Heart base - or brain

[RobertK]

@Nikolay_Gnatyuk

if the brain is the place where dhamma-aramana arises, that is, where thoughts, images, memories, and so on are formed. They then enter the realm of awareness, which is the true “witness” or “observer,” the “cognitive essence” directed toward the object. Damage to the brain impairs the formation of dhammas cognized by consciousness.

@Citta

They all arise at the brain. Because otherwise, how to explain how painkillers

As I said at the start:

@RobertK

What does the brain do then? It does something, it is like wiring center needed for functioning of the body mind. Sure if you pull out a few wires , just as with a computer, things aren’t going to work so well.

I think as we learn more and confidence grows, interest gradually shifts to reality - to what life really is.

Anything else is merely ideas, concepts; and the mind has an almost unlimited capacity to manufacture simple or complex ideas - and can get very enamored with them.

If those concepts are about Dhamma they can have use but even then unless we are getting down to the real nitty gritty - that is learning to distinguish reality from concept then understanding won’t grow. There are only cittas, cetasikas and rupa, that is all.

It is interesting to learn more about the ayatana . For example seeing an object. This is the coming together of eyesense, visible object , seeing consciousness and cetaikas that accompany the citta. And each of these is conditioned. It happens utterly beyond anyone’s control. That extremely brief moment of seeing can only arise at the tiny kamma produced rupa at the center of the eye - if that special rupa is not present then no seeing can ever arise.
And the same for a moment of experiencing hardness through the body - just different realities- citta, cetasikas and rupa.

Damage to the brain impairs the formation of dhammas cognized by consciousness.

Even a snake or an ant has seeing- cakkhu-vinnana (cakkhuviññāṇa)- merely an element that must arise if there are conditions. Someone might have severe brain damage - but still seeing arises, thinking arises, smelling, tasting ..
Unless there is the coming together of the eyesense, and the visible object seeing will never happen. A blind man who is without the eyesense can never have cakkhu vinnana.

Madhupindika Sutta MN 18

Dependent on the ear and sounds…Dependent on the nose and odours.. .Dependent on the tongue and flavours.. .Dependent on the body and tangibles…Dependent on the mind and mind- objects, mind-consciousness arises. The meeting of the three is contact. With contact as condition there is feeling. What one feels, that one perceives. What one perceives, that one thinks about. What one thinks about, that one mentally proliferates. With what one has mentally proliferated as the source, perceptions and notions tinged by mental proliferation beset a man with respect to past, future, and present mind-objects cognizable through the mind.

Thus six different worlds - seeing this has many benefits:

Therefore, Bāhiya, this is how you are to train yourself:
“In the seen, there will be just the seen.
In the heard, there will be just the heard.
In the sensed, there will be just the sensed.
In the cognized, there will be just the cognized.
This, Bāhiya, is how you are to train yourself.

[Citta]

@RobertK

We might find it unsettling that Buddhists are persuaded by the ideas of science.

The fact that you are reading this requires the internet and a materialistic device connected to it, all thanks to modern science.

It sounds like modern science thinks feeling (vedana ) is a type of physical entity: This pain that seems to be arising at the area where the cut was somehow migrates up to the brain ?

Its cause is purely physical. Thanks to materialism we have all the advances in pain reduction and anasthesia for example. Imagine having a surgery without any pain killers.

The pain does NOT migrate anywhere, it is a signal that gets send to the brain which interprets it as pain. If the nerve along which the signal travels is blocked, or the signal somehow altered, or specific region in the brain that deals with pain has its function altered - then there can be pain reduction or even no pain.

Even a snake or an ant has seeing-

Not every type of ant has eyes or ears.

Interesting thing about snakes: They have infrared vision, they see heat. Also Ultraviolet (something we don’t see) and some color vision on the level of color blindness in humans.

[RobertK]

@Citta

@RobertK

We might find it unsettling that Buddhists are persuaded by the ideas of science.

The fact that you are reading this requires the internet and a materialistic device connected to it, all thanks to modern science

And as I said in the next sentence,
“All of us are much conditioned by an age where scientific discoveries seem so testable and provable. It is natural that doubts arise on this matter”.

@Citta

The pain does NOT migrate anywhere, it is a signal that gets send to the brain which interprets it as pain. If the nerve along which the signal travels is blocked, or the signal somehow altered, or specific region in the brain that deals with pain has its function altered - then there can be pain reduction or even no pain.

Is this pain signal mentality or materiality? Do you agree with the quote from the Commentary: > (Nidaanavagga) VII The Great Subchapter 61

(1) Uninstructed (1) p. 595 Samyutta Nikaya Vol 1 (translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi) "
note 157: Spk: one citta is
not able to endure for a whole day or a whole night. Even in the
time of a fingersnap many hundred thousand kotis of cittas arise and
cease (1 koti=10 million).

There are many conditions needed for a moment of kaya viññāṇa (bodily consciousness). It is similar to seeing - without light visible objects cannot appear. Or if the eyebase is impaired for some reason even briefly then visible object won’t appear. Similarly if the kayavatthu is impaired then no body consciousness can arise at the area where it is impaired (for example if a limb is paralysed or if someone was under anesthetic).
Without understanding Dhamma we would always think that “I” am looking at this or that but the commentary to the Sammanaphala sutta (The Fruits of Recluseship, Bhikkhu Bodhi), talking about looking ahead or looking aside, breaks this down into various conditions as explained in the Patthana.

The eye is a support condition: forms are an object condition; adverting is a proximity, contiguity, decisive support, absence, and disappearance condition; light is a decisive support condition; feeling etc are conascence conditions. Thus looking ahead and looking aside are discerned in the assemblage of these conditions.

And also for kaya viññāṇa (bodily consciousness) there is the incredibly brief meeting of the tangible data base (hardness, heat etc) , the kayavatthu (body base) and the kaya viññāṇa.

Vism. XVII
85. The tangible-data base is a condition, as prenascence condition, for the body-consciousness element and for the states associated therewith..[..]

And other conditions are involved: the body-base (kāyavatthu) is the support condition; tangible datum (phoṭṭhabba—hard/soft, hot/cold, pressure/motion) is the object condition; adverting (āvajjana) functions as proximity, contiguity, decisive-support, absence, and disappearance conditions; the earth element (paṭhavī-dhātu, i.e., ‘solidity/extension’) is a decisive-support (upaniṣsaya) for the arising; and the co-arisen mental factors—feeling, perception, volition, etc.—are conascent (sahajāta) . And these are present for the brief meeting and then immediately cease and new conditions arise.

What is the purpose of defining all these conditions?: It is a step in learning that there are only these conditioned elements, no self.
As the Tika to the Sammanaphala sutta says:

Looking ahead and looking aside being discerned by way
of the five aggregates, who is it, separate from those aggregates, that looks ahead? Who looks aside? The meaning is: there is no one who looks ahead, no one who looks aside p.118 of Bodhi translation

Thus there is benefit in seeing life through this lens, to see that there is only mentality - materiality. We may be satisfied with what we learn from science but unless there is the development of understanding of what is really present we remain anchored to the conceptual world with all its assumptions.