Overwhelmed by the reptilian level
QUESTION:
Dear Dharmavidya, Thank you very much for making the Pure Land Topics course available – it was always stimulating and often challenging. I valued it very much. At the end of the last unit you asked some questions about the nature of enlightenment. The thought occurred to me that our current understanding of the triune brain might have some bearing on the matter. Simplistically, is it possible to be “enlightened” in the neocortex but then, at another time, be overwhelmed by impulses from the mammalian and reptilian levels? I have recently been practicing Nien Fo in my personal meditation time. Soon after I started, I noticed some ways in which I was relating differently to others. It does seem to be a practice that directly impacts the heart. Who knows, I may yet be become a Pureland Buddhist! – M
DHARMAVIDYA: Dear M, The two parts to your question are probably more closely related than you think. The Nien Fo practice is designed to help us base our spiritual practice upon acknowledgement that we are “foolish beings of blind passion”, or, you could say, that we have a reptilian dimension to our being. Wisdom and enlightenment are then seen more in the frame of achieving compassion for all through knowing our own nature than in the perspective of attainment to an ideal state. The idea that the wise person is the one who knows just how foolish he is is, of course, not unique to Pureland Buddhism, but it is something that can be lost sight of in the midst of all the wonderful description of transcendent perfection that fill the pages of works on many schools of Buddhism. From the Pureland point of view we are not awakened to our intrinsic perfection so much as to our inner reptile. The reptile needs care and attention and some boundaries, but even Buddhas have got one. Acknowledging deeply that we are all the the same boat in this respect is likely to change the way we relate to one another. It, as you say, directly impacts the heart.
Dear Dharmavidya, Thank you very much for making the Pure Land Topics course available – it was always stimulating and often challenging. I valued it very much. At the end of the last unit you asked some questions about the nature of enlightenment. The thought occurred to me that our current understanding of the triune brain might have some bearing on the matter. Simplistically, is it possible to be “enlightened” in the neocortex but then, at another time, be overwhelmed by impulses from the mammalian and reptilian levels? I have recently been practicing Nien Fo in my personal meditation time. Soon after I started, I noticed some ways in which I was relating differently to others. It does seem to be a practice that directly impacts the heart. Who knows, I may yet be become a Pureland Buddhist! – M
DHARMAVIDYA: Dear M, The two parts to your question are probably more closely related than you think. The Nien Fo practice is designed to help us base our spiritual practice upon acknowledgement that we are “foolish beings of blind passion”, or, you could say, that we have a reptilian dimension to our being. Wisdom and enlightenment are then seen more in the frame of achieving compassion for all through knowing our own nature than in the perspective of attainment to an ideal state. The idea that the wise person is the one who knows just how foolish he is is, of course, not unique to Pureland Buddhism, but it is something that can be lost sight of in the midst of all the wonderful description of transcendent perfection that fill the pages of works on many schools of Buddhism. From the Pureland point of view we are not awakened to our intrinsic perfection so much as to our inner reptile. The reptile needs care and attention and some boundaries, but even Buddhas have got one. Acknowledging deeply that we are all the the same boat in this respect is likely to change the way we relate to one another. It, as you say, directly impacts the heart.
posted by Dharmavidya at 9:26 AM
2 Comments:
We are awareness and the potential for realization in a matrix evolved over aeons of time in a myriad of variables. Some of the characteristics of our brain structures and behaviours were developed in response to social and environmental conditions which, for the most part, no longer exist. The Buddhist path, to me, seems to be a way of realizing the potential for liberation from emotional and physical patterns (samskaras) which are no longer adaptive in evolutionary terms. More often than not, anger, rage, frustration, greed and lust operate from that blind, illogical part of the brain that harks back to its pre-Pleistocene ancestors--and this squarely places our spiritual devolopment (with emphasis on goodwill, compassion, logic and equanimity) in a race with our more violent tendencies and their ability to access the technological wizardry of our neocortex.
An interesting speculative work on the brain and evolution of behaviors in human beings is Carl Sagan's "The Dragons of Eden." Sagan presents this perspective on human intelligence in a lucid and easily followable presentation.
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