There are generally two approaches to understanding the relationship between the mind and the brain. By mind we mean the subjective side of things, the full range of lived experience, both conscious and unconscious, including such things as thought, cognition, memory, desire, emotional states, and even perhaps the sense of transcendence. By brain we refer to the objective side, the physical stuff between our ears, with its complex architecture of inter-related neurons and the electro-chemical … [Read more...]
Freedom from Buddha Nature
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
“What is the mind? The mind isn’t ‘is’ anything. ” —Ajaan Chah “The mind is neither good nor evil, but it’s what knows good and knows evil. It’s what does good and does evil. And it’s what lets go of good and lets go of evil. ” —Ajaan Lee A brahman once asked the Buddha, “Will all the world reach release [Awakening], or half the world, or a third?” But the Buddha didn’t answer. Ven. Ānanda, concerned that the brahman might misconstrue the Buddha’s silence, took the man aside and gave him … [Read more...]
Mind Changing Brain Changing Mind: The Dharma and Neuroscience
Rick Hanson
The knowledge of neuroscience has doubled in the last twenty years. It will probably double again in the next twenty years. I think that neuropsychology is, broadly, about where biology was a hundred years after the invention of the microscope: around 1725. In contrast, Buddhism is a twenty-five-hundred-year-old tradition. You don't need an EEG or MRI to sit and observe your own mind, to open your heart and practice with sincerity. I don't think of neuropsychology as a replacement for … [Read more...]
How Does Meditation Train Attention?
James Austin
"Attention, attention, attention!" —Zen Master Ikku's answers when asked for the source of the highest wisdom It helps to conceptualize meditation as an attentive art, so let’s start with meditation’s two basic categories. The first kind employs an effortful, sustained attention. This variety of concentrative meditation is the easiest to understand. It’s what we begin with and what we return to frequently during meditation. Concentration implies that we narrow our focus voluntarily. We … [Read more...]
Buddhism, Body, Mind-Problem?
Rajesh Kasturirangan
Many of the key questions scientists will be trying to answer in this century revolve around the mind and its relation to other entities. Is the mind the brain? Is the mind the body? Is the mind the body in the environment? Or is the mind some abstract entity that lives outside space and time altogether? I believe that Buddhist philosophy can help the process of reconciling these issues. Science is based on the assumption that there is a single “real” reality that we each see through … [Read more...]
Mindfulness of Breathing: Ānāpānasati Sutta (MN 118)
Andrew Olendzki
Understanding Key Terms developed: bhāvitā This word is simply the causative form of the verb "to be," and thus means "causing to be," from which we get "development." It is a word used often for meditation in general, and for certain kinds of meditation in particular, such as the development of loving kindness (mettā-bhāvanā). cultivated: bahulākatā Used often beside development as a synonym, this term literally meant something that is done (kata) a lot (bahuli). The way we … [Read more...]
The Greatest Happiness
Andrew Olendzki
These verses are said to have been uttered very soon after the Buddha’s awakening to Mucalinda, the Nāga (Serpent) King, after he coiled seven times around his body and spread his hooded head to protect the Awakened One from rain. This mythical imagery aside, the poem offers a cogent definition of happiness at four different, gradually intensifying, levels of scale. The ascetic monk finds happiness in dwelling alone in the forest, far from the web of social responsibility, … [Read more...]
