What’s in the Cupboard?

A member of our group - I’m sure she won’t mind me saying her name, Suzanne - very kindly gave me a book for Christmas. It’s called Into The Silent Land by a neuropsychologist called Paul Broks. It’s beautifully written and utterly fascinating. Neuropsychology investigates what he describes as (using a computer metaphor) the hardware of the brain, that contains the software of the mind, that produces the text of the self on the screen. And it’s extremely Buddhist in that he confirms that once we look for the self behind the screen no where can it be found. All the hardware and software working together produce an illusion - though a very felt illusion - of its existence.

OK? So of course this has got me thinking. He describes our own position of consciousness/awareness/clarity not being dependent on the brain as dualism. That we are saying they are two seperate things rather then the objective (looked at from outside) and subjective (known from the inside) faces of just one thing. A mind-brain. But is ‘dualism’ the right word? I don’t think so. ….

Reading all his case studies of people who have brain damage or a brain cancer they could equally easily be described as a situation where, while awareness remains intact, its ability to express itself as a function, and in some cases know itself, becomes impaired. So for instance, if I have a brain injury in the area that processes sight and I am rendered blind, then I will have no awareness of seeing - but this does not mean the awareness that continues to work perfectly elsewhere (the other senses for instance) is in itself impaired. Blocked from the function of seeing, yes, but still unharmed. The mirror may no longer reflect a particular thing but its ability to reflect remains the intact.

What about something like Alzheimer’s? Where not just a function is lost but the person’s sense of self? Well, I don’t really know but while observing a friend descending into this heartbreaking illness I noticed that their awareness remained intact even as there was a struggled to remember it contents. We could say the lit screen of awareness remained even as the images within it faded - including the image of being a particular person.

All this depends on what we consider the most basic thing is. The fundamental nature of reality to put it grandly. Paul Broks believes what we would call dualism. That we exist as a separate entity within a universe of other things that are all other than what I call ‘myself’. For him awareness is a property that in some mysterious way is produced by a couple of pounds of gelatinous meat that is contained within the cranium. However, we (maybe just me!) believe that by strictly staying with the evidence it is not ‘I’ who have awareness (as a sort of attribute or possession) but rather, everything I think about myself - my mind and body - and everything else, literally arises within awareness. It’s actually the other way round. And furthermore - hang on to your socks - given that ‘I’ or ‘me’ is also just a content of awareness, the awareness itself is not even personal. There is just awareness, nothing else, that’s why we are saying it’s non-dual. The entire universe arises within awareness and is an expression of that awareness. Not something seperate. Like the reflections within a mirror are not seperate from the mirror itself even while they remain ephemeral and impermanent. Awareness is the basic thing.

Phew!

Paul Brok writes a haiku after giving us the hardware/software/screen image:

A true enigma:

The self looks inwards and finds

Nothing but neurons.

I had a go at this:

As it is:

The self looks inwards and finds

Nothing but the clarity that looks.

And yes, I know it’s a rubbish haiku …

NW. 30 December 2024