Meditation has prompted a variety of research over the last 30 years. The Dalai Lama sparked it – actually requested it – of western science. As a result, whole fields of new western science have been birthed and all of them explore the integrity and integration that the heart brings to human existence. Profoundly, what has been discovered is that the heart-center is necessary for the brain to function well, for the mind to function fully, for one’s life to have lasting happiness. It even could be the source of long life. It is recognized that physical health is, of course, determined by what one eats, how one lives, even where on lives but all of those factors are impacted and conditioned by the openness or lack thereof of the heart-center of a human being.
Heart-mind is what western society calls the integrated union of openness that Tibetans simply call mind. For them, and for all who practice meditation regularly and live the results of doing so, mind is the full rubric of one’s awareness. And the heart-center is the locus of that fullness of awareness. In other words, what we think is what we think. Consciousness (Awareness) is something different (and more).
We re-engage Step 6: Heart-Mind after last week’s focus on the bravery and boldness of the Aries full moon cycle for the world. This is Step 6b.
Downloadable podcast: Living from the mind of the heart