Why 'meditation' feels hard (Dr. Ricard)

(Study Buddhism) Why "meditation" [striving, straining, struggling to get into absorption] feels so hard (and what to do about it) | [Western scientist and Vajrayana Buddhist lama] Ven. Matthieu Ricard [known as "the happiest person in the world"*]. "There is no Samsara 2.0."

Who is he?

Sure, I'm happy, but the happiest?

Matthieu Ricard (French matjø ʁikaʁ, Nepali माथ्यु रिका, born Feb. 15, 1946) is a French Nepalese writer, photographer, translator, and Buddhist monk (lama) who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.

Dr. Matthieu Ricard grew up among the personalities and ideas of French intellectual circles. He received a PhD degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972.

He then decided to avoid a common scientific career and instead did the daring thing and took up the practice of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana Bon), living mainly in the Himalayas.

Matthieu Ricard is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, the non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche.

Since 1989, he has acted as the French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama. Since 2010, he has been traveling and giving a series of talks with and assisting in teachings by Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the incarnation of Kyabje Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche....

*Matthieu Ricard has been called the "happiest person in the world" [4, 5]. Why?

It is because Matthieu Ricard was a volunteer subject in a study performed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on happiness. He scored significantly above the average of hundreds of volunteers [4].

Matthieu Ricard, however, has called the label "absurd" and untrue [6, 7]. More

World's Happiest Man on Meditation (video)

Google Talks 2015; The RSA 2010; Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Matthieu Ricard: The Art of Meditation

The "world's happiest man" -- as tested, verified, and labeled by neuroscience -- Tibetan Buddhist monk (lama), vegan, and French philosopher Matthieu Ricard explains how we can train our minds in habits of well-being.

World's Happiest Man?

Ven. Matthieu Ricard

Matthieu Ricard (माथ्यु रिका) is a French Buddhist monk, scientist, writer, photographer, and translator reborn on Feb. 15, 1946, who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal. He grew up among the personalities of French intellectual circles and received his Ph.D. degree in molecular genetics from the Pasteur Institute in 1972. He then decided to forsake his scientific career and instead practice Tibetan Buddhism, while living mainly in the Himalayas. He is a board member of the Mind and Life Institute. He received the French National Order of Merit for his humanitarian work in the East with Karuna-Shechen, a non-profit organization he co-founded in 2000 with Rabjam Rinpoche. Since 1989 he has been the 14th Dalai Lama's French interpreter. More

(The RSA) WHY in the world would anyone want to meditate and HOW?

• RSA on twitter.com/thersaorg and facebook.com/thersaorg

• Why are you called the "Happiest Man in the World"?
• How to be happier: world's happiest man (Business Insider)
• How to be happy, explains World's Happiest Man (Esquire)
• VIDEO: Happiest man in world explains true happiness 
• Matthieu Ricard: The Habits of Happiness (TED Talk) 
• Matthieu Ricard: World's Happiest Man on what really matters (Good Life Project)
• Five tips from the "Happiest Man on Earth" (BBC News) 
• Who is the happiest person in the world? (Quora) 
• The "world's happiest man" reveals the secret to happiness takes... (countryliving.com/uk)

Neuroscience meets Buddhism: Matt Ricard

(Action for Happiness) Matthieu Ricard and Wolf Singer join Mark Williamson for a discussion of Beyond the Self, sharing insights from Buddhism and neuroscience to help us live happier, more compassionate lives. Filmed in front of a large audience in London on Jan. 29, 2018.

There is no "self"

"Self" (atta=soul, ego) is illusory.

Let's do what the Buddha did and move BEYOND the self. But what is the "self," the ego, soul, personality, identity, consciousness? It is an illusion. We can think of it as our body and mind. But most of us will feel it's a lot more our mind (name, consciousness, awareness, memories) and hardly this ever-changing body. "Mind," the Buddha discerned, is what we cling to as self: feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. But none of this is enduring, identical, or able to provide fulfillment. It is something, but it is not a self. The gateless gate to enlightenment is the realization that all that we regard as "self" is actually impersonal. What if psychology knew that? What if neuroscience could test that? Former geneticist Matthieu Ricard and Professor Wolf Singer wrote a book merging neuroscience and Buddhism.

Beyond the Self: Conversations Between Buddhism and Neuroscience

Buddhism meet neuroscience

This book examines converging and diverging views on mind, self, consciousness, free will, unconscious, perception, meditation, and other topics.

Buddhism, on the one hand, shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically. It has pursued, for more than two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection.

Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of observation. In this book, French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, who trained as a molecular biologist, and Prof. Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist, offer their perspectives on mind, self, consciousness, subconscious, unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.

Matthieu Ricard and his dad

Ricard and Singer's wide-ranging conversation is an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism's wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience's abundance of experimental results.

Among many other things, these two good friends discuss

• the difference between rumination and meditation (rumination is the scourge of meditation, whereas psychotherapy depends on it);
• the distinction between the contents of awareness and pure awareness;
• the Buddhist idea (or lack of one) of the unconscious and neuroscience's precise criteria for conscious and subconscious processes; and
• the commonalities between cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation.

Their views diverge. (Ricard asserts that the third-person approach will never encounter consciousness as a primary experience). And they converge. (Singer points out that the neuroscientific understanding of perception as reconstruction is very like the Buddhist all-discriminating wisdom).

But both keep their vision trained on understanding fundamental aspects of human life. More

How simple meditation is (Matt Ricard)

Matthieu Ricard translating for the Dalai Lama

(Talks at Google) French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, known to science as the "happiest man in the world," leads a simple meditation on altruistic love and compassion on June 11, 2015 in California.

Ricard left a career in cellular genetics to study Buddhism and become a monk in the Himalayas over 45 years ago. He is an international bestselling author and an active participant in the current scientific research of the effects of meditation on the brain. He lived in Darjeeling, India, and now resides in a monastery in Nepal where he devotes most of his time to 140 humanitarian projects in Tibet, Nepal, and India.

(Head Talks) My life in the Himalayas: Being Friends with Our Own Mind

He's a Westerner and he knows the Dharma

He may be the world's best bridge between modern Western science and ancient Eastern wisdom. He introduces "meditation" (bhavana and dhyana) as a concept and leads a practice that includes mindful breathing, altruistic love, compassion, rejoicing, and impartiality (The Four Divine Abidings). He concludes by emphasizing the value of caring mindfulness. Q&A session follows the meditation.

The Habits of Happiness (Matthieu Ricard)

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Matthieu "Happiest Man in the World" Ricard, Ph.D., TEDtalks (innovations in Technology, Engineering, Design)

(TED.com) What is happiness, and how can we ALL get some? Vajrayana Buddhist monk, renowned French scientist, photographer, Tibetan translator, and author Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions. And his answer is influenced by his conviction as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community.

• Aung San Suu Kyi to launch AIDS 2014 in Australia Nobel Peace Prize winner, the Lady (Daw), will be keynote speaker at this year’s World AIDS Day reception to be hosted by the Pacific Friends of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria in Melbourne on Dec. 1st.

• 

  Bhumi-devi (doyletics.com)

  ANASTASIA (Ringing Cedars of Russia), tells the story of Vladimir Megre's trip to the Siberian taiga in 1995, where he witnessed incredible spiritual phenomena (human or ET?) connected with sacred "ringing cedar" trees. He spent three days with a woman named Anastasia, who shared with him her unique outlook on subjects as diverse as gardening, child-rearing, healing, Nature, sexuality, religion, and more. This wilderness experience transformed Vladimir so deeply that he abandoned his commercial plans and, penniless, went to Moscow to fulfill Anastasia's request and write a book about the spiritual insights she so generously shared with him. True to her promise this life-changing book, once written, has become an international bestseller and has touched hearts of millions of people worldwide.
• UFO intrigue flies high (Newcastle Herald)

森の木琴,   ドコモのサイトでステキな映像発見。 (Touchwood) 

Go to the woods of Kyushu (Japan), engineer a massive xylophone down the slope of a forested hill. Take a wooden ball, place it at the top, and push it. What do you get? Bach's treatment of a traditional church hymn! All this for a Japanese commercial for a curved smartphone with the tagline, "Touch Wood" (onbeing.org).

A Zen meeting: Mind, body

Mark Stivers (2006)

Neuroscientists from the University of Wisconsin created a series of clinical tests involving 256 sensors stuck to the skull, and MRI scans.

The purpose of the test? To determine happiness.

Due to his off-the-charts score, the scientists have declared Matthieu Ricard the happiest man in the world. Ricard, who years ago abandoned his own science career in France to study Buddhism at a Tibetan monastery, credits meditation with his happiness.

Closer to home, some Las Cruces also credit meditation with not only happiness, but wellness and wholeness. "My road to wellness really started 12 years ago or so," said Ellen Schwartz, a partner in Las Cruces' Alegre Health Haven at the corner of Main Street and Alameda Avenue. "I had irritable bowl syndrome and other health challenges. I went to many doctors and got no relief. They gave me medication, but nothing worked. And I couldn't eat. "So I sought help in alternative directions. With help from my mentor, I learned to quiet my mind. It was very hard for me in the beginning.

"My mentor had me light a candle set my mind on it. If I had a thought, I would blow the candle out. It took a while to be able to calm my mind and my body down. When I learned to do it for one full minute — and it took a long time to get to that point, to let the candle burn for 60 seconds — it made all the difference. "Suddenly all my health challenges disappeared," Schwartz said. "They just went away. It was amazing. So I kept going. I'd been to all these doctors and there wasn't anything anyone was able to do."

Harvey Daiho's road to wellness began in Vietnam when, as an infantry soldier, he got shot in the head. "That, in effect, changed my life," said Daiho, who recently retired as the priest of the Las Cruces Zen Center. "I started a lifelong moral, ethical search so to speak, and I became a therapist. I got my Ph.D. in social work, and established and ran private mental health clinics." As a therapist, Daiho used meditation techniques, or as he called them then, stress management. "I worked with people who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder," he said. "The more Eastern philosophical and religious practices proved very useful tools in dealing with stress-related disorders."

Rev. Gozen Michael LaTorra, the current priest at the Las Cruces Zen Center, has seen meditation's positive effect on health in himself and in others. "There are physical benefits and psychological benefits," LaTorra said. "Mind and body. People who meditate — and this has been shown clinically in controlled studies, not just anecdotally — show improvements in blood pressure, immune response and level of anxiety."

Rev. Gozen Michael LaTorra, abbot of the Zen Center of Las Cruces, takes the position of eno, the timekeeper of a Buddhist meditation service. Above him are the Japanese characters dai butsu ji, which means "The Great Buddha Way" (Sun-News photo by Richard Coltharp).

LaTorra cited an 8-week study of adults and teenagers with ADHD, and published in the Journal of Attention Disorders in 2008. "The conclusion of this study was that meditation was helpful," LaTorra said. "With 30 percent reporting at least one-third reduction in symptoms and improved neuro-cognitive functions."

For Schwartz, her results were so profound, she had to share the wealth. She began teaching meditation, Tai Chi and wellness classes in Cicero, N.Y., before coming to Las Cruces two years ago to do the same at Alegre. The meditation helped her body, but later, her mind, when her son Kris, now 26, served two tours as a soldier in Iraq. "My Tai Chi road, just keeps evolving," Schwartz said. "I had done Tai Chi since I was a kid, so I was glad I knew the forms when my son went to Iraq first time. I found a teacher who helped me with different meditations. Instead of learning which foot goes where and which hand goes where, I was able to focus on the meditation aspects of Tai Chi. "I was able to quiet my anxiety down. After my son was involved in an ambush, I had a rolling anxiety that wouldn't go away. With meditation with Tai Chi, I was able to get rid of the anxiety."

What is meditation? Daiho calls meditation "deceptively simple."

"First, a person simply sits down," Daiho said. "The first aspect is Posture (a person sits down, crosses the legs and sits upright). The second aspect is Breath (for beginners in particular, you try to breathe through the nose, allowing it to find its own natural rhythm). The third aspect is Mind (that's the hardest; our brain produces thoughts, like our heart produces beats). "The training is to notice these thoughts, bring attention back to breath, notice you have a thought, go back to breath. "Do that for a period of, say, 25 minutes," Daiho said. "Your breath will naturally slow down, find its own rhythm. You will hear it slow down, and your blood pressure will go down.

"A good teacher is almost a necessary prerequisite," he said. "You need to have someone you can talk with, bounce stuff off of. Because you'll wonder, "Am I going crazy or what?'"

Books
•"Happiness: A Guide To Developing Life's Most Important Skill," by Matthieu Ricard
• "Wherever You Go, There You Are," and "Full Catastrophe Living," by Jon Kabat-Zinn
•"Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind" by Shunryu Suzuki

Web sites
•www.zencenteroflascruces.org
•www.clearmindzen.org

By Richard Coltharp/Healthy U Editor (article launched: 07/02/2008)

VIDEO: Matthieu Ricard against "mainstream mindfulness"

Live.HuffingtonPost.com (video); Amber Larson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly

Host Nancy Redd (Huff Po)

European Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, "the happiest man on earth" according to science and author of Altruism, weighs in on the current public view of "mindfulness" co-opted, repurposed, and watered down from the Buddha's teachings on the direct path to enlightenment and liberation from all suffering. More

• VIDEO: watch full segment (6/15/2015)

Resting brain works on Screensaver Mode

At Rest, Your Brain Runs in Screensaver Mode
Robert Roy Britt (LiveScience.com)

.

Your brain's visual centers remain active when your eyes are closed and even when you sleep, studies have shown. But it's a different type of activity, one not fully understood.

A new study sheds light. In both situations — resting with eyes closed or sleeping — electrical activity continues in the brain, but the activity is represented by slow electrical fluctuations, rather than the bursts of activity that occur when you're awake with eyes wide open. The resting oscillations, as the scientists call them, were found to be most pronounced during deep sleep, as might be expected.

The slow fluctuation pattern can be compared to a computer screensaver, say the researchers at the Weizmann Institute.

Though the newfound activity's function is unclear, the researchers have a couple ideas:

Perhaps neurons, like philosophers, must "think" in order to be; neuron survival, the idea goes, would require a constant state of activity. Or maybe the minimal level of activity enables a quick start when an outside stimulus is presented, something like a getaway car with the engine running, the researchers suggest.

These new ideas differ starkly from how scientists thought all this worked. "In the old approach, the senses are 'turned on' by the switch of an outside stimulus," explained Weizmann Institute neurobiology student Yuval Nir, who worked on the study. "This is giving way to a new paradigm in which the brain is constantly active, and stimuli change and shape that activity."

This different type of brain activity could also explain why most people don't constantly experience hallucinations or hear voices while they rest, the researchers suggest. More>>

• Brain News and Information
• Top 10 Mysteries of the Mind
• Exercise Improves Old Brains

Meditation and the Brain

Matthieu Ricard (speaking at Google)

Speaker: gifted French scientist turned Buddhist monk, bestselling author, translator, and photographer. He has lived and studied in the Himalayas for the last 35 years.

If happiness is an inner state, influenced by external conditions but not dependent on them, how can we achieve it? Matthieu Ricard examines the inner and outer factors that increase or diminish our sense of well-being, dissect the underlying mechanisms of happiness, and lead us to a way of looking at the mind itself based on his book, Happiness: A Guide to Life's Most Important Skill and from the research in neuroscience on the effect of mind-training on the brain.

Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard (film)

He journeyed from France to the East. And according to brain studies, scientist and long-time Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard is "the happiest man in the world." Having met his teacher, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, while traveling in India and Nepal, he meditated in the Himalayas and took astounding photographs. He eventually became famous in his own right and has served as the Dalai Lama's translator as well as devoting himself to other important causes.

The Happiest Man in the World (interview)

Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk - Interview

Thirty years ago Matthieu Ricard, the son of French philosopher Jean-François Revel, decided to convert to Buddhism and become a monk. He now lives in Nepal and is the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama (france24.com).

Meat eating in Tibetan Buddhism? (Matt Ricard)

.

Matthieu Ricard: On meat eating in Tibetan Buddhism

(VeggieDharma, 10/3/13) Matthieu "The Happiest Man in the World" Ricard on meat eating in Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, interviewed by André Kalden (shabkar.org).

• European Buddhist Union » Veggie Dharma: go 40 days without meat (europeanbuddhism.org)

Buddhist monk left Science: Matthieu Ricard

(Study Buddhism) The Western Nepalese Vajrayana Buddhist monk (lama) who left Western science behind: Dr. Matthieu "Happiest Person in the World" Ricard on finding human perfection

Dalai Lama blasts Chinese "repression" on France visit

Tibetan leader addressing conference attendees in Nantes, France 8-15-08 (Reuters)


Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama (L) poses with France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy during the inauguration of the Buddhist Lerab Ling temple in Roqueredonde, southern France. The Dalai Lama denounced Chinese repression in Tibet on a trip to France that has fuelled tensions between Paris and Beijing (AFP/POOL/Pascal Guyot).

Herve Gavard (8/22/08)

ROQUEREDONDE, France (AFP) -- The Dalai Lama denounced Chinese repression in Tibet when he met French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner Friday on a trip to France that has fuelled tensions between Paris and Beijing.

His French interpreter, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, said "His Holiness (told Kouchner).... that there is a certain form of brutal repression that continues parallel to the Olympic Games."

The only way China can "regain its respectability in the international community" was the "march towards democracy," the Dalai Lama said, according to Ricard, who attended the meeting.

Kouchner, who made no public comment except to say the Dalai Lama was "always welcome in France," was attending the inauguration of a Buddhist temple by the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader along with France's first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.

The Dalai Lama presented the pair with long white scarves, a Tibetan gesture of hospitality and respect, which they wore as they watched their host prostrate himself before a statue of the Buddha.

The spiritual leader made a speech in English after officially opening the temple in which he called for harmony between different religious traditions and for respect for the environment.

"We have the responsibility to take care of this planet," he said. "We must extend love to all creatures, trees, and beautiful things."

French human rights minister Rama Yade and former prime minister Alain Juppe were also at the event which was attended by about 2,000 people.

President Nicolas Sarkozy declined to meet the Dalai Lama, sparking accusations from the opposition Socialists that "the only guiding principle (of Sarkozy's policy towards China) appears to be not to displease Beijing."

China accuses the Dalai Lama of seeking independence for Tibet, a Himalayan territory ruled for the last six decades by Beijing, and of fomenting unrest to sabotage the Olympic Games currently under way.

Calling the Dalai Lama a "liar," Shugden practitioners hold banners which read "Give religious freedom to Shugden practitioners" in anti-Tibet protest just before a public conference of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in Nantes 8-15-08. He was is in France from 8/11-23/08 (Reuters/Stephane Mahe (FRANCE).

But the 73-year-old Nobel Peace prize winner insists he wants autonomy and religious freedom and not independence for Tibet.

China had cautioned Sarkozy that meeting the Dalai Lama would have "serious consequences" for bilateral relations, and Beijing warned France on Wednesday to deal prudently with the "important and sensitive" issue of Tibet.

Planned more than two years ago, the Dalai Lama's 12-day French visit which ends Saturday turned political after a Chinese crackdown on unrest in Tibet in March that sparked international outrage.

Sarkozy angered Beijing by threatening to boycott the opening of the Olympic Games following the crackdown. But he did finally attend the ceremony in Beijing on August 8.

The entourage of the Buddhist leader said he had not sought to see the French president and the Dalai Lama has repeated that his visit to France is not political and is mainly to give spiritual teaching to Buddhists here.

In an interview with France's Le Monde newspaper published Thursday, the Dalai Lama said Chinese troops fired on Tibetan protesters this week, as Beijing hosted the Olympics, and that at least 400 people have been killed since unrest erupted in March.

The spiritual leader denied a comment attributed to him by the paper that 140 people had died on Monday when the Chinese security forces opened fire on Tibetans. But his office said there had been casualties.

The incident happened in Garze, a Tibetan-majority town in China's Sichuan province near the border with Tibet, he said.

Chinese authorities in the area denied Friday when contacted by AFP that any such incident had occurred.

The Dalai Lama also told Le Monde that at least 400 Tibetans had been killed in the region around the Tibetan capital Lhasa since March, and 10,000 had been imprisoned in secret locations.

He said that in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics he had been hopeful of progress, encouraged by the commitment of Chinese President Hu Jintao to begin serious talks.

"But we were quickly disillusioned. Our envoys came up against a wall. There was no opening," he told the paper.

China sent troops into Tibet in 1950 and officially "liberated" it the following year. The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

Jackie Chan on Bruce Lee, Steven Seagal

(BoxOfficeFIGHTING) Jackie Chan in his prime was UNSTOPPABLE | Best Fights 🌀 4K

• DON'T JUMP!! Forget it.. 🤣🙄 | Myth 2005 | Edit

(Dear Time Truth) No one believed these Bruce Lee stories...until the proof shocked them

Who's Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker? (Rush Hour)

I will kick your @ss right here, Chinaman!

(Bruce Lee Eternal) "You're an actor, not a real fighter" - Steven Seagal mocked Bruce Lee on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show on LIVE television or pure AI slop?

• Steven Seagal attacked Chuck Norris on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show — then Bruce Lee did the unexpected | Newbie TV | FB
• More AI slop that makes the Seagal story very doubtful: "Taekwondo champion to Bruce Lee, You won't last one round'"

This cat right here is Matt Ricard

Steven Seagal meeting Western Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard in Vancouver (wiki)

.

This is not a dyed toupee, OK?

Steven Frederic Seagal (April 10, 1952) is a Jewish American actor, producer, screenwriter, martial artist, musician [2], and possibly a Russian national who is a personal friend of Pres. Vlad Putin. A 7th-dan black belt and shihan in Aikikai aikido, he began his adult life as a martial arts instructor in Japan, where he became the first non-Japanese and American to operate an aikido dojo [3, 4, 5]. He later moved to Hollywood, Los Angeles, where he continued teaching aikido. In 1988, Seagal made his acting debut in Above the Law, which is regarded as the first American film to feature aikido in fight sequences [6]. More

• Celeb Junkie

(BoxofficeFIGHTING) Best fight of Chan's career | Jackie vs. Benny "The Jet"

You're a good boy, Steven. You should move to our Jewish Autonomous Oblast. - May I?

Best friends of life: Stevie Seagal and Pres. Vladimir Putin Aктёр Стивен Сигал, Владимир Путин и многократный чемпион мира по смешанным единоборствам Фёдор Емельяненко

Looking for Consciousness (Dr. Dispenza)

Dr. Joe Dispenza via Good Vibez, 4/12/19; Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

►Video (Dr. Joe Dispenza's How to Use Your Conscious Mind) uploaded with permission of the owner

What is consciousness?

Matthieu, scientists want to test Buddhist brains meditating. - Should I go blow their minds?

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The brain (rupa) is not the mind. Cittas are.

Neuroscientists asked the Dalai Lama for eight Buddhist meditators to scan their brains in an experiment. What the scientists saw baffled them. There was too much frontal lobe activity. One in particular, they declared, must be "the happiest man in the world."

You want to test 8 meditators?

That may have been Matthieu Ricard, the actual "happiest person in the world." He is a European Vajrayana Buddhist monk from France, a close associate of the 14th Dalai Lama, who lives in the Himalayas in a large Buddhist monastery in Nepal one country over from the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala, India.

Dr. Joe Dispenza uses his own functional definitions of "brain," "mind," and "consciousness," treating them as distinct things.

That is the way they are analyzed int Buddhist psychology and physics (Abhidharma, the "Dharma in Ultimate Terms"). In Buddhism they are called rupa, mano/nama, and vinnana. Of course, they are inseparable, but they are distinguishable.

Let's visit the Dalai Lama lives in Dharmsala.

Physical form: The brain is interdependent with consciousness, which is just a process, an aspect of "mind." (though the physical heart is the real seat of consciousness, the "mind door" in Buddhism, which is a personally verifiable fact anyone can check using this meditation).

The Buddha defined mind-and-body (nama-rupa) in terms of eight elements, though no one seems to have told Dr. Dispenza that.

• "Brain" (body, physical form, ultimate materiality) is comprised of the "Four Great Elements" or mahabhuta (dhatus, the characteristics of matter, "matter" being arrangements of subatomic particles Buddhism calls kalapas).
• Space (akasha-dhatu) is the fifth element.
• "Mind" is four immaterial processes: perception, sensation, formations, and consciousness.
• "Consciousness" is classified as the sixth element in some sutras (i.e., MN 140).

Let's ask Pa Auk Sayadaw to explain. - Good idea

Consciousness is the sixth element? Yes, as if to say that consciousness is a feature of the universe rather than merely a quality or characteristic of mental human experience.

There are other beings (devas, etc.) who also have mind, who are also conscious, but one has to wonder if the animists didn't have it right all along: consciousness is everywhere and, therefore, all things are potentially conscious or aware in some rudimentary sense, like crystals, memory banks, imprint holders.

.

Sight is in the eye, consciousness in the heart.

The brain, for Dr. Dispenza and Western neuroscience, is firing and wiring neurons. How do we change our lives? How do we change our habits? This can only be done by breaking negative thoughts, and this is possible by living consciously (mindfully?) We have to become; we have to start living consciously. Let's start by breaking the addiction to negative thoughts.

📖Check out Dr. Joe Dispenza's books and other works. Kindle readers get a FREE 30-day plan and access to millions of e-Books by signing up here. (We wouldn't, but you might want to).

👉Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing the Uncommon

👉Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One

👉You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter

👉Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind

• 🎞 If you liked this, you may also like:
• Joe Dispenza - How to create a new reality
• Joe Dispenza - Turn Your Thoughts Into Reality
• Joe Dispenza - Conscious Mind and Manifestations
• Joe Dispenza - Conscious Mind and Beliefs

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The Habits of Happiness

(TED.com) What is happiness, and how can we all get some? Buddhist monk, translator, author, and photographer, Matthieu Ricard has devoted his life to these questions. His answer is influenced by his faith as well as by his scientific turn of mind: We can train our minds in habits of happiness. Interwoven with his talk are stunning photographs of the Himalayas and of his spiritual community.

To Dispel Doubts (Ask a Monk)

Leonard Price (later Ven. Nyanasobhano), Bhikkhu Tissa Dispels Some Doubts (Buddhist Publication Society via Access to Insight); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

What does Buddhism have to offer science? (Seed Magazine.com/wiseattention.org)

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GOING TO A TEMPLE TO TALK WITH A THERAVADA BUDDHIST MONK

Monk (haletheater.org)

It is near sunset on a hot summer afternoon. Outside a temple a Buddhist monk named Ven. Tissa sits quietly on a mat in the shade of a tree. Mr. Prentice, a layman, comes hiking up the road, wiping his perspiring face with a handkerchief. He sees the monk and approaches him.

 

MR. PRENTICE: Oh, Ven. Tissa, I was hoping I'd find you here.

VEN. TISSA: Good afternoon, Mr. Prentice.

Man comes to see Ven. Matthieu Ricard.

PRENTICE: You remember my name. I wasn't sure if you would. I've come around the temple every now and then — just out of curiosity, mainly.

TISSA: Is it curiosity that brings you here now?

PRENTICE: I guess you could say that. Isn't this heat awful?

TISSA: Sit down, Mr. Prentice. There's plenty of lawn.

PRENTICE: Ah, so there is. Thank you.

He looks around doubtfully then settles in the shade at a respectful distance.

I'm a bit worn out. It's kind of a long walk from my house. I wonder if you might have time to answer some questions?

TISSA: I'll try. What's on your mind?

Can Buddhism be practiced on a lawn in Central Asia? Sure (steppemagazine.com).

 
PRENTICE: In a word, Buddhism.

TISSA: All of it?

Remember your questions? (koreabang.com)

PRENTICE: Ha, ha, no. It's just that I've been doing some reading — plus hearing an occasional lecture here — and I must say I find Buddhism very attractive, at least in theory. It's very cool, rational, and scientific in its explanations of reality. I can appreciate that. I like to think I'm a man of science. The Buddhist analysis of mind and matter appears to me almost like a scientific investigation. But the other part, the religious part, gives me trouble.

TISSA: You're a great admirer of science, are you, Mr. Prentice?

The Buddha was born in Central Asia.

PRENTICE: Oh yes, no question.

TISSA: Could it be that you appreciate Buddhism in proportion as it resembles science?

PRENTICE: Uh, well, possibly.

TISSA: If that's so, why not stay with the real article? Why bother with Buddhism?

PRENTICE: Well, of course, science lacks a... It lacks...

TISSA: The religious part?

Shaolin monks, Kung Fu Monastery, Hunan Province, China (Ana Paola Pineda/flickr.com)

.

Monk fights back against police (ki-media).

PRENTICE: Exactly. You see, venerable sir, the problem is this. Much as I like what I know of Buddhism, much as I approve of it intellectually, I find it difficult to actually commit myself to it as a religious discipline. I have too many doubts. I admire the philosophy, but I suppose I just can't take it seriously.

TISSA: Seriousness is precisely the difference between philosophy and religion. The philosopher deals in expendable theories; the religious person puts one's own life on the line.

PRENTICE: And that's exactly what I'm not prepared to do.

TISSA: Many people feel that way.

PRENTICE: And yet — it's what I'd like to do. To be serious. To put my life on the line. The trouble is I don't have any motivation.

TISSA: Hmm, how far is it from your house to here?

 

PRENTICE: Oh, eight or ten blocks, I suppose.

TISSA: And you walked eight or ten blocks on a hot afternoon to tell me you don't have any motivation?

 

Good tiger (forum.bodybuilding.com).

PRENTICE: Ah, good point!

TISSA: Buddhist discipline begins and ends with self-examination. Buddhist philosophy or theory, if you will, instructs us how to carry out that examination and the efforts that follow. We can read the philosophy all we want, but if we don't practice it — if we don't take the medicine, so to speak — it won't do anything for us. Now, you tell me that you've been reading Buddhist literature, and you say you have doubts. What specifically is troubling you?

 

PRENTICE: Nothing specific, I think. Just general doubts keep me from taking the medicine. To put it bluntly, Why should I undertake what promises to be a horrendously hard discipline of meditation and religious observances and so on? What will I get out of it?

TISSA: First of all, a "horrendously hard discipline" will by itself accomplish nothing.

Karmapa and Dalai Lama (wiseattention)

PRENTICE: Nothing?!

TISSA: You should get rid of the notion of investing an effort in order to get something in return.

PRENTICE: I don't understand.

TISSA: We've already "got" more than we can handle — namely, suffering. We follow the teachings of the Buddha in order to get rid of suffering. Most people don't understand this important point. They think that they have to try to acquire something — wisdom or knowledge or freedom.

 

Mahayana Buddhist monk at peace in a field of daisies (Yi Jue/imgarcade.com)

.

PRENTICE: But the Buddha does speak of wisdom and knowledge and freedom and so on. Aren't these things worthwhile?

TISSA: Certainly. But they are not objects to be grasped at as we habitually grasp at things we desire. The highest truth is not a prize to be seized. IT is here all the time. Buddhist discipline aims at removing the obstructions that prevent our seeing the truth. The practitioner must certainly make an effort, but he should not try to "get" anything by his effort.

 

PRENTICE: It seems paradoxical to me.

TISSA: Only because you are accustomed to the ordinary way of doing things — a way which, I might guess, has not brought you the happiness you seek.

 

PRENTICE: Perhaps you're right about that. Let me rephrase my question. I mean, even though I appreciate Buddhist thought, I don't feel motivated to actually commit myself to it. Why should I just... leap into the dark, so to speak?

TISSA: You should not leap into the dark under any circumstances.

The first part of the famous Kalama Sutra

PRENTICE: But isn't that what Buddhism demands? A leap of faith, anyway.

TISSA: Absolutely not. Blind hope or blind faith won't help you in the least.

PRENTICE: Then what reason do I have to...

TISSA: Ah, there's the word — reason. You see, Mr. Prentice, the practicing-Buddhist needs reason founded on direct insight. The two go together. Don't believe out of mere hope. Don't believe from abstract logic. Don't believe what you can't see clearly for yourself.

• [This is the first message of the Buddha's Kalama Sutra. Although this discourse is frequently cited as the Buddha's encouragement to follow one's own sense of right and wrong, it actually says something much more rigorous than that. Traditions are not to be followed simply because they are traditions.] 

PRENTICE: There's very little I can see. I certainly can't see enlightenment ahead, I can't see nirvana.

TISSA: And what can you see, Mr. Prentice?

 

PRENTICE (after a troubled pause): My own confusion. My uncertainty. My unhappiness.

TISSA: Yes?

 

PRENTICE: I don't want to sound grandiose, but I see, well, suffering — at least my own suffering.

Ven. Tissa is silent. Mr Prentice continues haltingly:
 

Science confirms happiness (indiatimes.com).

I don't mean to say I have any kind of penetrating vision. I just have this recognition that things aren't the way they ought to be, that I'm getting older but not any wiser, that something is wrong in the world or in me. I'd like to do something about it. I'd like to get free from this confusion, this...

Well, what word can I use but "suffering"? I suppose that's why I got interested in Buddhism — because it talks about suffering and the way to the end of suffering. If some kind of deliverance is really possible, I'd like to achieve it. More