..续本文上一页n brain stem is not capable of maintaining basic bodily functions such as breathing, heart or liver. It”s not enough to keep the higher brain functions going. It”s not enough for speech, not enough for intelligence, certainly not enough for being an honours student in mathematics. This doctor said, "Ajahn Brahm, you wouldn”t believe the problem that this is causing in my field of science. It shatters so much past research. It is challenging so many drug companies that are making billions of dollars in profits". Because dogmatic scientists can”t understand how a person with virtually no brain can be intelligent, they are just burying the findings at the back of the filing cabinet, classifying it as an anomaly. But truth just won”t go away.
The Mind and the Brain
As soon as you start to include the mind, this ”ghost in the machine”, in the equations, scientists tend to become discomfited. They take refuge in dogma, and say, "No, that cannot exist". I really took the Sate Astronomer to task over such dogmatism in science.
As far as Buddhism is concerned there are six senses. Not just the five senses of science, namely sight, sound, smell, taste and touch but in addition the mind. From the very beginning in Buddhism, mind has been the sixth sense. Twenty-five centuries ago, the sixth sense was well recognised. So this is not changing things to keep up with modern times; this was so from the very beginning. The sixth sense, the mind, is independent of the other five senses. In particular the mind is independent of the brain. If you volunteer to have a brain transplant with me you take my brain and I take your brain I will still be Ajahn Brahm and you will still be you. Want to try it
If it was possible and it happened, you would still be yourself. The mind and the brain are two different things. The mind can make use of the brain but it doesn”t have to.
Some of you may have had out of the body experiences. These out of the body experiences have recently been the subject of mainstream scientific research. Out of the body experiences are now a scientific fact! I like to stir people up by saying things like that. Recently I saw that Dr. Sam Parnia, a researcher from the University of Southampton Medical School, has given a paper, stating that consciousness survives death.[2] He said that he did not know how it happens, or why it happens, but, he says, it does happen. His evidence was gathered from people who have had out of the body experiences in his hospital. Dr Parnia, investigated and interviewed many, many patients. The information which they gave him, as a cool headed scientist, said yes, those people were conscious during the time they were dead. What was especially very convincing was that often they could actually describe to the doctor the medical procedures that were done during the time when they were clinically dead. They could describe it as if they were looking at their body from a position above the table. But how that happens Dr. Parnia can”t explain. Why it happens he can”t explain. But other medical findings also support the above. Finally, their findings replicated the work done earlier by Dr. Raymond A. Moody in the United States.[3]
The evidence proved to those hard nosed doctors that out of body experiences do happen. But how could they happen
If we agree that the mind can be independent of the body, then we have a plausible explanation. The brain doesn”t need to be functioning for a mind to exist. The scientific facts are there, the evidence is there, but a lot of scientists don”t like to admit those facts. They prefer to close their eyes because of dogmatism.
Come and See for Yourself
If you had just one person who had been confirmed as medically dead who could describe to the doctors, as soon as they w…
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