[Buddha-l] Heart of the matter? (was: the advent of the meditation machine?)

[John Whalen-Bridge]

RE Tibetan's locating "body" in the head, couldn't we use Joseph Nye's "soft power" to get them to change?  I think the only reason the do it is so one can go BODY-SPEECH-MIND during prostrations while moving hands from forehead to throat to heart during prostrations.  It's simply a more efficient way to combine the B-S-M chants with the movement.  In defense of the Tibetan position, their realignment of signifiers is much simpler than doing prostrations from the headstand position.
 
I suppose I will have no reason to believe that mind and body are two separate entities until I have experience of knowledge that couldn't have come through the body ("knowing" being a fair indication of the presence of "mind," yes?), which hasn't happened yet.  I had a psychic dream once (ex-girlfriend who never ever ever wanted to have children; no contact for a year or so; dream of ex-G giving birth to a monster; birth announcement came in mail the next day sent by proud fecundalist dad and stating that the labor was horrible, c-section was necessary, no insurance, might lose the house, baby and mother both doing "fine"), but I had that dream in my body.  I now assume bodies might function as efficient radio sets, though I've never been able to tune into other people's stations accurately.  
 
Read books about and attempted astral projection quite ernestly during junior high school.  I needed things to think about during my paper route.  Zero success rate, and I only made 6$/week delivering the papers.  And that one lady always complained.  But if I could project somewhere and gather data while I and other people thought I was away from my body, then I'd be able to believe that "mind" and "body" could take vacations from one another.
 
Has anyone had any intriguing experiences in this direction?
 
I must now prepare a lecture on Don DeLillo's funny and darkly comic play Valparaiso, which will certainly drive students out of their minds but hopefully not apart from their bodies.
 
Minding my body in my body while checking my email in the cafeteria,
JWB
 
>[Buddha-l] Heart of the matter? (was: the advent of the meditation machine?)
To: Buddhist discussion forum buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com  Message-ID: 4725FFC4.3070101 at gmx.net
Richard Hayes wrote:
> On Monday 08 October 2007 09:23, curt wrote:
>> The idea that the "roots of religious feelings" are to be found in the
>> brain can only be supported by circular logic.
> Do you have an alternative idea of where the roots of religious feelings are
> to be found? The elbow? The pancreas? The genitals? >Tibetans locate the "body" centre in the head / brain;  
>the speech centre at the throat; and the "mind" centre at the heart. One wonders why so many cultures locate
> the source of feelings in the heart while recognizing that the brain is the central processor of the body?
>- Chris



Whalen-Bridge @ English Language and Literature 
National University of Singapore
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(Also @ http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellwbj/jwb/ <http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellwbj/jwb/> )