I’m going to be using this journal to document a twofold journey I am taking to supercharge my brain. I will be ideally updating it every day with some basic tracking statistics, and occasionally will also be typing out my insights.
This project is partially inspired by the Mentats of the Dune universe: human computers trained to use their minds in such a way that they can replace electronic computers, which are outlawed in the story.
I figure that there are two parts to this: memory, and processing power. The two eyes that will allow me to see.
For memory, I plan to fuse the techniques of the Method of Loci and meditation. I will be storing all sorts of information, and then spending time solidifying them in my palaces, which I plan to approach in much the same way one would approach focusing-on-the-breath-meditation. (i.e. having a set time and duration for it, and making sure my focus remains solely on that for said duration).
For processing power, I plan to learn to use the Mental Abacus/anzan method. As someone learning it as an adult, rather than getting training from childhood, my progress so far has created what I believe to be some valuable insights. I am excited to share them here.
As a disclaimer, this journal has been started after I have had some time training with the Abacus, and quite some time after I have learned the method of loci, and as such won’t be a perfect start-to-end record. Still, I hope it provides some insight.
I by no means plan to reach competition levels in either of these disciplines. I will consider this project a success should I find that they significantly improve my day to day life.
Combining the Method of Loci with meditation for memory improvement and learning the Mental Abacus/anzan method for processing power are creative approaches. It’s good that you’re setting realistic goals and focusing on personal growth rather than competition. I’m curious to see how these methods will work for you and what insights you’ll gain. Your use of the Dune universe as inspiration adds a unique touch. I look forward to following your progress and reading your updates.
You should try looking into Theravadan Buddhism or ascetic practices. These traditions are about systematically training the mind and attaining full mastery over it. Picture a mind devoid of any unskillful characteristics, devoid of suffering or any wordly fetters. Imagine never being tired, on the contrary, having as much energy as being on methamphetamemes would feel like but youd ever actually crash, all it takes to transform that into an unlimited and unconditional supply of energy being meditating daily. By working with the 5 hindrances, you gradually increase the total concious power (aka processing power) of your own mind. At that point, everything within your field of concious experience becomes fully manipulable by you. Enlightenment is very very real
Combining the Method of Loci with meditation for memory improvement and learning the Mental Abacus/anzan method for processing power are creative approaches. It’s good that you’re setting realistic goals and focusing on personal growth rather than competition. I’m curious to see how these methods will work for you and what insights you’ll gain. Your use of the Dune universe as inspiration adds a unique touch. I look forward to following your progress and reading your updates.
Thank you! The Mentats are a special interest of mine, so I expect they’ll serve as great inspiration.
You should try looking into Theravadan Buddhism or ascetic practices. These traditions are about systematically training the mind and attaining full mastery over it. Picture a mind devoid of any unskillful characteristics, devoid of suffering or any wordly fetters. Imagine never being tired, on the contrary, having as much energy as being on methamphetamemes would feel like but youd ever actually crash, all it takes to transform that into an unlimited and unconditional supply of energy being meditating daily. By working with the 5 hindrances, you gradually increase the total concious power (aka processing power) of your own mind. At that point, everything within your field of concious experience becomes fully manipulable by you. Enlightenment is very very real
I actually have! In particular, the last few months I have been following The Mind Illuminated by the late Culadasa to guide my meditation practice (I know, the controversy, but his writings still seem to hold merit). The benefits have been astounding, and I have no plans of fully abandoning traditional Buddhist-style meditation.
I’m mostly exploring if the/a memory palace can be used as the object of attention, as the breath is far from the only meditation object out there, even barring all the innovation brought on by meditation’s growing popularity.
Nice!! The book is really really great, stick with it Suttacentral.net is a great source of information for directly studying the pali canon too. I’d also look into “Core Teachings of The Buddha”
Ascetism has also really propulsated my meditative practice forwards. It becomes really really easy to work with the hindrances when you have an external sensation to fixate them on. During meditation, its hard to notice dullness arising since it can be very subtle, your mind gets distracted and doesnt invest a lot of effort into practice. You could however amplify the hindrances to the point that they entirely occupy your field of concious awareness. When you’re in extreme pain, your mind is entirely fixated on the pain and on absolutely nothing else. This is when you start developing (metacognitive) introspective awareness by being mindful of the sensations representing both the pain and the aversion created in response (which is a mind-object). Agonizing pain is much easier to see than a slight itch, and it’s much easier to make your mind develop awareness of aversion when its already so implicated into the pain and when it isn’t subtle. I used to be stuck for months in my practice without getting anywhere and I did more than I ever did in 2 days just by being more mindful of ‘extreme’ sensations
Try to focus on something, then you add layers, I had also seen this kind of practices in books of the renaissance era and these focused on the personification of the donkey personifying an ignorant and stupid person, but also in other animals like the pig that personified represents greed for example and various forms of greed … Also for the emotions and their categorization, as the sadness that can be the image of a funeral or an abandoned dog and its different the joy that can be a dog when it observes its owner, friend or relative… This is really universal encompassing the positive and negative property in the same image, eye this is different for any person, since what produces joy to me will not also do it for you, although it can be.
OCT 1 2024 MEMORY MEDITATION Time spent: 23 minutes, 19 seconds (edit: +10 more minutes)
Topics Memorized/Recalled: The Personal MBA (book), The Dance (book)
This was quite enjoyable. I spent some time organizing all my palaces, and the rest was spent reviewing what I already had in there. 3 minutes and 19 seconds was spent finding the things I had forgotten, and re-storing it in the palace.
All in all, it felt quite similar to more traditional meditation. Every so often my mind would wander, and I would gently bring it back into the memory palace. If anything, it felt stronger, i.e. if I were to chart it on the The Mind Illuminated map, I would be in Stage 4 or 5, rather than the 2 or 3 I usually am on.
SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 30 minutes
I figured out how to multiply 2 digits by 2 digits on the soroban. Not yet to the level where I can do it mentally, but I can now practice it without consulting a tutorial. Soroban seems great at multiplication, given that all multiplication is is repeated addition.
As for mental abacus, I’m seeing some wonderful improvement. I can now do 2 by 1 multiplication faster than I ever have, and I feel 2 by 2 addition is getting to that level as well.
EDIT: I did an extra ten minutes of memory meditation during my work break, to re focus my mind. I know how well traditional meditation assists me with focus, so this is a good opportunity to compare the two methods in this regard
OCT 2 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 30 minutes
I slept quite a lot today, so have so far only had the time to do my soroban training. My bottleneck right now is my working memory: when doing 2 x 2 problems, I realized I had to keep glancing back at the numbers to remember where I was, rather than seeing them once and working out the rest on the Soroban. Using my Major Method to remember them helped, so for now that is what I will do.
When doing a long string of additions, e.g. adding ten one digit numbers completely mentally, the bottleneck is similar: I must work to keep the visualization of the abacus vivid enough to not forget what is on, say, the second column of beads. I think the need for a vivid visualization will lessen as my brain becomes used to the patterns. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, a vivid visualization will need less effort.
I will edit this post with the Memory Meditation time spent if/when I get the chance to do so today.
OCT 4 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 20 minutes
Had a bit of a mental health crisis yesterday, so couldn’t train. I’m still recovering, so training will be lighter. That said, some insights on the soroban: I need to strike a good balance between practicing my visualization and actually working problems out on the physical abacus. Right now I’m doing an even split, but it might be worth doing something closer to 3/4 - 1/4 in favor of the physical abacus, in order to better get my brain used to it.
Topics Memorized/Recalled: The Mind Illuminated (book)
Spent half my time looking at the actual book to solidify anything that felt fuzzy, and the other half in the actual meditation. This is a useful book to keep in mind, as thought it focuses on the breath as a meditation object, its teachings are theoretically applicable to any meditation object.
OCT 10 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 17 minutes
I’m now mostly out of my mental health crisis, so training should pick back up. Today’s Soroban training was remarkably productive: I am now able to add ten single digit numbers thrown at me at a 2 second per number pace entirely mentally. Something has clicked with the visualization: rather than seeing each column of beads as a distinct thing to visualize, I started to see the entire abacus’ state as a pattern.
A good analogy would be chess: a novice has difficulty remembering the board’s state because they see the entire board as individual squares and pieces. A grandmaster can memorize a board at a glance because they would recognize the board’s state as, say, a specific opening, or similar to a game they’ve played before. Chunking, I believe the term is.
My brain has begun to do that with the Soroban. Exciting stuff.
TMI offers an incredibly inefficient approach for attaining right concentration. Its an overall good book but its incomparable to the advice given in the Tripitaka by the Buddha
If you’re curious you should look into the Jhana-factors and Enlightenment-factors, Anapanasati Sutta, Satiphatthana Sutta (establishments of mindfulness, which concentration is entirely dependent on), The Eightfold Path (Mindfulness is dependent on Right View (of the four noble truths) and Right Effort) and the Brahmaviharas which are said to stimulate states of deep concentration without having to even meditate
I’ve been stuck months with the TMI guide and haven’t really achieved anything, following the Buddha’s guide for attaining awakening has made my meditative progress skyrocket. Everything said in TMI you’ll find in the Canon but x10 better, so if you were mind-blown by the book then you should be impressed by the canon even more
Also, nice job for the Soroban! You’ve intrigued me enough to make me want to try it
TMI offers an incredibly inefficient approach for attaining right concentration. Its an overall good book but its incomparable to the advice given in the Tripitaka by the Buddha
If you’re curious you should look into the Jhana-factors and Enlightenment-factors, Anapanasati Sutta, Satiphatthana Sutta (establishments of mindfulness, which concentration is entirely dependent on), The Eightfold Path (Mindfulness is dependent on Right View (of the four noble truths) and Right Effort) and the Brahmaviharas which are said to stimulate states of deep concentration without having to even meditate
I’ve been stuck months with the TMI guide and haven’t really achieved anything, following the Buddha’s guide for attaining awakening has made my meditative progress skyrocket. Everything said in TMI you’ll find in the Canon but x10 better, so if you were mind-blown by the book then you should be impressed by the canon even more
Also, nice job for the Soroban! You’ve intrigued me enough to make me want to try it
Thank you for the insight! I’m actually visiting a Buddhist temple tomorrow. I am excited to learn anything that might assist me on my path.
The soroban is an interesting endeavor! It will be a while before it replaces “normal” mental math, but interestingly I found that even after a week of training my mental math improved. Not because I was using the techniques, but because it was training my working memory and improving my number-sense.
OCT 13 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 10 minutes
A shorter training today, focused on improving two-digit addition on the physical abacus. I’m getting much faster now, and most of the process is becoming automatic.
Interestingly, standard meditation appears to be improving my speed, by nature of allowing me to enter a no-mind state. Rather than consciously going through the process, I can simply allow my brain/fingers to do it while I watch. Obviously this needs a degree of familiarity with the process itself, but reaching this state improved my speed and accuracy dramatically.
It seems clear that, as helpful (and blissful) as memory meditation is, classical meditation is simply too powerful a tool to leave behind. Perhaps I should rename this project Three Eyes.
Edit:
MEMORY MEDITATION Time spent: 10 minutes
Topics Memorized/Recalled: Filipino Vocabulary
I think this topic would be a valuable use of my time. I feel I speak and write quite well in English, so if I am to be dedicating some time every day to absorbing some kind of knowledge, it might as well be of my mother tongue.
OCT 14 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 20 minutes
Even better progress today. I feel I’ve hit a critical point and now my improvement is skyrocketing. I am now able to add two digit numbers incredibly quickly entirely mentally, though only in a controlled environment. A bit more training and I should be able to do it on-the-spot.
I’m taking note of something I read in Moonwalking With Einstein where he is talking about how to avoid plateaus. You have to push yourself to the point where you are failing, because if you stay where you’re comfortably succeeding, you won’t improve. I was trying so hard that my training was filled with green “dings” that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough. Now that I am, I am improving at truly an astounding rate.
OCT 15 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 30 minutes
Progress continues. Both my familiarity with the processes of the abacus and my ability to hold a mental image of one in my head is improving. This is very exciting: I feel I am close to reaching my goals.
OCT 17 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 15 minutes
I’m trying to push past my limit and be able to add multiple two digit numbers in a row entirely mentally. I am yet to be able to do so, but rather than feeling an impossible panic like as the numbers flew at me, I am seeing the mistakes. I can tell why I got a certain sum wrong, which means it is just a matter of time before I crack it.
OCT 18 2024 SOROBAN TRAINING Time spent: 15 minutes
Once again my bottleneck is working memory. Something that came to me at the end of the training: up until now I have been visualizing a hypothetical, almost virtual soroban. Flat ovals on a blue background, like the app I first learned on. What if I visualized my actual, physical abacus? Preliminary testing showed positive results, I’ll keep it in mind for my next training session.
