In Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky set out a framework for understanding how mass media supports institutions by shaping perception and behaviour without the need for overt coercion. Through their “propaganda model,” they show how market forces, internalised assumptions, and self-censorship work together to manufacture consent rather than invite genuine inquiry.
Ken draws on this analysis and takes it into more intimate territory. He noticed that the same mechanisms that operate in media and institutions can also operate in our own minds.
In a retreat called Warrior’s Solution, Ken introduced the phrase mind-killing. He described it as using a person’s reactive patterns to dampen their own capacity to feel, question, and experience, so that attention is diverted away from what is actually happening and toward compliance with an internal or external system.
It works by exciting familiar emotional reactions—fear, desire, identity, survival—and organising thinking through frames, reductions, polarities, and exclusions that prevent genuine inquiry. The result is loss of contact with lived experience, especially bodily and emotional knowing. In that state, a person can end up enacting the interests of a system, or a pattern, rather than responding freely to what is present.
In this long passage from A Trackless Path, Ken outlines six methods of mind-killing. Framing narrows what can be questioned. Marginalisation dismisses what doesn’t fit as unimportant. Seduction and alignment promise fulfilment or survival if we comply. Reduction collapses complexity into a single emotionally charged issue. Polarisation splits experience into opposing choices that leave no room for nuance or exploration. None of this requires force. It works because it resonates with habits we already have.
I see this most clearly in my own life when a way of working starts to feel unquestionable. Discomfort is explained away. Signals from the body are overridden. Thinking feels authoritative and is mistaken for clarity. Meanwhile, something vitally important has dropped out of the picture.
Ken: I want to talk a bit about something which a few of you have probably heard me talk about directly and probably a few more have picked up on the podcasts. I’m going to add a couple of dimensions to it. And this is the topic of mind-killing. And this is, in a certain sense, an elaboration of comments I made earlier on institutional thinking.
The main emphasis I want to put—and what I want you to bring attention to in your own work—is how this operates inside you. Everything I have to say also applies to organizations, institutions—whether they’re families, workplaces, governmental systems, nations, media—what have you. But I want to put the emphasis on how this works inside us.
Now there are six methods which I got from the book by Noam Chomsky called Manufacturing Consent. In some work that I was doing not too long ago, I came across another four—which go back a lot further than Noam Chomsky—which go back to Francis Bacon. So I want to discuss these ’cause they all operate.
The first six come in three sets of pairs. The first pair is marginalize and frame. Now George Lakoff has written quite a lot on framing. He has a couple of big books on it but the two that are intended for more popular audiences are Don’t Think of an Elephant and The Political Brain. I’ve read them both. I think Don’t Think of an Elephant is actually clearer than The Political Brain but The Political Brain touches more points.
When I say to you, “Don’t think of an elephant,” what do you think of?
Student: An elephant.
Ken: Yeah. And what framing refers to is how a topic is framed. And you can frame topics in a lot of different ways. Each frame will allow certain ways of thinking to proceed and certain kinds of questions to be asked, and will not allow other kinds of questions to be asked or even other ways of thinking to be entertained.
So, for a very long time—I’ll give you an example from my own experience—having read and studied a number of texts in Tibetan Buddhism about the importance of posture, in particular the seven points of posture of Vairocana, I became convinced that you couldn’t meditate unless you use that posture. Most of the other people in the retreat didn’t have too much trouble with it. But I did. And I managed to make myself extremely ill, really quite ill, trying to do this. Of course, I didn’t stop there. I continued to insist in trying to meditate that way. And it wasn’t until my body just really was lying in pieces around my apartment that I thought well maybe I should try meditating in a chair. That’s how deeply that frame was set in me.
And so one of the things I’d like you to explore is what frames, do you present the whole notion of practice, to yourself? What does it allow and what does it not allow? Now very similar to Paul’s question earlier—and it’s one of the reasons I was pushing him a bit on that—is that you get into this, “It’s this way or this way!”, and so that’s what’s allowed. You can either go this way or this way. That’s it. And you can’t see the other possibilities that go in other directions. And that’s why studying these frames, becoming aware of them in ourselves, can be quite important. I’ll give you a couple more examples.
Many years ago a Buddhist teacher that I knew a bit, moved to L.A. and I invited her to come to a retreat that I was teaching at Mt. Baldy. Now her background was in Theravadan and Zen. Actually Rinzai Zen which tends to be fairly strict. And she would see people at Mt. Baldy reading in the dorms. And they weren’t Buddhist books. She’d see people going jogging at lunchtime. And jogging at a retreat? Right, Nancy? Unthinkable, isn’t it! And we’d do these insane interactive exercises in the afternoon—stuff I’d make up to illustrate various points.
And early on she just said, “Ken, what’s going on here?” But in the meditation hall she came to appreciate, from the energy, that there’s some pretty serious practice going on. And at the end of the retreat, she came to me and said, “You treat people like adults. [Laughter] You don’t treat them as children to be kept in line. I thought that was really weird when I first got here but it works.” And you can feel the frame operating there. This is the way it has to be done. And all of these other things aren’t allowed.
It works for some people but it doesn’t work for everybody, and she’s absolutely right as you can probably tell from this retreat. There’s nobody standing with sticks, whips, or machine guns saying, “You have to practice now.” And yet it’s pretty evident that there’s a lot of serious work going on. And when we sit together, there’s a lot of energy in the room. And I know from the conversations I have with you in the interviews, that there’s very definitely non-trivial emotional material being met. So the work’s taking place.
So this is another example of frames. And internally, whenever we find ourselves thinking things have to be done a certain way, or this is the way that you’re meant to be or something like that, this is the operation of a frame. Now many frames developed because they supported practice. But it is good, I think, from my perspective to question, “Is this actually supporting practice or is it doing something else?”
Julia, you have some experience with this. Would you mind saying something? I’m sorry to put you on the spot.
Julia: That’s okay. I’ve been working on and off over the last couple of years with a particular practice. And I’ve found that I find myself in a dynamic where I’m driving myself. And the practice becomes a tyrant and I am submitting. Or it becomes something I have to do because if I don’t do it, there will be some kind of terrible consequence. And then I stop. And I came up with the idea a while ago—we haven’t had a conversation that we’re going to have about how one avoids this kind of dynamic in practices that are intended to be done fairly intensively—but this idea of this sort of relentless drive that can take over, how one can avoid that. And the model I’ve had in my own head has been a sort of an agricultural model where you sort of cultivate and plant and weed and tend and harvest and then rest. So I’ve been doing it rather cyclically.
But it took time for me—and very closely with what I think of as what I call the machine culture that we live in—where we’ve moved from an agricultural to an industrial society. And machines never go to sleep. We’re all being required to live our lives because of the way the machines work rather than the other way around, it seems to me. So I know for myself and for many people I see, there’s a dynamic of just this relentless driving. You know, da dum [making machine sounds], and this and this and this 60 hours a week whatever that is. That definitely got into my practice.
Ken: I want to point out something that Julia’s done here. She found herself working in the frame defined by machine. And she’s explored changing the frame to one defined by agriculture. It changes the whole relationship with the practice. It may not be the right frame for the practice but it’s a very clear example of how shifting the frame changes the relationship, changes the way you approach the practice, etc.
So what many of our internal patterns do and what they did when they formed was to set the frame. And that initial frame was a way of approaching the world so we could get through what was a very difficult situation. But now we continue within that frame and it limits and denies and actually kills other possibilities. That’s why it is a tool of mind-killing.
Now, with that as a basis I’m sure you can look at lots of the stuff that’s happening politically in this country in terms of healthcare debate and economic things and see how—even with the Iraq War, etc.—how framing was used simply to eliminate all kinds of discussion.
Another technique which is used—and it’s quite closely related to framing—is marginalizing. In marginalization, ideas or perspectives that threaten the operation of the system are dismissed as unimportant or inconsequential.
So one of the ways that that can play internally is: “My body’s in pain when I’m meditating.
"That doesn’t matter. Keep going.”
And what it does is, it kills the possibility of actually listening to your body. A number of people have come to me from various forms of Theravadan training—and this isn’t universally true in Theravadan training of course but frequently enough that I’ve run into it a number of times—where emotional material has come up and they’ve been told, “Ignore it. It’s not important.” That’s an example of marginalization. And sometimes, yeah, it’s a little bit important. [Chuckles]
So in terms of internal processes, when you find yourself saying to yourself, “Nah, that’s not important” or “That doesn’t matter”, get curious about that sometimes. You’ve heard me talk about the small stammering voice that is asking the questions. Well, this is usually how the small stammering voice is treated. “Nah, don’t worry about that. Not important.” Marginalization.
The next pair …
Claudia: Can I ask a question? I’m interested in the relationship between language and the words that we use and framing. I mean we talked a little bit about metaphors but—
Ken: Yeah. Well, we think in metaphors, actually. Logic is above the level of metaphor. There is quite an astonishing episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation in which Picard encounters an alien whose language is all in metaphor. It referred to various literary metaphors. And they couldn’t figure out how to communicate. Philosophically it was just, I thought, brilliantly done.
But you’re absolutely right. Language plays an extremely important role here. It’s one of the reasons why I pay so much attention to language. We reveal the metaphors and the ways of thinking and how we’re marginalizing things and how we’re framing things by the language that we use.
Claudia: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking—that sometimes it’s hard to see your own frames.
Ken: I think it’s often very difficult to see your own frames.
Claudia: And one way to go at that is by looking at the language that you use when you talk about things because that can make you curious.
Ken: Yes. I would actually go a step further and ask yourself the question, “What questions does the language I’m using prevent me from asking?” And to take this one step further, this is one of the reasons why it is very important to have interaction with someone else around your practice, because both people have their set of frames, their ways of thinking, etc. And it is only in the interaction—what you were referring to earlier, Claudia, about sutra—that the frames are called into question and actual connection can take place.
And that’s where real learning comes in. And it’s one of the reasons I’m asking you at the end of the retreat to stand up and speak because now you interact with everybody else. And it’s different. It’s no longer just inside. It’s now out and interaction makes it come alive in a way that it can’t come alive if it’s just held inside.
So the next pair is seduction and alignment. Seduction says, "If you want to realize your dreams do this." And what’s happening there is the system is presenting you with the illusion of realizing your dreams to get you to behave in a certain way.
So, I have a very good friend who, by her own admission, loves to live in the story. And I’ve known her for many years. She’s been very helpful to me. But when she dies she’s gonna be Snow White in the glass case. And people will come from miles around to … [laughs]. This is the dream. And it got her into really, really serious trouble a couple of years ago. Really serious trouble. And it’s been very difficult for her ever since because now she knows she can’t live in the story. But she’s had a very successful life up to that point from living in the story. But it’s all about this internal operation of seduction.
One of my students, a stockbroker, was in a group I did in Orange County on basic meditation. And he came in one meeting and said, “You know, I just got another award for some very large amount of sales as a stockbroker, and it doesn’t mean very much to me. And I can’t figure out why.”
So I looked at him. I said, “Congratulations.”
He said, “What?”
I said, “Congratulations.”
He said, “Why?”
“Now you know. They lied.”
He said, “What are you talking about?”
“Weren’t you told that if you sold this very large amount of stocks you would be happy and feel fulfilled? And your life would be rich? And everything like that?”
He said, “Yeah.”
“Do you feel that way?”
“No.”
“So you know. They lied.”
That’s the dream. That’s what seduction’s about. You’re presented with the illusion that your dreams are going to be fulfilled. If you behave according the the demands of the system. We do this internally to ourselves all the time.
Alignment in one way isn’t as extreme, but in one way it’s more extreme. With alignment you’re told you have to do this in order to survive, in order to exist. And I run into this many, many times with people, that they’re doing something and I say, “Well, why don’t you stop doing that? It’s not working for you,” and, “Why don’t you do this instead?” And they say, “Well, I wouldn’t know who I was.” Their very definition is locked up there. And it’s a prison. It kills the ability to see other alternatives. You run into this very frequently in people who’ve worked in a single job for many, many years. And it becomes their raison d’etre.
So seduction and alignment. And then you have reduction and polarization.
In reduction, complex issues are reduced to a single emotional issue. So a person comes, and says, “I’m having a lot of difficulty with my practice. My body hurts, etc. My mind’s all over the place. I’m not sure this is the right form of practice for me doing this very complex visualization, etc. It’s really hard and I just can’t hold the image, etc.”—like that.
And the teacher says, “Well, you want to get enlightened, don’t you?!” [Makes exasperated sound.]
One single emotionally charged issue. Anybody experience something like this? That’s reduction. And there are many other forms. Very often we’ll do this to ourselves internally. And it eliminates any possibility of discussion and negotiation, exploration, etc.
I mean this has happened to me many times, actually. I remember one teacher that I was talking with, and I was saying I was having a difficult time with certain meditations, and I found that resting with the breath just really helpful. Reply: “There’s no breath in the bardo.“ [Laughs] Reduction. Jeff, please.
Jeff: But reduction can be a good teaching method. I’m thinking of a couple of years ago here …
Ken: Oh, dear.
Jeff: As you explained, I was having waking nightmares as I was walking around. And you said, you looked at me, “Well, you gonna quit?” [Laughter]
It was effective.
Ken: You’re quite right. All of these can be effective in helping people to move. At the same time they can be, and frequently are, used by parts of us and by other people to kill the ability to explore and come to terms with our own experience.
And so when I said that to you it wasn’t with the intention of getting you to conform to a system or my way of thinking. It was intended to give you a shock so you’d really take a look at where you were in your practice. And I’m glad it was effective because whenever you use such a technique there is always a risk. If the person isn’t able to make use of it then all the experience is being hit or being cut. If they are able to make use of it, then it becomes an opening—or a renewal or something like that. But there’s always that risk when you use such techniques.
Any of you can recognize this? Reduction. Do you want to say a word about that, Gary?
Gary: Well, not as to practice but I had a friend who died about six months ago, but he got me involved in an email debate regarding politics, and he accused me of being a socialist. And so once that happened the discussion pretty much was over.
Ken: Yeah. I read in an online community—I think it was connected with Wired—the very perceptive comment, that in this community the first person to bring up Nazi Germany in an argument, it was a de facto recognition that they had lost the argument. ’Cause now it was going for reduction. I thought it was a pretty smart community.
Okay. Polarization is a little different from reduction in that complex matters are split into just two choices, and the limiting of it to those two choices prevents any other discussion or any other consideration. So, right and wrong is one way to polarize things. And it precludes any possibility of a nuanced discussion or even a nuanced response. So it’s this or that.
So, those are six methods. And as I’ve said, look at how these operate inside you. In particular, look at how patterns or a particular pattern presents things to you. Does it say, “Do this and you will know happiness beyond your wildest dreams?” Or is it saying, “This is right and this is wrong. You can’t think about anything else.”