Interesting. Probably what any human is aware of at the most basic level is the "there is". For Heidegger's Dasein, this would likely be "Being" (Sein), though I personally am a fan of Levinasian phenomenology so I like to reference the il y a (French: "there is"). This is most clearly experienced during the night when there is no light and the objects of experience are hidden. The "night" or the "darkness" is not a thing, it is the presence of absence. Here we have the essence of horror: not the fear of death but the fear of being, the invasion of private subjectivity by an anonymous vigilance or field of forces. It's a silent murmuring, and the dread we feel when looking at corpses (as if they'll come back into being at any second). The il y a is what is left over when we negate everything else; it's the density of the void. I think this is something everyone is aware of at all times, but it is especially evident during the nocturnal hours and exacerbated through insomnia.

Now, I spend much of my attention on what is going on inside me. I often find myself stopping what I’m doing or thinking to figure out what I feel about something. Given where I’ve come from, it’s an incredibly freeing experience. It’s so much fun. — T Clark

Yes, I agree. At times it is an exhilarating experience to read phenomenology and come across a perfect description of an experience that was previously clouded and ambiguous.

Probably what any human is aware of at the most basic level is the "there is". ....The il y a is what is left over when we negate everything else; it's the density of the void. — darthbarracuda

Isn't what you call awareness of the "there is" really a lack of awareness of anything? No, I don't think that's right. It is possible to be aware of the unspoken wholeness, but I don't think people generally are. Certainly not most of the time and often never. I can be, sometimes, but not for long.

Isn't what you call awareness of the "there is" really a lack of awareness of anything? — T Clark

Isn't the lack of awareness of anything just unconsciousness?

Isn't the lack of awareness of anything just unconsciousness? — darthbarracuda

By "unconsciousness" do you mean knocked over the head unconsciousness as opposed to a lack of personal reflection? If the first, then no. I think some animals are probably aware - they direct their attention at important aspects of the world. But animals are not generally conscious in the way we usually think about it. If the second, then yes, lack of awareness is unconsciousness as those words are most often used. As I discussed in my post, I am using them somewhat differently here.

I think that I was too aware of my emotional state as a child and teen, or rather that I felt things to strongly, and this resulted in anxiety problems in later life. I’ve had to work at unraveling the emotional tints in perception that were created in early development. That’s been liberating but I can’t say it’s been fun. Perception without those tints is enjoyable, as is meditative experiences and mindfulness.

For its objective, 3rd-person meaning, isn’t awareness the property of being a purposefully-responsive device? That’s also how I define “consciousness”, for an objective 3rd person meaning.
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I know that “awareness” and “consciousness” are often used interchangeably, and that different people use them differently from how other people use them.
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Nisargatta’s meanings for those words was similar to what you said. It seems to me that he meant “consciousness” to be about concepts, where “awareness” is general.
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Maybe it’s convenient to give “consciousness” its conventional meaning of “waking consciousness”.
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So then there isn’t consciousness in deep sleep, but some say that there’s awareness. Well, there must be, at the periphery of deep-sleep. Difficult to say unless there’s memory of that state. Some say that there sometimes is, at least at its periphery.
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A subjective meaning for “awareness” is more difficult, because it’s so basic to us. Maybe it can’t even be defined or described, for that reason.
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When I was a teenager, I was almost completely unaware of what I felt emotionally. Worse, it didn’t seem like I felt anything. I felt inauthentic in a fundamental way. Numb. Frozen. It made it incredibly difficult to have healthy relationships with others – family, friends, lovers.

Conditioning by others (parents, culture, teachers, other kids). The difference now is that you've had time to overcome the conditioning. Also, we're born dependent on parents, regarding the matter of how things are, sand what life is about. ...and that's often thoroughly destructive to a person's life..

I don't know the person who I was, as a teenager or before. I know what some of the feelings were, and notions of what was important. But I have no idea how I arrived at those notions of what's important. Conditioning, I'd guess, at the emotional level, starting early in pre-verbal age.

Michael Ossipoff

I’ve had to work at unraveling the emotional tints in perception that were created in early development. — praxis

If it's not prying and you think it might be relevant, can you describe the emotional tints.

I don't know the person who I was, as a teenager or before. I know what some of the feelings were, and notions of what was important. But I have no idea how I arrived at those notions of what's important. Conditioning, I'd guess, at the emotional level, starting early in pre-verbal age. — Michael Ossipoff

I'm not sure I'm talking about the same thing you are - I have always felt cut off from the person I was before maybe 15 or 16 years old. I remember disconnected things that happened, but not how my life fit together and not much about my internal life. As I have become more self-aware, I find that my connection to that boy is becoming stronger - he feels more like me.

This is a nice topic. I'll throw in my two cents.

I never pondered this subject till I came across the book, "The Power of Now", by Eckhart Tolle. My life has never been the same after reading the first four pages of that book. Allow me to describe, briefly, a couple of terms, before I get to my experiences.

Eckhart defines consciousness as "thoughtless awareness". In other words, it's perception prior to the first thought about what you are perceiving. If you think of consciousness as a blank canvas, all your thoughts and feelings are colors and shapes drawn on that canvas. Pure consciousness is stillness, it is tranquility, it is peace.

That said, my own life, like most others, is dominated by thinking (98% of it useless/repetitive, like in almost all humans), but I welcome brief gaps in that thinking whenever they occur. For instance, let's say I'm out on the porch in the morning with my hot chocolate, and a blue jay lands on a nearby branch, there is a brief moment of absolute stillness ... no thoughts, no ideas, no judgments, just perception. And, that is very refreshing and peaceful, given how much thought dominates human existence.

People who meditate are chasing this gap in thinking, with the goal being stillness and peace. But, I think that it's the practice of meditation itself that gets in the way of that goal, because the pursuit of something creates thoughts about it, which doesn't help when what you are trying to do is stop thinking. Eckhart says, "You cannot cause it to happen, but you can allow it to happen" (referring to thoughtless awareness)

I'm not sure I'm talking about the same thing you are - I have always felt cut off from the person I was before maybe 15 or 16 years old. I remember disconnected things that happened, but not how my life fit together and not much about my internal life. — T Clark

It sounds like the same phenomenon. Disconnected things happened--disconnected for lack of any notion of the principle or purpose behind one's life. It never occurs to a small kid (or even a teenager, in my case) to sit down and say, "Wait a minute! What's going on here? What's my purpose and priorities for this life?" I acted on my already-acquired priorities about what was important,but there was no understanding about, or connection with, or even awareness of, the matter of what it was really about. That sounds like what you said about how a person's life fits togeteher, and internal life.

In that regard, as a kid, I was more like the non-human animals. I guess that's natural, and it makes kids particularly vulnerable to conditioning and bullying by parents and culture.

As I have become more self-aware, I find that my connection to that boy is becoming stronger - he feels more like me.

Part of the value of getting older is an opportunity to maybe understand something about oneself as a kid, and what happened then, and how & why. I can't understand myself at those earlier ages, how I arrived at my priorities then, because I was a different person then. But I can deduce some things about the kid and what happened, but more in an objective way, something like when a scientist tries to explain an animal's behavior..

Michael Ossipoff

Eckhart defines consciousness as "thoughtless awareness". In other words, it's perception prior to the first thought about what you are perceiving. If you think of consciousness as a blank canvas, all your thoughts and feelings are colors and shapes drawn on that canvas. Pure consciousness is stillness, it is tranquility, it is peace. — Aurora

What you are calling "consciousness" I have been calling "awareness" and vise versa, which is fine. I don't care about the terminology much. It's the experience I want to get at. It's that "prior to the first thought" experience.

People who meditate are chasing this gap in thinking, with the goal being stillness and peace. But, I think that it's the practice of meditation itself that gets in the way of that goal, because the pursuit of something creates thoughts about it, which doesn't help when what you are trying to do is stop thinking. Eckhart says, "You cannot cause it to happen, but you can allow it to happen" (referring to thoughtless awareness) — Aurora

I have friends who meditate and they would disagree with you vigorously. I know them well enough to see they have gotten something of great - life changing - value out of meditation. Personally, my experience is more like yours. When I try to meditate, all I can do is think that I'm not supposed to think. Trying not to try seems to be one of the ironies of the Eastern approach to philosophy. I believe it can work, but I have never had the discipline to make it work for me. Seems to me that is a flaw in my ability to surrender to what meditation has to offer rather than a flaw in the method.

Part of the value of getting older is an opportunity to maybe understand something about oneself as a kid, and what happened then, and how & why. I can't understand myself at those earlier ages, how I arrived at my priorities then, because I was a different person then. But I can deduce some things about the kid and what happened, but more in an objective way, something like when a scientist tries to explain an animal's behavior.. — Michael Ossipoff

It's sad, or maybe funny, that it's taken me 50 years to get to the point where I can sit in the same room with that 15 year old boy.

Tolle's description of that problem was excellent, and a wake-up call. ...how people's internal conceptual narrative about description, evaluation, & classification--and the related or resulting perpetual postponement of satisfaction (the present is just something to get through, for something better later)--displaces actual genuine experience.

But, I think that it's the practice of meditation itself that gets in the way of that goal, because the pursuit of something creates thoughts about it, which doesn't help when what you are trying to do is stop thinking. — Aurora

That was how it felt to me, and so I never could get anywhere with meditation. But I never really made a full project and practice of it.

Michael Ossipoff

Well that's one good reason why I'm glad to have lived as long as I have. For whatever reason(s), a kid just doesn't doesn't have that capability of critically-understanding his life. Later we benefit from learning-experience, and getting farther from the early conditioning.

And it's definitely important and helpful to have some understanding now, about what happened and how. ...even though of course it's too late for it to help the kid of that earlier time. Too soon old, too late smart.

Michael Ossipoff

Tolle's description of that problem was excellent, and a wake-up call. ...how people's internal conceptual narrative about description, evaluation, & classification--and the related or resulting perpetual postponement of satisfaction (the present is just something to get through, for something better later)--displaces actual genuine experience. — Michael Ossipoff

That is very well put :) "perpetual postponement of satisfaction". English is a beautiful language, isn't it ? At least it was, till the internet came along and began contaminating it with pseudo-verbs like "Google" and "friend" ("friend me on Facebook").

Glad to know that someone else here has read Tolle :)

And yes, it is counter-intuitive, as is a lot of spirituality, but the real meditation is in the present moment and nowhere else. When you put aside a specific 10 minutes for it, you are already lost because you are no longer in the present ... you are chasing something in the future, and using the present as a means to an end, as you mentioned.

And yes, it is counter-intuitive, as is a lot of spirituality, but the real meditation is supposed to be any moment of any day. When you put aside a specific 10 minutes for it, you are already lost because you are no longer in the present ... you are chasing something in the future, and using the present as a means to an end, as you mentioned. — Aurora

I doubt that's how the Buddha saw it.

Seems to me that is a flaw in my ability to surrender to what meditation has to offer rather than a flaw in the method — T Clark

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one :) The moment something is a "method", it is already an obstacle to awareness/presence.

Now, there are certainly ways (physiological/neurological) to reduce mental noise. Why do people drink or take drugs ? What is, ultimately, the "high" about ? It is largely about the lack of those pesky thoughts that dominate our existence. But, these are crutches at best, in my opinion. Meditation is one of them.

I will copy here what I wrote in my response to Michael Ossipoff ...

"It is counter-intuitive, as is a lot of spirituality, but the real meditation is in the present moment and nowhere else. When you put aside a specific 10 minutes for it, you are already lost because you are no longer in the present ... you are chasing something in the future, and using the present as a means to an end."

Well that's one good reason why I'm glad to have lived as long as I have. For whatever reason(s), a kid just doesn't doesn't have that capability of critically-understanding his life. Later we benefit from learning-experience, and getting farther from the early conditioning.

And it's definitely important and helpful to have some understanding now, about what happened and how. ...even though of course it's too late for it to help the kid of that earlier time. Too soon old, too late smart. — Michael Ossipoff

It's my understanding that, if I reach enlightenment just 10 seconds before I die, I win.

I doubt that's how the Buddha saw it. — T Clark

I can't speak for the Buddha; only for myself :) I don't know what he experienced, but I will say this with almost absolute certainty ... if someone comes to you and tells you that, from 2:00 pm to 2:10 pm everyday, he/she has the exact same experience, and that that experience never changes from day to day, that no thoughts ever occur, then, what you are being told is boldfaced lies.

For the purpose of this discussion, by consciousness I mean the capacity for putting experiences into words. Awareness, on the other hand, is pre-verbal. — T Clark

Interesting OP. Speaking from psychological science, what you are noting - in my view - is that the ability to introspect on "the contents of the mind" is a learnt and linguistically-structured skill.

So first up, introspection is not some hardwired biological brain capacity - intrinsic to "being conscious". It is very much a learnt skill that we pick up as part of our cultural upbringing and made possible because self-directed speech does allow us to focus our attention and create a narrative story of "what is going on inside".

So it is therefore quite easy to miss stuff in our own heads if we haven't formed the right conceptual structure to notice it. We can be like infants who still find the world a buzzing confusion, or remote tribesmen transported to a big city, who don't quite yet have the eyes to make sense of what they see (any more than a big city person would be able to make proper coherent sense of a tropical forest if dropped straight into it).

We have to learn what to expect when we introspect to actually even begin to "see it". This could easily be something we haven't learnt to do even as teenagers. And then our ideas about what we should find inside are so culturally dependent that we are only going to see what our cultures kind of teach us to see.

Take how dreams were widely thought to happen only in black and white back in the 1950s. Seems ridiculous that this was an academic belief.

Yet I thought that dreams were only visual, so was surprised that once I started asking the question and paying attention, I found there were smells and tastes as well.

Likewise, I believe that there was of course motion in dream images. Yet on closer examination, I realised that there is only a swirling sense of flow or zoom. The image itself was a static single frame with a sense of motion added.

That made scientific sense when I thought about it. Motion and shape are processed separately in the visual cortex. But maybe without this other kind of cultural explanation, I might not have believed the evidence of my own eyes. I might have still reported actual moving imagery as my introspective state.

Generally, my introspective understanding of my own thinking and experiencing processes utterly changed after a few years of studying the neurology of the phenomenology. Once I had learnt the correct constructs, I could know what to expect to see and so actually start to see it accurately. It became a habit to not just think thoughts, but to be also able to catch how a pattern of thought came together.

I can see the universe – everything, stars and electrons, love, god, macaroni and cheese, my brothers - as a cloud. When I am putting ideas together to describe what I know or make an argument, I am very aware that I am putting together a story and I see a curve, a narrative arc, that shows the sequence of facts, ideas, and conclusions I am using to make my case. — T Clark

I was puzzled by this. When you say you see a cloud, do you mean visually see a jostle of images or do you mean something more kinesthetic and visuospatial, like having a sense of all these things "more or less within reach"? So they swim as possibilities on the periphery and can be brought sharply into view as required.

You might indeed be much more concretely visual than me. People do vary.

When I was a teenager, I was almost completely unaware of what I felt emotionally. Worse, it didn’t seem like I felt anything. I felt inauthentic in a fundamental way. Numb. Frozen. — T Clark

Again, this sounds odd the way you describe it. It is hard to imagine not feeling things, even if the feelings are confused, inchoate, hard to pin down.

But neuroscience says it is quite possible as reportable emotion does depend on the strength of linkages between the frontal cortex and the limbic emotion centres. There could be biological reasons for a lack of access.

On the other hand, again there is a learning issue. Positive psychology does try to train people to notice the fine-grain detail of what they feel. It is a skill to be learnt, and one that thus involves the learning of a conceptual framing. People might not realise when they feel anxious or tense. Once they start looking, they can see how their body is responding and separate their feelings in that fashion.

So the general message is that all introspection is a learnt art. We have to have the concepts which tell us what to expect before it becomes easy and habitual to see our own internal world in a stably constructed way.

The flip side of that is that we mostly only get to learn the framing of our interior world that comes from our cultural backdrop. Our families and childhood relations can be as distorting as enlightening. Society teaches us the habits that best suit it.

We can broaden our view of what should be going on through art and literature. Books and films paint a picture of what "being a person" ought to be like. But even this is going to be more cultural than accurate.

Then we can start to introspect through the eyes of scientific knowledge. This should be the truest picture. However even psychological science is heavily socially influenced. It perpetuates many of the traditional cultural stereotypes itself. Phenomenology is rather fringe to its concerns. So there are only a few talented folk - like Oliver Sacks - who really get into it.

Another problem for psychological science is that we are all in fact neurologically varied. So there isn't in fact a one size fits all account.

For instance, both my daughters have synesthesia to different degrees. Words and numbers provoke sensations of colour. Neither properly realised it until we happened to be talking about it one evening when they were teenagers.

It is the kind of neuro distinction that society has no use for and so there is no cultural tip-off that warns people it might be a possibility. Whereas kids get tested for colour blindness.

Another interesting one is dyscalculia - a basic problem imagining the kind of visuospatial relations needed to be good with handling numbers or telling the time.

Society took a while to diagnose dyslexia as a widespread "problem". It came to the fore as a literate workforce became a universal educational need. Dyscalculia only started to get the same recognition in the 1990s. Until then, it was OK to just be a lazy maths hater. It was natural and socially quite normal to be bad at sums.

So society really does shape what we believe about what we should find "inside". It is the prime source of any conceptual structure. And it approaches introspection in its own often quite self-interested way.

Sure, but whatever enlightenment we arrive at is largely from the experience of living yogically, conscientiously, unharmingly, self-responsibly, peacefully and considerately to ourselves and others, and open to new experience. ...over some significant period of time.

Anyway, according to Eastern tradition, practically no one achieves Enlightenment--life-completion--in this lifetime. Once in life, we aren't done till we're done.

In any case, that same tradition says that life-completion will eventually be there for everyone, but almost certainly not by the end of this lifetime. I don't even know what it means or would be like. For now, and for the forseeable future, nearly all of us are thoroughly involved with life, due to wants, needs, subconscious predispositions & inclinations, etc.

I agree with the Buddhists and Vedantists about those matters, though it isn't provable.

Michael Ossipoff

Trying not to try seems to be one of the ironies of the Eastern approach to philosophy. I believe it can work, but I have never had the discipline to make it work for me. Seems to me that is a flaw in my ability to surrender to what meditation has to offer rather than a flaw in the method. — T Clark

I think the best approach to Buddhist meditation is that taught by Sōtō Zen, one of the two main schools of Japanese Buddhism (the other being Rinzai). I won’t try and summarise the principles but I found the well-known book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Suzuki, a very effective book for teaching Zen meditation (zazen). The main point is to simply adopt the correct posture and do the practice, i.e. learn to sit on a zafu for some period of time and then direct the attention to the breathing. That’s it. The subtle point of Sōtō teaching, derived from the founder of the school, is that ‘to practice is already to be Buddha’. So there is nothing to seek or to gain. This seems counter-intuitive but it is the essence of the teaching.

I think the best approach to Buddhist meditation is that taught by Sōtō Zen, one of the two main schools of Japanese Buddhism (the other being Rinzai). I won’t try and summarise the principles but I found the well-known book, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Suzuki, a very effective book for teaching Zen meditation (zazen). The main point is to simply adopt the correct posture and do the practice, i.e. learn to sit on a zafu for some period of time and then direct the attention to the breathing. That’s it. The subtle point of Sōtō teaching, derived from the founder of the school, is that ‘to practice is already to be Buddha’. So there is nothing to seek or to gain. This seems counter-intuitive but it is the essence of the teaching. — Wayfarer

You expressed it much better and with much more knowledge and insight than I did, but what you are saying is similar to what I was trying to get across.

The moment something is a "method", it is already an obstacle to awareness/presence. — Aurora

Isn’t not practicing a method a method? :s

If it's not prying and you think it might be relevant, can you describe the emotional tints. — T Clark

Essentially any inexplicable and maladaptive feelings, usually bad of course, otherwise they wouldn’t be a problem.

Essentially any inexplicable and maladaptive feelings, usually bad of course, otherwise they wouldn’t be a problem. — praxis

The reason I asked is that I sometimes attribute colors or other characteristics to feelings, ideas, or other mental constructs. I was just wondering if you were talking about something similar.

Anyway, according to Eastern tradition, practically no one achieves Enlightenment--life-completion--in this lifetime. Once in life, we aren't done till we're done.

In any case, that same tradition says that life-completion will eventually be there for everyone, but almost certainly not by the end of this lifetime. I don't even know what it means or would be like. For now, and for the forseeable future, nearly all of us are thoroughly involved with life, due to wants, needs, subconscious predispositions & inclinations, etc. — Michael Ossipoff

Does it make me New Age if I pick and choose ideas and concepts from different traditions without buying the whole package? As you might guess, I am far from enlightenment, but I do think it is an experience that I can imagine and might be able to achieve. On the other hand, I don't believe we get more than one lifetime to get where we're going.

I love reading your stuff. You always put so much thought into what you write that it's a bit overwhelming to respond.

So first up, introspection is not some hardwired biological brain capacity - intrinsic to "being conscious". It is very much a learnt skill that we pick up as part of our cultural upbringing and made possible because self-directed speech does allow us to focus our attention and create a narrative story of "what is going on inside". — apokrisis

So, I've talked about consciousness and awareness. Is introspection something different? How is it different? If I remember correctly from other threads, you do think that consciousness is hardwired.

We have to learn what to expect when we introspect to actually even begin to "see it". This could easily be something we haven't learnt to do even as teenagers. And then our ideas about what we should find inside are so culturally dependent that we are only going to see what our cultures kind of teach us to see. — apokrisis

Isn't the essence of self-awareness an ability to see things we have not been taught to see? Maybe I don't mean "self-awareness." Maybe I mean "enlightenment." Otherwise, how do we get beyond our personal and cultural illusions?

I was puzzled by this. When you say you see a cloud, do you mean visually see a jostle of images or do you mean something more kinesthetic and visuospatial, like having a sense of all these things "more or less within reach"? So they swim as possibilities on the periphery and can be brought sharply into view as required. — apokrisis

I'm standing in a dark room. In front of me, maybe on a stage, is a cloud that fills the whole front of the room. It's lit from within. I don't see any specific details of what makes up the world, but I can feel that they're there. Although everything is there, things I am more aware of are in better focus. Things I'm less aware of are hidden in the haze. When I hear a new idea of any kind, I get a feeling of whether or not that makes sense to me. When I do that, I imagine taking that new idea into the room with the cloud and holding it up against it to see if it fits. If it doesn't fit, I don't believe it. If it does fit, I get that feeling that it has the ring of truth.

You might indeed be much more concretely visual than me. People do vary. — apokrisis

I was talking to a friend of mine of about the same age as me - 65. She told me she had just realized she is one of those people who have no mind's eye. It is very difficult for her to see images of even things and people she knows very well. Once she became aware, she realized how she had had to struggle to compensate for this her entire life without even knowing about it.

Again, this sounds odd the way you describe it. It is hard to imagine not feeling things, even if the feelings are confused, inchoate, hard to pin down. — apokrisis

Well, it is odd. Actually, it's terrible, horrifying. Of course there were feelings, I was just not aware of them. Did you ever go to the bathroom in a public toilet and have trouble peeing because others were around? Imagine if you felt that same panic every time you were with other people and might have to provide an appropriate emotional response.

So society really does shape what we believe about what we should find "inside". It is the prime source of any conceptual structure. And it approaches introspection in its own often quite self-interested way. — apokrisis

I come back to what I asked before - isn't it possible, even if only for Buddha, to go beyond that cultural conceptual structure.

Again - thanks for the great response.

No, what I meant is experiencing a new place or thing and for no apparent reason getting a bad or generally anxious feeling about it. That sort of thing.

You expressed it much better and with much more knowledge and insight than I did, but what you are saying is similar to what I was trying to get across. — T Clark

To quote Nike, 'just do it'. Literally. The way to practice, is to practice. There are plenty of teaching centres around nowadays, unlike when you and I were teens.

So society really does shape what we believe about what we should find "inside". It is the prime source of any conceptual structure. And it approaches introspection in its own often quite self-interested way. — apokrisis

Well, as I've said before, a key plank in diverse philosophical traditions, is that of 'the unconditioned'. That really is understood to be independent of social conditioning and social structures as a matter of definition - social mores being one form of conditioning.¹ This understanding is explicit in Indian traditions as they have a long history of renunciation. Those who dwell 'in the forest' are understood to be outside social structures; this is what 'the forest' represents in that cultural context.

In any case, preliminaries aside, Buddhist philosophy and meditation is aimed at reaching or realising 'the unconditioned'. If you search on that term in the early Buddhist texts, you will find numerous passages aimed at elucidating the nature of the unconditioned, what it is, where and how to find it (e.g. here). It goes without saying, it's a very elusive idea, but one way of conceptualising it, is that it represents the unconditioned aspect of awareness. This is why, for instance, there are teachings in Buddhist meditation on 'bare awareness', through which the student is trained to simply notice the habitual reactions and thought-formations that arise more or less automatically in the mind. That act of noticing is 'seeing how things truly are', which is the basic practice of liberating insight, insofar as to directly how reactive emotions occur is to lessen their hold.

That kind of introspective discipline is scientific in one sense, in that it is repeatable and that there are well understood learning pathways to higher degrees of insight; that has been the subject of some analytical research into insight meditation and it's affects on personality and behaviour, for example at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre among many others.

But the point I want to make is that we're not socially conditioned all the way down; we're the artefacts of something more than simply human culture.

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1. Having said that, there is a controversy around this point in academic comparative religion, with one side arguing that there are no socially-unmediated experiences, and that mystical experiences always reflect the culture in which they're situated, vs the universalists, who say that there is a common core (see Common Core Thesis; google Katz-Forman debate for more details.