Neuron Fire

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Neuron Fire

March 31.2008

It is amazing how fluid our thinking mind is… I had an initial idea about writing this page. Being a physicist and scientist by nature my thinking process is very focused and organized. Having the idea I have been thinking than how to express it. What the title would be, remembering a quote form Dhammapada I want to include, and perhaps the words of Einstein. While I searched the sources and my files for the quotes I did some reading on the way and suddenly the idea gets modified.

Of course I like to include the photo too. Searching the internet and studying some materials about the human brain and how it thinks, the title has changed too from the original idea.

Here is just a simple example how thinking effects our action and expression… And this thinking was intentional; it supposed to serve certain purpose.

What about the constant uncontrolled thoughts which perpetually go on, habitual patterns fueling our acts? In our brain there is a neuron fire….

It looks so beautiful! But… How much suffering does originate form this self-perpetuating computer? Do we have any control over it?

Certainly purpose of Zen practice is NOT to get rid of thoughts. As long as we live neuron fire continues. We hold endless desires, assumptions about ourselves, others and reality. They are not only false but cause suffering. This can be examined and heart can be purified trough zazen practice.

When I was much younger I thought that by studying everything I could possibly study I would be able to understand the reality and human beings. It was only while at University getting deeper into physics when I realized the limitations of human intellect.

Buddha was a Truth seeker so was Einstein. Travelling on different seemingly opposite paths they came to similar conclusions.

As Diamond Sutra is chanted and read at Dai Bosatsu Zendo at several sesshin a year the most famous passage is ingrained in my mind:

All composite things are like a dream, a fantasy,
a bubble and a shadow,
Are like a dewdrop and a flash of lightning.
They are thus to be regarded.

- and so you should

Think in this way of all this fleeting world:
As a start at dawn, a bubble in the stream,
A dewdrop, a flash of lightning in the summer cloud
A flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

Or as Albert Einstein said: “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

Shakyamuni Buddha was a master in guiding people. His teachings were very deep but he was able to expound the Dharma accordingly to people’s capabilities. Dhammapada presents original Buddha’s teaching with great simplicity. Anyone can understand.

Concerning human beings this is what Buddha says:

            We are what we think.
            All that we are arises with our though.
            With our thoughts we make the world.

This is the opening verse of the first chapter of Dhammapada entitled “Choices.” We do have a choice of how we think….

Here again Albert Einstein said something very similar:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

We are in difficult and shaky time. Many people are struggling. “It has been few weeks since I got an order” I was thinking the other day. Maybe recession is catching up with me too… But still there is a roof, food and few clothes I thought. Why to worry…?

When I read my e-mails that morning there was a next order placed…. Gassho!

Your enemy may turned out to be your best friend. Seeing something as black assume it is white and see when it leads you…

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