The Vipassana meditation course is the practical application of the buddhist theory of happiness. Within Buddhism there’s no concept of an afterlife therefore its focus is on happiness in this life and that’s what is relevant here. If we believe there's an eternal Heaven, or eternal Hell, awaiting us then the quality of this relatively short life we're currently experiencing isn't so important as eternity is a long time whereas the handful of decades we're on this planet isn't. Rationally, this life becomes something of a qualifying round with the focus on qualifying for the eternal bliss up ahead. Being good, as defined by the culture we happened to be born into, becomes more important than being happy.

Rightly, or wrongly, for better or worse, Buddhism is concerned with happiness in the here and now and they figured out the structure of happiness, or at least how to generate happiness, a long time ago. Nowadays, our science understands that structure in much more detail than could be known in the past but happiness then is happiness now, and how we improve our level of happiness also, not surprisingly, remains the same. The terminology and the concepts used to explain it, are obviously different - no one was talking about bio chemicals a thousands years ago - but they translate back to the same model. In practice, we've got the more esoteric model, or the scientific model, to choose from but, regardless of which we prefer, they're painting the same picture. Here we'll explain happiness from both perspectives - present both models - so the universal fundamentals are clear and from there explain how an emotional detox significantly improves our sense of well being/ level of happiness.

If I have an hour to solve a problem, I'll spend 55 minutes defining it and just 5 minutes solving it' Einstein

By defining we're returning to the underlying fundamentals which, if we clarify, tends to resolve the problem. Confusion begets confusion.

While we may not personally believe in an eternal after life we, if we're westerners, cannot escape our culture is heavily influenced by this binary - good/bad - judgemental mentality. To us it's normal, indeed it is normal in our societies, but it's not normal in Buddhist influenced cultures. Obviously, if we're just seeking to be happy -just seeking those relevant feelings - we're much more able to navigate directly to them without feeling the need to firstly tick the 'right' boxes. This direct orientation helps a lot it's the flexibility in their operating systems that allows them to readily escape ruts. As most people understand their phones operating system better than they understand their own this probably makes little sense, but it will shortly.

‘When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness is the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life’. John Lennon

The delightful feelings we call happiness arise primarily from emotional well being and this is equally obvious scientifically today as it was thousands of years ago. If we're fill of love and joy, the rest is just logistics. While traditionally there could be no knowledge of bio chemicals - neurotransmitters, hormones etc - it was obvious we’re feeling something and that we could control those somethings. Clearly, if we can control what bio chemicals we’re generating within, and then consuming/experiencing, we’re controlling what we’re feeling and if we’re controlling what we’re feeling we’re controlling our level of happiness. That we can reverse engineer happiness - go directly to it instead of feeling the need to tick the ‘right’ boxes first - is obviously possible and an emotional detox proves this to us.

Emotional detoxes could, perhaps more accurately, be called motivational detoxes in that we’re deleting/ minimising motivations that have accumulated over time and now compete against our emotional motivations for our limited time, focus and energy. We have to prioritise, have to choose which motivations we nourish, and thus grow. When our overgrown branches of acquired motivations are pruned back we’re escaping those negative, or even just distracting, motivations, we're reclaiming time and energy, and allowing much more light/energy into our emotional core. Joy needs space to flow into.

Our emotions thrive on love and joy. While love and joy are very similar experiences -similar flavours/ bio chemicals - they’re not exactly the same and nor are their sources the same. Joy is like soft background music that is always there but we can’t connect to it, can’t hear and experience it, if there’s also loud music. It’s only when the loud music is turned off that we even know the other music was there. When we - if we - experience it we then get it, we understand that less is more and it’s this experience a VM course seeks to introduce us to.

Explained scientifically; we have two seperate motivational systems; We have our dopamine system and our serotonin/ oxytocin system but we can only access our serotonin system in the absence of the louder dopamine system. For example, those on the other side of the monastery walls are not seeking love - they’re in the wrong place for that - so they’re either all naive and stupid or they’re seeking something else. That we don’t get it, that we may not know what they’re experiencing doesn’t mean that experience doesn’t exist, it just means we’ve never experienced it ourselves.

Via emotional detoxes, of one form or another, we do experience it and then get that less is more. While we don’t have to understand it to experience it, we’ll typically lack enough motivation to detox in the first place unless we have at least a basic understanding of the benefits and how those benefits manifest.

I should add that what I'm labelling 'joy' can be labelled/ understood differently. God, Tao, Light, Energy, or just a different type of love are among the many different ways brains can understand it. Buddhism doesn't preclude the possibility that others can better perceive, thus better understand, the nature of this something than they can. Buddhism doesn't deny the existence of any God, they just personally lack the capacity to colour in what others, presumably, can. As, from their perspective, it's the connection to it/the experience that matters, the exact nature of that something isn't so important.

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs/Motivations

To understand how emotional detoxes achieve what they achieve, we must first understand our own motivational system which the classic Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations does for us. While the micro details of the Maslow hierarchy are debated, it’s obvious we have a bunch of hardwired motivations, typically called instincts, as illustrated above. For obvious reasons, our survival instincts/motivations are prioritised - if we're dead all the rest of our motivations become irrelevant. On top of these hardwired motivations we accumulate clusters of secondary motivations acquired via our culture, schooling, family etc. By the time we’re adults the handful of primary motivations we were born with are now bundled up with a huge number of secondary motivations most of which were installed in us by others. This clutter means we can easily lose touch with our core innate primary motivations and thus struggle to act in our own actual interests. Relevant to happiness, our emotional motivations get buried in amongst the accumulated junk motivations and it's this disconnection, and accumulated competition for our time, focus and energy, that disorientates us away from nourishing them.

An emotional detox is, as the name suggests, primarily focused on emotional well-being given that’s what matters when it comes to happiness. However, because the process to achieve this is a motivational detox the potential benefits extend beyond emotional. Secondary motivations aside, we're juggling more than just our emotional motivations as we're simultaneously trying to satisfy our survival motivations, sexual/reproductive motivations and ego motivations. Therefore, even if we prune right back to our innate motivations we’re still juggling a lot. While we can juggle more, we don’t want to be juggling too much irrelevant stuff or we’ll be stressed, some motivations will be contradicting others, and we're crowding out the motivations, thus the satisfaction, that really matters.

Clearly, to discriminate between self and non self, we just put all that we’re juggling down, step away and see what we’ve now got. Those motivations that are us, that are hardwired in, are stepping away with us but now they’re no longer crowded, now they’re no longer smothered, now they can directly connect to what they want, what they’re nourished on. Now we're orientated towards our actual interests. Less is more.

When someone says they want to ‘find themselves’, they’re saying find, and then connect to, their real motivations. They want to know what they really want from this life thing they’re experiencing. Know that and they know what path to select. They’re looking to sort their motivational wheat from the chuff and they typically set about doing so via introducing a wider variety of experiences into their life to see what resonates and refine their path accordingly. While this strategy makes sense, and sometimes works well, we’re still in the grip of our existing motivational current which, given most of that current is made up of secondary motivations, is itself the problem. As it takes a long time to make significant progress wading against that current we're, in practice, better off stepping outside of that current for a short time, see what comes with us and see what washes away. Our innate motivations are hardwired in, they’re stepping out with us, and we quickly realise that current we were in was never ours to begin with. That current/river/reality is still there, but now it’s just another option amongst many. We can enter it, but we can also exit it, and we can enter it where we choose to enter it. We can mix and match: a bit from this, a bit from that. By getting out of our existing current we get above it. In a sense, it's not our rut that’s the problem - that reality exists and is an option - it’s our inability to climb out of it, our inability to zoom out, that’s the problem. When we zoom out, when we gain flexibility, we’re probably still looking for our cozy niche, still seeking our little oasis, still searching for our beautiful reward, but we’re aware of so many more options, and we can mix and match them. We’re no longer welded to the one cultural template we just happened to be born into. Factor in that joy needs space to flow into, that we can switch over to a different type of happiness, and it might well be the case, and often is, that we now do have what we want post detox - a high level of happiness.

Well I sought gold and diamond rings
My own drug to ease the pain that living brings
Walked from the mountain to the valley floor
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

From a house on a hill a sacred light shines
I walked through those rooms but none of them are mine
Down empty hallways I went from door to door
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

Tonight I can feel that cold wind at my back
I'm flying high over those grey fields, my feathers long and black
Down along the river's silent edge I soar
Searching for my beautiful reward
Searching for my beautiful reward

Our beliefs and values are motivations either directly, or indirectly, in that we unconsciously filter options, we bring certain aspects of the environment to the fore thus pushing all the rest into the background. Our objectives define what we’re deeming relevant thus scanning the environment for -bringing to the fore - and our objectives are downstream of our motivations. When the river/template that screamed at us goes silent we can now perceive, connect to, and experience what we previously couldn’t. When the loud music subsides there’s not nothing, there’s a different type of music. The issue is not that the loud - type ‘A’ - music is ‘bad’, not that it lacks value, but that we can become locked into it, that it seems to be all there is. We’re chained to the one well when there’s another well we can also access if we can break those chains.

One of the big differences between ‘type ‘A’ happiness and type ‘B’ , between dopamine based happiness and serotonin/ oxytocin based happiness, is that while we hunt down type 'A' from the environment - what we're seeking is out there somewhere - type 'B' comes to us when there’s the space for it. Joy needs space to flow into.

Strength is fantasy

Beyond a certain threshold, too many secondary motivations form their own malignant eco system like a swamp that's formed from a sluggish river. Our energy is feeding algae and mosquitos and we can spend our time doing so, and chasing the mosquitos that are now biting us on the bum, or we just get rid of the swamp itself. Transformational/ upstream intervention vs midstream, incremental intervention/therapy.

Well, I think it's fine
Building jumbo planes
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train
Switch on summer from a slot machine
Yes, get what you want to if you want
'Cause you can get anything

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Will you make us laugh?
Will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live?
Will you tell us when to die?

I know we've come a long way
Things are changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

Increasingly, due to early, intensive and prolonged education, children don’t play and if they don’t play - do what they actually want to be doing - they can lose that capacity. Boiled down, we can lose the capacity to access joy and then what is love without abundant joy in the mix? Do what needs to be done to get some, or some more, light/joy into our core - prune back the overgrowth blocking that light - and all the rest is, more or less, automatic given it’s all downstream from there. This, that we must protect our innate motivations, must keep our autonomy, is something that is clearly understood by those on the higher levels of happiness.

Busted out of class
Had to get away from those fools
Learned more from a three-minute record
Than we ever learned in school

Now young faces grow sad and old
And hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against that wind
Now I'm ready to grow young again

We made a promise we swore we'd always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Like soldiers on a winter's night
With a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

At the tip of the motivational hierarchy we see 'self actualisation'. A vague term, but clearly it involves discriminating between self and non self. How do we do this? As mentioned, we do it by deleting much of our motivational overgrowth -secondary motivations - allowing us to reconnect with our primary real motivations which, given they're hardwired in, cannot be deleted. For example, a drug addict is dominated by that powerful acquired motivation which overpowers nearly all of their other motivations. The drug addict only cares about accessing the pleasure the drug provides and escaping the pain experienced without the drug. To free themselves from this habit/motivation they must starve it out. If they stop feeding that motivation it dies and they'll, in a week or two, be completely free of it allowing them to redirect their time, focus and energy towards satisfying other, hopefully more positive, motivations. All secondary motivations, large and small, can be deleted/ minimised/ managed via the same process. Programs installed can be uninstalled. If a program/motivation is not useful, or no longer useful, why keep it in us?

Just as the drug addict must suffer to remove the alien motivation - going cold turkey doesn't amuse that 'monkey on their back' - so we must suffer, typically to a much lesser extent, to remove our clusters of accumulated motivations. A 10 day VM course is not much fun, but it works. The course involves spending the bulk of the 10 days just sitting crosslegged meditating with 'meditating' here meaning just focusing on the feelings arising inside of us. We soon connect the dots, soon understand motivations motivate via feelings. How else? Control our motivations and we control what bio chemicals/ feelings/flavours are dripping into our 'cup'. We're now pouring our own cocktail and if we can do this how is it possible, beyond extremes, to be unhappy? Obviously, the first step is to empty our cup. We must first throw away the stale ugly flavours to escape their taste and to make space for delightful flavours of our choice keeping in mind space within our cup has a quality all of it's own. Often people keep trying to pour in delightful flavours without firstly emptying out what's already in there. What's the point of that? The cup is already full, meaning little gets in and what does is quickly polluted by the stale stuff already there. If I have coffee in my cup and want to enjoy some wine, or whatever, I need to pour out the coffee, and the dregs, first. I guess I don't have to but it's just a bit silly, and self defeating, not to.

As the collection of feelings/flavours/ bio chemicals in our 'cup' come from our collection of motley motivations - satisfied motivations purr whilst dissatisfied ones claw - we, in practice, empty it by pruning back our overgrown clusters of motivations. Along with space itself having a quality all of it's own the less motivations we're compelled to satisfy the easier it is to do so and just have pleasant flavours in our cup which equals feeling happy. Three content purring motivations creates a much more pleasant cocktail than overcomplicating the process. A long 'shopping list' taxes both our time and energy - injecting ugly stress into our cup - and, beyond a certain point, those motivations inevitably contradict each other. Select path 'A' and those motivations unsatisfied on that path are clawing - generating pain -yet select path 'B' and those content on path A are now discontented. Inevitably, our level of happiness has a low ceiling. The clusters of secondary motivations are interfering with our ability to connect with, and thus satisfy, our emotional motivations and if we're not on an emotionally fruitful path we're disorientated anyway.

House got too crowded clothes got too tight
And I don't know just where I'm heading tonight
But out where the sky's been cleared by a good hard rain
There's something calling my secret name

Had a coat of fine leather and snakeskin boots
But that coat always had a thread hanging loose
Well I pulled it one day and to my surprise
It led me right past that house and on over the rise

I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
The joke was coming up through the soles of my feet
I been a long time walking on fortune's cane
But now I'm stepping lightly and feeling no pain

Well here's to your good looks, here's to my health
Here's to the loaded places that we take ourselves
When it comes to luck we make our own
Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home

To change the taste -what they're feeling - a person - obviously - must change their recipe yet their recipe is heavily influenced by the very same beliefs and values their ego has built it's status upon. Awkward. We must rob our ego of what it's enjoying to feed our emotions what they enjoy which our ego, naturally enough, resists. If we believe good people do sjkgd and don't do kgjdhs and we want to be good/have status then how can we change our decisions and actions/recipe in any significant way and still be good/have status? We can't easily, which is why most just choose a pill instead of changing their recipe. In practice, by the time someone pops out the other side of the cookie cutter schooling system they're already programmed up with that societies beliefs and values and already accumulated some status via those beliefs and values. They're already invested in that particular set of beliefs and values and to protect their investment - to protect their hard won status - they defend that set. Which, if the mainstream path they're now charging down is fruitful enough then there's no problem. Happy days, and there's nothing to change. It's all subjective, all just recipes anyway, so if our current one is delivering a satisfactory taste then all is good. Again, ego resistance to change is only a problem if we need to change our recipe to improve our experience.

Dr Shedler, ... explains this more concisely than me.

this good section

As the Maslow hierarchy of needs/motivations shows; our motivation for status/prestige/approval - typically referred to as our ego - is its own seperate independent motivation/instinct. After all, we’re social primates-we’re motivationally complicated. Our egos thrives on status and approval which comes via the hierarchy of beliefs and values of our in group. All social animals, including ourselves, structure the collective via hierarchies. We have our Prime ministers, Presidents, CEOs, village heads, team captains etc etc.

A group of us homo sapiens have a culture; the ways, norms, beliefs and values via which they satisfy their motivations and obviously different groups have different cultures. We’re not particularly strong, fast …. But by teaming up and utilising our bigger than average brain our ancestors obviously survived and reproduced and here we are. An individual is, or at least was, heavily dependent on their group for survival and for a group to be effective everyone in it must share the same core beliefs and values. If not there is no functional group, instead there’s sub groups with their sub cultures each with their own hierarchy and set of beliefs and values. Obviously, this splintering generates internal conflict reducing the

Religions help a lot by superimposing a uniform set of beliefs and values over the whole group. Pete and Jane might argue about what is good and bad but they're unlikely to argue with God.

By being predisposed to seeking status from our in group we naturally scratch that itch via the hierarchy that exists and we’ve been raised within. If I want your respect I can only satisfy that motivation via your beliefs and values and as you, at least in the past, are part of my group I'm actually aligning with the group values. Cultures exist like bubbles within the larger reality, they’re not the reality although to our egos they are given that’s the only world they know. Our ego lives in our brains, in the world of labels and meanings whereas our emotions live in the pre brain organic meaningless world they’ve always been in. It’s only recently we’ve evolved a brain capable of generating much in the way of labels and meanings but this extra intelligence gives us more sophistication to satisfy motivations, it doesn’t replace motivations.

Relevant regarding happiness is that just because our emotions might be mal nourished doesn’t mean our ego is malnourished. One motivations treasure is often another motivations trash. Indeed, often those emotionally mal nourished are that way because they are dominated by their ego - they’re actually primarily seeking status and approval therefore it’s towards ego nourishing fields they’re orientated towards. That’s the path they’ve selected and, presumably, just hoping emotional nourishment is found along the way. But, given we have to survive in the reality as it is, it’s not just our ego propelling us down the mainstream path. We need to make $$, few of us are multi millionaires and can step out of the rat race. This reality means our emotional motivations often finds itself at odds with not just our ego but also our survival, and 'thrival', motivations. A promotion, for example, satisfies all of them and our emotions are over powered and dragged along with them. As survival is our priority, and many are happy enough on the mainstream path anyway, there’s nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with this. It’s just, as regards the higher levels of happiness, having our emotions dragged to emotionally barren fields is obviously less than ideal. The potential problem is that many who can afford to untangle themselves, and recalibrate, don’t and they don’t because they don’t know how to. Such is the power of our ego they recoil from learning about their own species, thus themselves and others they’re interacting with. Instead they wander around with a colourful blindfold on then wonder why they’re struggling to navigate themselves to a very happy reality. To be happy in reality we have to accept reality as, regardless of what’s in our head, that’s what we’re actually within and navigating. Otherwise we’re bumping into that which we refuse to accept is there and navigating around that which is only in our head, but isn’t actually there. Awkward.

If we can accept we’re just relatively intelligent Apes - and if we’re not then what are we?- we stop expecting so much of ourselves, and others, we accept it’s all subjective and lighten up. When we lighten up that’s half the battle won, or more than half the battle won, and this life thing becomes a game. Once it’s a game we're now motivated to learn to play it well so we gravitate to useful knowledge instead of recoiling away from it. We’ve taken responsibility for our own reality - if we can't be bothered to learn the game, how can we expect to be competitive?- and that's the other half won. We can pay a high price for our ignorance and allowing our ego to dominate.

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take
You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks
Out on to an open road you ride until the day
You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies
And in one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death
Driving on through the night, unable to break away
From the restless pull of the price you pay

Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay
Till you can't walk away from the price you pay

Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long
Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong
Where the dark of night holds back the light of the day
You've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay

Do you remember the story of the promised land
How he crossed the desert sands
But could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stands
To face the price you pay we pay

So let the games start You better run you little wild heart
You can run through all the nights and all the days
But just across the county line a stranger passing through put up a sign

Obviously, what is good and right depends on who is asked but accepting it's subjective means accepting our status is also just subjective and that's problematic for our ego. How can we have real status if beliefs and values are subjective? If other people have the right to their own set of beliefs and values then their status is as valid as mine is thus I have no status. Yet, though our ego takes a fall, the resulting humility, thus flexibility, is a blessing as we can now easily change our recipe. If it's all subjective then the 'right' boxes we've been taught to tick before we're 'allowed' to be happy are also just cultural beliefs and values. That which is fluid can be easily stirred, mixed or poured out while that which is frozen rigid can't.

Accepting we're primates causes no distress to the humble; why would it? After-all, we do look suspiciously like Apes, it seems unlikely we're birds, or fish, and we have to be something right? What does the scientific evidence say: what does the fossil record, and the genetic evidence, reveal? The humble have no problem lifting the veil as they're not dominated by their ego, they don't take status seriously, they're not dependant on it. For the humble, reality just is what it is, they're not motivated to change what is into what isn't. If we're reconciled with reality we're comfortable with it and because we're comfortable with it there's no compulsion to change it. Change it to what? Even if we credit ourselves with the ability to change the world we're only ever trying to change it to what suits us. To our version of 'better' yet, where does the notion come from that we're some kind of God able to decide on behalf of everyone else what 'better' is? Those who accept they're relatively intelligent Apes don't delude themselves and instead put their energy towards what they can change and what is relevant.

The benefits from humility goes beyond just being able to orientate towards emotional satisfaction as it also enables us to accumulate relevant knowledge instead of constantly recoiling from it. At the end of the day, if someone has the evidence showing we're not primates then they'd be overnight famous by publishing that evidence. Either they're all shy, and reclusive, types or that evidence doesn't exist. Relatively intelligent Apes are still Apes just as relatively intelligent dogs are still dogs. Extra intelligence bestows capacities -we understand we have future moments to experience, for example - that otherwise wouldn't exist, but doesn't magically erase instincts. It doesn't change that we're scurrying through the environment seeking food, shelter and all the rest of our motivational shopping list, it just gives us more sophisticated ways of satisfying that list. Critically, our turbo charged brains allow us to understand ourselves and therefore make this happiness quest easy instead of hard. Like riding a bike, it's not that complicated, but if we've never bothered to learn to ride a bike, then it is complicated.

If we want to align those two independent motivations - emotions and ego - the obvious, and only practical option, is to shift beliefs and values to align with our emotional motivations. In other words; our ego has to align with our emotions. The beliefs and values we're acquiring delicious status via have to change to align better with our emotional needs. Define success as happiness and the two are aligned. This conflict between our ego and emotions, one seeking status and approval whilst the other love and joy, is the single biggest hurdle most of the less than happy people have to overcome. This is the basis of the classic ego resistance to meaningful change that haunts therapy rooms all day everyday.

Light's out tonight
Trouble in the heartland
Got a head-on collision
Smashing in my guts, man
Caught in a crossfire
That I don't understand

But there's one thing I know for sure
I don't give a damn
For the same old played out scenes
I don't give a damn for just the in-betweens
I want the heart, I want the soul
I want control right now

Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
But a king ain't satisfied
'Til he rules everything
I'm going to step out tonight
To find out what I've got

We're the ones with the notion
The notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
I wanna find one face
That ain't looking through me
I wanna find one place
I wanna spit in the face of these badlands

Badlands, you gotta leave it all one day
Let the broken ego stand
As the price you've gotta pay
Keep pushing 'til it's understood
And these badlands start treating you good

Fortunately, initial ego resistance aside, this alignment is easy to do as all egos are doing is just slapping 'right' and 'good' on the values the person in our mirror happens to have. We then judge others by our values thus we're now automatically superior to the vast bulk of other people - we have status. Exactly why others should align with our values anymore than we're willing to align with theirs -what makes our values inherently superior to theirs? - is a question we prefer not to ponder as doing so undermines, or threatens to undermine, the structure of beliefs and values our status is perched atop of. We get taught our cultural, or sub cultural, definitions of good and bad and remain programmed up accordingly. Then, if our ego is stronger than our emotional motivations we'll seek status abundant fields which inevitably take us away from where emotionally relevant fields are. Hence our orientation - what we're seeking - traces back to our motivations and the balance of power between those motivations. This is why humility is so prized as the humble are not orientated towards status/approval allowing them to readily orientate towards emotional satisfaction instead of ego satisfaction. We can hunt status, and it's symbols, or we can hunt the feelings that, whilst invisible, are what really matter.

Strength is vanity and time is illusion
I feel you breathing, the rest is confusion
Your skin touches mine, what else to explain?
I'm the hunter of invisible game There's a kingdom of love waiting to be reclaimed

Mama bird stresses herself - injects those ugly feelings/flavours into her 'cup'- feeding the cuckoo chicks in her nest, yet they’re not even her chicks. Her system has been hacked, her nest infected. She needs to clear the nest, but she doesn't understand that. Our species is a bit smarter, we can understand and thus can remedy the situation.

Dr Shedler puts it like this;

Psychotherapists do not have answers for how another person should live. We cannot tell them the meaning of life. We cannot promise joy, success, or love. We cannot lead them to Nirvana. We cannot protect them from life’s blows that must, inevitably, come. What we can offer, when psychotherapy goes well, is the chance to make a new start.

Understandably, given most peoples confusion regarding how their own species functions, they want the therapist to take out, or repair, the bad stuff but leave in all the good stuff. How? it's all tangled up, no one can see inside us to begin with and if they could, which they can't, it's all

Our reality, and how we're experiencing that reality, trace back to our decisions which are themselves downstream of our motivations and objectives be they immediate, or longer term, objectives. If we want to improve our level of happiness we can, if our motivations are not too many and too contradictory, become more competent so we can better satisfy them. And/or we can prune back and prioritise our motivations so we're juggling less of them, juggling the relevant ones and they're aligned, more or less. Regardless, as adults we're responsible for our own reality and if we're not, who is?

As the dopamine motivations fade away something else flows into the space generated. Something we likely didn't even know existed. Everyone is different, some are more infected, more overloaded, than others so the outcomes are not all the same. Some experience what can be called the 'avalanche effect' - one boulder/motivation tumbles out and suddenly all the rest also tumble out - while it's more of an incremental process for others. Indeed, not everyone wants, or needs, to prune right back. What works for them is just deleting the worst of the overgrowth - that's their sweet spot. It's not a competition.

While we do have our two seperate motivational systems, it's not a binary proposition. In practice there's a spectrum and the most valuable gift we obtain from emotional detoxes is understanding the spectrum exists and that we can move ourselves along it. Buddha symbolises one extreme of this spectrum. He's depicted just sitting under a tree with his massive, blissful smile on his face. How can he be so happy? Isn't he, like, bored? Doesn't he have numerous motivations demanding to be satisfied? He said 'By doing nothing, I do everything'. If one is 10/10 happy what is there to do? Do what? There, by definition, are no dissatisfied motivations compelling him to get off his arse in order to satisfy them so of course he just sits and enjoys his bliss. Less is more because at one pole of the spectrum everything can be nothing and at other nothing is everything. We feel no lack - no pain - not having what we do not want. If we feel we lack nothing we feel we have everything we want and if we have everything we want we are, by definition, on a very high level of happiness. It's not about trying to emulate Buddha, we couldn't even if we wanted to, it's about getting out of our rut to be able to access possibilities that were always there, but we couldn't connect to. Sometimes we need to weed our garden to allow long smothered seeds to sprout and grow.

Towards the unfortunate end of the spectrum we have the cynical. To them love and joy don't exist, or if they do they're not really worth much, because they have lost the capacity to connect with them, to nourish them. To them, it seems like love and joy don't exist which, naturally enough, limits them to the wells they are currently connected to/ obtaining at least some delicious bio chemicals from.

'We carry with us the seeds of our own destruction, it's part of the human package. Among those seeds are the ones that bring all the good things into our world but it's always a big tug of war all the time. We have a hand that builds, and we have a hand that burns. This is a song about a person who figures out how to switch to the hand that builds. This song is called Leah'.

This theme - empty out the trash, experience the difference, reorientate to our actual interests - is continually repeated but only makes sense if we understand the structure of happiness and/or experience the difference. We're not out scurrying through the environment for no purpose; we've got motivations we're seeking to satisfy, we've got objectives in mind be they immediate objectives and/or longer term ones. Our motivations determine our objectives and our objectives dictate our decisions - we use our brain to decide how to best achieve our objectives. Our decisions determine our actions - we take steps in one direction, or another, and those steps add up taking us to this, or that, reality. Go upstream and sort things out at the source of it all - our 'basket of motivations' - and gravity does the rest for us.

Modern incremental therapy seeks to make the changes midstream around decisions leaving us within, and fighting against, our motivational current/ momentum which is why midstream interventions have such a poor success rate. Unfortunately, the structure of our societies - people have jobs to do and myriad other motivations/responsibilities they're also juggling - makes midstream therapy - one hour a week or so - typically all they can reasonably access and it's often better than nothing. Of course, given it's obvious limitations most are simply given a pill - some type of anti depressant - to hopefully somewhat mask the ugly flavours in their 'cup'. It is what it is.

The inherent limitations with midstream therapy, and the unavoidable catch 22 situation, is that what we want, what we believe will make us happier, simply reflects the motivations that currently exist and the current balance of power between them. We currently enjoy 'A', and dislike 'B' so more of 'A' and less of 'B' will make us happier right? But what if 'A' or 'B' motivation is just an infection, just a cuckoo in our nest? What if their presence is interfering with our ability to connect with, and thus nourish, our actual innate motivations? We’re asking our cuckoos to decide our objectives -awkward. At best we're looking to just renovate our rut.

Sure, we have to survive and do so within the environment/ economic structure, that exists. Naturally enough, our survival motivations/instincts are the most powerful; all the rest of our 'shopping list' becomes redundant if we're dead. As the Maslow hierarchy of needs shows, beyond survival we can focus on security - a bit of a buffer. Our survival and security needs are bundled up with sexual/reproductive motivations, emotional motivations and ego motivations. They're seperate independent motivations each with their own objectives and aversions. One motivations treasure can be, and often is, another motivations trash. Our ego seeks status and approval which is completely irrelevant emotionally, for example. Those two are naturally in a tug of war against each other given abundant status is rarely on the same path abundant love and joy exists on. Our emotional motivations face stiff innate competition often made worse given our survival, security and ego motivations tend to be naturally aligned. A promotion, for example, satisfies all three of them resulting in our emotions been overpowered and dragged down emotionally barren paths. Awkward.

We're just trying to survive
What if what we do to survive
Kills the things we love?

Fear's a dangerous thing
It will turn your heart black, you can trust
It'll take your God-filled soul
And fill it with just devils and dust

I like to quote Springsteen as he’s one of those extreme examples that allows us to see the relevant mentality more clearly. While his mentality is not unique we, via his 300 plus songs, get a wide window into it. As he’s a billionaire, famous, got a happy wholesome family life and extremely humble he’s a success - a winner - by almost anyones definition. As he said to his audience a few years ago; ‘I haven’t worked a day in my life - thanks’ and ‘If you have to have a problem then too much $$ is a good problem to have I guess’. Very high level stuff, he obviously figured out this life thing a long time ago. His nickname is ‘The Boss’ because he's in control of his reality - does things his way which, judging by the fruits, would seem to be a potent, fruitful recipe. Boiled down, we see someone who retained, or regained, his autonomy so he’s able to act in his own actual interests and is not compelled to try and satisfy his actual motivations via the cultural template most others are trapped within.

The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders

Love and joy is what he’s orientated towards -fame and $$ is just a by product - and as it’s all obviously subjective status is just silly - just pretend and chasing the consolation prizes. ‘What I do is not better than what anyone else does, just noisier’. Of course, it’s all just an experience. Obviously, there’s very poor, but emotionally well nourished, people just as happy as he is therefore both paths are equally fruitful though different. It depends on how we define ‘fruitful’, how our ego defines ‘success’ and if our ego is defining success differently than our emotions are we’ve got a conflict. We’re probably emotionally mal nourished and rigid instead of being flexible, pragmatic and able to learn relevant knowledge.

Its not that there’s anything inherently wrong with mistaking the cultural bubble as the reality, there's nothing inherently negative with being trapped in that template, it’s that one persons cozy niche is another’s painful rut. We’re all different. It’s not that how Springsteen happens to experience this, or that, reality is the ‘right’ way to experience it, it’s that we must first step out to even know we were in to begin with. If the cave is all we’ve known, the cave is all there is - it’s the reality for us. Step out, feel the light, and the cave is still there, it’s still got value, but it’s just another option. It’s just an interesting bubble, with its various fruits, within reality, not the reality.

Well my feet finally took root in the earth but I’ve got a nice little place in the stars.

The key is flexibility which comes via humility which comes via accepting this life thing is subjective. That something seems to be so to us, huddled down on this particular planet eqiptted with our mediocre array of senses and primate brain, does not make it so. Our truth is not the truth - that’s ridiculous. Who, or what, can stamp ‘the truth’ on our beliefs and how can we know they, or that, knows? We can’t, so why pretend? Because we have to make decisions so our brain separates the swirling shades of grey into relevant simplified chunks of black and white. We, if we have autonomy, get to decide what is relevant to us thereby determining what those chunks, what our reality, is. Our objectives bring what is relevant to the fore, pushing all the rest away into the blurry background. As our motley collection of motivations, and the current balance of power between them, determine our objectives they’re determining our reality.

Bounce along the spectrum - changing our perspective/reality - and this is obvious even if don’t know our own operating system well enough to understand it.

The first step is to know what we want, not what we ought to want Watts

We're well advised to sort out our motivations because if we don't we're likely to end up down emotionally blind alleys. Likely to find out the hard way we've been orientated towards a mirage instead of an actual oasis.

My, oh my, you sure know how to arrange things
You set it up so well, so carefully
Ain't it funny how your new life didn't change things?
You're still the same old girl you used to be

Late at night, that big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price Did you get tired, or did you just get lazy?
You're so far gone, you feel just like a fool

Cause you can't hide your lying eyes
And your smile is just a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realise
There ain't no way to hide lying eyes

Now look at me
Struggling to do everything right
And then it all falls apart
Ah, out go the lights

Now you play the loving woman, I play the faithful man
But just don't look too close into the palm of my hand
We stood at the altar, the gypsy swore our future was right
But come the wee wee hours, well maybe, baby, the gypsy lied

So when you look at me, you better look hard and look twice
Is this me, or just a brilliant disguise?

Tonight our bed is cold
I'm lost in darkness without love
God have mercy on the man
Who doubts what he's sure of

If we remain drones programmed up by others then, naturally enough, we’ll be serving their interests and not ours. How many classes on happiness did you get offered in school? That's not their job, it's our job. Societies need their citizens working as food is not going to harvest itself, infrastructure not going to build itself, so we're, naturally enough, taught to be a productive cog in the system. For many, perhaps most, the mainstream path is perfectly fine meaning their existing programming/recipe/ set of motivations is also fine. Happy days, and there's nothing they have to change. There's no need to fix what isn't broken. However, things can get awkward, even for them, when the cultural mainstream path is itself in bad shape.

Many want to be very happy but simultaneously they’ve adapted to their current motivational configuration. Some of Mama bird motivations likes the cuckoo chicks in her nest. They seem to belong to her therefore she stresses herself feeding and protecting them even when they become suspiciously bigger than herself. Her motivational system has been hacked and she can’t act in her own actual interests.

The rat traps are filled with soul crusaders. Their circuits jammed and lined with chromed invaders.

Navel gazing about our level of happiness is a luxury very few of our ancestors were ever fortunate enough to be able to engage in as simply surviving was enough of a challenge. Think about it; it would be completely incomprehensible to our ancestors that an individual could have abundant food, lavish shelter, warm showers along with flushing toilets yet be unhappy. There’s no lack and there’s many very happy people in the same general environment we're in -thus the issue, if there is one, is within. The issue is what we’re connecting with, what we’re nourishing. The issue is the accumulated clutter within. The issue is less our lack of ability to satisfy our bloated shopping list, but the bloated shopping list itself. We didn’t even select the vast bulk of those motivations, they were programmed into us by the culture we just happened to be born into, yet there they remain whirring away.

By detoxing our motivations we return to our handful of real, innate motivations. Return to ourselves and experience the difference, experience that less is indeed much more. The changes made upstream at source flow down adjusting our objectives, decisions, actions and thus reality. For some this seems too easy, too obvious. After-all, why doesn't everyone just detox and be happy ever after? Because it's not obvious and we have to remember navel gazing about our level of happiness is a luxury very few of our ancestors could ever indulge in. It's not the priority, we're not wired up to dance through the daisies, we're wired up to survive and reproduce just as all life is. We're social primates dependant on our group and that group needs to be productive to satisfy material needs and be powerful enough to ward off other groups. Teaching our young to shuffle beads and chant mantras doesn't cut it, that isn't competitive so that doesn't happen. If an individual is fortunate enough to have enough time on their hands to ponder their level of happiness then ok, they can make their way through the maze, can sort the wheat from the chuff, can discriminate between what's a mirage and what's an actual oasis, but no one is going to knock on their door or force it down their throat. Understandably, the group wants you to spend your time working hard -head down arse up - and will pat you on the back for doing so. Of course, but whether that's how we want to spend our limited time is ultimately up to us. For some that life is just fine, they are happy enough with it. Cool, everyone is different. It's all subjective, we don't all experience the same thing the same.

The complexity increases given the cultural realities exist like bubbles within the infinite reality. We can get so caught up in the cultural reality that we come to believe that's all there is yet we have hungry motivations that existed as is long long before our species ever developed powerful enough brains to construct cultural realities. While our egos reside in the post brain cultural reality our emotions don't, they're nourished on the direct, meaningless, organic experiences they always have been nourished on.

the Tao that can be explained

Is not the Tao

The love that can be explained, is not the love. Our brains understanding/explanation of a feeling is not the feeling anymore than the explanation of a taste is the taste. While our ego thrives on labels and meanings that's all irrelevant emotionally as it's a completely different world. Sure, unless we want to sit under a tree in a forest somewhere like Buddha did, we have to navigate the cultural reality to survive and to establish relationships that generate love/oxytocin. But joy, at least what I'm labelling joy, comes from beyond those cultural bubbles which are porous. Joy exists within, but it's source is not from within and our religions advise us to keep some curtains drawn, keep some windows open so we can also drink from that well. That our species now has the capacity to generate labels and meanings doesn't magically delete our other capacities.

I wanna run
I want to hide
I wanna tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I wanna reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I wanna feel sunlight on my face
As the dust clouds disappear without a trace
I wanna take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

The city's a flood
And our love turns to rust
We're beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled in dust
I'll show you a place
High on a desert plain
Where the streets have no name

Get too far into the cultural cave and that's all there is. We can renovate it, hang certificates and trophies on the walls, but that stuff is emotionally irrelevant and blocks what is. It's something, our ego is thriving, we're getting some delicious bio chemicals but, as ego satisfaction is relatively insipid with a low ceiling, it's unlikely to be enough to make us happy. We facing the wrong way, we're disorientated, we're chasing the consolation prizes.

This quote from a Pastor who attended many on their death beds explains this well;

Pastor Rick Reveals What Thousands of People Say Before They Die

Rick Warren: "What people say in their final moments is pretty important, they don't mess around in their last words. Nobody dying has ever said, Pastor Rick, bring me my trophies; I want to look at them one more time, or, Bring me my college diploma."When people are dying and know their time is short, what they want in the room isn't things, trophies, or achievements. What they want are the people they love.""Eventually, we all figure out that it's all about love and relationships. I just pray you'll figure it out a whole lot sooner.”

Beyond extremes, it’s not the event/location, it’s how we’re experiencing that event/location. Change the meanings and we change the experience. Become flexible and meanings become tools. Is the script in our brain equating A with H useful and if it isn’t why do we want it there? We didn’t select it in the first place. Obviously, if we feel we have to align motivations A,C,H,K and M before we can really enjoy something we’re making this happiness thing very hard, we pushing against ourselves. A rut is not a rut just because there’s high walls channeling us but also because it's narrow which, if we’ve got all those motivations threatening pain if we stray, is what happens.

It actually goes beyond just experiencing the same reality differently into changing ‘the’ reality itself. Think of someone walking down a street out of cigarettes and thus seeking nicotine; they’re scanning the environment for shops selling cigarettes thereby bringing those parts of the environment to the fore pushing all the rest into the background. Without the nicotine motivation that street is very different as they’re bringing different parts of it to the fore. While we’re smarter than the average primate, our brains processing power is still very limited so we unconsciously filter out the irrelevant from the avalanche of data our senses provide enabling us to focus on and juggle what is relevant. What is relevant depends on our objectives which flow down from our motivations. Change our motivations and our objectives automatically change thus changing what is relevant thus changing what we bring to the fore and thus what is just background that, effectively, doesn’t exist for us.

Our motivations determine not only the path we select but what that path actually is therefore we can be but a mile out of hell yet halfway to heaven. There’s many delightful experiences available within the cultural bubble, but we’ve got to seperate the dirt from the caviar to be able to really enjoy the caviar. When we do this we tend to be also able to access that which is beyond the cultural bubbles thus a buffet replaces the set menu.

Understand we can take control of our own controls and we not only lighten up, which is half the battle won, but we never feel sorry for ourselves as that doesn’t even compute. It's just a game that we learn to play well, or we don’t, and if we don’t - if we can’t be bothered - whose fault is that? Knowledge is power because if we know how to make something happen we have the power to do so. Relevant knowledge is relevant power and as adults we get to decide what is relevant.

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take
You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks
Out on to an open road you ride until the day
You learn to sleep at night with the price you pay

Now with their hands held high, they reached out for the open skies
And in one last breath they built the roads they'd ride to their death
Driving on through the night, unable to break away
From the restless pull of the price you pay

Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you pay
Till you can't walk away from the price you pay

Now they'd come so far and they'd waited so long
Just to end up caught in a dream where everything goes wrong
Where the dark of night holds back the light of the day
You've gotta stand and fight for the price you pay

Do you remember the story of the promised land
How he crossed the desert sands
But could not enter the chosen land
On the banks of the river he stands
To face the price you pay we pay

So let the games start You better run you little wild heart
You can run through all the nights and all the days
But just across the county line a stranger passing through put up a sign

Again, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to do this midstream trying to discriminate between our motivations; self and introduced, as we’re just feeling what we’re feeling. We simply don't know -how? - from what specific motivations the pleasant feelings are dripping from and from which the ugly are coming from. Even if we, or someone else, guesses right, not all that glitters is gold, just because a secondary motivation provides pleasure now doesn't mean it’s not blocking access to significantly more pleasant bio chemicals. Doesn’t mean the orientation it's helping to maintain is serving our actual underlying interests. Sorting through our trash can trying to keep all that currently glitters before we empty it never gets us beyond the threshold required.

We’re giving our cockoos a vote, asking our turkeys if they want thanksgiving, yet they are themselves the problem, or at least part of the swampy motivational eco system that has formed within.

Explained slightly differently; To get our river of energy flowing as it should be we close down all the tributaries that have been dug into it that now reduces its flow allowing blockages, and then swamps, to form in the first place. Ever noticed how clean and vigorous a river is after it’s flooded? What happens if it never floods? Indeed, Eastern therapeutic exercises like yoga and Tai Chi, and exercise in general, help us by pulsing our river and those pulses - rises in intensity - help keep it clean by keeping blockages from forming which, by reducing the flow, allow swamps to become established.

Again, we can chase mosquitos or we can clean out the swamps themselves and we do this by closing off all those upstream tributaries/motivations that have been diverting our energy. Now we’ve got ourselves a flood, now the blockages give way, now the swamps, and all the accumulated trash, gets swept away. Now we see how we feel. Magically the mosquitos aren’t there, magically the pain is gone, but it’s not magic.

It takes a leap of faith to get things going
It takes a leap of faith you gotta show some guts
It takes a leap of faith to get things going
There in your heart, there you must trust

I shouted "jump" but your heart faltered
I laughed and said, "What don't you understand?"

OK to here, this very good. the rest subsequent pages.

While the VM course is effective, we don't actually offer it. Again, we're only using it here, as an example, because it's barebones, one size fits all, process allows the fundamentals involved to be more easily understood. Generally, the VM course is too harsh for most modern individuals with some of that harshness unnecessary and, in the long term, counterproductive. Most of what can be achieved by doing 'nothing' can also be achieved by doing differently and, beyond the initial standard body detox, the program can be tailored to the individual. These days, most of us exist in a diverse, complicated world and while, underneath, we're all seeking to be very happy, what that looks like isn't the same for everyone. What it feels like might be, more or less, but even here not necessarily so given the variety of pleasant flavours available.

Taoism, perhaps uniquely, differs from other forms of Buddhism in that there's no objective beyond happiness, beyond the experience. There's no 'right' or 'better' happiness anymore than there's a right or better way to have ones coffee. Our better is just our better, though this is a hard concept for binary brains to accept and why Taoism is rarely understood in the western world.

Existence is basically a kind of dancing or music—an immensely complex energy pattern which needs no explanation other than itself. Just as we do not ask what is the meaning of fugues by Bach or Mozart, we do not dance to reach a certain point on the floor, but simply to dance.

Alan Watts got it, but mostly the 'Taoism' that is explained isn't Taoism. But no one has to have the Taoist mindset to be happy, again it's just useful to look at the extremes and Taoism - Chinese Buddhism - is ruthlessly focused on individual happiness and that's what is relevant here. There's a spectrum and finding our sweet spot is on that spectrum is what is important, not where on the spectrum we are. What matters is the flexibility to move along the spectrum to then be able to find that sweet spot, our own little oasis. There's no point in going too far along other than, maybe, for the experience, for a trip to the other side, if it takes us past our sweet spot, past where the sun is shining on us.

You know I always liked that empty road
No place to be and miles to go
But miles to go is miles away
Hello sunshine, won't you stay?

You walk too far, you walk away
Hello sunshine, won't you stay?

In practice, that's a 'first world' dilemma. That's pondering the perfect mixture of flavours desired. That's lamenting the inability/ impossibility of accessing 10/10 this side of the monastery walls. That's a good 'problem' to have.

While we need to detox to return to our core innate selves we don't want to 'throw the baby out with the dirty bathwater'. Much of the architecture that already exists in most peoples lives is completely fine. We all need to survive and have responsibilities etc. In practice, for most, a very happy life is having their default experience being at the level of around 8/10 unless we want to enter a monastery where food, shelter etc is provided. There, we could probably ratchet it up a bit more, but what difference does it make? We just want to be happy and anything above 7/10 is happiness for the vast majority of people. We bounce up a little now and again, drop down a little here and there - shit happens - but via some basic motivational management this life thing is a very pleasant experience. If we seek to be unhappy, so be it, but no one actually does even though it seems some do. They're just confused and disorientated.

In other words; We don't want to replace one template with another, unless the fresh one we stumble into suits us just fine. A life that makes one person happy can be very different than that which makes someone else happy and there's different stages in our lives. Grandma is not enjoying her Saturday evening via the same activities she did in her twenties - different flavours - but if the cocktail is pleasant that's all that matters. The problem is when people lack the knowledge, ability and, critically, the flexibility to empty out stale flavours and pour in fresh ones that are available but they can't access. They're surrounded by plum trees, but crave peaches. Awkward; Their options seem to be to take themselves to where peaches are abundant, change their motivations/tastes to enjoy plums, plant some peach trees or some combination of all three strategies. At the same time where has that motivation for peaches come from? Is it really theirs in the first place? If it's deleted so is the craving thus so is the dilemma. It's not the thing we want, it's the experience that thing currently provides us with and one motivations treasure is another motivations trash. Not all that glitters is gold and there's fools gold and real gold available. Fill up with fools gold and there's simply no room for real gold. Real gold manifests in the absence of fools gold but, and the classic catch 22 situation, those who have stacked a lot of fools gold get at least some enjoyment from that pile and are therefore naturally reluctant to throw it away.

It not the event, it’s how we’re experiencing the event and it’s rarely just one motivation experiencing it therefore multiple flavours are simultaneously being generated. There’s the raw event and then there's the meanings our brain is attaching to the event which we're also experiencing, albeit by different motivations. As we can’t see the workings of other peoples brains we tend to think the meanings our brain is generating is somehow universal, that they are the meanings but they’re not, of course.

While we can ‘manually’ change the meanings our brain have been taught to generate - can change them midstream - this is going about it the hard way. By going upstream and pruning back our motivations many of the current batch of meanings will automatically change/ drop away as they’ve become irrelevant and even ridiculous. Irrelevant, because if the motivation that cares about those meanings - typically ego - is much weaker and/or reorientated our brain doesn’t bother producing those meanings anymore. Ridiculous, because bouncing from state A to state B shows us the subjective nature of it all thus that meaning was just the meaning our brains generate when we’re in that state. It’s obvious to us it’s not the true meaning, obvious there’s no such thing, thus why bother generating it in the first place? When we zoom out from the set menu we see the a la carte menu and then the buffet beyond.