PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Studstill: Cybernetic Approach to Dzogchen 327The following example illustrates this connection: I may strive to own a redCorvette (because a red Corvette is good), but the motivating power of thatimage is based on a learned association between it and more basic drives,e.g., for sex or belonging. In general, the second, learned level comprises acomplex system of images and concepts that carry emotionally charged,positive or negative associations.Once established, these conditions set up a semantic context in whichinputs become potential signals of safety and belonging or abandonmentand death. This context generates the continuous “dis-locating” processesof ordinary consciousness. Once the desirable is defined in terms of aspecific set of conditions, the mind has to continuously “seek” the desirable,straying from the immediacy of awareness as it grasps at thoughts,feelings, and circumstances. Depending on environmental conditions, thisongoing “dis-location” may be accompanied by a close and obsessivemonitoring of self-image and environment. According to Paul Gilbert, “Allstimuli must be evaluated for the degree of threat or potential rewardpresent in a situation.” 24 For example, when interacting with others,individuals are very sensitive to how others attend and regardthem…. The sense of self… is constantly in tune with the degree towhich one is able to elicit investment from others and find anacceptable and secure place in relationship. Put simply, we livemore than one life. We live our own lives in our own heads, but alsowe wish to live a positive life in the minds of others. 25The motivation to live “a positive life in the minds of others” is egocentric,however, and therefore orients attention back on the self. In this sense,attending to the other is self-referential, as suggested by Harold Sackeimand Ruben Gur’s observation that “in normal conversation individuals canbe said to be continually self-monitoring.” 26Since evaluative associations all concern the well-being of the self, theyexercise their strongest cognitive effects in relation to creating and maintaininga self-image. Evaluative conditions define an ideal self-image andthen constrain cognitive processes to support that image. For example, anyaspect of the self that matches negative associations is experienced as athreat and must therefore be repressed. Functioning in a somewhat analogousway to Jung’s shadow, this repressed material is projected, makingany aspect of the environment that represents the shadow equally threatening.In other words, external threats mirror internal denial. In systemsterms, Glenn Perry describes this projection as psychic “waste,” whichaccumulates in the environment leading to eventual toxicity. 27 Such externalrepresentations of the shadow have the power to generate intense statesof anxiety and fear, though in many cases these emotions are suppressedin the wake of the anger at what is perceived to be the “cause” of discom-