THOUGHT
MOMENTS by Michael Simon Toon.
‘Thought Moments’ is a Buddhist term for the mental
states that are experienced after a physical or mental object enters
the mind. This film records the reactions to ten questions from
selected people on the streets of Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol, London
and Brighton. The questions are simple, but
they actually seek to reveal the very core of their nature - their
loves, fears and desires. “Between thought and expression,
There lies a lifetime” - Lou Reed. Michael
Simon Toon read about ‘Thought Moments’
while he was a Theravada Buddhist monk in Bangkok, Thailand. He learned that the
Buddha identified thought moments and their sequences, quite
specifically, going so far as to count and name them. The next day,
Toon read an article in a Bangkok Post (delivered every day to the
temple) about a new technique in America for scanning the brain which
showed the sequence of brain states during the thought process, even
going so far as to count and name them. The frequencies of these
thought moments, described by both the Buddha and the scientists were
remarkably similar.