PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

328Pacific Worldfort. This “cause” must then be attacked, in either subtle or overt ways.Attacking the external representation, however, in fact expresses efforts tomaintain denial within the self. In general, “Projective and transferencedistortions operate in such a way that one’s core assumptions about thenature of the self and reality remain relatively intact into adulthood, evenin the face of mildly threatening conditions.” 28The Homeostatic Processes of MindBecause conceptual constructs constitute the template for how thecognitive system experientially manifests, system homeostasis depends onpreserving and defending those concepts through an array of cognitiveand psychological processes. What is the nature of these processes? Tosome degree, homeostasis is a function of the inherently self-reinforcingnature of the system itself. As Allan Combs explains, consciousness isstabilized by the “tendency of the whole experience to support its constituents,and for them in turn to create the whole.” 29 The perceived worldautomatically confirms the system’s structure since it is to some degreeconstructed by the system.At the perceptual level, the mind’s self-reinforcing nature means thatanomalies are rarely, if ever, experienced. We may encounter an unidentifiableobject, for example, but this object is still intelligible as a substantial“thing” existing within the larger context of a sensible world. In general,the “reality” of what we experience as “the world” is taken for granted andseldom if ever challenged. In this context, homeostasis does not requirenegotiating anomalies (except perhaps during extreme drug-induced experiences)since perceptual constructs, experience, and world generallyinteract as a seamless, self-reinforcing process.The requirements for homeostasis shift at the evaluative level. Evaluativeresponses to particular qualities, experiences, things, and circumstancesare a quite different type of process than establishing the globalparameters of experience itself. As illusory as appearances may be, they arecontinuous with the Reality that supports them (the construction of appearancesactually depends on this continuity), 30 and emerge as a hermeneuticallycircular frame of reference that in ordinary circumstances isimmune to perturbations. This is not the case with evaluative constructs—a person’s overarching categorization of appearances as desirable or repellant.Here homeostasis requires processes aimed at maintaining idealimages of “the desirable” (to feel safe and experience positive affectivestates) as well as avoiding negative images of “the repellant” (to avoidnegative affective states, especially feelings of abandonment). This demandsunique cognitive processes compared to those associated withperceptual constructs, since evaluative judgments are correlated with