Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience

by Matthieu Ricard, Wolf Singer

Overview

A Buddhist monk and esteemed neuroscientist discuss their converging—and diverging—views on the mind and self, consciousness and the unconscious, free will and perception, and more.
 
Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist—close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue—offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.
 
Ricard and Singer’s wide-ranging conversation stages an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism’s wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience’s abundance of experimental results. They discuss, among many other things, the difference between rumination and meditation (rumination is the scourge of meditation, but psychotherapy depends on it); the distinction between pure awareness and its contents; the Buddhist idea (or lack of one) of the unconscious and neuroscience’s precise criteria for conscious and unconscious processes; and the commonalities between cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. Their views diverge (Ricard asserts that the third-person approach will never encounter consciousness as a primary experience) and converge (Singer points out that the neuroscientific understanding of perception as reconstruction is very like the Buddhist all-discriminating wisdom) but both keep their vision trained on understanding fundamental aspects of human life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262343039
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	11/03/2017
Series:	The MIT Press
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	643 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, trained as a molecular biologist before moving to Nepal to study Buddhism. He is the author of The Monk and the Philosopher (with his father, Jean-François Revel);The Quantum and the Lotus (with Trinh Thuan); Happiness; The Art of Meditation; Altruism: The Power of Compassion; A Plea for the Animals; and Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience (with Wolf Singer). He has published several books of photography, including Motionless Journey and Tibet: An Inner Journey, and is the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama.

Wolf Singer is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Founding Director of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in cooperation with the Max Planck Society, where he is also Senior Research Fellow. He is the coauthor of Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience (MIT Press).

Table of Contents

Preface ix

1 Meditation and the Brain 1

A Science of Mind 1

Awareness and Mental Constructs 5

Working with Emotions 9

Gradual and Lasting Changes 11

Outer and Inner Enrichment 13

Processes of Neuronal Changes 15

Emotional Nuances 18

Effortless Skills 18

Relating to the World 21

How Young Can One Start to Meditate? 23

Mental Distortions 25

Attention and Cognitive Control 25

Attentional Blink 32

Attention, Rumination, and Open Presence 36

Mindfulness and Distraction 39

Consolidating Learning through Sleep 42

Compassion and Action 48

Compassion, Meditation, and Brain Coherence 50

Altruism and Well-Being 55

Magic Moments 56

Could Feedback Replace Mind Training? 57

Are There Limits to Mind Training? 63

Meditation and Action 67

2 Dealing with Subconscious Processes and Emotions 73

On the Nature of the Unconscious 73

Side Effects of Meditation 77

Love versus Attachment 82

On the joy of Inner Peace 84

Watching the Mind, Training the Mind 87

3 How Do We Know What We Know? 91

What Reality Do We Perceive? 91

How Do We Acquire Knowledge? 96

Can There Be Valid Cognition of Some Aspects of Knowledge? 100

Is Cognitive Delusion Inescapable? 104

Each Person to His or Her Own Reality 110

Is There an Objective Reality "Out There"? 111

Causality as a Correlate of Interdependence 114

Constructing and Deconstructing Reality 117

Refining the Tools of Introspection 121

First-, Second-, and Third-Person Experience 123

A Physician and a Cure 126

The Ethics of Practice and Science 128

Three Aspects of Buddhist Philosophy 129

A Summary 133

4 Investigating the Self 137

Investigating the Self 140

The Self Exists in a Conventional Way 144

The Self and Freedom 146

Weak Self, Strong Mind 147

Ego and Egolessness 151

The Scourge of Rumination 153

Who's in Charge Here? 156

5 Free Will, Responsibility, and Justice 161

The Process of Decision Making 161

The Responsibility to Change 177

Free Will and the Range of Choices 182

Attenuating Circumstances 185

Looking with the Eyes of a Doctor 188

True Rehabilitation 191

Horrendous Deviations 195

Breaking the Cycle of Hate 197

Is There a Self That Bears the Responsibility? 200

Can One Prove Free Will? 203

Architects of the Future 207

6 The Nature of Consciousness 211

Something Rather Than Nothing 211

Cultivating States of Subtle Consciousness or Pure Awareness 226

On Various Levels of Consciousness 230

Puzzling Experiences 246

Remembering Past Lives? 253

What Can Be Learned From Near-Death Experiences? 256

Could Consciousness Be Made of Something Other Than Matter? 258

A Concluding Note of Gratitude 263

Notes 265

Index 275

What People are Saying About This

Peter Singer

Matthieu Ricard's rare combination of a background in science and a lifetime of practicing Tibetan Buddhism makes him an ideal partner for this thoughtful conversation about the mind, meditation, free will, values, and the nature of consciousness with neuroscientist Wolf Singer. A book for anyone interested in an open-minded exploration of these topics.

Paul Ekman

Wisdom, relevant to how we can best lead our lives, is the core of this very readable, accessible, and even entertaining book. To be savored, enjoyed, and enlightened, in a thoroughly enjoyable book.

Endorsement

Wisdom, relevant to how we can best lead our lives, is the core of this very readable, accessible, and even entertaining book. To be savored, enjoyed, and enlightened, in a thoroughly enjoyable book.

—Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, San Francisco; author of Emotions Revealed and Telling Lies

From the Publisher

Matthieu Ricard's rare combination of a background in science and a lifetime of practicing Tibetan Buddhism makes him an ideal partner for this thoughtful conversation about the mind, meditation, free will, values, and the nature of consciousness with neuroscientist Wolf Singer. A book for anyone interested in an open-minded exploration of these topics.

—Peter Singer, Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University; author of Animal Liberation and The Most Good You Can Do

Wisdom, relevant to how we can best lead our lives, is the core of this very readable, accessible, and even entertaining book. To be savored, enjoyed, and enlightened, in a thoroughly enjoyable book.

—Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, San Francisco; author of Emotions Revealed and Telling Lies