دار بيبليون
Notes from a lecture by Lwiis Saliba on Zoom 17-07-24
Topic: ‘The brain of Buddha
“To resist something is to nourish it”.
The important thing is not to resist painful experiences, and not to become attached to or envious of what gives us pleasure, because this creates an irrepressible desire, which regularly leads to suffering. So be vigilant and tolerant when you can’t change it.
Of course, if you can change a pain, don’t hesitate to do so, but if you can’t do anything about it, it’s a good idea to accept it. If we refuse, we make it worse. The Buddha spoke of pain as a first arrow, and suffering as a second, the latter being optional. Let’s be curious, let’s try to find out the cause of the pain, so that we can remedy it in the future.
We advise you to implant the positive in the negative.
1) We introduce current positive experiences into old past experiences, thus softening them and treating wounds.
2) Emphasise the positive outlook.
To reduce anxiety, work your diaphragm. Even observing it calms it, as Tenzin Palmo has often pointed out. As soon as you feel discomfort, fear or anger, return to your breathing and these emotions will diminish. It’s very simple, but very effective.
There is an inverse relationship between the work of the diaphragm and anxiety. The more the diaphragm works, the less anxiety there is.
2) A second piece of advice, after working the diaphragm:
Relaxation and anxiety are antithetical. In fact, our reaction to anxiety is to tense up, in different places: clenching our teeth, pursing our lips, buttocks, legs, hands… but the reaction is tense up, which only accentuates the negative reaction [so it’s a vicious circle]. So, every time you do something, scan to drain off the anxiety, like a tap at the bottom of a tank draining off the water.
3) Recognise fear as soon as it appears, and observe it in your body. If we deny that we are afraid, we risk making the fear worse.
4) Describe what you feel verbally: this calms the reptilian brain, which is the source of the fear reaction, and strengthens the cerebral cortex, whose essential function is to calm the reptilian brain.
5) Think of fear as a wave that comes and hits a shore, but by its very nature turns back. Tenzin Palmo explains that a thought is like an air bubble that can be punctured. But consciousness is a vast space, and fear is just a cloud in that space. So, of course, don’t identify with it.
6) Another idea that comes from the very history of human beings: until 10,000 years ago, that is, until the advent of agriculture, our ancestors lived in groups of hunter-gatherers, no more than 150 people. In this way, they were able to cope with dangers, particularly wild animals. This collaboration helped them to survive.
7) The aggressive tendency is directly linked to the increase in testosterone, in both men and women, which is countered by serotonin. It’s up to us to influence this balance in the right direction.
Conflicts between these small communities of human beings were responsible for 25% of human deaths, whereas now it’s only 1%. This has anchored anxiety in our genes.
I quote from an article in a scientific journal: it costs half a million dollars to kill a man in a war today. It costs 50 billion dollars to send a man into space. To save a human being from a fiery death costs just 10 dollars. This is the great paradox of our time.
Every individual has two dualistic wolves inside him or her, the wolf of love and the wolf of hate: you can’t destroy the wolf of hate, but you can feed the wolf of love. It’s reminiscent of Alfred de Vigny’s poem: the wolf lives in a family, it’s faithful and won’t take another wolf if it loses its own. On the one hand, there is family solidarity, which is very important, and on the other, aggression.
Even if the wolf of hatred occupies an important place in the mass media, the wolf of love is bigger, stronger, and its reinforcement over millions of years has been at the basis of the evolution of the human brain: mammals and birds have much bigger brains than reptiles and fish, because their family and community life have contributed to the development of their brains. There is much to ponder about these facts. If we have reached the level of homo sapiens, it is thanks to community life, which has done more than just protect us from aggressors. Altruism is a real factor in progress.
In conclusion: “If we have managed to become homo sapiens, it is thanks to community life. Even animals of other species are subject to this law”.