Zen and the Brain

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Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness
Zen and the Brain.jpg
Author James H. Austin
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Subject Neuroscience, Zen
Publisher MIT Press
Publication date
6 February 1998
Media typePrint (trade paperback)
Pages844
ISBN 978-0-262-01164-8
OCLC 37187487
294.3/422
LC Class BQ9288.A96
Followed byChase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty 

Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness is a 1998 book by neurologist and Zen practitioner James H. Austin, in which the author attempts to establish links between the neurological workings of the human brain and meditation. The eventual goal would be to establish mechanisms by which meditation induces changes in the activity of the brain, which in turn induces a state of mental clarity. For example, Austin presents evidence from EEG scans that deep relaxed breathing reduces brain activity.

James H. Austin neurologist, author

James H. Austin is an American neurologist and author. He is the author of the book Zen and the Brain. It establishes links between the neurophysiology of the human brain and the practice of meditation, and won the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize for 1998. He has written five sequels: Zen-Brain Reflections (2006), Selfless Insight (2009), Meditating Selflessly (2011), Zen-Brain Horizons (2014) and Living Zen Remindfully (2016).

Neurology Medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system

Neurology is a branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Neurology deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of conditions and disease involving the central and peripheral nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue, such as muscle. Neurological practice relies heavily on the field of neuroscience, the scientific study of the nervous system.

Human Hominin events for the last 10 million years

Humans are the only extant members of the subtribe Hominina. Together with chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, they are part of the family Hominidae. A terrestrial animal, humans are characterized by their erect posture and bipedal locomotion; high manual dexterity and heavy tool use compared to other animals; open-ended and complex language use compared to other animal communications; larger, more complex brains than other animals; and highly advanced and organized societies.

Contents

The publishers described their book as a "Comprehensive text on the evidence from neuroscience that helps to clarify which brain mechanisms underlie the subjective states of Zen, and employs Zen to 'illuminate' how the brain works in various states of consciousness". Austin starts with a discussion of Zen Buddhism, its goals, and practices. Having laid this groundwork, he then turns to explore the neurological basis of consciousness.

Neuroscience scientific study of the nervous system

Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. It is a multidisciplinary branch of biology that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developmental biology, cytology, mathematical modeling and psychology to understand the fundamental and emergent properties of neurons and neural circuits. The understanding of the biological basis of learning, memory, behavior, perception, and consciousness has been described by Eric Kandel as the "ultimate challenge" of the biological sciences.

Zen School of Mahayana Buddhism

Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, then known as the Chan School and later developed into various schools. It was strongly influenced by Taoist philosophy, especially Neo-Daoist thought, and developed as a distinct school of Chinese Buddhism. From China, Chán spread south to Vietnam and became Vietnamese Thiền, northeast to Korea to become Seon Buddhism, and east to Japan, becoming Japanese Zen.

Consciousness the state or quality of sentience or awareness of internal or external existence

Consciousness at its simplest refers to “sentience or awareness of internal or external existence”. Despite centuries of analyses, definitions, explanations and debates by philosophers and scientists, consciousness remains puzzling and controversial, being “at once the most familiar and most mysterious aspect of our lives". Perhaps the only widely agreed notion about the topic is the intuition that it exists. Opinions differ about what exactly needs to be studied and explained as consciousness. Sometimes it is synonymous with 'the mind', other times just an aspect of mind. In the past it was one’s “inner life”, the world of introspection, of private thought, imagination and volition. Today, with modern research into the brain it also includes any kind of experience, cognition, feeling or perception. It may be ‘awareness’, or 'awareness of awareness’, or both. Questions include whether consciousness is one kind with different features or whether there are different kinds of consciousness, or whether only humans are conscious or all animals or even the whole universe. The disparate range of research, notions and speculations raises doubts about the sensibility of the questions being asked.

Austin wrote a follow-up, Zen-Brain Reflections.

See also

Related Research Articles

Meditation mental practice of focus on a particular object, thought or activity to improve ones mind

Meditation is a practice where an individual uses a technique – such as mindfulness, or focusing the mind on a particular object, thought or activity – to train attention and awareness, and achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state. Scholars have found meditation difficult to define, as practices vary both between traditions and within them.

Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both neuroscience and psychology, overlapping with disciplines such as behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, physiological psychology and affective neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neurobiology, and computational modeling.

<i>Zazen</i> meditative discipline in Zen Buddhism

Zazen is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. The precise meaning and method of zazen varies from school to school, but in general it can be regarded as a means of insight into the nature of existence. In the Japanese Rinzai school, zazen is usually associated with the study of koans. The Sōtō School of Japan, on the other hand, only rarely incorporates koans into zazen, preferring an approach where the mind has no object at all, known as shikantaza.

Shikantaza (只管打坐) is a Japanese translation of a Chinese term for zazen introduced by Rujing, a monk of the Caodong school of Zen Buddhism, to refer to a practice called "Silent Illumination", or "Serene Reflection", by previous Caodong masters. In Japan, it is associated with the Soto school. Unlike many other forms of meditation, shikantaza does not require focused attention on a specific object ; instead, practitioners "just sit" in a state of conscious awareness.

An altered state of consciousness (ASC), also called altered state of mind or mind alteration, is any condition which is significantly different from a normal waking state. By 1892, the expression was in use in relation to hypnosis although an ongoing debate about hypnosis as an ASC based on modern definition exists. The next retrievable instance, by Dr Max Mailhouse from his 1904 presentation to conference, however, is unequivocally identified as such, as it was in relation to epilepsy, and is still used today. In academia, the expression was used as early as 1966 by Arnold M. Ludwig and brought into common usage from 1969 by Charles Tart. It describes induced changes in one's mental state, almost always temporary. A synonymous phrase is "altered state of awareness".

The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience, attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms. It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states.

Hypnagogia, also referred to as "hypnagogic hallucinations", is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. Mental phenomena that may occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include hallucinations, lucid thought, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis. The latter two phenomena are themselves separate sleep conditions that are sometimes experienced during the hypnagogic state.

A religious experience is a subjective experience which is interpreted within a religious framework. The concept originated in the 19th century, as a defense against the growing rationalism of Western society. William James popularised the concept.

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The choking game refers to intentionally cutting off oxygen to the brain with the goal of inducing temporary loss of consciousness and euphoria.

Scholarly approaches to mysticism include typologies of mysticism and the explanation of mystical states. Since the 19th century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. It is closely related to "mysticism" but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, not just inducing mystical experiences.

William Hirstein is an American philosopher primarily interested in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, metaphysics, cognitive science, and analytic philosophy. He is a professor of philosophy at Elmhurst College.

Buddhism and psychology

Buddhism includes an analysis of human psychology, emotion, cognition, behavior and motivation along with therapeutic practices. A unique feature of Buddhist psychology is that it is embedded within the greater Buddhist ethical and philosophical system, and its psychological terminology is colored by ethical overtones. Buddhist psychology has two therapeutic goals: the healthy and virtuous life of a householder and the ultimate goal of nirvana, the total cessation of dissatisfaction and suffering (dukkha).

Andrew Newberg, M.D. is an American neuroscientist who is the Director of Research at the Myrna Brind Center for Integrative Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, an Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies and an Associate Professor of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Neural correlates of consciousness Bodily components, such as electrical signals, correlating to consciousness and thinking

The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious percept. Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena; that is, neural changes which necessarily and regularly correlate with a specific experience. The set should be minimal because, under the assumption that the brain is sufficient to give rise to any given conscious experience, the question is which of its components is necessary to produce it.

Richard Cytowic Neurologist and author

Richard E. Cytowic is an American neurologist and author who rekindled interest in synesthesia in the 1980s and returned it to mainstream science. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his New York Times Magazine cover story about James Brady, the Presidential Press Secretary shot in the brain during the assassination attempt on President Reagan. Cytowic’s writing ranges from textbooks and music reviews, to his Metro Weekly "Love Doctor" essays and brief medical biographies of Anton Chekhov, Maurice Ravel and Virginia Woolf. His work is the subject of two BBC Horizon documentaries, “Orange Sherbert Kisses” (1994) and “Derek Tastes of Earwax” (2014).

Trance abnormal state of wakefulness or altered state of consciousness

Trance is an abnormal state of wakefulness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli or is selectively responsive in following the directions of the person who has induced the trance. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.

Brain activity and meditation

Meditation and its effect on brain activity and the central nervous system became a focus of collaborative research in neuroscience, psychology and neurobiology during the latter half of the 20th century. Research on meditation sought to define and characterize various practices. Meditation’s effect on the brain can be broken up into two categories: state changes and trait changes, respectively alterations in brain activities during the act of meditating and changes that are the outcome of long-term practice.

Endomorphin-2 chemical compound

Endomorphin-2 (EM-2) is an endogenous opioid peptide and one of the two endomorphins. It has the amino acid sequence Tyr-Pro-Phe-Phe-NH2. It is a high affinity, highly selective agonist of the μ-opioid receptor, and along with endomorphin-1 (EM-1), has been proposed to be the actual endogenous ligand of this receptor (that is, rather than the endorphins). Like EM-1, EM-2 produces analgesia in animals, but whereas EM-1 is more prevalent in the brain, EM-2 is more prevalent in the spinal cord. In addition, the action of EM-2 differs from that of EM-1 somewhat, because EM-2 additionally induces the release of dynorphin A and [Met]enkephalin in the spinal cord and brain by an unknown mechanism, which in turn go on to activate the κ- and δ-opioid receptors, respectively, and a portion of the analgesic effects of EM-2 is dependent on this action. Moreover, while EM-1 produces conditioned place preference, a measure of drug reward, EM-2 produces conditioned place aversion, an effect which is dynorphin A-dependent. Similarly to the case of EM-1, the gene encoding for EM-2 has not yet been identified.

References

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine founded in 1933. Newsweek was a widely distributed newsweekly through the 20th century, with many notable editors-in-chief throughout the years. Newsweek was acquired by The Washington Post Company in 1961, under whose ownership it remained until 2010. Between 2008 and 2012, Newsweek experienced financial difficulties, leading to the cessation of print publication and a transition to all-digital format at the end of 2012. The print edition then relaunched in March 2014.

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