Thoughts And The Brain

[The White Belt]

Do thoughts come from the brain?

I read somewhere that scientists will one day be able to tell what we are thinking, 

and that certain thoughts come from certain regions of the brain.

Is this the case? If so how does it play into self-enquiry?

[Be Yourself]

@The White Belt My theory is that thoughts do come from the brain and by doing self-inquiry or meditation we start somehow rewiring it.  That way, with more practice, we able to train the brain so much that it opens up.. 

[alyra]

5 hours ago, The White Belt said:

 scientists will one day be able to

keep looking and only find new questions. 

look at what they already know - and still find it fantastical. 

 

this is the truth of scientific understanding It is what drives the most passionate scientists.

 

[The White Belt]

@Be Yourself But if they come from the brain, this so called 'computer', then why are they so psychopathic? Why are they killing most of us slowly?!

[Be Yourself]

@The White Belt Perhaps, some people have more psychopathic brains or stronger egos than others. But really, the only thing why they are killing us is because we believe in those thoughts. We are so used to identify with those thoughts that we think it's who we are.

Although, I don't know what happens to people with mental illnesses. Maybe there is something wrong with their brain and it makes them to identify with it even more strongly.. I don't know..

[abrakamowse]

22 hours ago, The White Belt said:

Do thoughts come from the brain?

Is there a brain?

[Shanmugam]

Each thought is a result of communication between thousands of neurons... There are regions of brain associated with specific tasks of our thinking.. For example, prefrontal cortex - logical thinking and planning, amygdala -emotions, hippocampus-memory, default mode network -thoughts about you and your story etc... Some mental disorders are caused by damages in certain parts of the brain and some like phobias are due to what happened in the past... we are also genetically predisposed to think and react in certain ways.. For example, the level of certain neurotransmitters in your brain can decide how depressed you can be, how aggresive you can be etc..

19 hours ago, Be Yourself said:

@The White Belt My theory is that thoughts do come from the brain and by doing self-inquiry or meditation we start somehow rewiring it.  That way, with more practice, we able to train the brain so much that it opens up.. 

Thats right... every thought rewires the brain... we use our cognition for self-inquiry. so it definitely rewires the brain.  Science already has strong evidence for meditation rewiring the brain.  Here is a list of books written by neuroscientists who have studied the brains of many buddhist teachers: Neuroscientists on Spiritual Enlightenment and Meditation

Gary Weber is a scientist as well as somebody who has claimed to have become enlightened, has observed that most of the thoughts in his mind has disappeared after enlightenment.

In an article about Gary Weber, it says “Over time, Weber figured out that it wasn’t that all his thoughts had disappeared; rather a particular kind of self-referential thinking had cut out, what he calls “the blah blah network.” Scientists now refer to this as the “default mode network” (DMN), that is, the endlessly ruminative story of me: the obsessive list-maker, the anxious scenario planner, the distracted daydreamer.  This is the part of the thinking process we default to when not engaged in a specific task”. 

It is also interesting to note that science has observed that DMN activation correlates with more unhappiness.

Here is a definition of DMN from Wikipedia: “The default mode network is most commonly shown to be active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. But it is also active when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future”.

My own observation about my mind after doing years of mindfulness meditation is that most of my thoughts have disappeared. Based on the Wiki definition of DMN, I can confidently assume that there is a very less activity in the DMN of my brain.

 

[Be Yourself]

@Shanmugam Great explanation! Thank you

[The White Belt]

@Shanmugam Great stuff. Thanks a lot man! 
Can I ask, for how long have you been practicing mindfulness meditation, and what other practices do you have? 

Thanks again! 

[Shanmugam]

3 minutes ago, The White Belt said:

@Shanmugam Great stuff. Thanks a lot man! 
Can I ask, for how long have you been practicing mindfulness meditation, and what other practices do you have? 

Thanks again! 

You are Welcome  .. I have been practicing mindfulness for about 13 years..  I also practiced self -inquiry.. I did some yoga classes but did not practice it much..

[The White Belt]

Have you had many breaks in your mindfulness practice, as in, missed days or weeks?

Practiced? Is that past? Do you not practice it anymore? Did you do it daily in the past? @Shanmugam

Edited May 22, 2017 by The White Belt

[Shanmugam]

@The White Belt  I was trying to be mindful when I was doing my everyday stuff, like walking, eating etc... I had to remind myself to be mindful when I started to practice it.. But in six months time, it became a habit... I was doing in almost all the waking hours.. But I did take breaks from reading spiritual books or thinking about anything that has to do with spirituality..  The longest break was about two years, I think.. But being mindful of my thoughts and emotions continued as a habit... At one point in 2014, when I started listening to spiritual talks and reading books again after a break, I began to practice it even more intensely and it led to a transformation.  I have written more about it here: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/05/10/the-journey-of-a-seeker-my-story/

But after this transformation, things have become weird... I don't have any motivation to intensely practice mindfulness  because my search and desire for enlightenment disappeared. The transformation also took away the psychological boundaries between 'me' and 'others'.. Also, when I was practicing mindfulness earlier, there was a gap between the 'observer' and the 'observed' (my thoughts, feelings etc)... But the transformation also resulted in merging the observer and the observed together..  I am mindful without any effort at all.. But when I am involved in deep thinking (like trying to figure out certain things or thinking about what I should write in my blog etc), I don't pay any attention to the surroundings at all. I give my whole attention and mental energy on the stuff I am thinking about... This will not fit into how mindfulness is generally understood these days, because clinical mindfulness scale will rate you low on mindfulness if you are not paying attention to your sense perceptions.... But when I am not doing this thinking, my mind is very calm and still.. I am still trying to make sense of the transformation that happened and things are getting settled down for me now...

[The White Belt]

@Shanmugam hmmm. Sounds interesting. Thanks! 

[abrakamowse]

How do you know that there's a body?

[Dodo]

22 hours ago, Be Yourself said:

@The White Belt My theory is that thoughts do come from the brain and by doing self-inquiry or meditation we start somehow rewiring it.  That way, with more practice, we able to train the brain so much that it opens up.. 

From the spiritual heart, guys <3 

Edited May 22, 2017 by Dodo

[abrakamowse]

7 minutes ago, Dodo said:

From the spiritual heart, guys <3 

I read an article that people who got heart transplants get the skills or abilities of the person who was the donor of the heart.

It was published on an Chinese newspaper that I got in the subway in NYC. We don't know nothing at all.

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/health/388617/transplants-changed-our-personalities/ 

Edited May 22, 2017 by abrakamowse

[Shanmugam]

@abrakamowse  It is very interesting.. Thanks for the link.

There has been some skepticism raised on this though...  Here is an article that provides information about many explanations that has been given for this : http://skepdic.com/cellular.html

[Dodo]

7 hours ago, abrakamowse said:

I read an article that people who got heart transplants get the skills or abilities of the person who was the donor of the heart.

It was published on an Chinese newspaper that I got in the subway in NYC. We don't know nothing at all.

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/health/388617/transplants-changed-our-personalities/ 

Ramana Maharshi has claimed that the I thought has it's root in the Heart, and to follow the I thought to it's origin is the quickest way to recognise liberation. 

 

[abrakamowse]

15 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

@abrakamowse  It is very interesting.. Thanks for the link.

There has been some skepticism raised on this though...  Here is an article that provides information about many explanations that has been given for this : http://skepdic.com/cellular.html

Nice @Shanmugam  that's good stuff. Now I don't believe in anything upfront but I try to see all the options and keep them "open" until some experience confirms it. And even when that happen I am always open to change my ideas, or a new thing that I discover makes me change my opinion, but I try not to cling to my opinions. I really posted that more to try to show another "side" of the coin but I really don't know if any of the theories is true, because we need to defy the conventional thinking (that is that the brain makes the thinking) and the unconventional (like the one I posted about the heart) we have to double check like the way you did.

And we only have our experience, any idea that we get from "other" people is not on our experience and it becomes a belief.

Remember the old saying... "If you meet the Buddha, kill him.”– Linji

We can not rely even on the scriptures and at the end of the path we have to even let go the idea of enlightenment.

 

 

 

[Shanmugam]

@abrakamowse Yeah.. I totally agree