Seeing our Blind Spots

Weaving Wisdom Paths From The Five Books of Moses, Our Emotional Brain and Our Lives.

Wisdom from Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB):

What can our ass teach us? I mean the talking donkey kind, of course.  In the Five Books of Moses, Balaam’s ass warned him of danger that he couldn’t see due to his fixed mindset. After encountering an angel, he wisely continued his journey with quite a different purpose. Like Balaam’s, our brain works in ways that often lead us to think we know something with certainty, only to have a gentle – or sharp – alarm that invites us to revise our initial intentions.  Given these built in brain processes, how can we wisely navigate each road we take?

Seeing the Israelite multitudes camped at his borders and knowing of their recent victories, King Balak was legitimately scared.  To protect his kingdom, he sent for the prophet Balaam to curse the Israelites in hopes of improving his odds in battle.  After negotiations with Balak’s envoys as well as nocturnal consultations with God, Balaam saddled his ass for the journey to Balak’s kingdom. His ass, seeing an angel with a sword on the path just ahead, bumped the wall, went off the trail, and finally lay down in her efforts to avoid danger. Blind to the real danger, each time Balaam beat her severely.  After the third whipping, his ass asked him what had she done to deserve these beatings.  He responded that she had made a mockery of him and if he had had a sword, she’d be dead. She snapped back that she was not in the habit of doing such things, to which Balaam was forced to agree.  Then, his eyes uncovered by the Lord, he saw the angel with a drawn sword blocking the trail.  Finally aware of the danger his ass had seen but he hadn’t, Balaam admitted his blindness and shifted his purpose.  Since our brain is as vulnerable to this purpose driven blindness as was Balaam’s, perhaps Balaam also holds clues to walking our own way more wisely.  His story suggests we consider our initial intentions, be aware of warning signals, and learn to shift our course with humility.

Intentions involve strength applied to clear and appropriate goals, sustained over time Balaam’s initial intention contained a subtle conflict; practicing his profession meant he had to curse, while following God’s instructions meant he couldn’t curse Israel.  Demonstrating a typically human ambivalence, he entertained Balak’s second more prestigious delegation and again consulted with God, as if God’s first “No” was not enough.  Doing well in our professional life makes us feel good and fulfills financial needs.  These powerful survival forces activate parts of our brain that developed earlier in mammalian evolution and are more closely attached to survival.  More intense, automatic and faster, intentions firing from this part of our brain drive our actions before we can engage our more considered responses.¹ Profession and profit fired in Balaam’s brain before considerations of God could gain traction.  So it can be with us.

Most of the intentions operating in your brain do so outside of awareness. Luckily, Balaam’s ass could see what he was blind.  When more basic intentions drive us, the structure of our cerebral cortex often makes it difficult to take in new information.  Structured in columns six cells deep, new sensory information proceeds from the bottom up while prior knowledge proceeds from the top down.² When the top down flow dominates, we bask in the certainty of known information, blind to what is new and unfamiliar, even when something as drastic as an angelic sword swings in front of our nose.  Each time his ass went off course, Balaam’s top down response was to beat her back to his intended path. His reliable four-hoofed friend was forced to act radically three times before it began to penetrate Balaam’s set intentions.  And notice that even then, it didn’t change his story when she spoke to confront his blindness.  He maintained that he beat her because she made a mockery of him, that is, she made him look bad, not like a reliable professional.  Top down processing again.

Hard knocks happen.  How we respond makes a difference.  Only after Balaam’s ass spoke to him could he begin to see what was actually in front of him.  Only with God’s help did his old intentions weaken and top down perceptions waiver.  Finally seeing the angel and knowing his ass had been right, his bottom up information was engaged, and he was able to respond, I erred because I did not know that you were standing in my way. If you still disapprove, I will turn back. Now that I see, I’m willing to revise my intentions. After we discover we’ve blindly pursued the wrong path, that our initial intentions were well intended but inappropriate and that we’ve ignored the warnings, humility admitting our error and redirecting our actions helps us recover wisely.  It’s amazing what a talking ass can teach us.

1. Hanson, Rick, and Mendius, Richard, The Practical Neuroscience of Buddha’s Brain: Happiness, Love and Wisdom, 2009, p. 97-108.
2. Siegel, Daniel J., The Mindful Therapist, 2010, p. 104-5.

Quotes from the Five Books of Moses are from Etz Hayim, 1999.