Searching for God
No Where is Everywhere
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With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night a little boy named Ezekiel, age 6, answered a question in the synagogue sanctuary. He said, "God is no where because God is everywhere."
Realizing this paradox is true Zen. The particular and the universal are one and the same. Each of us has a different view, as if we looked from a slightly different angle, We make a mistake if we believe this view is all there is. There is always another view which adds another dimension and deepens our understanding.
When we search for enlightenment we cannot find it. Yet, when we let go of the search, there it is. In Zen, our practice is to relax our view, like relaxing our focus, and as we do, a wholeness has an opening to emerge into consciousness.
Recently, there has been a increase in scientific searches for an explanation of spirituality. A new science is emerging, "neurotheology" or sometimes, "spiritual neuroscience". This discipline, conducted by neurobiologists, seeks to understand the manifestation of spirituality, awakening, and other epiphanies in human beings.
It is not uncommon to read of Buddhist monks wired up with EEG devices, scanned with PET, CAT, or MRI. These various mechanisms attempt to locate spiritual activity within our brain. Even Carmelite nuns are becoming subjects in the search.
Scientists tend to reduce. So, in their effort to locate a sort of "God Spot" in the brain, they targeted their search to specific areas, limbic, temporal lobes, etc. wherever their hypotheses led them. Someone even invented a "God Generator", a helmet the emitted electromagnetic fields which stimulated regions of the brain to produce a sense of "the presence of a spirit" in the wearer.
What is happening, however, is that scientists are finding there is no one spot that correlates with spiritual (i.e., prayer, meditation) activity. In meditators, various regions of the brain light up. In the case of the Carmelite nuns, six different regions of the brain turned on when the nuns recalled an intimate experience with God. One scientist suggested, "These states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain." Well, duh. Science often misses the whole due to its focus on the parts.
When people meditate/pray everything is the meditation/prayer: the posture, the breath, the senses, everything. All areas of the body are involved, it is decidedly NOT a mental activity. Jews for example, may wear tallit, a head covering, and phylacteries. Christians might knell, use a rosary, an image of their God. Candles, bells, incense, images, all play a sensory roll in our various spiritual practices. It would be very surprising to me if the brain didn't light up with a neural pattern resembling a menorah.
So, yes, Ezekiel, God is no where, because God is everywhere: just so, Buddha-nature.
Be well.
For further study, please see the latest issue of Scientific American Mind (October/November 2007). All quotes come from an article there entitled, "Searching for God in the Brain" by David Biello.
Good Morning Everyone,
Last night a little boy named Ezekiel, age 6, answered a question in the synagogue sanctuary. He said, "God is no where because God is everywhere."
Realizing this paradox is true Zen. The particular and the universal are one and the same. Each of us has a different view, as if we looked from a slightly different angle, We make a mistake if we believe this view is all there is. There is always another view which adds another dimension and deepens our understanding.
When we search for enlightenment we cannot find it. Yet, when we let go of the search, there it is. In Zen, our practice is to relax our view, like relaxing our focus, and as we do, a wholeness has an opening to emerge into consciousness.
Recently, there has been a increase in scientific searches for an explanation of spirituality. A new science is emerging, "neurotheology" or sometimes, "spiritual neuroscience". This discipline, conducted by neurobiologists, seeks to understand the manifestation of spirituality, awakening, and other epiphanies in human beings.
It is not uncommon to read of Buddhist monks wired up with EEG devices, scanned with PET, CAT, or MRI. These various mechanisms attempt to locate spiritual activity within our brain. Even Carmelite nuns are becoming subjects in the search.
Scientists tend to reduce. So, in their effort to locate a sort of "God Spot" in the brain, they targeted their search to specific areas, limbic, temporal lobes, etc. wherever their hypotheses led them. Someone even invented a "God Generator", a helmet the emitted electromagnetic fields which stimulated regions of the brain to produce a sense of "the presence of a spirit" in the wearer.
What is happening, however, is that scientists are finding there is no one spot that correlates with spiritual (i.e., prayer, meditation) activity. In meditators, various regions of the brain light up. In the case of the Carmelite nuns, six different regions of the brain turned on when the nuns recalled an intimate experience with God. One scientist suggested, "These states are mediated by a neural network that is well distributed throughout the brain." Well, duh. Science often misses the whole due to its focus on the parts.
When people meditate/pray everything is the meditation/prayer: the posture, the breath, the senses, everything. All areas of the body are involved, it is decidedly NOT a mental activity. Jews for example, may wear tallit, a head covering, and phylacteries. Christians might knell, use a rosary, an image of their God. Candles, bells, incense, images, all play a sensory roll in our various spiritual practices. It would be very surprising to me if the brain didn't light up with a neural pattern resembling a menorah.
So, yes, Ezekiel, God is no where, because God is everywhere: just so, Buddha-nature.
Be well.
For further study, please see the latest issue of Scientific American Mind (October/November 2007). All quotes come from an article there entitled, "Searching for God in the Brain" by David Biello.
