Neuroscience of Core Buddhist Philosophy

Primordial conditioning for survival and procreation to maintain the species, is intrinsic in all humans due to the Reptilian and Pre-mammalian components of their basal brain (See Figure-1).

- By Dr CHANNA RATNATUNGA

The human brain reflects (carries) within its neuronal nets, these evolutionary biological pathways and its inherent proclivities and behaviours of its animal past. A Neural-plasticitic process then adds to this conditioning. This combined intrinsic process is a natural reality in all beings. It is ‘the Conditioned Self’, a unique personality that grows in the brain networks from childhood to old age, a process adapting with experience, to ensure the ‘being’s survival. It is what we all accept as Self. As Atta promulgated in Hinduism, as Soul in Christianity, is not an eternal entity but it is a natural process for Survival. The process is located (continuously trans-scripting itself in the tissues) in the Pre-Frontal Cortex and the Midline Cortical