With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Recently, I have had the pleasure of listening to a few conversations regarding subjects near and dear to me. These conversations regard the brain and perception. My clinical training and experiences, relationships, and other issues, have added to the context of these conversations in my mind’s eye. I would like to comment now.
To use the arcane language of the ancient sages, in the mortal world, categories and divisions are erected in order to understand things. In the world of the Buddhas, which is to say, in the Zen world, a world of “Oneness” and “Interdependence,” categories are obstacles to understanding. In the soft sciences, “systems theory” has helped us see the interrelated nature of all things, that systems are composed of subsystems and all of these are completely connected with one another. My understanding at this point is that physics is coming to a similar place. The Buddha himself taught this with his sutras addressing dependant co-arising: this is because that is. And, from the Diamond sutra, any bodhisattva considering beings as separate from other beings is not a bodhisattva.
When we look at a single system, let’s say the nervous system, if we look at it without understanding that it is seamlessly interconnected with all other systems of the body and universe we will miss very important relationships. Treating it as an independent system, will, in effect, kill it. Moreover, the fact that it is a separate system at all is a function of how our brain perceives and organizes data, not a reflection of the actual thing itself. Looking at a brain, we are not seeing a brain: we are seeing our brain’s representation of a brain and that representation is dependent on our own brain’s sensory acuity.
A blind woman perceives a piano. A deaf man perceives a piano. Are they the same or different? The perceptions will form a picture in the individual’s mind’s eye based on the available sensory data, integrate that data with information gained from other sources, and each person will intuit “piano.” Each would be right; each would be wrong. Or rather, we should we say each would be incomplete.
Zen is about complete. It is about living in the world as a whole, not as parts. A brain functions according to its limitations. Do not mistake its function as complete or even near complete. Its function itself becomes an impediment when we use it as a tool to understanding. We are only able to understand within the parameters of its function.
The practice of “looking deeply” a practice of opening one’s eye to the totality of what is in front of it, begins to dissolve the boundaries and limitations of the brain’s function. Aristotle can be helpful here. He argued four causes were present in everything. When we look at a piano, we see the material construction (wood, plastic, metal) We could see the formal construction (how it was put together). We could also see the efficient construction (that which brought the piano into being). And we could see the teleological construction (its function and purpose for being). In each case, we should not limit ourselves to the immediate thing in front of us as that would miss very important aspects of the piano. The material came from other materials; the builders hands are present in the piano. The mind of the designer and inventor of “piano” is present in the instrument, and, of course we, with our intent to play the piano, are there, as well. In a very deep sense, everything in the universe is in that piano. It is made of the same stuff we are, as are the sun and moon, the stars and asteroids. When we look at “piano” with only one view of it, we are depriving both it and ourselves of piano’s truly rich nature.
If we do this with sentient beings, we risk all manner of sorrow. Doctors miss-diagnose or fail to see the interactive and synergistic effects of systems and sub-systems, city planners fail to see how building “X” creates problems for “Y,” and we fail to see our karma being established in the world. It is akin to the old saw, he “misses the forest for the trees.”
To carry this one step further, we have a wonderful ability to see and identify trees, but are less adept at seeing and deeply appreciating forests. Moreover, to paraphrase the Buddha himself, the forest isn’t the forest, it’s just what we call a forest.
Be well.