I do not see how the above is relevant. Can you, please, explain what it means relevant for our discussion? Of course mental states change, rapidly. The only thing that I see which is irrelevant to current discussion is that if a person enters nirodha samapatti for number of days, then between his entry and before his emergence from it there could be the same type of bhavanga citta occuring (if there is bhavanga citta there).
No, I am not satisfied with limited knowledge from science, but at the same time we can’t simply reject what we did learn and which is applicable to daily life.
Because the cittas arise and pass away so quickly. The experience of hardness or heat in the area of the foot arises there and ceases instantly, but the other cittas in the process arise at the hadaya vatthu.
As you are sitting, do you experience hardness (and resistance to movement down) only for a split second or for the entire duration of the sitting? If the former, then why don’t we fall down through the chair after its hardness & support instantly vanishes?!!!
We don’t fall though the chair as rupa is continually being produced (there is arising and ceasing)- but if this mechanism stopped than the whole universe would disappear instantly.
I saw a passage in a book that included an interview with the head of the Physics department at the University of Chicago (where they later first started making the atomic bomb). It was in the
1930’s and he was telling someone what they now knew about matter He said he found it hard to accept that the very floor they were standing on was just space and
particles in flux - nevertheless that is what they had found. We accept this easily now because of our education but it is not so easy to see.
I believe that the pain signal is materiality from the sense organ to the brain, and in the brain there occurs the arising of mentalities, starting from consciousness derived from contact.
I’ll bring to this discussion the phenomenon of phantom perception. This occurs when a person has a part of the body amputated or damaged to the point that it loses sensitivity. Due to the lack of sensory stimulation in that body part, the individual begins to experience hallucinatory sensations and perceptions related to it, as if it were still present or receiving external stimuli.
The phantom limb is a well-known example — a bodily structure (e.g., a leg) is absent, yet the individual perceives that such a structure is still present. Another example is phantom images, which occur in blind people who were previously sighted.
The source of these perceptions is not sensory contact but the brain itself. It is possible to have certain sensory experiences without the corresponding sensory organ, provided that the related cerebral area remains intact.
On the other hand, sensory consciousness does not occur, even with an intact sensory organ, if the corresponding cerebral area is compromised or if there is an interruption in the circuit between the sensory organ and the brain. In extreme cases, people may not even recognize the affected body parts as their own.
These facts provide strong evidence that the mental processing of sensory experiences is correlated with the brain.
One doesn’t feel pain signal itself, only the result of its processing in the brain. I am not saying that this is The Absolute Truth, only that this is what modern science claims as I understand it.
I’ve heard similar story being said before. What is missing is the crucial part that, yes, even though matter might be 99.9% empty , the rest is filled with fundamental subatomic forces including (gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear force) . That last part is crucial. They account for the resistance of matter, etc.
I noted earlier that
“the physical base for the mind door is extremely tiny. And it is different from the body base. If someone poked our brain the consciousness that arose experiencing hardness is actually arising at the body base (kāya-vatthu).”
The body base too is extremely subtle despite it arising all over the body. AS soon as someone dies - that very instant - there is no more of these subtle kamma produced rupa - yet the body still appears almost the same until decomposition sets in.
By your example, if someone stimulates the cerebral area related to vision and the person experiences visual consciousness as a result, this would mean that the eye-base was impinged by the contact. Thus, the eye-base would be using a part of the brain as its physical support. This would apply to all the sense bases except the mind-base. That makes sense to me.
I don’t understand the body-base as being present throughout the whole body. If that were the case, areas of the body without innervation or without representation in the brain (as in stroke victims) would still generate bodily impressions after contact.
However, if there are reports of people who retain bodily perceptions without mediation of peripheral nerves or without activity in the corresponding cerebral area, then the idea of the body-base being present throughout the body would be plausible. For example, a paraplegic with a complete rupture of the spinal cord, who can accurately feel touches on the legs (excluding phantom perceptions) while having their eyes closed, would be a case favorable to the view that the body-base is present in the legs.
A possible example of this:
There’s a paywall for reading the complete article, so I can’t describe the mechanisms proposed by the researches for the perceptions reported by the patients. Residual innervation is one of the possible mechanisms. Those reported perceptions were of low precision and resolution, not comparable to an intact spinal cord.
Look, i don’t think anyone here is aggainst what is called science nowadays. If you want a pot go to a potter.
It does not matter how many blind beggers start working together, it does not give any one of them vision.
blind beggers: as in the simile of the blind beggers and the elephant. In that simile the blind beggers are outsider yogis( they can directly touch parts of the elephant). I am not sure that if the, takkikā horde is even included.
Yes, Venerable Sir, thanks for bringing this interesting case. It’s a case of slowly progressive hydrocephaly. This condition mainly affects the white matter of the brain, which is composed of extra-neuronal components. The gray matter (the neurons), however, can adapt over time and tends to decrease at a slower rate. So, to say that this man “lost 90% of his brain” is only partially correct — the total brain volume was indeed reduced by about 90%, but reduction of the number of neurons was probably smaller. With proper management of hydrocephaly, some recovery of cellular volume may even occur— but in discrete amounts.
I apologize for insisting on this point, but I think that an interpretation of the Abhidhamma that does not include the brain — or worse, tries to exclude it — from the domain of mental phenomena becomes very vulnerable to criticism from those with a scientific background.
The Suttantas have an advantage in this regard, since the Buddha uses more general terms when referring to the mind-base, and there is no sutta where he explicitly identifies the physical heart as the center of consciousness. Thus, they can more easily accommodate theories of consciousness that involve the brain, even if such theories are not entirely accurate. I don’t think it’s impossible to do the same with the Abhidhamma and the commentaries — just more challenging.
Please note that in my proposed theories I’m restricting the analysis to the relationship between the five sense doors and the brain, leaving the mind-door aside for now. But that point too is open for further review.
PS: if consciousness was totally restricted to the brain, much probably that man would not be as functional as he was.
I don’t doubt the importance of a brain.
But I think we are talking about the CPU rather than RAM or Disk or circuits connecting the peripherals (using a computer as an example).
The mind actually occurs in the eye base during pure eye consciousness.
…ears during pur ear consciousness. etc.
…mind during mind consciousness. This would be the heart.
Yes, Bhante.
My point is that the eye-base could correspond to the visual areas of the brain rather than to the physical eye itself, and the ear-base to the auditory brain rather than to the physical ear, and so on.
As for the heart-base (or mind-base), I’ve left it aside for now precisely because it also deals with immaterial objects, so its correlation with organic structures is not as straightforward as it is with the other sense-bases. Perhaps I should reflect on this matter a bit more before continuing the discussion.
If someone poked the brain hard enough, there might NOT be any consciousness at all because the organ (apparently required for it, as science believes) is damaged. This is the problem.
I’d like to clarify and correct what I said earlier.
The Suttantas have an advantage in this regard, since the Buddha uses more general terms when referring to the mind-base, and there is no sutta where he explicitly identifies its physical location.
I’m not denying that the Abhidhamma Pitaka belongs to the Theravāda tradition. My point is that the Abhidhamma would benefit from stronger scientific arguments to support its interpretations. If critics perceive the Abhidhamma as incompatible with scientific knowledge — or even indifferent to it— they may use this perception to undermine the value of the texts.
I’m not appealing to science because I think scientists are more intelligent or mentally more advanced, but because the scientific method, when properly applied, allows replicability and verification of findings. While correct data do not automatically lead to correct conclusions, intellectually honest researchers make their reasoning transparent and open to scrutiny. Science also deals with domains that are accessible to people of ordinary mental development and intact senses.
However, if defenders of the Abhidhamma rely mostly on claims such as “these matters can be known only by a highly developed mind” — or worse, statements like “only those with abhiññā can see that the hadaya-vatthu is located in the heart” — this approach risks alienating outsiders and discouraging meaningful discussion.
That said, I agree that these realities cannot be fully understood without a refined and cultivated mind. I would understand such a mind as at least that of a sotāpanna. A sotāpanna might not directly perceive the subtle realities (such as the eye-base or heart-base), but through careful examination, they could discern which teachings are genuine. When engaging with discussions with unenlightened people, however, it is helpful to use forms of knowledge that they can personally verify— either through empirical investigation, as in science, or through the internal coherence of logical reasoning.
