This section sets out definitions of concepts as they are used in this understanding. Hopefully they do not contravene those established by common usage but if they do it is recommended that the new definition be adopted
When the only life on earth was swimming around in the primordial soup, simple animals developed awareness of pain, light etc. at an elementary level. An example of such awareness would be the sensing of when a nerve was excited that required a neuron to be fired which would contract a muscle in order to withdraw such an elemental life form from danger. Awareness is conceivable at this level as consciousness of messages from a set of simple switches requiring the initiating of rudimentary actions. From such uncomplicated beginnings the attribute of awareness as we know it today in our own nervous system must have evolved. Although a more accurate precursor to our own consciousness would be one in which a specific stimulus offered a choice of responses. Awareness is a passive attribute of our nervous system dependant for its efficiency only on other passive attributes like wakefulness, concentration, attentiveness and alertness. The linking of movement with the end of a painful stimulus can be attributed to simple association of ideas.
When a near infinite number of such primitive life forms experience a painful stimulus; some move randomly in response; some of these move away from the stimulus; and a few of these come to associate "moving away" with "relief of pain". Thus purposeful action is initiated: a purposeful action which has culminated on Earth in creatures with our kind of nervous system.
When the mechanisms of evolution and mutation act on organic material, it seems that anything is possible - given geological time. After all, your computer is based on whether or not a simple switch is either on or off! The result of such development, evolution and mutation is that we now have an intricate and detailed appreciation of what is going on directly in our body and indirectly, via our sensory apparatus, in our immediate environment.
Awareness is I/1
The word "I" is used in a variety of ways:
Firstly, it is employed to indicate that natural characteristic of my central nervous system called "awareness". Defining "I" this way enables me to state that if "I" am not aware, "I" do not exist. (No matter how temporarily.) For example, during deep sleep or when anaesthetised. This "I" (lets call it I/1) appears to us to be the observer located a few centimetres behind our eyes. It is also what performs all our thinking and perceiving - all our conscious mental activity.
Secondly, "I" (I/2 or "the self") is used to signify a collection of data associated in a particular nervous system with one particular person. It is the sum of that person's memories, prejudices, preferences, ambitions, morals (or lack of them), fetishes etc. In other words, the whole of that person's character and personality. (The first "I" is contained within this second one.)
Thirdly, "I" (I/3) is synonymous with the gross physical body, including the central nervous system and ,of course, the first and second versions of "I". The first two examples of "I" are of most significance to this theory. I/1 is the beneficiary of all our experiences and the perpetrator of all our conscious mental activity. It is this "I" which eventually experiences Nirvana. The personal elements of I/2 are the ones which the mystics recommend be dissolved (leaving I/1 behind).
These range from the simplest life-sustaining appetites, like hunger, thirst and sex, to mankind's most complex and sophisticated drives, goals and ambitions. For example: curing cancer, exploring the solar system and understanding the world we live in etc. In this context, security of person and property, an innate need for justice, compassion (even love) and the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are all included in the category of appetites. Appetites are cravings for things the lack of which makes us, at the very least miserable and, in the worst case, dead. Some appetites are life-sustaining while others are inculcated by our peers or by advertisers; some are essential and some are not. If we are not hungry, thirsty or uncomfortable then our basic, life-sustaining appetites are satisfied. However, maintaining that position usually requires us to do a job of work - to make some contribution to the society of which we are part - and this duty introduces many more appetites which fall into the "life-sustaining" category.
. This is the arena of awareness. It is the brain's R A M. Its extent and location vary from moment to moment. This is where I/1 does its conscious thinking and perceiving and it is here, in the mind, that what we remember from the store of data in our memory, our moods and emotions together with whatever data our senses are in the process of gathering are all simultaneously experienced.
Data Our sensory apparatus provides us with a plethora of information or data about our bodies and our environment of which we are said to be selectively aware or conscious. External data is comprised of the interactions between objects in our environment and our sensory apparatus, - modified on occasion by the environment itself (poor visibility) and our own physical condition (encroaching deafness). In addition to being aware of data from outside ourselves we are also aware of information from within our body like pain and pleasure. We are also conscious of data in the form of memories retrieved from memory stores within our central nervous system. In addition, we are also constantly and unavoidably aware of whatever moods and emotions we happen to be experiencing, as a current running deep under whatever conscious mental activity we are engaged in.
Moods and emotions are experienced directly, independently of our sensory apparatus. Moods, ranging from happiness through boredom to depression and misery, depend upon the physical condition of the brain - as will be explained in the body of the theory - while emotions, like anger, love, lust, fear, hate, etc. modify the condition of our brain (and body) chemically, using hormones.
This is the perception, accumulation, recall and association of data and the direction of action. It is all thinking, all problem solving, all reminiscing, all daydreaming, all planning and all predicting. It is every conscious operation involving data collected inside or outside our body. It is not awareness; that is a characteristic of our central nervous system which can employ conscious mental activity (CMA). We can be aware without necessarily employing CMA but we can never employ CMA without being aware.( The opposite of CMA is conscious mental inactivity.)
Like any computer, or other data-handling device, the brain has an operating system (lets call it B O S version Mega-n, for fun). It enables the interpretation and processing of data from external sources which comes to us via our sensory apparatus. Moods, emotions, pleasures and pains are experienced directly by our awareness (by I/1) without the mediation of B O S.
Some of the processes which operate under the auspices of B O S are automatic and we are never conscious of them (like mechanisms which govern our heart-rate or the chemical balance of our body), but "seeing", "hearing", etc. require awareness to be active, present and selective in the specialised sites of the brain reserved for those activities.
A cornerstone of B O S is the idea of "self " (I/2) in opposition to the concept of "the environment". It enables us to recognise problems as "ours" and so encourages us to formulate solutions to them. This "I" (aka "the self") is the one Buddhists recommend we dispense with in our meditation. If B O S is the first gate through which we must pass on our way to efficient thought then language is the second. Encoding and compressing sets of data into single words enables abstract thought to proceed apace.Extremely complex concepts can be encoded into a single word. Not to mention the advantage language bestows of allowing the creation of an enormous data bank of written (or at least oral) knowledge accessible to all and susceptible to being developed and expanded by each new generation. Language is the foundation stone of technological progress. The theory of meditation is the cornerstone of every civilised society.
The role of conscious mental activity is the satisfaction of appetite. It is the tool our remotest ancestors used to ease the pangs of hunger etc. as they locomoted through that legendary primordial liquor. Imagine one appetite in isolation. Say, hunger. My remotest ancestor - a speck of protoplasm - floats aimlessly in his pond. The store of food in his gut is suddenly exhausted and message flashes to his aware but inert "brain". On receipt of it there is a flurry of conscious mental activity as appropriate action is planned and the next meal is pursued, caught and swallowed. Complaints from the creature's gut now cease whereupon the brain reverts to its former state of passive vigilance. We have many appetites, drives and ambitions but that is the model for them all. Our bodies dictate and our central nervous systems obey Because our brains have developed to their present degree of vastly complicated sophistication, we can, perhaps, be forgiven for making the mistake of believing that we are primarily "mental" creatures with our bodies dragging along behind like pieces of litter. We are not. We never have been and we never will be.
Conscious mental activity was in the beginning, is now and always will be the tool the body employs to satisfy its appetites.
It is the mainstay of this theory that perfect happiness is the Buddhist's Nirvana.
Happiness is that pleasant, mental experience characterised by words like contentment, fulfilment and peace of mind which we are all occasionally aware of; that feeling is the "happiness" of this theory. It is a physical condition of the human brain. Whatever makes you happy produces this experience in your brain for you to become aware of. This theory is concerned about what goes on in your head when you have done whatever it is that makesyou happy. It analyses happiness at its most fundamental level. It is an explanation of the physical processes involved in happiness expressed in terms of the basic mechanisms involved in the experience. That basic process is the same in all of us regardless of the multiplicity of events which produce it. In this theory happiness is defined as a mood.
Happiness is the only valid, projected outcome of every action we undertake for ourselves or on behalf of others. It is what we work for throughout our lives. It is impossible that sane people work to feel miserable. What incentive to work would producing a neutral state of mind provide? Consider the "appetite" of thirst: to be deprived of liquid for any abnormal length of time induces an extremely unpleasant stateof mind. An inability to quench our thirst ensures a crescendo of physical and psychological suffering. There can be no respite until we organise getting a drink.
The attainment of happiness - the sole arbiter of success in life - is the common human goal. Ask yourself how you would feel after having achieved your greatest ambition. I venture the opinion that you would feel fulfilled, content, satisfied and at peace with the world - in a word happy! Pleasures make us happy; pains reduce whatever happiness we feel.
Although there is only one kind of happiness, it comes to us from two sources;
Primary happiness reflects the underlying condition of our brain; it is a measure of how much random and habitual thinking is going on there. (The less, the better.)
Secondary happiness reflects how successfully we have satisfied our appetites, particularly our life-sustaining ones.
How happy we feel from moment to moment is always a composite of those two sorts. This is why we can sometimes satisfy an appetite or achieve an ambition only to find that we are not as happy as we had anticipated. This is because we have ignored the effect primary happiness (that most potent of modifiers) has on our mood.
Meditators work at improving primary happiness.