According to some traditional Eastern medical teachings, the processes of the body and mind need to be aligned through the central channel of the body in order for our potential to emerge.
The brain operates as a dynamic, interactive system much like the musicians in an orchestra. Shifts in brain function and physiological activity may involve, as Nobel prize-winner Roger Sperry has explained, ‘up-down, front-back, or various other organisational changes as well as left-right differences.’
Functions such as reason and imagination actually require the synthesis of complex processing in both hemispheres. The differences between the left and right hemispheres relate to differences in the quality of attention.
Some recent research suggests that the left brain has more focus on closing down to a certainty while the right brain has more capacity to open up to a possibility. One, therefore (the left), aims to reach one correct answer (‘either/or’): the other (the right) is more able to live with ambivalence and the possibility of two apparently incompatible possibilities being true (‘both/and’). Hence, the left side has association with processes such as analysis and structure, while the right side has association with processes such as dreaming and metaphor.
The central channel within the spinal chord opens up through the “midsagittal plane” to separate the brain into right and left hemispheres. When we are present, attentive to what is here and now, then neurological, hormonal and other processes become regulated and energy moves into the central channel of the body. There is balanced activity in the brain, heart and other centres.
Most people are often lost in the delusion of the ever – thinking mind, the addiction to thinking and the imagined past and future. We become present by simply being completely attentive to whatever is here, right now. Anything that is happening right now, just be attentive – to your body or any sensory experience. This is the awakened state of stillness, of quiet observation where thoughts just stop. This is who we are on a deeper level that is not conditioned by our personality or even our body.
To sustain presence you must constantly practice the observation of when you are unconsciously pulled out of the present and into the noise of the mind. Just notice that a thought is just a thought, an emotion is just an emotion, a sensation is just a sensation. Then gently move your attention back into the present and become quiet. My personal experience is that I have had to practice this continuously over many years……working to become present when the mind is wandering again into some story or other that is neither helpful, productive or insightful.
Gradually you become more able to return to the present and drop any reaction to whatever has been triggered inside yourself. Then you gain more capacity to stop taking things personally and to stay with discomfort whenever it arises rather than immediately trying to avoid or suppress that experience. This gives more time and space to consider appropriate behaviours rather than unskillful reactions.
Spencer Joseph
