Cultivating the Right Brain | Sister Dang Nghiem (Mindfulness & Science)

That quietness, that spaciousness.

That oneness, that present moment.

That capacity to hold and to love.

We call ourselves.

Human

beings

to simply be.

For the last 37 years of her life, it just became quiet.

Nirvana is in us.

I also would like to introduce to you the left brain and the right brain,

because it also helps us as practitioners in a spiritual life.

I discover, Wow, all the wisdom is there.

But if we

understand a little more,

a little bit more about neuroscience, we understand why we practice in a certain way.

We have the left brain and the right brain.

So standing like this, this's the right brain, this's the left brain.

With all the grooves.

A neuroanatomist,

Her name is

Jill Bolte Taylor.

She wrote a book, My Stroke of Insight.

It's very amazing.

I would recommend you

reading it if you haven't read it.

So she studies.

She studied the brain for many years.

And one day, she herself had a stroke, a blood vessel, bursted in her left brain.

And slowly she discovered

that

At first she couldn't move.

Then she couldn't speak because it affected her left brain, which is about language, language.

And then she realized that,

at some moment, coming in and out of consciousness,

she couldn't feel the the boundary anymore between her, her body and the environment.

It's like.

Becoming one, becoming enormous and

spacious.

It's like.

One side of her saying, "Hey, you have a stroke, you have to do something, have to call to get help."

But the other side, wow, I'm so peaceful.

I am so

much in oneness with everything.

I have no emotional baggage.

Everything is just gone.

Of the mental formations.

The strong feelings of love, of hate just vanished.

It's just the spaciousness and peace because her bright brain,

in that moment, became dominant.

So we see that right in our brain and the left and the right,

they are both necessary for our survival, but they have different focus.

It's like that whereas the left brain,

things about the past, the future.

Gets caught in details and more details and details on the details.

It focuses on the product.

What can I get done?

Yeah, it judges.

It analyzed, it judges, it discriminates, this left brain.

It talks all the time.

Language all the time.

So it's like,

it focuses on language,

on logics, on linearity, where A leads to B, leads to C, leads to D.

The left brain.

And our society, we have become very much a left brain dominant.

All day long.

We are hooked, you know, to information, to technology,

to the Internet,

to our work, to details.

And we become

very much a left brain society.

And that's why inevitably, we water the seeds of discrimination and preference.

This schism.

In us.

In ourselves.

Body versus mind.

Me versus.

I versus others.

While the left brain focuses

on details and discrimination and preferences.

The right brain actually experiences this quietness.

And it doesn't

use language.

So when this neuroanatomist.

When she had a stroke, she said she experienced this complete quiet, tranquility.

She said that's Nirvana.

Because there was no voice, there was no angst, no sadness, no anger, no dramas.

For the last 37 years of her life, it just became quiet.

Nirvana is in us.

If we seek the Buddha.

It's right in us,

in our body.

In our capacity.

We have it.

In the Diamond Sutra.

The Buddha also said, If you seek me in forms,

if you seek me through sounds, then you are on the wrong path.

You cannot find

the Tathagata.

You cannot touch suchness.

And this right brain doesn't

rely on science.

On colors, on gender preferences.

On social status, educational levels, whatever it feels spacious,

enormous.

Everything is in oneness.

This right brain experiences the here and the now.

The present moment.

It's interested in everything that happens without putting it into certain categories or names or labels.

It just experiences.

The right brain enables us to simply be.

And that's why we call ourselves human beings to simply be.

And yet, because as a society, we have allowed ourselves to be so left brain

that we are not human beings anymore.

Why human doings, human thinking, human judging, human destroying.

Not human beings.

But we have this capacity inherent.

In our brain,

in every cells of our body,

we have a capacity to be.

To be.

To touch suchness, to experience suchness, to experience that higher level of consciousness.

Use this right brain that has the capacity for understanding.

And.

Compassion.

And first and foremost, for self awareness.

And our practice is all about that,

isn't it?

We practice to quiet our mind.

As I reflect on this, I'm so amazed.

I'm so incredibly thankful for the Buddha's teachings,

for all of our spiritual ancestors, and in particular for our Thầy, our teacher.

In our practices, if we look deeply, everything we do can cultivate that bright brain, being,

like when we practice noble silence, isn't it quieting the left brain, language.

And when we pay attention to our breath, to our step, the mind is quiet.

We really experience our body in our body.

And at the same time, like this morning,

when we had the guided meditation, there's no breather, there's only the breathing.

And we experienced that.

I mean, in my life I've gone through many traumas and dramas.

But the practice have really saved my life.

And I recognize that in my daily life.

For the most part,

my mind is not

busy thinking about the past, about what had happened to me in my life.

Even what happened yesterday, that was very unpleasant.

It doesn't think very much about the past.

It also doesn't think much about a future.

What will happen to the community through this pandemic?

What will happen to us,

when Thầy Ppasses away,

in 20 years, in 10 years, in a month?

It doesn't think very much about those things, but it very much has faith in the here and the now.

And if we take good care of the here and the now.

What'll ever happen in the future,

we'll be able to care for it, to attend it appropriately.

So every practice that we do, it's all about cultivating the right brain, that quietness, that spaciousness,

that oneness,

that present moment.

That capacity to hold and to love.

Thank you.

Dear brothers and sisters.

Thank you, dear beloved friends.

We know you are there and we are very happy.

Bless you.