Why we don’t always do what we think we want to do and how chanting helps

This happens because doing and thinking about wanting occur in different parts of the brain, and they don’t always communicate in the ways we’d like (the ways the “Thinking about Wanting” part of the brain would like).

The question I am dealing with relates to why people, like myself, don’t do “the smart thing”, or why plans fail due to our own actions, or why addiction happens, and probably a lot of other interesting questions. A lot of people put a great deal of stock in education, which relates to the “Thinking about Wanting” part of the brain. Let’s abbreviate it by TW. Education builds areas around the TW part, so that the person can recite some lessons when asked. For example, an overweight person can say, “I am unhealthy and am going to eat less.” Then they continue to eat as usual. The trainer or doctor has managed to put some information into the person’s brain in the TW center, and, while that’s a good thing, it doesn’t solve this person’s problem.

The part of the brain that controls activity, in other words, the bundles of neurons that connect to the nerves that move the arms and legs, hands and feet, and so on, is separate from the TW center. Let’s call it the CA center, for control of activity. Actually, there are a lot of neuron bundles between the CA center and the feet, for example, as all the coordination circuitry, that enables us to hop, skip, run and walk had to be laid down somewhere, and that’s between the CA center and the nerves running out of the brain to the feet. But that makes no difference to the points made here.

What matters in a person’s life is the CA center. Let’s recall that neurons fire because of the weighted input from other neurons, and we can think of an aggregate of neurons firing in a similar fashion. The CA center decides to do something based on the input of other portions of the brain. There are certainly connections between the TW center and the CA center, and when we are doing simple things, like saying, “I’m going to leave now”, and then we walk out the door, the TW center has communicated with the CA center, or alternatively, some other decision-making neural bundle has communicated to the TW center and to the CA center, so we knew what we were going to do simultaneously with doing it. For the time being, let’s deal with the case where there is no decision-making center (or DC), that controls both the CA center and the TW center, and just examine the implications of the TW center sending messages to the CA center.

The two distinct cases are clear. The person, properly educated, says, either aloud or inside the verbal neural center (TW) of his brain, “I’m going to eat less.” Then, either that decision comes over to the CA center from the TW center with enough weight to make it stick, and he eats less, or some alternative center (let’s call it AC for now), has a stronger effect on the CA center and overrules the TW input, and he eats the same.

Thus, educating a person isn’t enough, as everybody who has dealt with problems like overweight knows. Other centers that communicate to the CA center have an effect, sometimes an overriding one. So, diet groups are formed, so that the socialization center (SC) that responds to friends and acquaintances effects, might get involved, and together with the TW center, make the change the TW center and these friends want to see happen. Alternately, some really tasty food without calories is developed, and the taste center (TC) gets to play a role, and the person eats the no-calorie food, which accomplishes the same effect as eating less. The TW center gets its goal accomplished by a back door. By buying no-calorie food, which the TW center can get the CA center to do, it outflanks the AC neural bundles by using the TC center. The TW center, maybe with the SC center helping, can get the CA center to take the actions necessary for stomach surgery, which also outflanks the AC bundles.

The neuron bundle that controls the decision in the CA center may actually be tightly coupled to some body sensors (BS), for example, a body sugar monitor, and when that monitor goes into its red zone, its influence on the CA center multiplies. Thus, the TW center could be the dominant one some of the time, but when the BS go red, it is not.

Alternatively, the person could get ill or have an accident related to being overweight, and the trauma avoidance (TA) steps in and adds its weight to making the CA center do what is necessary. Or a romantic relationship might have an effect, with the sexual relationship (SR) center playing a role.

These various neural bundles, SR, TA, SC, TC, and others yet unlabelled, all feed neural input into the CA center, and the combined weights determine what output comes out of the CA center. The same kind of breakdown can be described for any other behavior that eludes the control of the TW center. Examples are addictions to things other than excess food, such as rage, violence, drugs and alcohol, physically based thrills, excess money, control of other people or power, indolence, failure in some arenas such as education, collections of items of little practical use, and others. The TW center may actually not be opposed to these things, but if it is, the AC bundles might override its influence. Programming of the TW center is another topic to be discussed elsewhere. Generally speaking, addictions to non-practical things come from either misprogramming in the TW and TW control of the CA, or AC effects on the CA.

Chanting changes the influence of different parts of the brain. In general, it increases the effect of the TW center, and also helps to organize thoughts in the TW center. We are talking about real science here, not myth or dogma, so if this is true, there must be a way that happens. Chanting is, first, repetitious, second, vocal and aural, third, exclusionary, and fourth, sometimes done in groups.

What does repetition do? In chanting, repetition is really repetition. People talk of chanting the same mantra thousands upon thousands of times. The chanter has to force himself to do this. There is no pain involved, no defeat of body sensors or much else, as no other part of the brain probably cares much about chanting except for the time used up. It is something that can be done that accustoms the TW center to dominate the CA center. It accustoms the CA center to respond to the TW center. The weights that the brain has between different centers depend on use. Heavily used routes grow greater in weight. Thus, after time, the person who chants a great amount assists himself in doing what he decides to do.

What are the vocal and aural effects? You have to do something if its going to be repetitious, you can’t simply sit there and stare. It’s easy to repeat a mantra, and it doesn’t take up any space, doesn’t cost anything, doesn’t use up any resource except a person’s time, and doesn’t cause any bad effects, except possibly from neighbors who have a thin wall. It’s an ideal thing to repeat, and so Sakyamuni and his predecessors who invented chanting really had a brilliant idea. However, there is much more. We think using much the same parts of the brain that speak and listen. These get involved in the chanting, and so external ideas don’t have as much opportunity to get in. There are other bundles that are involved with thinking, but these represent a large part, and occupying them helps the brain be quiescent. This is again good programming for the brain. The habit of chanting induces a capability to have a quiet brain. This interesting phenomenon has been measured by one or two research groups who took monks and measured their brain activity while chanting and otherwise. Their brains were less randomly active.

Third, it is exclusionary, as you can’t be reading a book or watching TV or doing Sudoku while you chant. You learn to concentrate. What that means is the brain lays down nerve weight along paths that support concentration. Concentration is good. It helps in doing all kinds of activities.

Lastly, it can be done in groups. This pulls in the group support weights and reinforces the desire to chant. Repetition doesn’t have to be done in group all the time, but when it does, it reinforces the chanter’s ability to continue.

Thus, all four aspects, and probably some I haven’t thought of, affect the relationship between the TW center and the CA center. They strengthen the connection between the two. This means that when the experienced chanter sets off to do something, he/she are more likely to carry through with it, rather than getting bored and quitting.