robertk wrote:. All consciousness arises in the brain. Without the brain there is no consciousness in the body or the eyes,ears,nose, tongue, intellect. Eye consciousness occurs in the brain and is dependent on the brain. Be real, seriously. There is a reason people die when they get shot in the head. There is also a reason paraplegics can't feel their legs. Are you aware that there are people with toes that can't feel them. That is because there brain is cut off from receiving signals from those areas.
The suttas don't say that the eye-consciousness has to arise at the eye, it just says that is dependent on the eye, form, and contact. It just so happens that the consciousness then arises in the brain due to those 3 things
The abhidhamma may be a different story, but I don't see the suttas saying the eye-consciousness necessarily arises in the eye
Please give me even one suggestion from sutta or commentary indicatiing your contention that eye consciousness arises in the brain.
You suggest that I "
BE real, Seriously". I am being very real : perhaps you might wish to rethink your understandning of what the Buddha taught and life in general.
Let's say someone knew nothing about computers. They played with their computer and pulled out a few wires, it stopped working properly. They then claimed that the 'heart' of the computer was the wiring. Would they be right or would it be the pentium processor, that they never even looked at that, that is the seat of calculations. This is where 'science' is with regard to their uniderstanding of mentality.
And please do check" does feeling in your toe really arise in the brain? Or is it an idea so ingrained becuase of what you learnt from science or school or even from views accumulated from past lives..
Oh and if someone is shot in the heart, or emptied of all blood, how long to they live, as a matter of interest?
I don't think I'm supposed to be answering you in this thread since this is the classical area but whatever, I'm sure the moderators won't mind one final response.
The suttas and the commentaries do not mention the brain because people of that time were ignorant that the brain played such a central role in processing. However, we need not let that fact interfere with dependent origination because eye-consciousness does still depend on the eye, form/light, and contact, it just so happens that the consciousness arises in the brain and not in the eye as iron age monks might have had you think.
As far as your computer comparison goes, that's just it, thanks for proving my point. You are saying that consciousness arises in the wires instead of in the processor. The eye has wires which run into the brain, so does your body, they are called nerve endings, this system of wires runs up to the brain where all the information is processed. The reason one dies when they lose blood or are shot in the heart is because the heart and blood work together to deliver fresh oxygen to the brain. This is why people who have heart attacks can be revived if the brain isn't starved of oxygen for too long and actually, if you slow down the body's metabolism by making the body cooler, the brain can go for even longer without oxygen because it is absorbing it at a slower rate.
I have no need to rethink about life in general as thinking about life in general is something I do everyday, it is not something i re-do. I evaluate and then I evaluate some more, I do not re-evaluate. Do not blindly adhere to what you think the Buddha taught, he was not omniscient, he did not know everything and basing all your views on some books written down hundreds of years after he died is dogmatic and unfit for somebody who wishes to realize truth for themselves, I would suggest you re-evaluate your epistemological grounds for making assertions about the way the human body and mind function.
As far as what the Buddha taught, the only thing that is important is how to end suffering by developing the noble eight-fold path and understanding the way to end suffering through that path, which last time I checked, didn't say one had to blindly adhere to anatomical and physiological claims from people who had 1% of the knowledge we have today with regards to those matters. If you hinge your whole practice on clinging to obviously untrue propositions then you will never be able to unbind yourself from false views and let go of the identity you've built up around those associations. I wish you the best of the luck towards the goal and hope we can all one day come to realize liberation and I hope you realize that scientific facts are not a hindrance to that goal. However, it should be noted that neither of our positions on that matter really pertain to the goal, ultimately, speculating about such trivial matters is just something sidetracking us from the actual purpose in following the Buddha's teaching, which is simply to become unbound from reacting to feelings that create emotions that lead to clinging to and identifying with impermanent phenomena, once we do that we can experience the unconditioned, the deathless, Nibbana.
"I don't envision a single thing that, when developed & cultivated, leads to such great benefit as the mind. The mind, when developed & cultivated, leads to great benefit."
"I don't envision a single thing that, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about such suffering & stress as the mind. The mind, when undeveloped & uncultivated, brings about suffering & stress."