[Buddha-l] neuroscience: neural plasticity

[S.A. Feite]

On Jun 1, 2007, at 1:50 AM, Joy Vriens wrote:

>
>>>> The effect is one can become, for all intents and purposes,
>>>> relatively free of afflictive emotions and radiate this possibility
>>>> for others.
>
>>> The effect is that one feels good and this somehow is
>>> communicative. Can we agree on that?
>
>> Perhaps, but how communicative (relatively speaking) could someone in
>> extended retreat be, esp. if they were observing silence?
>
> I was trying to understand your "radiate".

Bodhichitta.

>
>> I would
>> argue that the "spontaneous qualities" of this state can still
>> communicated without gross speech. The level of compassion being
>> engaged here would be that of rtsal and gdangs, the compassionate
>> manifestation of the outer and inner space as a self-perfected
>> mandala. See http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/thugs_rje and
>> http://rywiki.tsadra.org/index.php/gdangs for detailed definitions.
>
> Do you expect that at one point we would be able to measure rtsal  
> and gdangs? Just wondering...

Anything's possible, this is where a subjective science could fill in  
the blanks if objective science would not be capable of some sort of  
external measurement. But I suspect what we would really be  
interested in is what someone would look like in such a state. As a  
case and point, they've already looked at yogis in clear light  
meditation and although such results, to my knowledge are  
unpublished, the results are rather amazing since the EEG is said to  
be essentially a "flat" EEG.