[Buddha-l] Heart of the matter?

[Joy Vriens]

Chris,

>Joy Vriens wrote: 
> 
>> Perhaps the following site on the "little brain in the heart", based on investigations by J. Andrew Armour, M.D., Ph.D. and his team of Montreal University will procure the beginning of an answer: 
> 
>> http://www.heartmath.org/research/our-heart-brain.html 
> 
>This makes me wonder - when someone gets a heart transplant do they get a  
>"little-brain" transplant as well? 

That's what one would expect.

The brain can't live without the rest of the body. I personally don't see much use to single out the brain as a sort of seat of mind ("mind is what the brain does"). Obviously a brain wouldn't do much without the rest of the body. The same goes for the heart obviously.

I see the importance of the heart more on a symbolical level. The five senses and the sixth one, manas, appear from <whistling innocently> Purusha, pure consciousness, rigpa, mere presence, being or anything else that's somehow logically or elseway underlying or presence or... life. An empty heart may be empty but it is still a heart. Is "life" an essence? 

Against a background of Samkhya emanationism it's not that strange to see a heart that is considered more of a core to mind than the brain, deeper than it. One can be in a coma, with the heart still pumping, still alive. The heart pumps blood and oxygen into the brain and gives it life. Through manas and the senses this life energy is then spoilt into objects. The blood/life "dissolves" back into the heart etc etc. 

Since your question was about Tibetans, Tantrism also picked up on the importance of this applied symbolism of emanating and dissolving with the heart as the ultimate center, at least in the physical body.  There is a solid logic behind picking the heart as a center.      

Joy