Five years ago, 2013, "Mind Over Genes/Nature and Nurture" was published at Dr. Cody Masek's website, Complete Health Chiropractic, an article written by Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. © 2003:
New friends here may like to read this article again; you will perhaps perceive why from this excerpt in the article: Frantic research in cell biology has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes, and can even lead to a rewriting of the genome. Rather than being the victim of our genes we have been the victim of our perceptions. . . We are on the verge of a most radical and most wonderful upheaval of human civilization. // . [emphasis added] Following at the blog is the complete article and my own comments, linking it to the Buddha's teachings:
. . . consider the consequences of world changes that were
brought about by civilization’s last paradigm upheaval. This occurred around 1925 when physicists
left behind the dated concept of a Newtonian material-based universe and recognized the energy-based reality revealed
in Quantum Physics.
Well, brace yourselves! for we are in for a wild
ride. Frantic research in cell biology
has finally acknowledged the mechanisms by which perception controls behavior, selects genes, and can even lead to a
rewriting of the genome. Rather than
being the victim of our genes we have
been the victim of our perceptions. . .
We are on the verge of a most radical and most wonderful upheaval of
human civilization. . . [emphasis added]
As we become more conscious
and rely less on automated subconscious programs, we become the masters of our
fates rather the victims of our programs.
Conscious awareness can actively transform the character of our lives
into ones filled with love, health, and prosperity by its ability to rewrite
limiting perceptions and beliefs. . . . / / /
Nothing could be more defining of the Buddha’s teachings
and certainly encourages us to contemplate those teachings. Meditating with Buddha-thought, following the
path proclaimed by the Buddha, leads to transformation of our
perceptions. We remember who we really
are, manifesting the great perfection and knowing that one of the most basic of
the Buddha’s teachings is that we do not exist in isolation, motivating us to
celebrate the wonders of existence.
To deny ourselves these perceptions is to diminish
ourselves. The failure of civilization,
in general, proceeds from disregarding this scientific verity and Buddhist
doctrine: that we are not separate from
one another. We and the whole “organism”
of life—the earth and all that evolves with the earth—live in interconnecting
patterns and are interdependent. Opening
our hearts and minds to the clear light of the real, the ultimate in which we
perceive that all things have a transcendental being and discovering the
fundamental unity and interconnection of ourselves with all existence and
becoming aware of our ability to transform ourselves according to
circumstances—in the moment—responding to others free of ego and separateness. “Now is the very time,” proclaims the Buddha
in Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra.
The ultimate goal of practice, no matter what path is
followed, is to discover the essential unity pervading all differences and
particulars of the world; to discover the great perfection (the buddha-nature)
in ourselves and others. As we follow
the path of the Buddha, it is required that we abandon self-righteousness which
causes us to lose feelings of kinship with people.
There is no greater heresy than the dark path
of ego isolation. We learn through
practice to reach out spontaneously to relationships, feeling the unity of
ourselves with all life in the universe, no longer influenced by changes or
circumstances; to extinguish false discriminations, considering all things
equally, unmoved by whatever happens.
Beginning each day in the world of The Threefold Lotus Sutra is to embrace all the Buddha’s teachings
and leads to even more “new beginnings”—to a discovery of more intuitive methods of spiritual training,
promising “enlightenment here and now,” as Zen Patriarch Hui-neng suggests in
his Platform Sutra.
We are promised
moments of deep understanding, feelings of compassion as we reach toward
realizing our “original faces before birth”—that we are caused to live by the
great life-force of the universe. We are
liberated, free of ego and conditioning, infused with all experience in moments
of spontaneous awakening occurring at the root of consciousness. We are linked with the entire manifold world.
These moments of awareness are not stopping points. They are fresh starts toward experiencing
life at higher levels of consciousness and compassionate understanding. The realm of becoming in the phenomenal world
(samsara), unites every moment of
being (nirvana) with the living
process of becoming (samsara). We are no longer separate from the world; our
perceptions are clarified. We are part
of one inseparable web of relationships, spontaneously awaking to ever more
inclusive realizations of our humanity.
The dynamics of practicing this are found in Nikkyo Niwano’s Shakyamuni Buddha, A Narrative Biography,
as he boldly defines the “final profound truth” of our practice:
What is the final, profound truth? In brief, it is the finding of the infinite
life of humankind within the eternal life-force of the universe. The true nature of humankind,
in its union with the eternal life-force of the universe, is called the
buddha-nature. The Lotus Sutra teaches
that all beings possess the buddha-nature
(or potential for enlightenment) equally, that we should respect this
potential in one another and encourage one another to develop and fulfill this
potential, and that the noblest form of Buddhist practice is the way of the
bodhisattvas who devote themselves to attaining enlightenment not only for
themselves but for all sentient beings.
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