Question: Dear Sir, hope the Clarity Sessions are going great. I plan to join the sessions one of these days if I can.
I am reading a book named ‘the philosophy of the Buddha’ to understand the Buddhist thought. I found this book quite enriching in its academic rigor. However as Frank Herbert says, “Truth sometimes suffers on account of over-analysis.” Although this book is written by a Western thinker, it is fair, unbiased, thorough and adequately covers the doctrines. I found this book to be worth my time.There is another book called “Buddha’s way in Darwin’s world.”
Dear Sir,
You were right about waiting for thoughts to set in, but I am young and a tad impatient (maybe stupid!) and hence it is after sometime that I have more clarity on what I was trying to say in my last few mails. I had also sent you a write up on Evolutionary Biology but perhaps that is limited. Here is what I wanted to demonstrate from biology and basic neurobiology about human beings, the Self and Buddhism:
Mirror neurons and the Self
Mirror neurons were curiously discovered in primates when the experimenter was having an ice-cream and saw that the primate experienced the same sensations as he did (on the electric monitor). We feel other people’s pain because of the cluster of neurons and the reason we know it is someone else’s pain and not our own, because we have motor signals coming from our body. Many brain biologists have linked this to the eastern concept of unity. However, this is simplified, I am leading this to my earlier argument about material self where I was having doubts.
