Neuroscience and Enlightenment

Nigel had some interesting comments regarding brain science on the Jhana and Nana thread and I thought it might be interesting to start a new thread rather than take that one off on a tangent.

Hi Nigel, I greatly appreciate your point of view, and agree that Austin's stuff is somewhat metaphor. Not useless metaphor surely, but to be taken with a grain of salt. With the brain in particular, we have some very detailed knowledge about some of the trees, but no one understands the forest. We lack an organizing framework for how the brain functions as a complete system. Here's a pretty good try that has some usefulness for the mystic: cosmic-mindreach.com/Three-Brains.html Gozen: "I have a terrible time trying to visualize and comprehend the brain regions and their functions!" Me too! And I have years of training for it! Part of the problem is that I can't always buy into what Austin says - someone once said that the way we currently map structure to function in the brain is analogous to trying to determine what the parts of a television set do by cutting wires. I'm much better at the microanatomy. With the brain in particular, I think the Dao De Jing's dictum regarding knowledge is especially relevant - understanding what we *don't* know is perhaps more important than what we do.

On the other hand, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to incorporate the insights of science to throw light on the mysteries of spiritual development - we should probably start with very basic concepts - the idea that neural plasticity and pruning is involved in the process of enlightenment, looking at cognitive science to help understand concentration states and the structure of attention, etc.
"A General Theory of Love" by Lewis and Lannon is an example of a book that sheds light on ineffable mysteries such as love with the aid of scientific research, and is a well written book to boot.

My version of this is that we need scientists with some serious spritual experience. That's why I like James Austin. He's tedious to read, yes, but his heart and his spriitual development put him in a unique position among neuroscientists. Add Susan Blackmore to that list, too. And may the list grow and grow. When the list gets long enough we may just get somewhere!

"
My version of this is that we need scientists with some serious spritual experience. That's why I like James Austin. He's tedious to read, yes, but his heart and his spriitual development put him in a unique position among neuroscientists. Add Susan Blackmore to that list, too. And may the list grow and grow. When the list gets long enough we may just get somewhere!

"

Absolutely!

Shinzen Young talks about this fairly extensively on his CD set "The Science of Enlightenment." He mentions four aspects of the relationship between Science and Mysticism:

1. The positive effects that meditation (on the part of scientists) might have for scientific work in general.
2. The benefits to mysticism of incorporating the attitudes and methods of science.
3. The use of technology to make enlightenment more accessible for the general public.
4. The possible cross-fertilization of Science and Mysticism.

Number 4 is the most complex issue, but briefly regarding #1, Shinzen mentions the possible cognitive and creative benefit to scientists from cultivating states of high concentration. He mentions that he always had a mental block regarding science and mathematics - could not do it at all as a youth. After becoming a Shingon monk for years, when he returned, he found all of the sudden he could do it. (I also have a similar experience). Furthermore, great scientists often talk about how their most important insights began as an intuition - by deliberately increasing their ability to access this, it might increase the production of discovery. Number 2: Mystics have much to learn from the precision of scientific vocabulary, and the open attitude in which scientists discuss their ideas. 3. We have a long way to go on this - but we do have neurofeedback devices now (I'm purchasing one in the near future).

Yes. Shinzen Young also mentioned this in his interview with Vince Horn on Buddhist Geeks. One of his passionately held dreams was for a generation of classically enlightened neuroscientists to emerge, I remember him saying.

For me personally, I've got a much smaller vision of this. I use what I know of neuroscience as a helpful metaphor.

Progress of Insight matters to me much more than does correctly labeling neurological functions by topographic region. Nevertheless, the brain is a very useful conceptual lever for objectifying aspects of my subjective experience.

What I know of neuroscience tends to support the core details of dharma. That helps me with the faith part of the equation.

I know I tend to say this alot, but knowing that my subjective experience is being generated; and having some amount of familiarity with an important locus of that generation process is extremely helpful for me.

I've not read much Oliver Sacks. But I've listened to him lecture and be interviewed. And he tends to be interested in the changes in subjective experience that coincide with neural injuries or abnormalities. For a yogi, that is useful stuff.

I came across a particular condition a few years ago, and it was instantly important in my library of spiritual metaphors. It's called 'congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrosis'. Nociceptors are the nerves that generate and conduct pain sensations. Some children are born with faulty nociceptors or the pain centers in the spine and lower brain have some problem. The result in any case is that they are unable to experience pain. These people have very difficult and often shortened lives, because of all of the useful feedback information that we get from those pain signals. In their photographs, they are often scarred or burned because of accidents of personal neglect when they were young.

These people cannot feel pain due to their neurological condition. That must be of interest to us as students of subjective experience.

Another interesting phenomenon is the disorientation of 'self' that occurs in contexts in which a person's proprioceptive feedback is disrupted. I remember reading about people living for long periods of time in 0 or less-than-normal gravity settings. The change in the pull of gravity on their bodies affects their sense of self. Some of them report feeling decentered and losing the sense of their location.

In other words, sometimes a person's circumstances produce changes in them that mirror or resonate with some of the changes that we're bringing about through our cultivation efforts. There must be something to explore here.

Neuroscience is nowhere even remotely near to being able to improve on the cultivation and meditation methods. But what we can do at this time is describe, observe, and identify functions. That is the phase that neuroscience is in currently. And that's already pretty valuable.

My main example is this article that I posted here a couple of months ago by Farb and company. They compared the neural (brain) networks of untrained people to those of vipassana-trained people. (That training was only 8 intensive weeks.)

What they found was really, really interesting. Systems that, in untrained people, are usually glommed together, were becoming differentiated and independent in the vipassana-trained people.

(Imagine that the fingers of your hand are fused together so that you can only use it as a shovel or a spoon to scoop or to push. Now imagine that your fingers are unfused and you can start to move each finger somewhat independently. This is what was happening neurally for the vipassana practitioners. Alternately, imagine that the appliances in your home were all hooked up to one switch. When you flip that switch, the lights, the vacuum cleaner, the radio, the ceiling fan, and the dishwasher all turn on. Now imagine that you install individual switches on each appliance. You can still turn them all on at the same time if you wish, but now you have freedom to choose depending on which function you presently deem necessary or appropriate.)

Specifically, they were looking at regions of the brain associated with constructing a sense of self (or to put it more accurately regions involved with generating a locus of identification or orientation '“ doesn't have to be called a self).

(cont'd)

One area generated this locus of orientation through storytelling and narrative, memories, anticipation of future events. Another region generated such a locus of identification based on moment-to-moment awareness of '˜presently' arising sensations, feelings, and thoughts. (That present is '˜the psychological present'. It's whatever '˜feels like' now.)

We have regions that are concerned with momentary awareness, and we have others that are concerned with narrative and ideas. In most people, the functioning of these two regions is mixed together. But in vipassana practitioners, they start to become dissociated. The vipassana practitioner begins to have a choice of which one (or both) to engage.

This is a useful contribution of neuroscience. It doesn't improve on our cultivation methods, but it can help to confirm and to precisely define (at least some) aspects of their utility and their unfolding. That can be extremely helpful on the faith front.

For anyone who wants to see the actual article, her e it is:

scan.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/2/4/313

That's a link to a free download of a pdf file.

The name of the article is:

Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference

(cont'd)[edited for cosmetic alteration]

Contrary, perhaps, to appearances, I'm not inherently fascinated by this stuff, by this topic. But I think it can be useful for some people. And I just think it's something that's going to be increasingly relevant.

If, as a meditator, you realize that you are actually building the foundation for changes in neural architecture, you might have a more patient and accepting attitude to your practice. So many people start out thinking that they should be able to do everything immediately. Whereas the fact is that if you could already do it, there would be no reason for you to be meditating.

Other benefits are that 1) you can have a different perspective on the change process and realize that change is happening even when you haven't noticed it yet; and 2) this now makes each moment of the process much more fascinating and interesting in its own right.

(cont'd) [edited because of cosmetic fixations]

Like how people who love construction and building can enjoy each and every stage of the process of building a house, and not just the moment at the end when everything is done. Someone who loves carpentry even loves looking at a pneumatic nail driver. Or appreciating the level plane of a well-constructed floor.

That is the attitude I would like to have. Seems like a shame to miss the whole process just because you were so fixated on the moment when the family can move into the house. (Although, that's fair enough, too.)

One more potential benefit of keeping these functional networks in the brain as a kind of concrete reference point (just one of many important reference points) is that it may eventually lead to identification and innovation of useful supplementary practices. For example, let's say you know that part of what vipassana does is to promote differentiation between midline cortical function and parietal/insular/somatosensory function. Now you also know that some other activities promote the same exact differentiation (say juggling, potato sack races, or gourmet chef competitions) then you might fruitfully experiment with using one of those activities to bolster your practice, without feeling that you're wasting time. (Just a light-hearted example, it would probably be a bit more complicated than that; involving a style of or an approach to doing an activity and not just the activity itself.)
[edited as a cosmic altercation]

Oh, and one last note.

None of this gets anywhee near what we can learn about how qi/prana, chakras, nadis, and jing luo are involved in cultivation.

I think that those are probably much, much more useful for understanding cultivation. For example, bio-energetic developmental processes that occur at different phases along the path.

But the fact is that our culture is just really primitive when it comes to those things, so this is what our culture has to offer. And it does have utility.

"If, as a meditator, you realize that you are actually building the foundation for changes in neural architecture, you might have a more patient and accepting attitude to your practice. So many people start out thinking that they should be able to do everything immediately. Whereas the fact is that if you could already do it, there would be no reason for you to be meditating."

Timely, Nigel, this is very timely. Here's something I wrote to Kenneth in an e-mail just last night:

"On a tiny bit more serious note, I sense that what's happening to me is driven by a process that's forcing connections between the left and right hemispheres of my brain, bringing highly intuitive, pattern based parallel processes into contact with the single threaded and internally focused "me" that's always mediated my existence. The right brain parallel processes are starting to gain prominence, pushing the formerly dominant left brain oriented, often paranoid and fearful processes into the background. I really think that causes the cycling and the perception changes I'm seeing. Or maybe I've just read too much. Why does this process wake me up on the middle of the night so often? Is that common to others? I suspect it's because the mind is quieter then, but I sense that there's always progress being made, or so it seems, waking or sleeping, voluntary or involuntary. Mostly involuntary."

Meditation, at least in the First Gear realm, is very much bio-engineering, organic style. I say that from the perspective of recent experience. I KNOW that's what's going on. LIke HAL in "2001: A Space Odyssey," I can feel it happening.

"If, as a meditator, you realize that you are actually building the foundation for changes in neural architecture, you might have a more patient and accepting attitude to your practice. So many people start out thinking that they should be able to do everything immediately. Whereas the fact is that if you could already do it, there would be no reason for you to be meditating." -Nigel

Yes, Nigel, this is straight to the point. As Chris has found out, meditators are often amazed by how visceral this process is. It's obvious, from the point of view of the meditator, that something is growing, hatching out, zipping up, shaking around, and rearranging itself within the body/mind. I find it fascinating to learn that this can be talked about in terms of "neural architecture," as you put it. I'm used to thinking of it in terms of "psychic architecture" which so far has frustrated the best attempts of scientists to measure it.

Once we accept that it is a process that occurs through time, it should be easier for yogis to settle in and enjoy the ride instead of feeling frustrated at their own inability to do all the wonderful things advanced practitioners talk about. The phenomena that Chris has recently reported are a good example of this; it isn't so much that he just discovered the magic key to these states, but rather that the psychic or neural architecture required to experience these states has just recently been developed. From now on, he will always have access to these states. Caterpillars can't fly, but it isn't because they don't have the technique; it's because they don't have the hardware. Once the hardware develops, learning to fly is trivial. As yogis, we have some sense of what it must feel like to be caterpillars as they transition into butterflies. You can feel those wings growing. Sometimes it's pleasant, sometimes it's painful. Growth is like that.

"Imagine that the fingers of your hand are fused together so that you can only use it as a shovel or a spoon to scoop or to push. Now imagine that your fingers are unfused and you can start to move each finger somewhat independently..." -Nigel

Fantastic analogy! This really makes it concrete. Accomplished meditators find that they can do things with their minds that just weren't possible before. And one of the things meditation teachers have to learn is that they can't trick, persuade, bully, or entice yogis to do things they are developmentally unable to do. Teachers and students alike have to learn to be patient as the circuitry is built. For most people, this takes years.

As for how this development relates to 3rd Gear practice, which aims to directly apprehend the essence of mind, we still have a lot to learn. On the one hand, buddha nature is clearly unaffected by development, and the ability to recognize buddha nature is built into people at all levels of development. The question, then, is what role does development of the psychic or neural anatomy affect one's ability to stabilize access to rigpa? There seems to be a relationship. My best guess at this point is that because recognizing buddha nature requires non-distractedness, practices that increase the stability of attention at both the hardware and software levels are a powerful support for non-dual Realization. On the other hand, non-dual Realization is not a result of development; it's not a result of anything. Non-dual Realization is available to anyone at any time. This is why the 3-Speed Transmission is presented in reverse order. "Always ring the non-dual bell first." If no one salutes, downshift to the Witness or to developmental practice. But we never want to assume that a beginner cannot see his or her basic nature. Pointing out buddha nature early and often is a compassionate act. (I believe you made a similar point already, Nigel.)

Thank you both for your replies. I benefit so much from being here.

My main request: please keep doing what you're doing.

(and making utterances from time to time).