mBraining - Compassion, Creativity and Courage

"In the 700 year old Soka Gakkai Buddhism teachings of Japan there is a mystic truth known as the ‘Buddha state’ or ‘Buddha wisdom’ that acts as a reservoir through which anyone can take control of their lives and fulfill their greatest dreams. According to these ancient spiritual beliefs, this state of wisdom involves a melding of Compassion, Creativity and Courage."

 mBraining, Grant Soosalu & Marvin Oka

The highest expressions: A powerful insight

Years ago, whilst researching esoteric wisdom practices, I came across a powerful insight from the Tibetan Bonpo tradition. It suggested that a person could be considered to have truly lived a wise and beneficial life if they’d mastered three core competencies: Compassion, Creativity and Courage.

"The heart is a sensory organ and acts as a sophisticated information encoding and processing center that enables it to learn, remember and make independent functional decisions."

Dr. Rollin McCraty

After deeply exploring the neuroscience behind the heart, gut and head brains, completing a huge body of behavioral modeling research and then factor analyzing the core competencies of the three brains, I was fascinated to notice that the Bon insight highlighted a key and generative competency from each brain:

• Heart brain – Compassion
• Gut brain – Courage
• Head brain – Creativity

As I continued the mBIT (multiple Brain Integration Techniques) research I discovered very similar advice from other spiritual and philosophical disciplines. Although slightly different words were used (e.g. kindness instead of compassion, bravery instead of courage, etc.), they all conveyed core competencies that were similar in their qualitative nature.

I therefore became even more curious and intrigued by these three Tibetan Bonpo core competencies and began to look for structures that could explain the consistency of these prescribed core competencies across so many different philosophies, practices and cultures. The question became: “From an mBIT perspective, what is so special about these competencies?”

I discovered three key qualities that make these competencies particularly generative. First, if you look them up in the Core Competencies Framework from Chapter 3 of my book 'mBraining - Using your multiple brains to do cool stuff', you’ll notice they’re all highly coherent states. Second, in actual practice, these ‘virtues’ are neurologically integrative by their very nature. Each of these competencies requires the engagement of the other two neural networks in order for them to fully manifest in behavior. This is explained in more detail in the book. And third, the behavioral modeling research found that the interdependent and integrative nature of these three competencies enables the emergence of a higher order level of consciousness and way of being. In other words, they collectively enable and facilitate the Highest Expression of a deeper more integrated 'self'.

Subsequently, these three competencies became what we respectfully call the mBrains’ ‘Highest Expressions’, and I’d like to suggest that of all the competencies each brain evinces, these ‘three C’s’ (Creativity, Compassion and Courage) are the most generative and defining of them all. They’re certainly the most integrative to work with for attaining greater levels of wisdom and personal evolution. Indeed, from our behavioral modeling and action research work, we’ve found these three competencies, when aligned together are able to produce a synergistic magic that is incredible to experience.

"Courage and compassion are two sides of the same coin. Compassion without courage is not genuine. You may have a compassionate thought or impulse, but if you don’t do or say anything, it’s not real compassion."

Daisaku Ikeda

In upcoming blog posts, I'll explore each of these highest expressions in detail. But until then, may I highly suggest you grab a copy of the book and begin to explore these key competencies in your own life. How can you align more wisdom in your life through Compassion, Creativity and Courage? How can you amplify Compassion in your heart, your thoughts, your life and your actions? How can you creatively Create a life that is more brilliant, more enhanced and more generatively wise? And how can you motivate more gutsy Courage and action into your world?

What would your life look like if you lived through these highest expressions? And how life enhancing would it be for both yourself and the people you love?

life enhancing thoughts,

Grant