Vision seems so simple. We open our eyes and there is the world. Yet scientists have long appreciated how difficult this is to explain.
For a start, we move our eyes about five or six times a second, fixating on something and then moving quickly on, but we don’t notice this, and the world appears stable. Also, what we can see clears only a tiny area around that fixation point, yet it feels as though we are seeing the whole scene at once.
In the West, renunciation evokes images of monastic austeries. However, renunciation actually means “turning away from our suffering.” It is not the external reality that we are renouncing, but our inner reality.
Causes of Suffering
The causes of our suffering are to be found not “out there” but “in here.” And, if we want to turn away from the causes of our suffering, the focus of our efforts has to be on our mind.
Psychologists now recognize that repeated exposure to ambiguous statements tends to increase people’s belief in them — a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect. For example, research has shown that even hearing a claim that seems difficult to accept (e.g., one that 80% of people believe is untrue) for a second time makes people give it a little bit more credence. It’s not that they suddenly buy the information totally, but people weren’t quite a quick to reject it after the second go-round. As one might expect, repetition’s effect on beliefs not only hold true for adults, but for children as well.
Indication of Likelihood
This illusory truth bias happens because the brain uses the case with which we can retrieve something from memory as an indication of its likelihood. If you’ve seen or experienced something before, it’s easier to recognize, and thus seems more likely to be true or to happen again. And, the more times you see or hear it, the truer it rings. It’s easy then to imagine the power that daily or weekly recitations of creeds and prayers can have on belief.
Rituals are a set of actions designed to be special — to highlight, differentiate, and privilege what is being done. Making certain acts feel formal, using symbols, evoking emotion, using repetition — these all are potential ways to mark that specialness. None of them are strictly necessary. Yet, just by declaring that certain acts are special, we make them meaningful. They draw our attention, imagination, and sometimes hopes, in a way that mere habits don’t. As such, they change the way that otherwise mundane actions speak to our minds.
Bringing About Change
At heart, almost all rituals seek to bring about change. By altering how our minds encode and process information, the ways we move our bodies in space and in relation to others, and the values and expectations we place on ourselves and those around us, rituals regulate our beliefs, our behaviors, and our bonds with others. In so doing, rituals help us to experience joy, manage pain, persevere toward difficult goals, and bounce back from painful losses.
Who Knows Anyhow? 