Our latest explorations about how the brain works turns out to be a journey into where mind is located. Many functions of the brain go on in the background, out of sight of our awareness. Some of what the mind does is in our consciousness, we know that we know. Jack Kornfield and Dan Seigel were discussing this last October when they met in San Francisco in front of an audience in a dialogue about what Eastern psychology and western scientific research have to say to each other as we try to unravel this natural wonder called mind. They talked
about something Martin Buber had discussed in I and Thou. The location of the sound waves of our voice, the electrical and chemical signals we pick up are not inside our minds. They exist beyond mind. Our eyes see from a distance. Smells are sensed from afar. The brain is an important part of what we use to know what we know, but between us is located a vast treasure of information (energy and particles) that are part of how our minds build a picture of what is our experience. I find the location of some of what I call thinking up in my head, but I do find a great resonant testable theory that what this bigger experience, bigger mind moments, that happen while engaged in collaborative exchange between others, that my mind is beyond mere brain, that it is in my gut, my heart, reached via ears, nose, eyes, and is out there much further beyond the edge of my skin. If you have ever known what someone is going to say before they say it, then I think you have had a piece of evidence presented to you suggesting that indeed mind is something more than just your brain.
Highway Home The Novel
The comment hung in those early hours after midnight, in the still, silence before dawn. They both became sleepy at the same time. The wood stove kept them both warm, and although they each sat with their eyes cast away from each other, Peggy realized that she was attracted to Noel, far more than she had at first thought. She found Noel’s strength handsome and his eyes vulnerable. His rural Utah childhood dripped off his way of doing things.
