Soldier karma: life with NO brain

Psychology of brain damage: shattered

How can we live in a world that makes no sense at all? How could we exist when every second of our lives is an unsolvable puzzle, and the tiny bits we do manage to recognize can’t come out?

That was the life of Russian soldier Lev Zasetsky (1920–1993), a young man who suffered a brain injury fighting in another useless war.

That was the life of Lev Zasetsky, who suffered a severe brain injury when thrown into World War II.

The 3,000-page diary he wrote following his injury became one of the most valuable and insightful texts on the study of the human brain in the history of biological science (popsci.com).

Zasetsky suffered from aphasia, a disorder or dysphasia that impairs a person’s ability to communicate or understand communication.

• When Monkey Mind (thinking) stopped
• Case of survival: Lev Zasetsky | Mind Matters
• VIDEO: What if brain stopped working for 5 seconds?

Patient Lev Zasetsky and Dr. Alex Luria

Zasetsky’s form of aphasia resulted in him being able to write without being able to read his own writing or understand all of what he had written.

Russian Dr. Alexander Luria, one of the Soviet Union’s most accomplished neuropsychologists, was assigned to care for Zasetsky and found that the young soldier “simply could not write and…had suddenly become illiterate.”

Dr. Luria pinpointed Zasetsky’s injury to “the second major block of the brain located in the posterior sections of the large hemispheres.”

This portion of the brain’s job is “for receiving, processing, and retaining information a person derives from the external world.”

The precise location of his shrapnel injury meant that “a very important function [had] been seriously impaired: he [could] not immediately combine his impressions into a coherent whole; his world [became] fragmented.”

That’s how the world existed for Lev Zasetsky: fragmented. But he didn’t give up. His fascinating story and undaunted attitude can inspire and reframe our modern understanding of psychology, history, language, communication, showing what the human spirit can accomplish.

• From "He was the man who lived with no brain" (sort of), Popular Science, for more original Popular Science videos, subscribe on YouTube

SUTRA: Want to be a soldier? You might want to reconsider

The headman (gamini) was wise to ask the Buddha to clarify and dispel doubts (Yodhājīva Sutta)

 

The village headman Yodhajiva went to the Buddha, bowed, sat respectfully to one side, and said: "Venerable sir, I have heard it passed down through the ancient teaching lineage of warriors that:

• 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others strike one down and slay one while striving and exerting in battle then, with the breakup of the body after death, one is reborn in the company of angels (devas) slain in battle.'

"What does the Blessed One say about that?"

"Enough, headman, set that question aside and do not ask it." But a second time and third time the headman Yodhajiva asked it.

"Headman, I seem to be unable to get past by saying, 'Enough, headman, set that question aside and do not ask it,' so to reply simply: When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, one's mind is already seized, debased, and misdirected by the thought, 'May those beings be struck down, slaughtered, destroyed, annihilated, and no longer exist.'

"If others then strike one down or slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle, then with the breakup of the body after death, one is reborn in a hell called the Realm of those Slain in Battle.

Oh no, what will come of ignorance and killing?

"Moreover, if one holds a view such as, 'When a warrior strives and exerts in battle, if others then strike one down or slay one while one is striving and exerting in battle, then with the breakup of the body after death, one is reborn in the company of angels slain in battle,' that is his wrong view.

"There are, I say, two destinations for a person with wrong view, either hell or the animal womb" [rebirth in one of the many hells or the super-diversified animal plane].

When this was said, the headman Yodhajiva began to sob and burst into tears.

"Headman, that is what I was unable to get by you by asking you to set that question aside and not ask it."

"But, venerable sir, I am not crying because of what the Blessed One said but rather because I have been deceived, cheated, and fooled for a long time by that ancient teaching lineage of warriors who said that" (SN 42.3).