how to learn a new language

 

I feel as though I've had to learn two new languages in the past few weeks just to get through the books I was reading. "The Mind Illuminated" by John Yates, PhD (aka "Culadasa") introduced me to terms like extrospective awareness, grades of piti, metacognitive introspective awareness, samatha, and shared receptivity, concepts involved in deepening the meditative state. The author was kind enough to include an extensive glossary at the end of his book so I didn't have to flip back through hundreds of pages to refresh my memory when definitions escaped me.

"To have another language is

to possess a second soul."

~Charlemagne~

The other book, "Being You" by Anil Seth, about the science of consciousness, dealt with concepts like sensory prediction errors, metacognition, free energy, posterior probabilities, and Bayesian inference... no glossary included, thank you very much.

These subjects are difficult enough to understand and apply without introducing a foreign language. So why did I bother to struggle through them?

"Our passion for learning...

is our tool for survival."

~Carl Sagan~

Simply put, I am curious, with a passion, about the neurophysiology of the brain, especially the nature and manifestations of consciousness. Not only the origin of thought, but the mysteries of perception, volition, memory, and imagination, as well as higher states of consciousness, all of which segue into my interest in meditation. This is perfectly consistent with the curiosity that propelled me into the study of medicine in the first place: how the heart works, how babies are made, how a broken bone heals...ad infinitum. There are so many languages to learn.

"A different language is

a different vision of life."

~~Federico Fellini~

You don't have to attempt anything as bewildering as consciousness studies or deep meditation to understand this. You might be curious and impassioned about other things. NASCAR racing, for example, or climate change, or cooking...something you are driven to learn about. How hard are you willing to work at it? Are you willing to learn a new vocabulary in order to succeed at it? 

If you're lucky, you may not have to learn a new language to pursue your passion in life. But, if you don't mind learning one new language, why not shoot for five? You might consider starting out with something like "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. I learned a lot from him, and I understood every word.

"The capacity to learn is a gift;

The ability to learn is a skill;

The willingness to learn is a choice."

~Brian Herbert~

jan