A friend asked: What is Mind?
Mind
(Mano)
is an ever changing cyclic sequence of these 5
phenomena:
Contact1 => Feeling1 + Perception1 => Intention1 =>
Attention1 =>
Contact2 => Feeling2 + Perception2 => Intention2 =>
Attention2 =>
Contact3 => etc.
Regarding Consciousness itself:
Consciousness is NOT created by the brain, but RESIDES WITHIN
the brain!
Just like the beer is
inside
the bottle, but is not
created by the bottle...
To identify
Mind
only with Brain is
a (false) view, which actually is a philosophical
(often dogmatic) standpoint, and NOT
a scientifically, nor an experimentally verified fact.
This tantalizing
yet too simple IDEA
is called physicalism or
materialism!
On this common, yet wrong assumption named
Mind-Brain
Identity Theory see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_physicalism
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-identity/
Consciousness is
information. Information is
definitely real,
but not material...
Luminous is the Mind said the Buddha!
And Non-Local may we today add:
Interestingly: When one person sees light in a dark room,
another distant person's
brain emits low level light, if they are magnetically
identically pulsed:
Full text here:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/pdfs/Brain.Photon.Entanglement.pdf
Furthermore: So
do cell cultures also! When one receives light, the other
shines!
Objection:
Bhante, when anaesthesiologists inject chemicals into the
body to influence the brain
to make the patient lose consciousness, are these chemicals
then interacting with
consciousness itself and not the physical brain?
Answer:
Anaesthetic chemicals interact with the brain cells, which
then interact with the element
of consciousness. Like if you smash the bottle of a beer,
then the beer runs out of the
bottle, consciousness is affected if the nerve cell membrane
is made unstable and thus
leaking by
anaesthetic agents. Neither of course proves the
false assumption that the
bottle actually produces the beer..., nor that
the brain produces the consciousness...,
just that they both are
'containers' of another
element...
PS:
Consciousness is not completely 'gone' during anaesthesia,
since there is unconscious
perception, and
memory formation during anaesthesia:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/pdfs/Memory_of_Unconsciously_Perceived_Events.1996.pdf
Furthermore: Brain function is a correlated set, and not
independent events:
2 persons sitting in different buildings, and rooms have
correlated EEGs.
Friends vs. strangers have specific correlation patterns:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/pdfs/Correlated.EEG.pdf
>What
is going from this life to the next?
In brief:
Causal
Conditioning! Please see:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/drops/III/What_passes_on_by_Rebirth-Linking.htm
Regarding Buddhist Theory of Rebirth-Linking
(patisandhi) see
also:
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/DPPN/wtb/n_r/patisandhi.htm
For an Orthodox Buddhist explanation of the transmigration of
consciousness:
Rebirth Explained: V. F. Gunaratna, BPS, Kandy, Wheel
Publication No. 167-69
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/Wheels/wh_167_169.html
https://What-Buddha-Said.net/library/Wheels/wh_167_168_169.pdf
More
on the Mind
(Citta,
Nāma):
Magnificent_Mind,
Mind_Reading,
Luminous_is_Mind,
The_Core_Duality,
AN.I.5-6,
In_Control,
Non-Control,
Immersing_the_Body_in_the_Mind
Immersing_the_Body_in_the_Mind,
Mind_is_Home,
What_is_Mind?
Luminous is Mind,
Highway_to_Nibbana,
Omniscient_Quantum_Mind
AN.I.6-7,
Blazing_&_Bright,
AN.I.8-10,
Focusing_on_Mentality.
Mind Dhammapada section with soothing music and images
Citta-Vagga:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rccI1c9JRtQ
