Is Your Brain Really the Right Vehicle for Understanding Reality-As-It-Is?
Before we launch into the question of whether our brains are the tools to employ in attempting to understand Reality-As-It-Is, let’s first look at a much, much smaller question just to get a feel for the brain’s effectiveness as an arbiter of Truth.
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Question: “How many stars are there in the universe?”
Answer (from an article in Sky and Telescope, by Maria Temming):
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In asking this question, it is important to distinguish between the universe as a whole and the observable universe. Because the universe was born 13.8 billion years ago, we can only observe objects up to a certain distance from Earth — light from more distant objects hasn’t had time to reach us yet. To estimate the number of stars, we must limit the discussion to what we can observe.
In asking this question, it is important to distinguish between the universe as a whole and the observable universe. Because the universe was born 13.8 billion years ago, we can only observe objects up to a certain distance from Earth — light from more distant objects hasn’t had time to reach us yet. To estimate the number of stars, we must limit the discussion to what we can observe.
Astronomers estimate that the observable universe has more than 100 billion galaxies. Our own Milky Way is home to around 300 billion stars, but it’s not representative of galaxies in general. The Milky Way is a titan compared to abundant but faint dwarf galaxies, and it, in turn, is dwarfed by rare giant elliptical galaxies, which can be 20 times more massive. By measuring the number and luminosity of observable galaxies, astronomers put current estimates of the total stellar population at roughly 70 billion trillion (7 x 1022).
Do you, my dear friend, understand what that “70 billion trillion” symbol represents? Can you fathom what it means? No. You can’t. I can’t. Nobody really can. It’s a crazy concept, meant to represent something that is ultimately utterly incomprehensible. It’s like the Buddhist measurement of time called a kalpa.
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Conceptualization of a kalpa (from Wikipedia’s take on traditional Buddhist teachings): “Imagine a gigantic rocky mountain at the beginning of a kalpa that is approximately 16 x 16 x 16 miles (dwarfing Mount Everest). You take a small piece of silk and wipe the mountain once every 100 years. According to the Buddha, the mountain will be completely depleted even before the kalpa ends.”
Do you “understand” what a kalpa represents, what it really means? Me neither. Now, let us try to grasp what we are actually working with to try and figure out that question, and all other questions. What does our tool of inquiry really consist of?
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Well, the average human brain weighs about three pounds and is roughly the size of a large grapefruit. This tiny speck of potential brightness thinks it can know both what is going on in the universe and what should be going on–especially in the so-called “separate, private world” of the unit it’s attached to.
Well, the average human brain weighs about three pounds and is roughly the size of a large grapefruit. This tiny speck of potential brightness thinks it can know both what is going on in the universe and what should be going on–especially in the so-called “separate, private world” of the unit it’s attached to.
Yeah, right.
No human hubris in that–ya think???
We use the brain to go beyond the brain.
We use mind to transcend mind.
And our vehicle, our tool?
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No vehicle. No tool. Understanding happens.
It does not happen to an ego, but in spite of an ego. It does not happen to a person, but through a person. It does not happen to our “character”–it happens only in the absence of our character. It does not happen to mind, but rather through mind. It does not happen to a brain, but only through a brain.
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We approach the Gateless Gate boldly, carry a double-edged sword. One edge is wisdom. Through wisdom we know that there is nothing we can do to make awakening happen. The other edge is love. Through love we give attention to the books, practices, and teachers that we are pulled toward anyway.
Recognizing that there apparently is no free will–indeed that there is no one present to either have or not have free will–we act as if we have free will anyway.
We live our lives. We shower attention on all the details. We don’t stand at the side of the pool of Life trying to figure out if it’s really water, or perhaps a mirage. We don’t sit and wonder if either water, or void will be wet, or warm, or cold. We don’t calculate what’s going to happen in the pool or after the pool. We simply leap from the edge and let whatever is there take us.
We surrender nothing with complete abandon. And when we do, Truth will catch us. Still, silent joy arises.
For more on the marvelous Milky Way, check out this article on NightSkyPix
February 27, 2015 @ 5:20 pm
YES! That smiling galaxy has got the joke too. 3 pounds taking on 70 trillion billion stars? It’s a done deal.
February 27, 2015 @ 8:37 pm
The brain would be well advised to defer more often to the mind.
While meditating this morning, once my thoughts cleared, a complex dream from the night before began to replay. The brain immediately tried to pull up more memories of that dream and piece it all together, which only resulted in losing the images.
Poor brain! It tries so hard to figure it all out on its own, when everything it needs to be brilliant is right there, if only it would relinquish control.
November 8, 2019 @ 11:15 pm
I was struck today to learn that Daedalus, the designer of the minotaur’s labyrinth, was said to have almost not made it out of his own design. One version had his (and his son Icarus’s) imprisonment by Minos into the labyrinth (to protect the secret of the very same labyrith). And the famous myth of them flying, was in order to escape the labyrinth (“vertical” creativity, not further 2D “denial”!). So I was struck by the “self can’t get out of self” theme. Continued uses of “thought-my-thought …” are FOR a denial mechansim – a labyrith – wonderfully reflected by the worming surface of the brain and by its innumerable networking connections!
November 12, 2019 @ 10:17 am
The universe as described here is inconceivable large. The micro universe of cells, molecules, atoms and subatomics is theoretically comparable in size to the macro universe in some sort of inverse proportional way that I will never be able to describe. Both of these universes work perfectly or at the very least I ‘ve noticed they work ok. At the intersection of these two great universes we find Tom. How auspicious for me to think I’m the exception among all this infinite perfection. How arrogant to think that I’m so unique and special that I’m the one thing in all this that could have or detect a problem. If All is ok then I must give up my specialness and realize that I’m ok too.
Tom, the ok one who has noticed that All is ok.
November 12, 2019 @ 10:46 am
It’s absolutely AMAZING, is it not???
Thanks, Tom.