Nine Brain Quirks You Didn’t Realize You Had

I think the brain is most interesting when it doesn’t work the way you expect it should.

Psychology often confirms our intuitions about how our minds work, but it offers quite a few surprises as well. Although some psychology buffs will have
heard a few of these before, here’s a list of quirks in your brain you probably didn’t realize you had:

1) Your short-term memory has a max capacity of seven.

Humans have three forms of memory: sensory, long-term and short-term. Long-term memory is like hard-drive space, while short-term memory works like a very
small RAM. This short-term memory can hold only about five to nine (average is seven) items at a time.

Remembering information longer than this requires you to either compress it down into seven units or store it in long-term memory. That’s why most phone
numbers contain only seven digits.

2) Chartreuse is the most visible color.

Yellow-green, chartreuse, sits right in the middle of the frequencies of visible light. Your eyes have receptors for blue, green and red. Being in the middle,
yellow-green triggers the most of these receptors to fire, making it easy to spot. In some cities, fire trucks have been changed from red to a yellow-green
color to make them more visible.

3) Your subconscious is smarter than you are.

Or at least more powerful.

In one study, a square was assigned to a location on a computer screen through a complex pattern. After watching it, people began to get results better
than ‘chance’ of picking out where the square would pop up next. But when asked to consciously determine the pattern, even given a few hours, nobody could
do it.

4) You have two nervous systems.

One set controls excitation and the other controls inhibition. If you hold out your hand, you might notice minor tremors. This is caused by slight, random
differences in the amount each of the two systems are firing.

5) Your brain is awful at probability.

Okay, so maybe your high-school math teacher could have told you this one. But, what’s interesting isn’t that your brain is bad at probability, but how.
In one study recipients were asked:

Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination
and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Rank the following statements from most probable to least probable:

1. Linda works in a bookstore and takes Yoga classes.
2. Linda is active in the feminist movement.
3. Linda is a psychiatric social worker.
4. Linda is a member of the League of Women Voters.
5. Linda is a bank teller.
6. Linda is an insurance salesperson.
7. Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.

Almost 90% of students responded that #7 was more probable than #5. This is despite the fact that to be a bank teller and in the feminist movement is completely
contained within the set of #5 (just being a bank teller). It seems our minds like to think more details make events more probable, not less.

6) Your memory isn’t great, either.

Studies have shown that people are highly likely to misremember past events. Even worse, it is incredibly easy to suggest a memory that never happened.

This is why so-called “repressed” memories should be given a lot of thought. It is far easier to suggest a memory of an event that never happened, then
it is to recover one that actually did.

7) You can perceive depth with one eye.

It’s a myth that depth perception is entirely the result of having two eyes. Binocular vision does assist in making a three-dimensional picture. However,
most of your ability to perceive depth comes from inside your brain. It has been wired to look at angles and proportions to judge distance.

If you required two eyes to perceive depth then most optical illusions wouldn’t work and it would be incredibly difficult to gather information from flat
photographs. Not to mention a lot more one-eyed pirates walking overboard.

8 ) Long-term memory shuts down during sleep.

The parts of the brain that transfer information to long-term memory shut down while sleeping. This is why dreams quickly fade away after you wake up.

Although you may have several dreams in a night, they aren’t being recorded into long-term memory. Generally only the fragments of a dream left in short-term
memory have a chance to be encoded after you wake up.

9) You have an instant playback feature.

Earlier I mentioned that humans have three forms of memory; short-term, long-term and sensory. Sensory memory is your brain’s equivalent to an instant playback
feature. Working for both your vision and hearing, your thalamus can resend signals a few seconds after they were originally sent.

Imagine being at a party and overhearing someone say your name. Often you can recall what they said even though you were focused on another conversation.
This is because your sensory memory re-sends the signals when it finds something important, such as your name. If you lacked this form of memory, activities
such as multitasking or taking notes from a speaker would be impossible.

If you’re asked to repeat something you just said because the other person wasn’t listening, just wait a few seconds. Often they can replay the message
in their head and give a response.

Your brain is a fascinating thing, especially when it does the unexpected. Stay alert and see how many times it surprises you.

Robert Davis
http://www.robertdavisonline.biz

robert@robertdavisonline.biz

People have asked what’s it like upon awakening

People have asked what’s it like upon awakening. What’s
it like to “see the Tao” – what’s that mean?

What’s it like to see the Tao? It’s as if a long time perimeter, border, or veil has been lifted and you can now see things as they really are. You suddenly
realize – through the knowing nature that is you – that everything you hear, see, perceive is just the Mind. And then you realize there is no ego because
there is only Mind. That’s it – that’s the only existence, but the mind’s substance is empty so you can’t say it’s existent either. But you call it Reality
because now you know what’s truly Real in all your experiences, in all the universe – for the whole universe is inside it. You can laugh with joy, cry
with joy, or laugh and cry at the same time for you instantaneously recognize with true certainty that you’ve come home and that there is no Tao other
than This One. Everything is just this knowing essence we call the Mind.

But the thickness of long time habit energies still exists and can reassert itself so you can lose this realization, this insight, this direct perception
even though you now KNOW, REALIZE, SEE, PERCEIVE that this is the Truth,theultimate state. This is not normal worldly knowing, but BEING KNOWING, true
knowing – there are no words that would describe it accurately since you’re outside of all the falsity that was before. Another way of saying this is
you have no doubts, you have true belief. But this recognition is a direct perception, it isn’t a belief or idea but a true knowing – you know this because
you’re in TRUE knowing and out of all phenenal knowing. True knowing, or transcendental prajna wisdom knowing, is the term most schools give this self-realization.
With a wink of turning around, you understand, and then you also realize why you were in illusion. It was all the habit energies of mental clinging to
thoughts, to using the mind incorrectly.

Dang! It was there all along like a jewel sewed into a coat which you can’t see though it’s there. Dang! It was there for so long unnoticed, right there
in front of you, and all you did is foolishly cover it over because you refused to let go. When you tried to let go in meditation you kept trying to impose
comprehension and understand what was happening when that state of not understanding was the right way. Drop your habit of trying to impose comprehension
as its born. Why? Because the Mind’s knowing is the correct knowing – the thought of confusion is just a thought it KNOWS. You realize that you should
just let things arise in this Mind without imposing comprehension. After awhile, chaos sorts itself out and dies down naturally. Don’t try to sort out
the chaos with your mind – just reflect its presence that it’s there.

Confusion departs without any effort. The clarity of wisdom is knowing what’s clear or unclear, so trying to discriminate clarity out of chaos is wrong
- you are already clear that there’s chaos so don’t impose discrimination trying to transform it. Whatever is transforming just let it transform without
adding internal words or names or labels to it. Shut off the commenting chatter. The chaos of confusion is not a hindrance that has to be solved. The darkness
of chaos is temporary and is also just another illusion arising within Mind. Darkness, chaos, confusion all arise within the Mind which, while being clear
knowing, knows their nature as dark and leaves it at that since that is their phenomenal nature — they are just phenomena without meaning, so let them
go and don’t try to impose comprehension. How confused you have been mistaking that for millennium.

The original Mind itself in which they and everything else arises is empty, is clear, it has no thinness so we say it is substanceless or, the term I prefer
is “indivisible.” What arises in it has no reality but is just mind stuff. Everything that arises is ALL mind-stuff, and our distinguishing or discriminating
forms and appearances is the incorrect use of the mind, for that discriminating is the very definition-being-essence-function of clinging. Phenomena may
arise and transform but that original nature is unbecoming. It never changes or transforms or turns into something else.

The empty mind that gives rise to everything is the true nature of reality. Everything arises in there. It contains the universe. All things appear in it,
and then you realize the Tao, you next laugh how silly it is to run after anything because the mind is substanceless and empty and cannot possess anything.
It cannot possess ANYTHING. It’s impossible. So all those struggles are fruitless and pointless – pointless to even start, and fruitless because they
can never be attained. All that arises within the mind is just an illusion, an illusion where everything depends on everything else through cause and effect.
Karma holds the tapestry together but with this initial enlgithenment or awakening you cannot fully fathom the emptiness of phenomena yet, just the emptiness
of being a self or person.

And other beings? They are This Mind as well … beings are like the reflection of the moon in infinite puddles of water. There is only one moon in the
sky but infinite reflections, all of which capture the moon’s light and seem real, but there is only one moon. So imagine an invisible sphere projecting
internally inside itself these puddles that can reflect images or know images like the water; the surface of the sphere projects those tiny knowing reflective
surfaces inwardly. That knowing sphere is Mind or awareness, and the small internal reflections or projections inside are also this same sphere – the
surface of the sphere. That’s why imaginary beings also have this wonderful power of awareness but are all this same One Mind. They are illusions that
are projected, for they are really just the surface of the sphere. They all return to the same One Source. Now remove the idea of this invisible sphere
- remove any ideas of thickness, shape or infinity entirely because it
has no beginning, ending, borders, substance, nothing whatsoever – there isn’t a sphere there — and you get a poor analogous description of how beings
think they are all independent natures when they are all the same source essence, the same original nature, the same prajna wisdom. They are all inside
the Mind’s bright clarity nature. That’s the only way I can describe it as an analogy. All sentient beings share in that original source perceiving, we
are all the original nature. But are you using it to be bound to thoughts from attachment to the small, or letting go to return to the Real All.

The Mind is the nature of things. You see this when you “see the Tao.” It is empty but gives birth to everything that arises, which are just temporal images,
illusions or appearances within its pristine presence or nature. For so long, since beginningless times, you have subtly held on the feelings of the body,
or chi, or thoughts or consciousness and made them into a cocoon you called “yourself.” But the cocoon was never real and all the intertwining and envelopments
and einvolvements you ever tried could bnever make it real either. All thoughts and feelings were like “reflexive pingings” against this imaginary border
or perimeter of thoughts which always seemed to be there but which weren’t. You have been trying for endless time to define yourself through these reflections,
trying to create a reality where there is none, trying to spin another layer of entanglements to make it real, but the effort was fruitless. All you ever
did was increase your confusion and remain invo
lved in the dark, refusing to see the light.

But all of a sudden, due to your cultivation work and merit, you let go and the veil lifts like Saran wrap being peeled away from a smooth surface. The
veil lifts, the perimeter disappears and you realize this is all only mind. The barrier that always seemed to be there, as if a haze, and by which you
shut yourself off from what’s true, cocooning yourself, is gone. It was never real to begin with but was just the obscuration of clinging incorrectly,
and you realize if you had just ignored it and refused to use it and mentally let go you could have known the truth ages ago. For years you clung to that
hazy barrier, trying to use it to define yourself when you really were this greater All. You gave up the great for the small, the inconsequential, the
false, the non-existent. Everything real you’ve been searching for you could never find because whatever you searched for was always within this false
realm. But now you “see the Truth.” You “see the Tao.” You “see the Path.” You e
xperience awakening. You now know what the self is, and the internals doubts, fears and worries are gone because you now have surety – you KNOW you can
never be rid of This Knowing One. And you know that with security, with knowing, with truth, with faith so your realization is true and real and called
self-realization. As Confucius said, you have no more doubts. You are no different than all the Buddhas, and so are all sentient beings. They are nothing
different than this same This One.

Even the thoughts of being a “you” are only thoughts. You realize there is no personal identity, just the mind, but the habitual problem of perceiving incorrectly
still remains – the habit of clinging or attachment to what arises still remains, the habit of using thought incorrectly still remains, the habits of the
passions and desires still remains that can reassert themselves in obscuration once again — so the problem of phenomena or what arises in the mind is
not yet seen through clearly. However, now you have seen the Way, the Truth, the Tao. You have true knowing, or True belief. Another way of saying this
is you have no doubts. You know this.

Now you know how to cultivate correctly. Habit energies of clinging and attachment can obscure this clear knowing from time to time. Even these habit energies
are false and non-existent (from the standpoint of the original nature), so obscuration is unreal … the clinging is unreal. How do you return to non-delusion?
You just jump out with one moment of letting go. It’s like using the Wisdom Buddha Manjushri’s sword – “woosh” with a swish you’re back home. All you
do is detach from thoughts and instantaneously all of true reality arises. The doing is no doing because you’re not doing anything in the pheneomal realm
but just letting it continue to spin without your mental involvement. You just let go of clinging, or we can say “let go of clinging to delusion,” or we
can say “let go of delusion,” or we can say “just let everything arise without attachment,” or “drop falsity.” “Woosh” swings the sword of detachment,
cutting off clinging, and the All Body of Reality arises in
stantly. For an ordinary meditation practitioner their chi will change instantly, they won’t know what’s ging on, and those trasnfromations are the right
transformations as they’ll all settle down to reveal clarity. That’s the right way to cultivate.

The funny thing is, that original pristine clarity knowing has always been there, so you’re not creating it. You just turn around and realize what’s doing
the perceiving. And you also realize that since you cannot possess anything, but phenomena still arise in the mind, the best and only way to act is to
offer to others without holding to anything, to do things for others unselfishly. You don’t exist, but the karmic result of happiness, joy and peace for
others, even though empty of reality, is the right response to engender because this unreality of karmic appearances, even though samsara, is of the same
nature of the mind. Hence one ends up choosing to do good rather than evil. And in offering, giving charity, and practicing all good works unselfishly
one is letting go, giving up, and practicing actions that accord with the very fabric nature of reality. These are the ONLY actions that accord with the
fabric nature of reality.

***

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Robert Davis
http://www.robertdavisonline.biz