Zen and the Brain

The Path of Zen

When Zen Buddhists meditate, their practices reflect mixtures of receptive and concentrative meditative approaches ¹ Meditating daily tends to cultivate a feeling of calm awareness and emotional stability.^2,3 During longer meditative retreats, various mental "quickenings" and absorptions also occur.

However, Zen training finds "nothing special" in these preliminary states marked by illusions, hallucinations, vacancies and blissful emotions. ^1,3 Rather is it oriented toward: 1) the slow development of character; 2) the later states of insight-wisdom. Called kensho or satori, these plumb existential depths.^1,4

Our maladaptive, egocentric self slowly erodes when regular meditative training is lined with mindful introspection and prudent restraints.³ Later, striking in a flash, the advanced states of kensho/satori transiently dissolve the deep, visceral roots of one's psychic selfhood. Consciousness is stripped free of all its obscuring veils. Suddenly, in selfless clarity for the first time, it realizes the timeless, intrinsic perfection of " all things as they really are".^1,3

Kensho and satori have the capacity to transform the personality in ways that endure. But whether the pejorative roots of the I-Me-Mine are trimmed slowly or are cut off quickly, the process allows one's basic, affirmative potentials to come to the fore. ⁵ Suppose we observe a traveller on this long path, and express the ideal outcome in the simplest of a-b-c terms. We discover an arrogant, besieged, clutching person being transformed. How? In the direction of becoming a more actualised, buoyant and compassionate humane being. ^5,6

The Brain and Zen

Early in life, our brain circuts differentiate 'self' from 'other'. Zen will retrain the aspirant's brain in the fine art of selfless, yet mindful, attention.³ Self-discipline develops during longer meditative retreats. And more rigorous retreats generate stress responses within the brain's emotional pathways ^7,8. They also create swings of greater amplitude in one's sleep/waking biorhythms.¹

"Quickenings" express a wide variety of corresponding surges in the activities of messenger molecules within the brain. The resulting physiological surges commonly occur during the advancing tide of the next arousal cycle.¹

Internal absorption surges into mental hyperawareness. Even so, it deletes vision, hearing, and the sense of one's physical self-image. These sensate losses are plausibly related to an inhibitory blockade, in the thalamus itself, mediated by the back of its overlying thalamic reticular nucleus. ^1,4 Not so in kensho.

For kensho's insight-wisdom voids the psychic 'self.' Gone is all its excess emotional baggage. Its self-centered habits arose because years of emotional conditioning had biased the responses of our egocentric brain circuts. Instead, kensho spares those 'other' key allo-centric pathways. Their sensory messages still come in directly from the 'other' world outside. When such allocentric data enters from outside sites, it need not pause to refer to the bodily self. Kensho's allo-sensory percepts are imbued with meaningful resonances, not just spared.

Kensho's fearlessness suggests inhibitions of primal fear circuts in and from the amygdala.⁸ Its visceral loss of psychic selfhood, and its sense of eternity suggest thalamo-cortical interactions, referable more to the front of the brain.⁴

Annotated Recent Bibliograpy

1. Austin, J. (1998) Zen and the Brain. Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness. Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-01164-6.
   In this series of essages, a neurologist integrates recent reseach in the neurosciences with his personal experiences as a student and a practitioner of Zen. The two topics - Zen and the brain - turn out to be so intimately interrelated that each field illuminates the other.
2. Suzuki, S. (1975). Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. New York, N.Y. John Weatherhill. ISBN 0-8348-0079-9.
   Already a classic. This seemingly 'ordinary' Soto Zen master had an extraordinary personal influence on his students, as has this slim volume on generations of readers.
3. Kabat-Zin, J. (1994) Wherever You Go, There You Are. Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York, N.Y. Hyperion. ISBN 0-7868-8099-6.
   A popular book on how to practice meditation in daily life.
4. Andresen, J. and Forman, K. (2001). Cognitive Models and Spiritual Maps. Interdisciplinary Explorations of Religious Experience. Bowling Green, Ohio. Imprint Academic. ISBN 0-907845-13-4.
   This book, one of a series of Imprint Academic, first appeared as a special issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies (2000). It includes an essay on meditation research by Andresen with a 20-page list of her references to the meditation literature, as well as essays (of relevance to the present topics of this position paper) by Austin, Deikman, Wilber, Newberg and d'Aquili, and others.
5. Aitken, R. (1994). The Practice of Perfection. The Paramitas from a Zen Buddhist Perspective. New York, N.Y. Pantheon. ISBN 0-679-43510-7.
   A series of short essays by this senior, Japanese-trained, American Zen Master, followed by a question-and-answer approach clarifying each topic. Includes a glossary.
6. Batchelor, S. (1997). Buddhism Without Beliefs. A Contemporary Guide to Awakening. New York, N.Y. Riverhead. ISBN 1-57322-058-2.
   A fresh, literate, non-institutional look at the core of Buddhist teachings, relieved of the ideas of reincarnation and karma.
7. Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions. New York, N.Y. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-195096-73-8.
   A major review, by a seasoned researcher, of the basic mechanisms underlying our longings, loathings, and other relevant emotions. Ideally, during long-rangte Zen training, one will transform - in the direction of compassionate attitudes and behaviours - those prior habit energies that had previously been consumed in the course of one's unfruitful, maladaptive emotional reactions.
8. Calder, A. Larence, A. and Young, A. (2001). Neuropsychology of Fear and Loathing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. Volume 2 pp. 351-363, May.
   This recent review article covers these topics, so vital to Zen, and contains 143 references.
9. Morreale, D. (1998). The Complete Guide to Buddhist America. Boston, Masachusetts. Shambhala. ISBN 1-57051-270-1.
   Brief introductions to sectarian and non-sectarian Buddhist practice, followed by a useful directory of the many Buddhist centers available throughout the United States and Canada.
10. Magazines on related topis: Tricycle (The Buddhist Review) (Quarterly); What Is Enlightenment? (Semiannually); The Shambhala Sun (Bimonthly).