selfless insight zen and the meditative transformations of consciousness mar 2009

SELFLESS INSIGHT Z n and the Meditati e Transformations of Con ciousness J mes H. Aust n, M.D. Selfless Insight The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Selfless Insight Zen and the Meditative Transformations of Consciousness James H. Austin, M.D. ( 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechani cal means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permis sion in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please e mail special sales@mitpress.mit.edu or write to Special Sales Department, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Palatino and Frutiger on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Austin, James H., 1925 Selfless insight : Zen and the meditative transformations of consciousness / James H. Austin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978 0 262 01259 1 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Meditation Zen Buddhism. 2. Zen Buddhism Psychology. 3. Consciousness Religious aspects Zen Buddhism. I. Title. BQ9288.A95 2009 294.3 0 4435 dc22 2008026983 10987654321 Also by James H. Austin Zen-Brain Reflections (2006) Chase, Chance, and Creativity (2003) Zen and the Brain (1998) To my early teachers Nanrei Kobori-Roshi, Myokyo-ni, and Joshu Sasaki-Roshi, for inspiration; and to all those whose contributions to Zen, and to the brain, are reviewed in these pages. Your true self is free from beauty and ugliness, free from God and evil. When you manifest yourself as emptiness, at that moment, you are free from everything. Joshu Sasaki-Roshi (1907– ) [...]... Directions of the two streams in a lateral view of the left hemisphere 60 Directions of the two streams in a medial view of the right hemisphere 61 Thalamocortical contributions to the dorsal egocentric and ventral allocentric streams 88 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 The dual effect of a triggering stimulus: a hypothesis for the precipitation of kensho 114 List of Tables Table 1 The Attentive Art of Meditation... defect of attention, not a failure of vision caused by closing 6 I On the Varieties of Attention the eyelids Slagter and colleagues studied the brain potentials of 17 experienced practitioners at the beginning and end of a 3-month Vipassana retreat.13 The retreat was rigorous: the practitioners meditated 10 to 12 hours a day They, and their controls, would see the first number (e.g., 3) followed by the. .. first-person description of their internal form and content.10 Jack Kornfield’s teacher, Mahasa Sayadaw, was in the Theravada Buddhist tradition He taught that the ‘‘first taste of Nirvana’’ came in the form of a cessation of experience.11 It was a particular kind of cessation, said to arise out of the ‘‘deepest state of concentration and attention.’’ When it occurs, ‘ the body and 1 Training Attention... Systems for Truth, Beauty, and Reality 143 31 The Temporal Lobe: Harmonies of Perception and Interpretation 146 34 Recent Ongoing Neuroimaging Studies of Ordinary Forms of Insight 158 37 Balancing One’s Assets and Liabilities 180 40 The Construction and Dissolution of Time 193 43 Striking at the Roots of Overconditioned Attitudes 202 Empathy, Forgivability, and the Responses of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex... However, during their five-minute test periods of one-pointed meditation, 3 of the 23 monks reported complete perceptual stability of the image from one eye or the other During such periods of perceptual stabilization, the visual percepts being experienced often differed subtly from the actual line patterns After undergoing periods of one-pointed meditation for various lengths of time, half of the monks also... to a one-pointed mode of attention during the absorptions, lead the trainee toward more selfless behavior in daily life and then finally to let go of all Self-centered physiological biases and enter the deeper states of kensho-satori? In part IV, we take up a topic of universal human importance: the nature of insight in general Insights are key ingredients in the lengthy process of creative intuition... Modulating the Emotions 223 52 How Could the Long-Term Meditative Path Modulate the Emotions? 228 55 The Cognitive and Emotional Origins of Maturity 237 56 Brain Peptides Help Decode Subtle Facial Emotions 244 46 Chapters Containing Testable Hypotheses xvii List of Figures Figure 1 Lateral view of the left hemisphere 24 Figure 2 Medial view of the right hemisphere 25 Figure 3 Lateral view of the right... meditation and receptive meditation [ZBR:30] Table 1 summarizes the two approaches At the start of any one period, the meditator usually concentrates on the breath Thereafter, during the next 20 to 40 minutes, shifts occur more or less spontaneously between the two styles of meditation as an expression of covert cycles and rhythms over which the meditator can choose to superimpose degrees of voluntary... Forgivability, and the Responses of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex Rigorous Retreats, and the Supporting Influence of a Friendly Hand Show Me Fifth Mondo Selected Topics of Current Interest: A Sample 251 In Closing 268 Glossary References and Notes Source Notes Index 270 274 313 315 Contents in Detail xv Chapters Containing Testable Hypotheses It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers... Attention 5 mind are dissolved, the experience of the ordinary senses ceases,’’ and ‘‘perfect equanimity prevails.’’ In the course of their intensive meditative practices, Kornfield estimated that ‘‘perhaps 3% of the trainees’’ at that time could have had such a ‘‘stream entry’’ experience The words used to describe such a state suggest that it resembles other states on the path of the absorptions [ZB:469–518, . SELFLESS INSIGHT Z n and the Meditati e Transformations of Con ciousness J mes H. Aust n, M.D. Selfless Insight The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Selfless Insight Zen and. and was printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Austin, James H., 1925 Selfless insight : Zen and the meditative transformations of. 43 11 First Mondo 47 Part II On the Origins of Self 49 12 You Are the ‘‘Person of the Year’’ 51 13 On the Nature and the Origins of the Self 53 14 Selective Deficits of Egocentric or Allocentric