about :
transcendence from above, and divine gift of salvation
- East says more about _____ than the west
psychology : who we are and what we do
What is hedonia versus eudaimonia
living a life of Pleasure vs. living a life of virtue
What is the ultimate goal according to hedonism?
pleasure, we want to be happy
- Pursue pleasure whenever it shows up
- Present pleasures should not be deferred for the sake of future pleasures
Accoding to hedonism what shouldn’t we be dominated by?
- Not be dominated by our carnal pleasures → controlled or managed
- We should control, not be controlled by our pleasures
What does pleasure include according to hedonism?
mental pleasure, love, friendship, moral contentment
- Sensual pleasures, however, intellectual life, curiosity, wisdom, knowledge, exploration, friendship, moral contentment
Who was associated with hedonism
Aristippus
Was aristotle associated with hedonistic or Eudaimonic philosophies?
- Eudaimonic (living the good life of virtue)
What are the 2 kinds of virtue?
1) Moral virtue: subordinate sensual appetites to reason
• To reason, mentally control urges, suppress and redirect → Freud
• through practice, not human nature → engage in behaviours that control/redirect innate energies = control them, and pleasure in controlling (pride)
• Moderating desires
2) Intellectual Virtue: wisdom, understanding
• Acquired by teaching → began schools in Athens to teach these things
• Self-understanding
• Knowing the world around us and others
what is better hedonistic or Eudaimonic pleasures?
Best to have a mixture of both
Eudaimonic pleasures are primarily associated with
positively associated with positive affect, emotionality and negatively associated with negative affect
Peaople who persue Eudaimonic goals have…
greater sense of self satisfaction, fulfillment, connectedness to the world around them
hedonic pleasures have advantages in the ____ term but eudaimonic have a ____ term advantage
short, long
how old is hinduism?
more than 8000 years ago (route from which Buddhism sprang)
What is the goal of life according to hinduism?
ultimate self-knowledge and self-betterment (becoming more of who you are, a better person, gain wisdom, self-knowledge)
Define the notion of Karma (Hinduism)
during each life we gain partial understanding and don’t get perfect understanding and so are reborn, status of birth depends on how much self-understanding and virtue we gained in previous life, until we have so much self-understanding they we do not need to be reborn
what improves our position when reincarnated
- Partial understanding and good works (?)
how do we lose touch with our real self? (according to hinduism)
due to involvement with our physical self and its search for happiness
- too attached to material world
How are we liberated from unhappiness and reincarnation (hinduism)
- By achieving awareness of our true self and ultimate reality (Brahman)
what is the foundation of Chinese civilization, even modern civilization
Confucianism
What is the focus of confucianism?
Focus on relationships with others and how we fit in to the society
What must we attain according to confucianism?
Must attain virtue and morality
what are the five virtues central to a moral life (confucianism)?
- Humanity (benevolence, charity, love): behaving well towards others
- Propriety (sensitivity to others; etiquette): expect, good manners, awareness of others
- Duty (appropriate treatment of others): behaviour towards others, the Western golden rule, do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself
- Wisdom: understanding how things are, seeing things clearly (no ego defence)
- Honesty: truthfulness
The way to live a good life has never been a secret but we forget, and it can be difficult to do some of these things
Which philosopher was associated with Taoism?
Maslow
How do taoists view “striving”?
- Striving is vain and counterproductive: should do things naturally, going with the flow
What is the most important goal in Taoism?
- Naturalness and spontaneity in life
humanity, justice, temperance, and propriety must be practiced without effort
Shouldn’t seem like work to do good for others is an idea from _____
Taoism
Without ____ there is no desire, without desire there is ________
-Taoism
form (material things), tranquility
Where is Buddhism most influencial?
in the West
Who was the founder of Buddhism?
Siddhartha Gautama; 5th-6th century BCE
- son of indian king
- rasied in palace then saw suffering adn was appauled
- became enlightened adn began to preach what he found/how to achieve it
Buddha as a _______ psychologist
cognitive
• Power of mind
• What we can do psychologically to achieve better states of well-being
Human problems arise from what according to buddhism?
problems arise from the way we think
similar to Bandura and Mischel → real issue is how we think about things
What is personality according to buddhism?
• Personality → how we view the word
What is pathology according to Buddhism
do not result from experience but form the ways we interpret and deal with those experiences
What is the middle way? (Buddhism)
The eight fold path - not too much, not to little → middle way between indulgence and asceticism
The nature of things is excepted in the _____
West - but not a major part
fixed unchanging entities are what?
an illusion → way that the brain deals with the world
• No such thing as permanence
Acording to Bandura and mischel, everything is _____ and ____ process
a changing and ephemeral process
→ personality as always changing
Everything is interconnect in a web of ____ and _______
causes and conditions
• Any change would change the outcome
What is the Quantam Theory (Buddhism/physics)?
→ very successful theory: basic matter, photons, electrons, does not exist until observed
• The world does not exist until human beings look at it
what is meant by the quantum and the lotus
where science and Buddhism meet
What are the 4 noble truths?
1) Life is filled with suffering (western philosophy, Ex: birth trauma, aging, disease)
2) Suffering is caused by ignorance of reality, and our attachment and craving
• Hunger’s not suffering, wanting food is
3) Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance (Wisdom will conquer suffering)
4) Relief from suffering comes through the Eightfold path
• Self-actualization = Nirvana
What is the eight fold path?
1) The right view: to see and understand things as they really are
2) Right intention: commitment to mental and ethical self-improvement
3) Right speech: truthful, gentle speak only when necessary (avoid lying or hurting others with words)
4) Right action: kind, compassionate, honest, respect goods of others
5) Right livelihood: earn a righteous, peaceful living (don’t make money from others suffering - weapons/poison)
6) Right effort: work toward wholesome states of mind
7) Right mindfulness: see things and concepts clearly; be aware
8) Right contemplation, or meditation: concentration on wholesome thoughts and actions
What are the 4 functions of meditation?
- Focusing (no mind wandering)
- Developing mindfulness: awareness of things as they are in the moment outside and inside me
- Desensitizing oneself (in fears - flooding/implosive therapy)
- Seeking understanding (sense of self, see world as it is - highest/difficult function of mediation)
What are the 3 types of mindfulness?
• Body mindfulness: what is physically happening in your body, focus on the breath first)
o focusing muscle tension,
• Feelings mindfulness: you do not judge or evaluate the things that you are aware of
o Conveyor belt ex: observe them as they past,
•Thought mindfulness: notice the thoughts and let them go
o Obsessive thoughts and fears causing us suffering
o Don’t evaluate or judge,
What are the 2 meanings of Nirvana?
- This world meaning
• The good life on earth – defined as the perfect understanding of the world as it is - More spiritual meaning
• Perfect understanding after death
What are the universal virtues?
→ All about our relationships with others
• Loving Kindness: Doing good for others
• Altruistic joy: Taking pleasure in the successes of others
• Compassion: Caring for others in time of trouble
• Equanimity: Not indifference – it means evenness of mind that can’t be upset by gain/loss, pleasure/pain. Inner equipoise.
what is the pinnacle of the divine abodes
Equanimity
What has Dalai Lama done?
- Illuminates what’s happening in the brains of people undergoing meditation
- Wrote many books about being happy
Maslow has closest ties to ____ ideas
buddhist
What are the 2 kinds of Motivation Maslow sees?
1) Deficiency motivation; D-cognition (98%)
o Narrowness of focus: ignore what is not relevant to our needs
o Activity: striving to achieve needs
2) Self-actualization; B-cognition:
o >5% transcend D-cognition, satisfying all needs and become guiding by B-values
o You aren’t driven by them you value them
o purely expressive – be who you are
o Non-striving, passive, broad appreciation/perception of the world
o Passivity is NOT a bad thing
Deficiency motivation is similar to what buddhist idea?
o Similar to Buddhist attachment – suffering is due to ignorance of how the world is and our attachment to material things and that they will solve our problems
according to Maslow’s quote the higest motivation is:
to be unmotivated and non-striving
According to maslow’s quote what is self actualization
to become everything that one is capable of becoming …“
What are the 11 characteristics of the self actualized person?
1) Accurate perception of reality:
- what is there, not wishes/fears
• no verbal categories
2) Acceptance:
• Buddhist equanimity, accept without question/ uncritically
3) Spontaneity:
• don’t do things for affect on others –uniqueness is who they are
4) Problem-centered
• outside not ego centered
• help others, give love
5) Comfort with solitude
-work things out on their own
6) Autonomy
• Self directedness - propelled by growth motivation
7) Fresh appreciation:
8) Human Kinship:
• Identify w broadest set of individuals
• Deep sympathy/affection for humans in general
9)Humility and respect:
• unaware of class, race, religion -respect for all
• aware they lack knowledge/are imperfect
10) Deep interpersonal relationships (few)
11) Peak experiences:
• Buddhist right view/mindfulness
•Brief (minutes), intense period of B-cognition
which trait of the self actualized person is identical to mindfulness in Buddhist thought
Accurate perception of reality
Why did Maslow and Rogers initially support the drug culture
because they stripped away our tendency to see the world in man made categories and see the world as it is.
who said we have an equally strong need to give love as to recieve it
Maslow
Which trait is similar to Buddhist compassion, loving-kindness
Human kinship
What are the 2 triggers for peak experiences
1) Object oriented peak experiences (loved one, painting, sunset),
2) philosophical or religious peak experience (much more global significant and are in some way s grandeur)
What are the 12 characteristics of a peak experience?
1) Wholeness and Unity • one small part of the world (ie. lovers face)perceived as all of the world 2) Full absorption • Percept is exclusively attended/Richness of detail, 3) Richness of perception • the more you see something the more you see in it 4) Sense of human irrelevance • nature = being not thing to be used • See true nature of the object itself 5) Ego transcendent perception • ego-less, Unmotivated • fusion of the perceiver and perceived 6) Spatial, temporal disorientation 7) Always a positive experience 8) Provides a different view of reality • a truer reality - indescribable 9) Passive rather than active • choiceless/desireless awareness 10) Experienced as awesome, wonderful •piercing quality – desirable pain 11) Compassion • complete loving acceptance of the world 12) Falling away of negative emotions •loss of fear, anxiety, control
Maslow praises freuds concept of
free floating attention
• Allowing things to come in without choosing
What personal changes occur in the individual during a peak experience
become More: • integrated(whole) • spontaneous/expressive, •effortless/natural • fully functioning • in charge (make decisions) • creative/unmotivated • unique • ego-less (one with the world)
What happens AFTER a peak experience to the individual?
- Remove neurotic symptoms: It’s therapeutic
- self-awareness
- Change views of others: more caring/sympathetic
- Creativity released
- Wants to repeat the experience (but can be planned)
- Life seems worthwhile/valuable
what is Acceptance in Buddhist philosophy?
equanimity
maslows 8 fold way ego denses is similar to what attribute of the 8 fold path
Buddhist right view
wisdom in confucianism is the same as Maslow’s idea of
no ego defenses?
