BUDDHISM AND THE BRAIN
By Ed Halliwell
The Guardian
April 7, 2009

Original Link

Every day this week in Dharamsala, the Dalai Lama will sit down with a group of psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers to discuss current western understanding of the mind and its possible connections to Buddhist theory and practice. The conference, entitled Attention, Memory And The Mind, is the 18th in a series of similar meetings which stems back to 1987, and which have previously explored topics such as Quantum Physics and Eastern Contemplative Sciences, Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying and Mindfulness, Compassion and the Treatment of Depression.

The aim of these encounters, organised by the Mind and Life Institute, is to further the already productive dialogue between Buddhist and scientific studies of the mind. Past conferences have spurred the development of research programmes that examine the effects of Buddhist contemplative techniques and how they might be applied more widely to benefit humanity. They have, for example, been instrumental in the work of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, whose brain imaging studies found that experienced meditators show increased activity in the left prefrontal cortex of the brain, an area associated with emotional well-being, as well as having stronger immune systems.

For a man brought up to believe the world was flat, the Dalai Lama's embrace of science is remarkable, although he was already demonstrating his fervent curiosity for the mechanics of the world when teaching himself to fix clocks and film projectors as a boy in Lhasa. During exile he has increasingly sought out the company of scientists, including Sir Karl Popper, David Bohm and Francisco Varela, and more recently has been raising funds to ensure Tibetan monks under his tutelage receive a scientific as well as Buddhist education. Most famously, he has repeatedly insisted that if science proves any of the doctrines of Buddhism to be false, then those doctrines will have to change.

The Buddhism-science interface is less incongruous when viewed from a perspective shorn of western cultural assumptions about what makes a religion -- as B Alan Wallace has argued, Buddhism contains elements which correspond closely to western notions of philosophy, psychology, and science. Of course, it does also feature religious aspects -- it has plenty to say about what may happen during and after death, makes suggestions about how to live an ethical life, and lays importance on shared rituals and practice among a community of members. However, at its core is not worship of an external creator or the rigid promulgation of codes of behaviour, but a path of practice designed to test its ideas, a path in which asking questions is more important than having the answers and openness to the evidence is more valuable than being right.

Perhaps because of this emphasis on fearless inquiry and empirical observation, and perhaps because it developed in societies unburdened by several centuries of schism between science and church, Buddhism's modern encounter with the former -- epitomised by the Dalai Lama -- has been characterised mostly by enthusiasm rather than defensiveness. That enthusiasm has then been fuelled further by the discovery that, at their best, both Buddhism and science share methodological similarities, including a commitment to testing hypotheses about the nature of reality by repeated experiment.

Of course, that is not to say that Buddhism is science (or vice-versa). While scientific endeavour is based on observation of material phenomena in the external world, Buddhism -- with its practices of meditation, contemplation and visualisation -- actively enlists the subjective mind in an investigation of itself, in the belief that over time, such an inquiry can help it first see and then become free of the biases and projections that perpetuate false views and are the root cause of suffering.

With increasing awareness about how such biases of the observing mind affect the collection of data, as well as the realisation -- in fields such as quantum physics and consciousness studies -- that the subjective stance of the experimenter cannot and perhaps should not be isolated from their experiments, the contemplative approach comes to seem ever more a useful complement to scientific method. As the Dalai Lama himself has joked, while the western world was busy exploring outer space, Tibetan Buddhists had already long been charting inner space.

Organised Buddhism in the west remains tiny compared to more established religions, and its transplantation outside of an Asian context carries many challenges. But after just 40 or so years, its influence -- through the gradual permeation of its practices and philosophy into areas such as healthcare provision -- is already considerable. This is in large part because of its willingness to dialogue with, learn from and contribute to western modes of knowing with which it has a natural affinity.

Only by engaging with the powerful forms and methods of inquiry developed by science can religion make a credible (and necessary) case for its continued relevance to modern society. The Dalai Lama, through his ongoing commitment to ventures such as the Mind and Life conferences, has shown his willingness to make such an engagement. If other religious traditions are to avoid being increasingly sidelined and ridiculed, they will need leaders of comparable stature -- meaning those at the very highest level - to make a similar stand for the rigorous pursuit of truth, using scientific as well as spiritual method.

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MIND AND LIFE XVIII

Attention, Memory and the Mind:
A Synergy of Psychological, Neuroscientific, and Contemplative Perspectives

with His Holiness The Dalai Lama
Dharamsala, India
April 6–10, 2009

Original Link

The Mind and Life Dialogues and the Mind and Life Institute

Beginning in the twentieth century, science has become the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of objective, quantitative measurements, using the instruments of technology. The integration of scientific knowledge and technology has vastly contributed to our understanding of the physical world and to improving the human standard of living. Furthermore, over a much longer time period spanning the past 2,500 years, Buddhism has emerged in multiple cultures throughout Asia as the dominant paradigm for understanding the natural world by way of subjective, qualitative observations by way of highly sophisticated meditative training. The integration of Buddhist theories and practices has revealed many important insights into the nature of the mind and its role in nature, while radically transforming and enriching its host societies and improving the quality of life of its adherents. In many ways, the methods and goals of scientific and contemplative inquiry are profoundly complementary, with each of them having enormous potential for enriching the other.

In 1987, recognizing that there was no official orderly way for science and Buddhism to share their findings, and convinced that a rigorous scientific dialogue and collaboration between these two impressive traditions would be beneficial for humanity, neuroscientist Francisco Varela and entrepreneur Adam Engle started the Mind and Life Dialogues with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Since then, the Mind and Life meetings have focused on a broad set of themes ranging from the mind sciences and biology to physics and cosmology. This present meeting on attention, memory, and the phenomenological study of the mind is the eighteenth such Mind and Life dialogue.

What sets the Mind and Life dialogues apart from other meetings between science and Buddhism is the focus on in-depth, cross-cultural dialogue. In this meeting, the morning presentations by cognitive scientists will be 60-90 minutes in duration, followed by up to 90 minutes of discussion; and the afternoon sessions by cognitive scientists and Buddhist scholars and contemplatives will be 30-45 minutes in duration, with the rest of the 2 ½ hours devoted to discussion. These discussions have always been the central focus of each Mind and Life meeting, and in this conference they will play a more predominant role than ever before.

In addition to the Mind and Life dialogues and publications, the Mind and Life Institute has two other programs to advance our mission. One program initiates collaborative research studies between scientists and contemplatives, focused on determining the effects of meditation and other contemplative practices. To date, such studies have been initiated at the University of Wisconsin; UCSF Medical Center; Princeton; Harvard; UC Berkeley; Reed College; Pennsylvania State University; and University of Pennsylvania.

Another program to help promote new research in this emerging area is the Mind and Life Summer Research Institute, which is an annual week-long workshop specifically for young scientists and scholars with an interest in this area. This Research Institute combines scientific and Buddhist presentations, in-depth discussions on how to advance the interface between scientific and contemplative modes of inquiry, and meditation practice...

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NHNE Dalai Lama Resource Page