In Buddhism, the memory of one’s deeds are not stored in the brain. This idea is alien to modern thought which is materialistic or more technically is based on ontological materialism. Modern theories of memory tell us the brain is a kind of data storage center where our memories are kept and when the brain dies so do all of our memories. This is where Buddhism and modern science part company. For Buddhism memory is not stored in the brain.
For Buddhism, what beings really are is consciousness (vijñāna) that is attached to a material embryo which becomes entrained with the embryo being subsequently incarnated. With maturity and finally death this consciousness that was attached to the embryo leaves the dead carnal body, having all the senses, assuming an ethereal form. This is where we find the memory.
“When the consciousness leaves the body, it carries all the body’s attributes with it. It assumes an [ethereal] form as its body; it has no body of flesh and bones. Because it has the senses, it has feeling and subtle memory and can tell good from evil” (Maharatnakuta Sutra).
This after-death state seems to be borne out by what is currently termed NDEs or near-death experiences. According to Dr. Bruce Greyson:
“When some people come close to death, they go through a profound experience in which they believe they leave their bodies and enter some other realm or dimension, transcending the boundaries of the ego and the ordinary confines of time and space. Such experiences had been described sporadically in the medical literature since the 19th century (Greyson, 1998a) and had been identified as a discrete syndrome more than a century ago (Heim, 1892). Moody (1975) introduced the term near-death experiences (NDEs) for these phenomena, and outlined 15 characteristic features commonly reported by American survivors. These 15 features, which have come to define near-death experiences both among the academic community and in the popular imagination, include ineffability, hearing the news of ones death, overwhelming feelings of peace, hearing a noise, seeing a tunnel, a sensation of being out of the body, meeting nonphysical beings, a "Being of Light," a life review, a border or point of no return, coming back to life, telling others about the experience, effects on lives, new views of death, and corroboration of knowledge not acquired through normal perception (Moody, 1975)."
I consider such NDE experiences to add weight to the argument that consciousness—not the brain—is where our memory is kept. Added to this, is the theory of “Conscious Realism” developed by Dr. Donald Hoffman in which phenomena, such as brains, are the creations of conscious agents (In previous blogs I have mentioned Hoffman).
The world that we perceive and live in is the illusion while conscious agents are the truer reality which are composed of pure Mind, the highest fundamental reality/substance.
Zennist:
All worthy points.
I would like to point out that whereas in the past there wasn't much data to go on, contemporary science has a lot of data to investigate the NDE phenomenon. So the problem is not just one of scientific difficulty, but lack of intellectual honesty and courage to face peers who have a bias against any theory which does not suppose mind follows the brain (sometimes called epiphenomenalism).
For what it is worth, in my experience at least, looking at patterns of events in one's life or certain kinds of aversions or attachments that do not have a ready explanation in one's own (current) life history, can be very telling about previous lives. If something crops up again and again in one's life (for good or bad) that is a very good example of how karma manifests.
I find it particularly hard to understand how many contemporary Zen Buddhists seem to accept the explanation of rebirth as a kind of minute to minute phenomenon, but not the appearance of a new body. Although that view (minute to minute rebirth) is not wrong in my opinion, how does one suddenly get the idea that there was no life before birth or no life after death of the carnal body?
The only answer I can see is that people have a kind of cherished bias and force Buddhism to conform to their views, just as many scientists avoid taking NDE data seriously because of a basic bias (formed in ignorance) against spirituality in general.
Posted by: n. yeti | December 18, 2017 at 12:17 PM