References and Notes

Epigraph

Hippocrates, vol. 2, trans. W. Jones, Loeb Classical Library no. 148 (London: Heinemann; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1923).

Preface

1. D. Suzuki, Living by Zen, ed. C. Humphreys (London: Rider, 1972), 37.

2. J. Masefield, The Ending (Poems from “The Wanderer”), in The Collected Poems of John Masefield (London: Heinemann, 1923), 923, available at dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/ 10689/1483/23/Chapter%2020_928%20-%20969p.pdf.

3. The dorsal attention system is represented symmetrically. Each dorsal network responds attentively, in a top-down voluntary manner, to the opposite side of the environment. In contrast, the ventral attention system is predominately right-sided. Its networks respond attentively, in a reflexive, global manner, to either side or to both sides of the environment, L>R. This system acts as a circuit breaker, helping to reorient the dorsal system to a more relevant target. [SI: 29–34].

4. D. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959). Suzuki devoted 66 pages to the chapter entitled “Love of Nature” (329–395). The Japanese edition was published in 1938.

5. T. Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), ix. The “birds” in Merton’s title are not the kinds of real birds discussed in chapter 6. Instead, Merton was using birds as a metaphor to remind us of all those intellectual and spiritual hungers that hover like buzzards around the topic of Zen. Circling greedily, they long to clutch something exotic and strive to possess it. To Merton, these acquisitive forms of spiritual materialism are among the human “birds” that represent our appetitive drives. Contrast this with the Living Zen presented in this book. It stands for the simplified, uncluttered awareness that unfolds when all such overly Self-centered appetites are governed by more wholesome attitudes.

6. The word horizon has taken on different meanings in different cultures. See M. Inwood, A Heidegger Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), 98. In Greek, horos first implied a boundary that was limiting. However, for Masefield, and for the purposes of this book, the skyline at the horizon serves not as an absolute boundary but as a potential opening toward a promising future. When Husserl was developing his theories about perception, he spoke of der Horizont. In this context, one’s own perception of an object’s various aspects might be conceptualized as the inner horizon. Yet this same object also exists in multiple other relationships with the rest of the whole world, far out beyond us. Those outward extensions toward infinity might be conceptualized as that object’s outer horizon.

For Heidegger, each topic (e.g., Nature, Zen) had its own conceptual horizon-like boundary. In order to analyze the philosophical distinctions that separate these two constructs, Nature and Zen, we must first step outside each of their two separate horizons. Only from such a vantage point can a new paradigm supply the necessary overarching perspective.

In this book the author explores the neural (not philosophical) dimensions of spatial relationships. Here, words reflect neurobiological explanations. On these pages, the egocentric frame of reference is a perspective that is overtly Self-centered. In contrast, the allocentric frame of reference is covertly other-referential.

7. Trial-and-error lessons teach us how to leap safely across a wide brook: take a few steps, just far enough back to gather momentum for a running jump.

8. J. Austin, Meditating Selflessly at the Dawn of a New Millennium, Contemporary Buddhism 2012; 13: 61–81.

By Way of a Personal Introduction

1. H. Thoreau, Walden, or, Life in the Woods (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973), 7. Originally published in 1854.

2. R. Emerson, The Poet, in Essays and English Traits, ed. C. Eliot, Harvard Classics (New York: Collier, 1909), vol. 5, 173. Originally published in Essays: Second Series (1844).

Part I: Epigraph

H. Thoreau, Solitude, in Walden, or, Life in the Woods (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973), 113. Originally published in 1854.

Chapter 1 Two Old Men Consult the Buddha

1. S. Suzuki, in D. Chadwick, Zen is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki, Author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Boston, MA, Shambhala, 2007), 50.

2. Samyutta Nikaya (SN) 35.95, Malunkyaputta Sutta: To Malunkyaputta. All translations from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu are available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/. Here, the term putta refers to a person who is descended from an earlier person named Malunkya.

3. Majjhima Nikaya (MN) 63, Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta: The Shorter Instructions to Malunkya, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

4. Majjhima Nikaya (MN) 63, Cula-Malunkyovada Sutta, M i 426–432, in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 230–233.

5. B. Nanamoli and B. Bodhi, trans., MN 63, in The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha: A New Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Boston: Wisdom, 1995), 533–536. The following pages 537–541 contain the Mahamalunkya Sutta. That sutra (MN 64) identifies personalized viewing as the first of the five fetters. Personalized viewing is interpretable as entirely Self-referential viewing. Albert Einstein would call this the “optical delusion” of our Self-consciousness (see chapter 13). The other four fetters are doubt, rigid adherence to rules and observances, sensual desire, and ill will. It is one thing to know about these fetters at an intellectual level. Only by transforming the maladaptive networking functions between the limbic system, striatum, and cortex can we begin to be emancipated from all five fetters. Other formulations list the five hindrances as desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, and ruminating about guilt and doubt.

6. The translators have not specified the chronology of the sutras discussed in this chapter. Buddha may have seen Bahiya before Malunkya, because the brief utterances, or Udanas, tend to be of earlier origin than many other sutras. See B. Bodhi, ed., In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 13. For a short critical survey of the history of the Pali canon, see C. Hartranft, Did the Buddha Teach Satipatthana? Insight Journal 2011 (May 17); 35: 4–10.

7. Udana 1.10. Bahiya Sutta: Bahiya, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/. Bahiya’s question—Is a sage someone who comprehends the universe as the Self?—turns out to echo in later centuries. In China, Shih-t’ou (700–790) became enlightened when he was triggered by a similar passage in the scriptures. This passage had been written over three centuries earlier by the Taoist monk Seng-Chao (378–414), a Ch’an antecedent who worked with Kumarajiva. [ZBR: 330].

8. Thich Nhat Hanh locates Savatthi as near modern Saheth-Maheth. This city is in northern India near Nepal, far from the coast. Such a great distance could be a measure of Bahiya’s motivation. See Thich Nhat Hanh, Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha’s Life (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012), frontispiece map.

9. Was this an oblique reference to Malunkya, added to the early Udana by monks in later centuries?

10. Nor, for example, would they specify some 33 synonyms for Nirvana, words that over the centuries would find their way elsewhere into the Samyutta Nikaya 43, 1–44.

11. The sutras do not inform us of an important fact: how the body language associated with Bahiya’s awakening manifested and confirmed this clinical diagnosis.

12. Shodo Harada-Roshi, The Path to Bodhidharma: The Teachings of Shodo Harada-Roshi, ed. J. Lago, trans. T. Storano (Boston: Tuttle, 2000), 162. The fullness of enhanced allo-processing is what enters experience when the ego drops off (see chapter 3).

13. D. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959). This painting, by Mu-Ch’i, is a treasure in the collection at Ryoko-in, the subtemple at Daitoku-ji, where Nanrei Kobori-Roshi introduced me to Zen. The painting reflects the major influence that Chinese culture and Ch’an had on Zen. Green persimmons start out distastefully astringent. Only slowly do they become sweet. [ZB: 649] Suzuki chose these ripening persimmons to be his frontispiece, the first of 69 glossy plates. This placement suggests that he understood the incremental aspects of Zen training and did not intend to be held solely to his oft-quoted statement, “Without satori there is no Zen” (218).

Chapter 2 Neuropsychological Aspects of the Attentive Self

1. S. Freud, The Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex (1924), in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. J. Strachey (London: Hogarth Press, 1961), vol. 19, 173–182.

2. S. Sahn, The Compass of Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 234.

3. A. Baldassarre, C. Lewis, G. Committeri et al., Individual Variability in Functional Connectivity Predicts Performance of a Perceptual Task, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012; 109(9): 3516–3521. This task required an average of 5,600 practice trials (!) before the subjects achieved an accuracy of 80 percent. The original data set from the earlier study was reanalyzed in this latest report.

4. A. Martin, K. Barnes, and W. Stevens, Spontaneous Neural Activity Predicts Individual Differences in Performance, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012; 109(9): 3201–3202.

5. Y. Sasaki, J. Nanez, and T. Watanabe, Advances in Visual Perceptual Learning and Plasticity, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2012; 11(1): 53–60.

6. This discussion is expanded in J. Austin, Meditating Selflessly: Practical Neural Zen (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2011), 6–12, 198–199. 13, 201–202. 1–3. A recent review emphasizes the functional anatomy of the ventral attention network and cites 121 references. See B. Kubit and A. Jack, Rethinking the Role of the rTPJ in Attention and Social Cognition in Light of the Opposing Domains Hypothesis, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2013; 7(323): 1–18, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00323. This article points out that several functions are represented within the large heterogeneous region currently called the right TPJ. [ZBR: 416, 418, 421; SI: 21–26, 278] For example, the evidence confirms that (1) the supramarginal gyrus is activated during attentive target detection, and (2) the locus for a reorienting shift resides at a more posterior site between it and the angular gyrus, a well-recognized lateral component of the task-negative “default network.” Moreover, some normal abilities to overcome an excessively Self-referential bias are represented in the right supramarginal gyrus, according to G. Silani, C. Lamm, C. Ruff and T. Singer, Right Supramarginal Gyrus is Crucial to Overcome Emotional Egocentricity Bias in Social Judgments, Journal of Neuroscience 2013; 33(39): 15466–15476. Clearly, additional high-resolution research must separate the several functions that earlier studies attributed to the nearby superior temporal sulcus (R>L). [SI: 41, 136–137, 142, 212].

7. M. van de Nieuwenhuijzen, A. Backus, A. Bahramisharif, et al. MEG-based Decoding of the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Visual Category Perception. Neuroimage 2013; 83:1063–1073.

8. The way the moon’s image is reflected, mirror-like, on water was part of an ongoing early dialogue. [ZBR: 268–269, 348] People were developing theories about perception at the sensory level centuries before researchers began to speculate about the motoric and other attributes of mirror neurons in the primate brain. [SI: 76–78].

Chapter 3 Neural Correlations of Meditating Selflessly

1. This is a condensation of John Blofeld’s translation, found in Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from China, Korea, and Japan, ed. S. Addiss with S. Lombardo and J. Roitman (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), 42.

2. T. Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite (New York: New Directions, 1968), 47. The allocentric perspective is difficult to put into words. [SI:55–64] However, Merton’s sentence happens to describe a crucial point: this implicit, covert, other-referential awareness is “already there.” However, we are not aware that it exists, because it is basically anonymous.

3. K. Kim and M. Johnson, Extended Self: Medial Prefrontal Activity during Transient Association of Self and Objects, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2012; 7(2): 199–207. (See also appendix D.).

4. Elsewhere, throughout numerous sutras, the Buddha had time to explain the finer details of his comprehensive eightfold prescription for letting go of our unwholesome, maladaptive, Self-centered attachments. In some instances, these releases could occur suddenly during alternate states of consciousness. Bahiya’s abrupt awakening represents such an event. However, other similar unbindings occur incrementally. They, too, release Self-referent attachments and transform a meditator’s traits. These “intelligent wisdoms” arrive gradually when one applies the trial-and-error, “live-and-learn” approach of careful mindful introspection to daily life events, discovering that their ups and downs are impermanent. [ZB: 641–645].

5. G. Gainotti and F. Ciaraffa, Is ‘Object-Centered Neglect’ a Homogeneous Entity? Brain and Cognition 2013; 81: 18–23.

6. Recent evidence suggests that our normal upward (vertical) bias during a (global) line-bisection task can increase when we superimpose a focal attention component. For a discussion of these issues, see A. Falchook, M. Mody, A. Srivastava, et al., Vertical Line Quadrisection: “What” It Represents and Who Gets the Upper Hand, Brain and Language 2012 (Dec 19), doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2012.11.003 [Epub ahead of print].

7. C. Doeller, C. Barry, and N. Burgess, From Cells to Systems: Grids and Boundaries in Spatial Memory. The Neuroscientist 2012; 18(6):556–566.

8. This explanation requires us to consider potential mechanisms that act at still deeper levels to enhance the meaning inherent in these frontotemporal allo-functions. Allo-contributions that resonate with meaning could be amplified by shifts in the thalamus that release cortical networks along this lower “What is it?” pathway. The study in note 9, below, reviews the kinds of anticorrelated shifts that could simultaneously cause overactive intrusions by the psychic Self to drop out of consciousness.

9. M. Lee, C. Hacker, A. Snyder et al., Clustering of Resting State Networks, PLoS One 2012; 7(7): e40370, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040370. This fMRI study uses a “fuzzy-c-means clustering algorithm” that has significant advantages over other methods, including independent component analysis. Its figures 4, 7, and 8 illustrate that humans are entangled in language functions. The figures show that our clusters of language networks extend their reach into the caudate nucleus bilaterally, the medial frontal lobe, and the inferior temporal lobe. Therefore, in order to reach genuine interior silence of the Huang-po variety the brain’s usual priorities must be substantially reordered within multiple linked cortical and subcortical networks. The study in note 10, below, emphasizes this point.

10. A. Rapp, D. Mutschler, and M. Erb, Where in the Brain Is Nonliteral Language? A Coordinate-Based Meta-analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies, Neuroimage 2012; 63(1): 600–610. A meta-analysis suggests that nonliteral forms of language (metaphors, idioms, irony) are also mostly (68%) left-lateralized. Long-term meditative training can help to reduce the intrusions of both literal and nonliteral language (see chapter 14). This could relieve other adjacent normal functions of the inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri on either side from entanglements that would compromise their capacities to infuse more efficient attentive processing through allocentric pathways.

11. J. Austin, The Thalamic Gateway: How the Meditative Training of Attention Evolves toward Selfless Transformations of Consciousness, in Effortless Attention: A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action, ed. B. Bruya (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 373–407; J. Austin, Selfless Insight-Wisdom: A Thalamic Gateway, in Measuring the Immeasurable: The Scientific Basis of Spirituality (Louisville, CO: Sounds True, 2008), 211–230. During states of consciousness when the person’s covert cortical inhibitory pathways that had served prior egocentric ends are themselves being blocked (on either side), these releases from inhibition could have secondary disinhibitory effects. The result would be to release some excitatory functions on the other side. These excitations could potentiate further amplifications of meaning that are arising from functions already being unleashed along the “southern” allocentric pathway by deeper mechanisms that were primary in the thalamus (see chapter 13). [SI: 180, 270].

Chapter 4 Buddhist Botany 101

1. S. Suzuki, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, ed. E. Brown (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 82–83.

2. Excerpt from Utopia, in Wistawa Szymborksa. Poems New and Collected 1957–1997 (Orlando, FL, 2000), 173. Reprinted by permission from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. This poem, “Utopia,” written in 1976, helps explain why Szymborska received the Nobel Prize for literature two decades later.

3. B. Bodhi, ed., In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 64. This story originates in the Majjhima Nikaya 36, Mahasaccaka Sutta, I 240–249. The exact dates of major events in the life of the Buddha remain subject to interpretation.

4. N. Taylor, ed., Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening, Horticulture and Landscape Design, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 333. The Samyutta Nikaya (15: 1) identifies the Indian subcontinent as the land of the rose-apple tree (Jambudipa). See B. Bodhi, ed., in reference 3, above: 37, 427, note 18.

5. Available at forestgeneration.com/rose-apple.html. This website notes that the rose-apple tree has entered into numerous legends. Among them is the following misconception: “The Rose Apple is said to be the golden fruit of immortality, and Buddha is said to have experienced enlightenment while sitting under a Rose Apple Tree.”

6. Udana 1.1, Bodhi Sutta: Awakening (1), trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

7. J. Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Schools, Teaching, Practice, and History (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1991), 22–24.

8. N. Foster and J. Shoemaker, eds., The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1996), 138–144.

9. R. Aitken, The Morning Star: New and Selected Zen Writings (Washington, DC: Shoemaker and Hoard, 2003), 200–207. See also Thich Nhat Hanh, Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha’s Life (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012), 72. By at least the Tang Dynasty, Buddhist artists were aware that this brightest morning star was in fact one of the known planets. Dating to the year 879 is a silk painting discovered in the Dunhuang Caves. It portrays this planet, Venus, as a goddess. Garbed in a flowing silk robe, she is playing a lute. She is identified further by the rooster on her head. It stands poised to announce her arrival at the first hint of the dawn’s early light. See Treasures of Dunhuang Grottoes, rev. 1st ed. (Hong Kong: Polyspring, 2002), 248–250. See color pictures 219 and 220.

10. Itivuttaka 27, Iti 19–21, in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 176–177.

11. J. Snelling, The Buddhist Handbook: A Complete Guide to Buddhist Schools, Teaching, Practice, and History (Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 1991), 23.

12. S. Huntington and J. Huntington, Leaves from the Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th Centuries) and Its International Legacy (Seattle: Dayton Art Institute and University of Washington Press, 1990).

13. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1991), 25.

14. These early historical connections with Sri Lanka remind us of our indebtedness to countless monks in the Theravada Buddhist tradition. They preserved many oral teachings of the Buddha and the early Indian patriarchs in the Pali language, the ancient vernacular dialect related to classical Sanskrit.

15. Thich Nhat Hanh, Your True Home: The Everyday Wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh, ed. M. McLeod (Boston: Shambhala, 2011).

16. J. Steuber, ed., China: 3000 Years of Art and Literature (New York: Welcome Books, 2008), 180.

17. K. Yamada, The Gateless Gate: The Classic Book of Zen Koans (Boston: Wisdom, 2004), 6. Master Wu-men Hui-k’ai (1183–1260) became enlightened by the sound of a drum while standing one day near the Dharma hall. He compiled the book of koans (The Mumonkan) known as the Gateless Gate. The gating influence of the reticular nucleus is of interest in this regard (see chapter 11).

18. D. Suzuki, Studies in Zen, ed. C. Humphreys (New York: Delta, 1955), 12, 45. D. T. Suzuki regards this dialogue of the Buddha and Mahapitaka Brahmaraja as probably having been invented by a later Chinese teacher whose alleged goal was to justify the belief that a particular sequence of 27 Indian patriarchs had preceded Bodhidharma. The Pali sutras do not connect this Flower Sermon story with one particular flower.

19. The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1991), 156.

20. Samyutta Nikaya (SN) 56.31, V 437–438, in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 360.

21. N. Taylor, ed., Taylor’s Encyclopedia of Gardening, Horticulture and Landscape Design, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), 276. The simsapa tree, Dalbergia sisu, is named after the Swedish botanist Nils Dalberg.

22. Samyutta Nikaya (SN) 56.32, V 442–443, in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 362–363.

23. S. Vogel, The Life of a Leaf (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 163–169. A protective hydrophobic coating is available commercially. It has been given the name Lotusan.

24. Anguttara Nikaya (AN) 3.34, Hatthaka Sutta: To Hatthaka, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

25. Anguttara Nikaya (AN) 7.70, IV 136–139, in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 206.

26. R. Aitken and K. Tanahashi, trans., The Genjo Koan, Buddhadharma 2012 (spring), 31–33. This is the first chapter of Shobogenzo, Zen Master Dogen’s principal work.

27. Anguttara Nikaya (AN) 4.36, Dona Sutta: With Dona, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/ tipitaka/.

28. Majjhima Nikaya (MN) 106, Anenja-sappaya Sutta: Conducive to the Imperturbable, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

29. Red Pine, trans., The Lankavatara Sutra. A Zen Text. Translation and Commentary (Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2012), 21–41. This sutra, rooted in Yogachara Buddhism, is alleged to have been considered so important to Bodhidharma that he gave it to Hui-k’o, the second Ch’an patriarch in China (487–593). Visionary epiphenomena are not emphasized in Zen. [ZB: 374–391].

30. The diamond Sutra (Vajrachchedika Sutra) also teaches that objects appearing real to us are still projections of our own mind. See The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen. (Boston, Shambhala, 1991), 57. A view more comfortable in neuroscience is that our brain usually reconstructs images based on information that its receptor systems are receiving from the world outside, and our imagination takes off from there.

31. Thich Nhat Hanh, Path of Compassion: Stories from the Buddha’s Life (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2012), 223, 227. Kusinara corresponds with modern Kushinagar.

32. Digha Nikaya (DN) 16, ch. 6, Maha-parinibbana Sutta: The Great Discourse on the Total Unbinding, trans. T. Bhikkhu, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

Part II: Epigraph

S. Sahn, The Compass of Zen (Boston: Shambhala, 1997), 349.

Chapter 5 A Glimpse of “Just This” in Tang Dynasty China (618–907)

1. A. Ferguson, Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (Boston: Wisdom, 2000), 183–184. This master is Yunyan Tansheng (780–841). He was a close friend of Daowu Yuanzhi (769–835). [SI: 12] The two brother monks seem likely to have shared in that era’s wordless comprehension of what “just this” really signifies. (See also note 3, below.).

2. T. Cleary, Book of Serenity: 100 Zen Dialogues (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), case 49, 206–209.

3. When Ferguson’s book Zen’s Chinese Heritage discusses another master, Yaoshan Weiyan (751–834), it further clarifies the inexpressible issues condensed into the words “just this” and “thusness” (107–110, 150). For example, on page 150, Master Yaoshan says, “I have a single phrase that I never said to anyone.” At this point Daowu Yuanzhi stands up and says, “I follow you.” Later, another monk asks Master Yaoshan, “How is this single phrase spoken?” Yaoshan replies, “Without words.” (See also chapter 13, note 2.).

Chapter 6 Avian Zen

1. H. Thoreau, Walden, or, Life in the Woods (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973), 233. Originally published in 1854. Thoreau, like Stevenson, suffered from tuberculosis.

2. D. Chadwick, ed., Zen Is Right Here: Teaching Stories and Anecdotes of Shunryu Suzuki, Author of “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind” (Boston: Shambhala, 2007), 107.

3. Source unknown; often attributed to Paul Valéry.

4. J. Covell, Zen’s Core: Ikkyu’s Freedom (Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International, 1980).

5. B. Joeng and H. Gak, trans., The Mirror of Zen: The Classic Guide to Buddhist Practice by Zen Master So Sahn (Boston: Shambhala, 2006), xviii.

6. S. Bodian, The Taboo of Enlightenment, Tricycle 2004; 14: 44–47, 108–111. This article contains Bodian’s interview with Adyashanti, a.k.a. Steve Gray. My interview occurred privately on October 24, 2012, when we both attended a conference.

7. N. Foster and J. Shoemaker, eds., The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1996), 260–266.

8. R. Aitken, Personal verbal communication, 2001.

9. A. Ferguson, Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (Boston: Wisdom, 2000), 88–90.

10. T. Cleary and J. Cleary, trans., The Blue Cliff Record (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 275–278. Here, this same master is referred to as Ching Ch’ing. Jingqing is more familiar for using the patter of falling rain as an auditory test stimulus. Some styles of meditation begin by using single words (uttered silently) to label, and thus to interrupt, the strong impulse to engage in long trains of unfruitful thoughts. [SI: 9] In Zen, the word labeling of in-breaths and out- breaths serves only as a temporary expedient. The impulse to think words drops out by itself when you settle down and allow it to do just this. [ZBR: 33–37].

11. A. Grimstone, ed., K. Sekida, trans., Two Zen Classics: Mumonkan and Hekiganroku (New York: Weatherhill, 1977), 273–277.

12. R. Richardson, ed., The Heart of William James (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 150–151. James was referring to Stevenson’s account of the legend.

13. Stevenson’s account of the legend occurs in “The Lantern-Bearers, ” an essay first published in 1888 in Scribner’s magazine and in Across the Plains in 1892. See R. Stevenson, Across the Plains: With Other Memories and Essays (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1905), 183–205.

14. R. Richardson, ed., The Heart of William James (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 182. James knew that heart disease would shorten his own life.

15. A. Ferguson, Zen’s Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (Boston: Wisdom, 2000), 367–370. Like other early Zen masters, Yongming chose to die sitting cross-legged in an upright position.

16. J. Greene and M. Herter Norton, trans., Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke: 1910–1926 (New York: Norton, 1969), 369–370. This description is a transcript from Rilke’s notebook, written during 1906–07 while he was wintering on the Isle of Capri.

17. C. Beck with S. Smith, Nothing Special: Living Zen (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1995), 227.

18. Both Thanissaro Bhikkhu and John Ireland used “just this” as the pivotal phrase in their separate translations of Udana 1.10. Available at accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/.

19. S. Keen, Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007), 45.

20. The Sound of One Hand: Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin, Kiku-an Collection, 2011. Exhibition at Los Angeles County Art Museum.

21. R. Aitken, The Dragon Who Never Sleeps: Verses for Zen Buddhist Practice (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1992). cf this gatha on page 31.Aitken-Roshi gathas are an excellent way to practice living Zen.

Chapter 7 Homage to William James

1. The Heart of William James, ed. R. Richardson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 140. This quotation is preceded by the kind of practical advice from James that can help us understand some of the as-if mechanisms involved in the Buddhist practices of metta (loving-kindness): “Become the imitable thing, and you may then discharge your minds of all responsibility for the imitation.” Other brief quotations are found on pages 11, 82, 110, 132, 139, 140, 141, 202, 271.

2. R. Wiseman, The As If Principle: The Radically New Approach to Changing Your Life (New York: Free Press, 2012). This principle dates back millennia.

3. W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Longmans, Green, 1902; 1925). “Religion and Neurology” was the title of the first of the 20 earlier lectures that would grow into this book.

4. D. Brooks, The Neural Buddhists, New York Times, May 13, 2008, available at nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html?_r=0. [MS: xv].

5. B. Hölzel, S. Lazar, T. Gard, Z., et al. How Does Mindfulness Meditation Work? Proposing Mechanisms of Action from a Conceptual and Neural Perspective, Perspectives on Psychological Science 2011; 6(6): 537–559; P. Malinowski, Neural Mechanisms of Attentional Control in Mindfulness Meditation, Frontiers in Neuroscience 2013; : 8, doi: 10.3389/fnins.2013.00008.

6. A brochure outlines Professor Harold Roth’s Contemplative Studies Program at Brown University. It begins by citing James’s well-known endorsement of “the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention” (The Principles of Psychology (New York: Holt, 1890), 463). This familiar quotation closes with a sentence by James that is less well known: “An education which should improve this faculty [of attention] would be the education par excellence.” James was critical of the higher education in his era, believing that it had caused much grievous national harm. This can be appreciated from the way he refers to the “Ph.D. octopus” and the “Mandarin disease” (The Heart of William James, ed. R. Richardson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), 238–246.).

7. C.-M. Tan, Search Inside Yourself: The Universal Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) (New York: HarperCollins, 2012). Chade-Meng Tan has been teaching meditation to the staff at Google since 2007.

8. J. Watson, Marines Studying Mindfulness-Based Training, AP--The Big Story, January 19, 2013, available at bigstory.ap.org/article/marines-studying-mindfulness-based-training.

Part III: Epigraph

Hu Shih, Notes on Zen, in Anthology of Zen, ed. W. Briggs (New York: Grove Press, 1961), 31. Master Tao-sheng played a leading role in founding the early Nirvana school of sudden enlightenment that was developing in China before Bodhidharma arrived.

Chapter 8 Recent Clinical Information

1. T. Cleary, Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), 41.

2. N. Kapur, Paradoxical Functional Facilitation in Brain-Behavior Research: A Critical Review, Brain 1996; 119: 1775–1790; N. Kapur, The Paradoxical Brain (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

3. “Whenever a thought comes into your mind, you simply let the thought go and return to that open silent attending upon the depths. Not because thinking is bad, but because it pulls you back to the surface of yourself.” C. Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening (Lanham, MD: Cowley, 2004), 6.

4. N. Etcoff, P. Ekman, J. Magee, and M. Frank, Lie Detection and Language Comprehension, Nature 2000 (May 11); 405: 139, doi: 10.1038/35012129.

5. J. Taylor, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey (New York: Viking, 2008). It would be of interest to have a more precise neuroanatomical description of the nature and extent of this complex underlying, anomalous vascular lesion. This could help clarify more than the primary basis for the acute symptoms. It could also help explain what could have been the much earlier dual developmental consequences of such a vascular anomaly. For example, how had this lesion reshaped the functions of the adjacent regions on that left side? And, had any potential compensatory functions developed in the right hemisphere?

6. The neurology group at Johns Hopkins University has studied the results of the ordinary kinds of left hemispheric stroke damage that do not cause Nirvana-like symptoms. Their data raise the possibility that some left sided functions might normally have a more subtle general role in local, other-relational forms of spatial attention processing. See J. Kleinman, M. Newhart, C. Davis, et al. Right Hemispatial Neglect: Frequency and Characterization following Acute Left Hemisphere Stroke, Brain and Cognition 2007: 64: 50–59. Perhaps some regions exist in the intermediate zone between the “northern” and “southern” pathways (e.g., functions within the inferior parietal lobule). If so, these might normally be more involved in Self-referential processing, leaving the still more ventral temporo-occipital regions to be normally involved as discussed earlier, in the usual forms of allocentric processing. See also chapter 2, note 6.

7. Why could it take a very large and deep lesion to completely disable all the normal components of a patient’s ventral attention system? See the fMRI study by M. Lee, C. Hacker, A. Snyder et al., Clustering of Resting State Networks, PLoS One 2012; 7(7): e40370, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0040370. Many subcortical nuclei of the basal ganglia and thalamus are included in the cluster of sites that comprise our normal ventral attention system. These other constituents of this ventral attention system now appear to include more than the temporoparietal junction and the inferior frontal gyrus (as before) but also the cingulo-opercular network and the anterior insula. These two regions are part of the Salience II network (see chapter 9). (See also the Kubit and Jack reference in chapter 2, note 6.).

This important study by Lee and colleagues has three major implications. Its text and figures 4 and 8 illustrate the following: (1) Our dorsal attention network serves as the vanguard of cortical attention processing; these highest-level focusing functions can plausibly unfold at more nearly conscious levels when we engage in top-down concentrative forms of meditation; (2) Our ventral attention network, given such extensive thalamic and basal ganglia components, is poised not only to help awareness instantly detect subliminal events (including internal signals and information received during introspection) but also to react to them quickly. This can occur during those deep, reflexive shifts that are consistent with mini-insights. These deep pivotal subconscious insightful functions can arise within reach of both the reticular nucleus of the thalamus and the habitual, experience-based operations of the basal ganglia. [MS: 135–139] The intuitive results could enter into the kinds of implicit learning, remindfulness, and other adaptive behaviors that emerge spontaneously during a long-term program of training that emphasizes receptive forms of meditation; (3) One large, complex macrosystem now includes the following three components: (a) the so-called default mode network; (b) the frontoparietal control network, including the caudate nucleus; and (c) the language network. Consider the consequences of having these particular three parts linked into one large constellation. Cross-talk among these three components could help explain why it is normally so characteristic of our psychic Self to manifest these three strong tendencies: (a) to engage in monkey-mind wandering; (b) to be preoccupied with its top-down compulsive plans to control future events; and (c) to engage in social chatter. Notably, the triad of components included in this meganetwork can also deactivate to different degrees when triggering stimuli activate the dorsal and/or ventral attention systems. Triggering stimuli usually deactive the default and dorsal attention networks the most, whereas the language and ventral attention networks normally deactivate the least.

8. The Lankavatara Sutra (cited in chapter 4) provides two important messages: (1) our normal imaginative capacities are substantial; (2) they can be driven in artificial ways. Why do both messages serve as an important preamble for discussing the next case report? Because a disorganized brain can further stimulate one’s imagination, prompting one’s perceptions to yield false impressions of “reality.” [SI: 145–146] The resulting vivid dream-like productions then become so convincing that anyone can be misled into highly-rationalized metaphysical, occult interpretations. [ZB: 164–169, 443–452; ZBR: 184, 279–286; MS: 36–37, 193–195] A recent clinical example is the engaging story of a “special kind of Near- Death Experience” (NDE). It is narrated by a gifted academic neurosurgeon, Eben Alexander, who fortunately survived a rare, near-fatal E. Coli meningitis. See Proof of Heaven. A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife. (New York, Simon and Schuster, 2012).

My sympathies extend to other authors who encounter major resistance in trying communicate unusual, ineffable experiences to their colleagues in neuroscience or to those on a spiritual path. [ZBR: 450–452] That said, one may hope that, over time, this meningitis patient will remain open to consider other patho-physiological explanations for his NDE story, beyond the short list begun in his appendix B. If so, then several alternatives might ultimately coalesce near his existing hypotheses. For example, contributions from the limbic nuclei of the thalamus could be extended beyond his hypothesis 2. The existing hypothesis 7 would first assume that all of the patient’s neo-cortical regions were rendered equally and totally dysfunctional. Second, it would exclude important subcortical regions from possibly becoming so disinhibited secondary to this cortical damage that they could be the source for unleashing impressions of “ultra-real” mental processing. In this regard, the appendix (A) contains no relevant neuroimaging evidence that documents the actual locations, degrees, and sequences of brain damage. Lacking this important cortical and subcortical information, the possibility remains that the damage initiated by the meningitis was not uniform.

Questions arise. Could somatic processing functions have been more damaged over the dorsal, fronto-parietal, cortical surface? Such a disproportionate dorsolateral involvement might contribute to the reasons why this witness described becoming “completely free of my bodily identity” during all of his near-death experience (page 77). If lesser degrees of damage had occurred to the lower cortical processing streams then some of their less-damaged, ventral allo-centric functions might have been relatively spared. These lower pathways could contribute some temporal lobe pattern- recognition psychic functions and covert assessments of meaning toward what a desperately-ill patient could misinterpret as emergent “trans-earthly knowledge” (page 82).

With respect to the existing hypothesis 9, normal subcortical pathways lead into the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus from the superior and inferior colliculi. [ZB: 240–247] These deep sensory resources provide covert avenues for infusing the gist of salience into auditory-visual processing. This blend could then be relayed up through the thalamus and further processed in some of the relatively-spared portions of fronto-temporal-parietal cortex. [SI: 27–29]

Could less obvious factors have stimulated dynamic, overactive neuromessenger receptor responses from the malfunctioning brain of this particular patient? Readers are informed that: he recently underwent a rigorous training program in order to achieve peak physical conditioning; there was a ‘teen-age use of LSD and mescaline; potentially indelible memory traces could have been laid down during his unique exposure to 365 free-fall skydiving jumps in college. What is one to conclude about the inference that the image of an angelic blue-eyed girl during this “special NDE” (page 185) is reliable evidence of an occult glimpse into “another world”? Such a proposal might have been more intriguing had the patient recreated a painting of her actual features during the first months of his recovery. He would then have been able to compare such an image (recreated from the time of his illness) with that color photograph of his long-deceased, actual birth-sister. He did not see this picture until months later.

A near-death experience of “heaven” can be beautifully described, touch one’s sentiments, and sponsor altruistic works. Does such an informal narrative suffice? Is it adequate scientific “proof” that “heaven” really exists? Or, does it reinforce age-old teachings about the vast imaginative capacities of the human brain that are applicable to a patient’s over-stressed, dysfunctional brain? When the academic neurologist, Ernest Rodin, underwent his near-death experience during anesthesia, he experienced not “heaven” but the absolute certainty that he had died. Only in retrospect could he convince himself that these deathly certainties had all been a delusion. [ZB: 448; MS: 36–37] For a readable approach to terminal issues, written by a Zen teacher who has had decades of bedside experience, see: J. Halifax. Being With Dying. Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death (Boston, Shambhala, 2008). For an evaluation of near-death experiences co-authored by a seasoned psychiatrist, see: P. Fenwick and E. Fenwick. The Art of Dying. A Journey to Elsewhere (London, England. Continuum 2008).

9. A. Rapp, D. Mutschler, and M. Erb, Where in the Brain Is Nonliteral Language? A Coordinate-Based Meta-analysis of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Studies, Neuroimage 2012; 63(1): 600–610. This meta-analysis suggests that our normal nonliteral forms of language (metaphors, idioms, irony) are also mostly (68%) lateralized to the left side of the brain. The ways these nonliteral forms of language involve the resources of our inferior frontal and superior temporal gyri on either side could further interfere with the adjacent networks that allow clarity to emerge from our allocentric attentive processing pathways.

Chapter 9 Mindfulness Starts as Present-Moment Awareness

1. Dalai Lama, Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 170. With regard to the several meanings of mindfulness, the Dalai Lama states, “The most important meaning of mindfulness is recollection” (109).

2. J. Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for Beginners (Louisville, CO: Sounds True, 2012), 152.

3. Ideally, only wholesome withdrawals would be made, in our best interests. And, by the way, it could help to be able to erase the disturbing emotions linked to some memory deposits (see chapter 11).

4. B. Shannon, R. Dosenbach, Y. Su et al., Morning-Evening Variation in Human Brain Metabolism and Memory Circuits, Journal of Neurophysiology 2013; 109(5): 1444–1456. The periaqueductal gray (PAG) in the pons must be distinguished from the locus coeruleus in all future studies. See J. Buhle, H. Kober, K. Oschsner et al., Common Representation of Pain and Negative Emotion in the Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2013; 8(6): 609–616.

5. W. Hasenkamp, C. Wilson-Mendenhall, E. Duncan, and L. Barsalou. Mind Wandering and Attention during Focused Meditation: A Fine-Grained Temporal Analysis of Fluctuating Cognitive States, Neuroimage 2012; 59(1): 750–760. Other associated regions were activated during disengagement. They included the lateral inferior parietal region and a small cluster involving the left inferior parietal lobe, the thalamus, and the body of the caudate nucleus. The 1.5+ second resolution of fMRI does not permit each of the four intervals to be measured in milliseconds. A noteworthy finding occurred among meditators who had more hours of meditation experience: their right ventromedial prefrontal cortex became less active and its reactivity was also less sustained. Why did this entire experiment show relatively less evidence of lower pathway activity and of bottom-up attentiveness? One explanation might be that tasks designed to continually require button pressing in the scanner are already very top-down and task-heavy. (See also note 16, below.).

6. A. Lutz, D. McFarlin, D. Perlman, and R. Davidson, Altered Anterior Insula Activation during Anticipation and Experience of Painful Stimuli in Expert Meditators, Neuroimage 2013; 64(1): 538–546. Eleven of the experts and 13 of the 14 controls were Caucasian. Long hours of sitting meditation offer many opportunities to learn how to adapt to pain of deep origins. The usual cingulo-opercular dimensions of the so-called salience network may differ in reports from different laboratories.

7. M. Erb and R. Sitaram, Neuroimaging Experiments on Meditation, in Zen in the Light of Science (Perris, CA: Sunyata Meditation Association, 2010), 1–26, describes the calm, open-eyed, alert, and silently aware interval when all word-thoughts drop out. [SI: 103] This quiet interval has not been singled out for explicit study in the following reports:.

(1) M. Allen, M. Dietz, K. Blair et al., Cognitive-Affective Neural Plasticity following Active-Controlled Mindfulness Intervention, Journal of Neuroscience 2012; 32(44): 15601–15610. An active control group was an important addition to the experimental design of this six-week study of mindfulness training.

(2) J. Brewer, P. Worhunsky, J. Gray, Y. Tang, J. Weber, and H. Kober, Meditation Experience Is Associated with Differences in Default Mode Network Activity and Connectivity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2011; 108(50): 20254–20259. The 12 experienced meditators in the mindfulness/insight tradition who averaged some 10,000 hours and >10 years of meditation experience showed less medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate activity than did the 12 naive controls. They also reported significantly less mind wandering during meditation. This study supports the medial prefrontal evidence of reduced activity in the present author’s PET scan, obtained during receptive meditation in 1988 [ZBR: 203, SI: 243–244].

(3) J. Grant, J. Courtemanche, and P. Rainville, A Non-elaborative Mental Stance of Decoupling of Executive and Pain-Related Cortices Predicts Low Pain Sensitivity in Zen Meditators, Pain 2011; 152(1): 150–156.

(4) V. Taylor, V. Daneault, J. Grant et al., Impact of Meditation Training on the Default Mode Network during a Restful State, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2013; 8(1): 4–14.

(5) N. Farb, Z. Segal, and A. Anderson, Mindfulness Meditation Training Alters Cortical Representations of Interoceptive Attention, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2013; 8(1): 15–26.

(6) D. Lehmann, P. Faber, S. Tei, et al. Reduced Functional Connectivity between Cortical Sources in Five Meditation Traditions Detected with Lagged Coherence Using EEG Tomography, Neuroimage 2012; 60(2): 1574–1586. The word connectivity is currently used in different ways to summarize findings obtained using very different techniques. The increased or decreased connectivity reported in many of the fMRI studies in this sample needs to be reconciled with the uniformly reduced connectivity in the delta and beta activity described in this important sLORETA study. [ZBR: 190] The current literature tends to leave unexamined the inference that because their activities coincide in time, separate cortical regions must be linked by a functional transcortical connection. In decades past, it was customary to refer to the “pacemaker” attributes of the thalamus. These clearly were the source that took the lead in co-activating separate regions of the cortex. [ZB: 402–404; ZBR: 167–175]

(7) E. Luders, P. Thompson, F. Kurth et al., Global and Regional Alterations of Hippocampal Anatomy in Long-Term Meditation Practitioners, Human Brain Mapping 2012 (Jul 19), doi: 10.1002/hbm.22153 [Epub ahead of print].

(8) G. Pagnoni, Dynamical Properties of BOLD Activity from the Ventral Posteromedial Cortex Associated with Meditation and Attentional Skills, Neuroscience 2012; 32(15): 5242–5249.

(9) Y. Tang, M. Rothbart, and M. Posner, Neural Correlates of Establishing, Maintaining, and Switching Brain States, Trends in Cognitive Science 2012; 16(6): 330–337. [SI: 42–43]

(10) G. Desbordes, L. Negi, T. Pace et al., Effects of Mindful-Attention and Compassion Meditation Training on Amygdala Response to Emotional Stimuli in an Ordinary, Non-meditative State, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012 (Nov 1); 6: 292, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00292.

(11) B. Hölzel, E. Hoge, D. Greve et al., Neural Mechanisms of Symptom Improvements in Generalized Anxiety Disorder Following Mindfulness Training, Neuroimage: Clinical 2013; 2:448–458.

(12) Y. Dor-Ziderman, A. Berkovich-Ohana, J. Glicksohn et al., Mindfulness-Induced Selflessness: A MEG Neurophenomenological Study. Frontiers of Human Neuroscience 2013; Sept. 24; 7:582. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00582.

8. Research protocols followed during experimental tests of ordinary intuition/insight do not yet address the deep experiential issues presented by actual states of kensho-satori. [ZBR: 271–275; SI: 172–173] (See also appendix D in this book.).

9. M. Erb and R. Sitaram, Neuroimaging Experiments on Meditation, in Zen in the Light of Science (Perris, CA: Sunyata Meditation Association, 2010), 1–26.

10. R. Forman, Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be, Network Review 2012 (summer), 12–14+. (scimednet.org.)

11. Jeffery A. Martin has conducted interviews and psychological testing on more than 1,000 subjects who have undergone awakenings of various kinds, often without prior formal meditative training. They range in age from 18 to the 90s. Their two predominant characteristics are a substantial sense of well-being and an increasingly less intrusive sense of Self. Almost all subjects were considered normal except for some evidence of depression or anxiety. We await further psychophysiological, neuroimaging, and postmortem studies on this population of mostly Caucasian, educated subjects in hopes of defining their neural correlates. See nonsymbolic.org/sing1.zip.

12. R. Forman, Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up to Be, Network Review 2012 (summer), 33. This form of therapy has plausibly contributed to his introspective acumen.

13. Consider the math. If you are only meditating for, say, 24 minutes a day, that’s a mere one-sixtieth of the 24 hours in a day. To develop enduring neuroplastic transformations in behavior, you will need to engage in daily life practice [MS: 125–145] and endure meditative retreats [MS: 113–124].

14. D. Brown and J. Engler, A Rorschach Study of the States in Mindfulness Meditation, in Meditation: Classic and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. D. Shapiro and R. Walsh (New York: Aldine, 1984), 232–262.

15. C. Limb and A. Braun, Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation, PLoS One 2008; 3(2): e1679, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001679.

16. A. Engle and P. Keller, The Perception of Musical Spontaneity in Improvised and Imitated Jazz Performances, Frontiers in Psychology 2011; 2: 83, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00083. It is difficult to interpret which cognitive and emotional qualities are entering into such decisions. The frontal regions are also involved in general problem-solving tasks. [SI: 238].

17. A very different study monitored 13 undergraduate classically trained pianists. Their task was to improvise melodies using the five keys on a fMRI-compatible keyboard. During these artificial conditions, the authors suggest that the pianists had been using a top-down processing strategy. Would this alone explain why the pianists also showed deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction and the anterior cingulate gyrus? See A. Berkowitz and D. Ansari, Expertise-Related Deactivation of the Right Temporoparietal Junction during Musical Improvisation, Neuroimage 2010; 49(1): 712–719. [MS: 162].

18. D. Vago, Mapping Modalities of Self-Awareness in Mindfulness Practice: A Potential Mechanism for Clarifying Habits of Mind, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2013; Oct 1. doi:10.1111/nyas.12270.

Chapter 10 Subconscious Background Qualities That Can Infuse Awareness

1. T. Cleary, Zen Essence: The Science of Freedom (Boston: Shambhala, 1989), 51.

2. S. Suzuki, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, ed. E. Brown (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 153.

3. M. Strick, T. van Noorden, R. Ritskes, et al. Zen Meditation and Access to Information in the Unconscious, Consciousness and Cognition 2012; 21: 1476–1481. Twenty minutes is a short time to meditate. Some aspects of working conscious performance may not reach their maximum until the hours between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. [ZB: 338–347] These behavioral experiments do not distinguish between the effects that meditation might have on the subjects’ sharp point of attention mechanisms per se versus the effects it might have on their next longer intervals of attentive processing.

4. D. Fair, N. Dosenbach, J. Church et al., Development of Distinct Control Networks through Segregation and Integration, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2007; 104: 13507–13512. The children were studied when they were ages 7–9 years.

5. A. Keil and A. Freund, Changes in the Sensitivity to Appetitive and Aversive Arousal across Adulthood, Psychology and Aging 2009; 24: 668–680.

6. G. Vaillant. Triumphs of Experience. The Men of The Harvard Grant Study. (Cambridge, MA Belnap/Harvard University Press, 2012). The pages from 51 to 53 condense the 7 major lessons of this prospective study. One key lesson is that development is a lifelong neuroplastic process. It continues into the later decades. This conclusion is relevant to the late onset of the shift of colors into the present author’s left visual field: development is a lifelong neuroplastic process, continuing into the later decades. Vaillant’s chapter 5 reviews aspects of this maturation (pages 144–189). His chapter 8 reviews the subconscious mechanisms used for adaptive coping, (261–291). Certain involuntary behavior traits are associated with becoming more mature. These later developments include altruism, foresight, humor, the sublimation of inappropriate desires, and degrees of stoicism that enable one to endure uncomfortable situations. Rigorous Zen meditative retreats will test one’s capacity for most of these attributes.

7. A. Manelis, L. Reder, and S. Hanson, Dynamic Changes in the Medial Temporal Lobe during Incidental Learning of Object-Location Associations, Cerebral Cortex 2012; 22(4): 828–837.

8. J. Blackstone, The Empathic Ground: Intersubjectivity and Nonduality in the Psychotherapeutic Process (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007); Z. Josipovic, I. Dinstein, J. Weber, and D. Heeger, Influence of Meditation on Anti-correlated Networks in the Brain, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2011; 5: 183, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00183.

9. R. Boyle, What Is Awakening? (New York, Columbia University Press, 2014, in press). Appendix 2 is a personal summary.

10. E. Gilbert, Conversations on Non-Duality: Twenty-Six Awakenings (London: Cherry Red Books, 2011). The narrative reported by Suzanne Foxton (see chapter 11) is based in part on this book. Non-duality is a term that is associated more with Advita Vedanta than with Zen Buddhism. (See also chapter 9, note 11.).

11. J. Summerfield, D. Hassabis, and E. Maguire, Cortical Midline Involvement in Autobiographical Memory, Neuroimage 2009; 44(3): 1188–1200.

12. Suppose you were a subject who was being tested during such a moment of recollection. Would you be 100 percent certain that you had really seen some movie or news clip? Or, was that event just something you imagined? When checking your memory, why might your search reach back into the posterior cingulate and precuneus regions? Because these medial posterior regions (and the adjacent retrosplenial cortex) contribute as co-active partners in a kind of personal Self-othering memory bank (see figure 3.1). How can this large interactive system link the time-place-person of an event into one discrete chunk of memory associations? Not without first combining relevant aspects of our psychic and somatic Self, then attaching these personal links to the array of incidental environmental details, and finally anchoring them with precision into each corresponding compartment of personalized time. Only this kind of intimate historical chronicle of adverbial/topographical details can firmly establish that each particular (now) event makes coherent meaning in terms of our own personal time clock and our own place in space. See J. Austin, The Thalamic Gateway: How the Meditative Training of Attention Evolves toward Selfless Transformations of Consciousness, in Effortless Attention. A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action, ed. B. Bruya (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 373–407. A pertinent episode of tachistoscopic quickening is described elsewhere. [ZB: 390–391] Each private slice of time includes some Self-othering sense of place.

13. F. Picard, State of Belief, Subjective Certainty and Bliss as a Product of Cortical Dysfunction, Cortex 2013; 49(9): 2494–2500. Detailed EEG and neuroimaging data would be useful to supplement the symptoms of the former state, beautifully described by the second patient in this article.

14. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 108, 135.

15. W. Gallagher, NEW: Understanding Our Need for Novelty and Change (New York: Penguin, 2012).

Part IV: Epigraph

Wynton Marsalis told this story about the legendary jazz musician Louis Armstrong (1901–1971) on the Public Broadcasting System NewsHour television program on June 1, 2011. Video available at pbs .org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june11/marsalisjazz_06–01.html.

Chapter 11 Reprocessing Emotionally Traumatic Imagery While Elevating the Gaze

1. M. Corbetta, Spatial Neglect and Attention Networks, Annual Review of Neuroscience 2011; 34: 569–599. Patients who suffer brain damage to their right ventral system pathways have several global problems. These include defects in becoming aroused, staying vigilant, detecting relevant targets, reorienting and disengaging their attention. Some of the positive symptoms that I experienced during internal absorption seem to be the physiological opposite of such negative symptoms. [ZB: 467–506] These contrasts suggest the hypothesis that the intensity of such positive phenomena during internal absorption could have been asymmetrical in origin. Thus, they could have arisen chiefly among the normal right-sided networks that have links with the right ventral attention system. This would not exclude other contributions from functions attributable to the dorsal attention system. Corbetta’s authoritative review expands the boundaries of this ventral system. Its components now include modules on both the dorsal and ventral sides of the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), e.g., the supramarginal gyrus (SMG) and the superior temporal gyrus (sTG), and the ventral frontal cortex (VFC). This ventral region can now include the insula, inferior frontal gyrus (iFG), and middle frontal gyrus (mFG) (see figure 2.1).

2. M. Arcaro, S. McMains, B. Singer, and S. Kastner, Retinotopic Organization of Human Ventral Visual Cortex, Journal of Neuroscience 2009; 29: 10638–10652. In their 2011 review, Kravitz and colleagues explain how the "where/what" distinction expanded in recent decades. See D. Kravitz, K. Saleem, C. Baker, and M. Mishkin, A New Neural Framework for Visuospatial Processing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2011; 12 (4): 217-230.

3. W. James, Principles of Psychology (New York: Holt, 1918), vol. 2, ch. 22.

4. J. Austin, How Does Meditation Train Attention? Insight Journal 2009 (summer); 23: 16–22, available at bcbsdharma.org/wp -content/uploads/2013/09/09SummerFullIssue.pdf.

5. J. Myers-Levy and R. Zhu, The Influence of Ceiling Height: The Effect of Priming on the Type of Processing That People Use, Journal of Consumer Research 2009; 34: 1–13.

6. L. Barsalou, Grounded Cognition, Annual Review of Psychology 2008; 59: 617–645.

7. L. Jia, E. Hirt, and S. Karpen, Lessons from a Faraway Land: The Effect of Spatial Distance on Creative Cognition, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 2009; 45: 1127–1131. The conclusions were based on 197 students in an Indiana University introductory psychology class. Creative performance improved when their tasks involved associating to very distant locations. As the title indicates, these sites were imagined to be faraway over the global horizon, e.g., as far away as Greece or California. The three tests for creativity included one logical task and two tasks requiring visuospatial imagination.

8. N. Liberman, O. Polack, B. Hameiri, and M. Blumenfeld, Priming of Spatial Distance Enhances Children’s Creative Performance, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 2011; 111(4): 663–670. Fifty-five children were studied.

9. S. Fuller, R. Rodriguez, and M. Carrasco, Apparent Contrast Differs across the Vertical Meridian: Visual and Attentional Factors, Journal of Vision 2008; 8: 1–16.

10. D. Bayle, B. Schoendorff, M. Hénaff, and P. Krolak-Salmon, Emotional Facial Expression Detection in the Peripheral Visual Field, PLoS One 2011; 6(6): 1, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0021584. These larger cells are part of the magnocellular system.

11. G. Borst and S. Kosslyn, Fear Selectively Modulates Visual Mental Imagery and Visual Perception, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (Colchester) 2010; 63: 833–839.

12. B. Strange, M. Kroes, J. Fan, and R. Dolan, Emotion Causes Targeted Forgetting of Established Memories, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2010; 4: 175, doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2010.00175.

13. C. Wu, M. Libertus, K. Meyerhoff, and M. Woldorff, The Temporal Dynamics of Object Processing in Visual Cortex during the Transition from Distributed to Focused Spatial Attention, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2011 (Dec); 23(12): 4094–4105.

14. P. Kanske and S. Kotz, Positive Emotion Speeds Up Conflict Processing: ERP Responses in an Auditory Simon Task, Biological Psychology 2011; 87: 122–127.

15. M. Arcaro, S. McMains, B. Singer, and S. Kastner, Retinotopic Organization of Human Ventral Visual Cortex, Journal of Neuroscience 2009; 29: 10638–10652. These visual response fields overlap heavily with the parahippocampal place area (PPA). [ZBR: 74; SI: 72–73].

16. A. Lane, K. Ball, D. Smith, et al. Near and Far Space: Understanding the Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Attention, Human Brain Mapping 2013; 34(2): 356–366. During tests for far space, the target was 56 feet away. During tests for near space, the target was thirty times closer, only 22 inches from the subject.

17. W. Huijbers, C. Pennartz, D. Rubin, and S. Daselaar, Imagery and Retrieval of Auditory and Visual Information: Neural Correlates of Successful and Unsuccessful Performance, Neuropsychologia 2011; 49(7): 1730–1740.

18. This large network is often called the default network. [SI: 226] To meditators, its significance lies less in its name than in the crucial empirical fact: regions involved in our autobiographical functions tilt in the opposite direction from those regions involved in our attentiveness. [ZB: 201–203; SI: 103–121].

19. W. Huijbers, C. Pennartz, R. Cabeza, and S. Daselaar, The Hippocampus Is Coupled with Default Network during Memory Retrieval But Not during Memory Encoding, PLoS One 2011; 6(4): e17463, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017463. Would similar evidence be found using intracerebral recordings or sLORETA techniques?

20. Z. Saygin, D. Osher, J. Augustinack, et al. Connectivity-Based Segmentation of Human Amygdala Nuclei Using Probabilistic (MRI) Tractography, Neuroimage 2011; 56(3): 1353–1361.

21. N. Axmacher, A. Do Lam, H. Kessler, and J. Fell, Natural Memory beyond the Storage Model: Repression, Trauma, and the Construction of a Personal Past, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2010; 4: 211, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2010.00211.

22. C. Waugh, B. Frederickson, and S. Taylor, Adapting to Life’s Slings and Arrows: Individual Differences in Resilience When Recovering from an Anticipated Threat, Journal of Research in Personality 2008; 42: 1031–1046. Resilience restores the tipped Bodhidharma doll to its original erect position. [MS: 103, 111] In contrast, the processes of post-traumatic growth enable one to grow beyond one’s prior limits. See M. Plews-Ogan, J. Owens, and N. May, Choosing Wisdom: Strategies and Inspiration for Growing Through Life-Changing Difficulties (West Conshohoken, PA: Templeton Press, 2012), 27–39.

23. E. Diekhof, K. Geier, P. Falkai, and O. Gruber, Fear Is Only as Deep as the Mind Allows: A Coordinate-Based Meta-analysis of Neuroimaging Studies on the Regulation of Negative Affect, Neuroimage 2011; 58(1): 275–285.

24. T. Schmitz, E. De Rosa, and A. Anderson, Opposing Influences of Affective State Valence on Visual Cortical Encoding, Journal of Neuroscience 2009; 29: 7199–7207. “Broadening” needs to be defined in terms of the networks serving its separate visual field quadrants (see figure 11.1 and color plate 1).

25. B. Min, A Thalamic Reticular Networking Model of Consciousness, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling 2010; 7: 10, doi: 10.1186/1742-4682-7-10.

26. E. Carvalho-Netto, R. Martinez, M. Baldo, and N. Canteras, Evidence for the Thalamic Targets of the Medial Hypothalamic Defensive System Mediating Emotional Memory to Predatory Threats, Neurobiology, Learning and Memory 2010; 93: 479–486.

27. T. Fitzgibbon, B. Szmajda, and P. Martin, First-Order Connections of the Visual Sector of the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus in Marmoset Monkeys (Callithrix jacchus), Visual Neuroscience 2007; 24: 857–874.

28. B. Zikopoulos and H. Barbas, Pathways for Emotions and Attention Converge on the Thalamic Reticular Nucleus in Primates, Journal of Neuroscience 2012; 32(15): 5338–5350. Three subsections in this article discuss a variety of relevant brain mechanisms involved in emotion and attention.

29. S. Christman, K. Garvey, R. Propper, and K. Phaneuf, Bilateral Eye Movements Enhance the Retrieval of Episodic Memories, Neuropsychology 2003; 17: 221–229; F. Shapiro, F. Kaslow, and L. Maxfield, Handbook of EMDR and Family Therapy Processes (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007); G. Hogberg, M. Pagani, O. Sundin et al., Treatment of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Psychiatry Research 2008; 159: 101–108; I. Engelhard, M. van den Hout, W. Janssen, and J. van der Beek, Eye Movements Reduce Vividness and Emotionality of “Flashforwards,” Behavioral Research Therapy 2010; 48: 442–447.

30. S. Lilley, J. Andrade, G. Turpin, et al., Visuospatial Working Memory Interference with Recollections of Trauma, British Journal of Clinical Psychology 2009; 48: 309–321.

31. F. Shapiro, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures, 2d ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2001), 66–67, 246.

32. D. Rubin and D. Berntsen, The Frequency of Voluntary and Involuntary Autobiographical Memories across a Life Span, Memory and Cognition 2009; 37: 679–688.

33. M. Leitch, J. Vanslyke, and M. Allen, Somatic Experiencing Treatment with Social Service Workers following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Social Work 2009; 54: 9–18.

34. W. Huijbers, C. Pennartz, D. Rubin, and S. Daselaar, Imagery and Retrieval of Auditory and Visual Information: Neural Correlates of Successful and Unsuccessful Performance, Neuropsychologia 2011; 49(7): 1730–1740.

35. E. Gilbert, Conversations on Non-Duality: Twenty-Six Awakenings (London: Cherry Red Books, 2011), 370–384. Renate McNay conducted this interview with Suzanne Foxton. Other audiovisual interviews of Foxton are available at nothingexistsdespiteappearances.blogspot.com. See also S. Foxton, The Ultimate Twist (Salisbury, UK: Non-Duality Press, 2011), 3.

36. In the fifteenth century, after the Zen monk Yoso Soi experienced kensho-satori, his later calligraphy indicates that he brushed in the Japanese term twice (“obvious obvious”) next to his enso (moon-circle). This was to suggest how deeply the penetrating clarity of its insight-wisdom had transformed his consciousness of the way things really are. [ZBR: 443].

37. This upgaze is reminiscent of that witnessed in the interview described in chapter 6.

38. H. Thoreau, Walden, or, Life in the Woods (Garden City, NY: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973), 113. Originally published in 1854.

39. L. Colzato, B. Hommel, W. van den Wildenberg, and S. Hsieh, Buddha as an Eye Opener: A Link between Prosocial Attitude and Attentional Control, Frontiers in Psychology 2010; 1: 156. Simple visual stimuli are being used as tests to measure the local versus global responses of the subjects in this study. The stimuli are squares and rectangles in different patterns. These behavioral tests were performed on two groups of matched Taiwanese subjects. One group was Buddhist, the control group was atheist. Neither group were meditators. Even so, the Buddhist group showed the more global visual attentional bias than did their matched atheist controls. An incidental finding is of potential research interest. In general, the residents of Taiwan rank relatively low (only #17) on the Hofstede Scale of International Individualism. This ego/allo ranking means that the subjects tend to regard themselves as sharing in more of a larger group identity instead of existing as separate (egocentric) individuals. In contrast, a much higher sense of Self-identity is shown on this scale by residents who live in the Netherlands (#80) > Italy (#76) > Israel (#54) > and Japan (#46).

40. The author welcomes hearing from researchers who are prepared to give these issues further careful attention [facebook.com/james.haustin.1]. Readers inclined to dismiss all evidence in this chapter are invited to revisit earlier evidence: a casual glance upward toward a lightbulb occurred just before the plunge into internal absorption [ZB: 470]; a casual gaze up into the sky occurred immediately before kensho [ZB: 537]. Incidentally, it was by looking up, not down, that a nine-year old child first discovered mankind’s ancient cave paintings at a Spanish cave called Altamira. See J. Austin, Chase, Chance and Creativity. The Lucky Art of Novelty, (Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, 2003), 80–86.

41. J. Austin, The Thalamic Gateway: How the Meditative Training of Attention Evolves toward Selfless Transformations of Consciousness, in Effortless Attention. A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action, ed. B. Bruya (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 373–407.

42. J. Bays, How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness (Boston: Shambahala, 2011), 122–124. Moreover, she emphasizes “becoming aware of the color blue,” a practice that “opens up a new appreciation of the sky” (95–98). For further empirical evidence that the human visual cortex is especially responsive to colors at the blue end of the spectrum, see chapter 12, including its note 24.

Chapter 12 Spontaneous Color Imagery during Meditation

1. J. von Goethe, quoted in The New International Illustrated Encyclopedia of Art, ed. J. Rothenstein (New York: Greystone, 1968), vol. 6, 1121.

2. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 78, 119.

3. Webster’s Third International Dictionary, Unabridged, ed. P. Gove (Springfield, MA: Merriam, 1965), 447–449. A color plate appears in this dictionary between pages 448 and 449. It illustrates the normal solar spectrum of daylight and identifies its major bands of color in nanometers. The color wheel on this same plate also reminds meditators that purple is the complementary color of yellow-green. The actual names given to colors include “reddish purple” and eight shades of pink.

4. R. Walsh, Can Synaesthesia Be Cultivated? Indications from Surveys of Meditators, Journal of Consciousness Studies 2005; 12: 5–17.

5. J. Hegarty, J. Austin, T. Trull et al., approval 96108, Independent Review Board, University of Missouri, Columbia.

6. M. Beauchamp, J. Haxby, J. Jennings, and E. DeYoe, An fMRI Version of the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-Hue Test Reveals Multiple Color-Selective Areas in Human Ventral Occipitotemporal Cortex, Cerebral Cortex 1999; 9: 257–263. Nine of the 12 normal subjects in this study showed stronger color selectivity on the left side of their brains. For a distinction made between area 4 in the lingual gyrus and 4 alpha in the mid-fusiform gyrus, see D. Murphey, D. Yoshor, and M. Beauchamp, Perception Matches Selectivity in the Human Color Center, Current Biology 2008; 18: R250–251.

7. J. Wackermann, P. Putz, and C. Allefeld, Ganzfeld-Induced Hallucinatory Experience, Its Phenomenology and Cerebral Electrophysiology, Cortex 2008; 44: 1364–1378. EEG frequencies below 7 cycles per second are reduced, whereas alpha frequencies between 12 and 14 cycles per second are increased.

8. The research focus during the PET scan in 1988 was not on the first-person visual phenomena that arise during meditation; no serial visual observations were made at that time. With regard to this chapter’s empirical observations, they appear scientifically justifiable at least to the degree that they could stimulate further rigorous multidisciplinary investigations. However, the model epiphenomena described are in no sense intended to represent a substitute variety of imagery, one that might distract other Zen meditators from cultivating more traditional forms of practice. Zazen is not about seeing colors. It is remaining aware that they come and go, like everything else in life.

9. Subsequent fMRI reports from many laboratories have established that the acute deactivation of (heterogeneous) regions involved in Self-referential functions tends to coincide with the acute activation of attentive functions, and vice versa. See J. Austin, The Thalamic Gateway: How the Meditative Training of Attention Evolves toward Selfless Transformations of Consciousness, in Effortless Attention. A New Perspective in the Cognitive Science of Attention and Action, ed. B. Bruya (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), 373–407.

10. M. Raichle, Two Views of Brain Function, Trends in Cognitive Science 2010; 14: 180–190.

11. J. Austin, The Thalamic Gateway: How the Meditative Training of Attention Evolves toward Selfless Transformations of Consciousness.

12. R. Sireteanu, V. Oertel, H. Mohr, et al., Graphical Illustration and Functional Neuroimaging of Visual Hallucinations during Prolonged Blindfolding: A Comparison to Visual Imagery, Perception 2008; 37(12): 1805–1821.

13. B. Boroojardi, K. Bushara, B. Corwell et al., Enhanced Excitability of the Human Visual Cortex Induced by Short-Term Light Deprivation, Cerebral Cortex 2000; 10(5): 529–534. A formal longitudinal controlled study would be of interest to see how long-term meditation influences meditators’ light and dark adaptation, spontaneous color phenomena, and spontaneous shiftings between illuminations and darkness.

14. Y. Xiao, Y. Wang, and D. Felleman, A Spatially Organized Representation of Color in Macaque Cortical Area V2, Nature 2003; 421: 535.

15. Y. Xiao, A. Casti, J. Xiao, and E. Kaplan, Hue Maps in Primate Striate Cortex, Neuroimage 2007; 35(2): 771–786.

16. M. Li, F. Liu, M. Juusola, and S. Tang, Perceptual Color Map in Macaque Visual Area V4, Journal of Neuroscience 2014; 34(1): 202–217. The monkey’s dorsal V-4 can be studied. The calming effect of an external pink color apparently helped to quiet combative prisoners who were placed in pink-colored holding cells. See Alter, A. Drunk Tank Pink. And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave. (New York, Penguin 2013, 1–3; 157–180). We have yet to clarify which mechanisms link specific color receptors and percepts with particular states of emotion and relaxation in individual human subjects.

17. B. Conway, Color Consilience: Color through the Lens of Art Practice, History, Philosophy, and Neuroscience, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 2012; 1251: 77–94; F. Sjöstrand, Color Vision at Low Light Intensity, Dark Adaptation, Purkinje Shift, Critical Flicker Frequency and the Deterioration of Vision at Low Illumination, Journal of Submicroscopic Cytology and Pathology 2003; 35: 117–127.

18. R. Shapley and M. Hawken, Color in the Cortex: Single- and Double-Opponent Cells, Vision Research 2011; 51: 701–717.

19. A. Shepherd and G. Wyatt, Changes in Induced Hues at Low Luminance and following Dark Adaptation Suggest Rod-Cone Interactions May Differ for Luminance Increments and Decrements, Visual Neuroscience 2008; 25: 387–394. You can verify that isolated color-contrast phenomena are fugitive. First choose to focus on the blue sky in a painting on the wall, then close your eyes 10 seconds later. After your lids close, you soon perceive the contrasting yellow afterimage. This yellow occupies the same area as did the blue sky and then fades. During meditation, fugitive color-contrast phenomena occur as well as shifts between darkness and luminosity at border zones, but they are not within the scope of this chapter.

20. As discussed elsewhere [ZB: 379–380] each hemisphere is also partly restrained by subversive pathways of inhibitory control. These cross over from counterpart regions on the opposite side. How this complex system of checks and balances operates at subcortical and cortical levels is not yet clear. With reference to the stimulations mentioned in chapter 13, notice that certain parameters of local brain stimulation may engage the opposing functions of different excitatory and inhibitory nerve cells in unexpected ways.

21. S. Davis, N. Dennis, S. Daselaar, et al., Que PASA? The Posterior-Anterior Shift in Aging, Cerebral Cortex 2008; 18(5): 1201–1209.

22. J. Christie, J. Ginsberg, J. Steedman, et al., Global versus Local Processing: Seeing the Left Side of the Forest and the Right Side of the Trees, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2012 (Feb 22); 6: 28, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2012.00028.

23. V. Drago, P. Foster, D. Webster, et al., Lateral and Vertical Attentional Biases, International Journal of Neuroscience 2007; 117: 1415–1424.

24. D. Murphey, D. Yoshor, and M. Beauchamp, Perception Matches Selectivity in the Human Color Center, Current Biology 2008; 18: R250–251. This patient had a seizure disorder and had subdural electrodes implanted over his right ventral temporal cortex. The authors’ findings that blue perceptual responses are prominently represented in human visual cortex are echoed in an article by L. Jakobson, P. Pearson, and B. Robertson, Hue-Specific Color Memory Impairment in an Individual with Intact Color Perception and Color Naming, Neuropsychologica 2008; 46(1): 22–36. In this patient, who had major external trauma to the back of the head, color imagery and memory were spared for the blue/purple region of color space.

25. H. Lim, Y. Wang, Y. Xiao, et al., Organization of Hue Selectivity in Macaque V2 Thin Stripes, Journal of Physiology 2009; 102: 2603–2615. V2 corresponds with BA18 in humans.

26. P. Gerardin, Z. Kourtzi, and P. Mamassian, Prior Knowledge of Illumination for 3D Perception in the Human Brain, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2010; 107(37): 16309–16314.

27. P. Mamassian, Ambiguities and Convention in the Perception of Visual Art, Vision Research 2008; 48: 2143–2153. We are left wondering which subtle underlying right hemisphere physiologies might encourage an artist’s brush to reach over to the left (and up) to render the direction of such illumination. Are these behavioral tendencies to be understood in the sensory domain (see note 25), or do they express combinations of sensory and motor biasing (see note 23)? How do physiological tendencies seep into our culture?

Chapter 13 A Way Out of the Grand Delusion

1. A. Einstein, Letter to Robert Marcus, February 12, 1950, available at lettersofnote.com/2011/11/delusion.html. Similar words are also quoted in W. Sullivan, The Einstein Papers: A Man of Many Parts, New York Times, March 29, 1972, 20, together with additional words (see next Einstein quotation in this chapter) attributed to Einstein but without a specific source.

2. Which of the several unusual anatomical features of Einstein’s brain might correlate with the remarkable scope and depth of his insightful intelligence? Neuroscientists have speculated about this for decades. The latest data centers on his unusually thick corpus callosum. [ZB: 358–367; SI: 25, 71–74] This unusual thickness is manifest in his genu, midbody, isthmus and especially in his anterior to mid-splenium. These findings, in the bridge that joins both hemispheres, suggest that Einstein’s extraordinary cognitive skills could have represented contributions emerging from both sides of his brain, especially posteriorly. See M. Weiwei, D. Falk, T. Sun, et al., The Corpus Callosum of Albert Einstein’s Brain: Another Clue to His High Intelligence? Brain, September 24, 2013, 1–8.doi.10.1093/brain/awt252.

3. T. Cleary, Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues (Boston: Shambhala, 2005), 210–214. Case 50 describes how old Xuefeng (822–908) pops out of the door to his hut and surprises two visiting monks by asking, “What’s this?” Xuefeng’s other names are Hsueh-feng (Chinese) and Seppo (Japanese). Later, Master Yen-t’ou (828–887) spoke to one of these visiting monks, saying, “It was too bad that I hadn’t told Xuefeng [his brother monk] the ‘last word’ ” (hinting that the last word was “just this”). Four centuries later, in case 13 of the Gateless Gate, Master Wu-men Hui-k’ai (1183–1260) comments in a poem about any such wordplay: “The ‘last word’ or the ‘first word’—IT is not a word!” (See also chapter 5, note 3.).

4. S. Suzuki, Not Always So: Practicing the True Spirit of Zen, ed. E. Brown (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 69, 75.

5. B. Bergen, S. Lindsay, T. Matlock, and S. Narayanan, Spatial and Linguistic Aspects of Visual Imagery in Sentence Comprehension, Cognitive Science 2007; 31: 733–764.

6. J. Austin, The Meditative Approach to Awaken Selfless Insight-Wisdom, in Meditation: Neuroscientific Approaches and Philosophical Implications, ed. S. Schmidt and H. Walach (Berlin: Springer, 2014), 23–55. This essay amplifies topics considered in the present book.

Part V: Epigraph

C. Bernard, An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine (New York: Macmillan, 1927).

Chapter 14 New Research Horizons

1. B. Joeng and H. Gak, The Mirror of Zen: The Classic Guide to Buddhist Practice by Zen Master So Sahn (Boston: Shambhala, 2006), 9. The present author’s preference is to translate this phrase as “just this,” following the way it is usually translated from the Pali (see chapter 1).

2. H. Benoit, Let Go: Theory and Practice of Detachment According to Zen, trans. A. Low (New York: Samuel Weiser, 1973), 203.

3. Cognition converges during concentrative meditation. It tends to diverge during receptive meditation. Our eyes converge automatically when we focus on an object close to our body. They begin to diverge as soon as we look out into the distant horizon. “Out there,” in a conjugate gaze toward infinity, their axes become essentially parallel. These reflexive adjustments originate among circuits in the upper brain stem. However, networks at higher levels undergo comparable shifts when they generate more complex mental functions. Again, we use the same terms, convergence and divergence, when speaking of these psychological shifts. Some of these concepts take on ego- and allo-implications (see chapter 11) as well as having implications for creative problem solving.

4. J. Williamson, A. Al Wafai, V. Drago et al., The Influence of Meditation on Creativity, poster presented at the 29th Annual Conference of the International Neuropsychological Society, February 2–5, 2011.

5. T. Dotan Ben-Soussan, J. Glicksohn, A. Goldstein et al., Into the Square and Out of the Box: The Effects of Quadrato Motor Training on Creativity and Alpha Coherence, PLoS One 2013; 8(1): e55023, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0055023. One control group performed predictable motor steps; the other vocalized the direction of the steps that they had been commanded to take. As one example, an alternate uses task asks subjects to imagine different ways that a “brick” might be used.

6. L. Colzato, A. Ozturk, and B. Hommel. Meditate to Create: The Impact of Focused-Attention and Open-Monitoring Training on Convergent and Divergent Thinking, Frontiers in Psychology 2012; 3: 116. The data suggested that short episodes of focused meditation did not sustain convergent thinking toward a single solution, but that receptive meditation did support divergent thinking. Positive words served to reinforce the receptive form of meditation. Examples of such verbal affirmations included “I am open,” “I let go,” “I accept myself as I am.” Meditators who prefer a less egocentric formulation could use “opening,” “letting go,” “accepting.”

7. K. Subramaniam, J. Kounios, T. Parrish, and M. Jung-Beeman, A Brain Mechanism for Facilitation of Insight by Positive Affect, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2009; 21(3): 415–432.

8. H. Takeuchi, Y. Taki, H. Hashizume et al., The Association between Resting Functional Connectivity and Creativity, Cerebral Cortex 2012; 22(12): 2921–2929. This network, often called a default network, has a high metabolic rate. It is not, in fact, “resting” during the conditions under which it is being measured. [SI: 70–76].

9. A. Abraham, K. Pieritz, K. Thybusch et al., Creativity and the Brain: Uncovering the Neural Signature of Conceptual Expansion, Neuropsychologia 2012; 50(8): 1906–1917. This process was regarded as distinct from the mechanisms involved in general divergent thinking, working memory, or cognitive load.

10. M. Ellamil, C. Dobson, M. Beeman, and K. Christoff, Evaluative and Generative Modes of Thought during the Creative Process, Neuroimage 2012; 59(2): 1783–1794.

11. M. Harré, T. Bossomaier, and A. Snyder, The Perceptual Cues That Reshape Expert Reasoning, Scientific Reports 2012 (Jul 11), doi: 10.1038/srep00502 [Epub ahead of print]. The literature seems to be accepting that an ideal expert will take some 10,000 hours of experience to learn a skill.

12. B. Lee, J. Park, W. Jung et al., White Matter Neuroplastic Changes in Long-Term Trained Players of the Game of “Baduk” (GO), Neuroimage 2010; 52(1): 9–19. Decreased FA values were seen in the premotor and right precuneus regions.

13. M. Bilalic, L. Turella, G. Campitelli, et al., Expertise Modulates the Neural Basis of Context Dependent Recognition of Objects and Their Relations, Human Brain Mapping 2012; 33(11): 278–240. Flexible responses to random novel chess positions recruited the collateral sulci in the inferior temporal regions and the retrosplenial cortex on both sides. This report suggests the kinds of object recognition and topographical memory resources that subjects can draw on for navigation during novel visual tasks.

14. C. Price, A Review and Synthesis of the First 20 Years of PET and fMRI Studies of Heard Speech, Spoken Language and Reading, Neuroimage 2012; 62(2): 816–847. Figure 4 in that article illustrates in color how totally the left lateral temporal lobe is invested in language functions of one kind or another. Clearly, the left hemisphere’s language capacities are responsible for countless contributions to civilization. But this chapter asks: what about some of its overactive emotional attachments to fixed expectations, ill-timed prejudgments, and word-thought distractions? Can’t these cause cognitive dissonance that interferes with the sequences involved in human creativity, insight, and the states of insight-wisdom? While one or two words might help point toward the inexpressible, it is traditional for Zen masters to “never stop cursing words and letters.” [ZBR: 358–361].

15. G. Pobric, E. Jeffries, and R. Lambon, Category-Specific versus Category-General Semantic Impairment Induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, Current Biology 2010; 20(10): 964–968. In contrast, the left inferior parietal lobe impairment induced by TMS is specific for human-made objects. It cannot be assumed that the indirect effects of magnetic or direct current stimulation remain localized to one electrode region.

16. S. Han, Y. Jiang, and L. Mao, Right Hemisphere Dominance in Perceiving Coherence of Visual Events, Neuroscience Letters 2006; 398: 18–21.

17. T. Asari, S. Konishi, K. Jimura, et al., Amygdalar Modulation of Frontotemporal Connectivity during the Inkblot Test, Psychiatry Research 2010; 182(2): 103–110. A separate database from the authors’ cultural control group served to establish which verbal responses could be classified as “unique” (such a word was never spoken by any of the 217 controls). In contrast, responses classified as “frequent” occurred more often than 2 percent of the time in controls. “Infrequent” responses occurred only 0–2 percent of the time. The subjects’ conventional responses correlated with activations in their prefrontal (Brodmann area 10) and bilateral occipitotemporal (BA 37/19) regions. This study used specialized parametric connectivity calculations to analyze the data.

18. N. Cohn, M. Paczynski, R. Jackendoff, et al., (Pea)nuts and Bolts of Visual Narrative: Structure and Meaning in Sequential Image Comprehension, Cognitive Psychology 2012; 65(1): 1–38. The pattern-predictive waveform was an N300/N400 negative wave complex.

19. R. Chi and A. Snyder, Facilitate Insight by Non-invasive Brain Stimulation, PLoS One 2011; 6(2): e16655, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0016655. Sixty subjects were studied during direct current flows that lasted for up to 17 minutes. When the positive electrode depolarizes the resting potential of underlying nerve cells, it tends to make the cells more excitable; the negative electrode hyperpolarizes and tends to make the cells less excitable.

20. Modulation is the operative word at the present time. Modulation indicates that the low amperage direct current flow acts only to facilitate or to inhibit basic neural functions. These are already ongoing or are on the verge of being discharged. These electrophysiologically induced changes modify the existing membrane potentials of nerve cells and perhaps influence their glia (support cells) as well. The resulting changes affect the release and effectiveness of neurotransmitters (e.g., glutamate, GABA, acetylcholine) and neuromodulators (e.g., biogenic amines) both locally and at distant synapses. Where does the maximum intensity of current flow occur? “Not underneath large electrode pads but in regions between the two electrodes.” See A. Antal, M. Bikson, A. Datta et al., Imaging Artifacts Induced by Electrical Stimulation during Conventional fMRI of the Brain, Neuroimage 2012 (Oct 23), doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2012.10.026 [Epub ahead of print].

21. The following studies represent a small sample of the promising research that has opened up in this tDCS field:.

(1) M. Meinzer, D. Antonenko, R. Lindenbert et al., Electrical Brain Stimulation Improves Cognitive Performance by Modulating Functional Connectivity and Task-Specific Activation, Journal of Neuroscience 2012; 32(58): 1859–1866.

(2) J. Medina, J. Beauvais, A. Datta, et al., Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Accelerates Allocentric Target Detection, Brain Stimulation 2013; 6: 433–439. Right anodal/left cathodal tDCS, delivered to the posterior parietal cortex, facilitated the detection of targets allocentrically.

(3) L. Bardi, R. Kanai, D. Mapelli, and V. Walsh, Direct Current Stimulation (TDCS) Reveals Posterior Parietal Asymmetry in Local/Global and Salience-Based Selection, Cortex 2012; doi: 10.10106/j.cortex.2012.04.016.

(4) C. Stagg, J. Best, M. Stephenson et al., Polarity-Sensitive Modulation of Cortical Neurotransmitters by Transcranial Stimulation, Journal of Neuroscience 2009; 29: 5202–5206. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy shows that the anodal facilitation by tDCS correlates with a local decrease in GABA. Cathodal inhibition correlates with a local decrease in glutamate.

(5) D. Keeser, T. Meindl, J. Bor et al., Prefrontal Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Changes Connectivity of Resting-State Networks during fMRI, Journal of Neuroscience 2011; 31: 15284–15293. The authors used a higher amperage current for left dorsolateral prefrontal tDCS (2 milliamperes for 20 minutes). This did not change the resting state activity patterns of the anterior cingulate (BA 24/32) or the subgenual gyrus (BA 25). It did increase the estimates of connectivity within the default and frontoparietal attention networks.

(6) V. Clark, B. Coffman, A. Mayer et al., TDCS Guided Using fMRI Significantly Accelerates Learning to Identify Concealed Objects, Neuroimage 2012; 59(1): 117–128. When fMRI-identified locations over the right inferior frontal or parietal cortex were facilitated by tDCS for up to 30 minutes, normal subjects could almost double their capacity to identify visual threats (e.g., bombs, snipers) that were concealed in natural scenes. Indices of arousal need to be measured in the future (see chapter 11, note 1).

22. The issues involved in the mechanisms of creativity, insightful problem solving, and the effects of tDCS are vastly more complex than can be condensed here. For starters, see J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 136–143, 159–168, 173–185; A. Vartanian, A. Bristol, and J. Kaufman, Neuroscience of Creativity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013); and L. Jacobson, M. Koslowsky, and M. Lavidor, tDCS Polarity Effects in Motor and Cognitive Domains: A Meta-analytical Review, Experimental Brain Research 2012; 216: 1–10.

23. R. Chi and A. Snyder, Brain Stimulation Enables the Solution of an Inherently Difficult Problem, Neuroscience Letters 2012; 515(2): 121–124. Subjects might need to shed two prejudgments that date back to their childhood. One is the rule-based habit of running in a straight line between the bases in baseball. The other is the rule for playing tic-tac-toe inside the square enclosure formed by four lines and eight lanes. This nine-dot task has different rules. We are required to connect all nine dots, using four consecutive straight-line strokes, without lifting the pen from the paper or retracing a line. However, no rules in this task prohibit us from moving or thinking or engaging in subconscious processing “outside the box.”

24. R. Polania, W. Paulus, and M. Nitsche, Modulating Corticostriatal and Thalamocortical Functional Connectivity with Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, Human Brain Mapping 2012; 33: 2499–2508. These researchers acquired fMRI images before and after they applied tDCS to the scalp over their subjects’ frontopolar and motor cortex regions. The fMRI data suggested that enhanced anodal coupling had occurred between the cortex and thalamus, and between the cortex and caudate nucleus.

25. For example, tDCS does change the EEG. See T. Zaehle, P. Sandmann, J. Thorne, et al., Transcranial Direct Stimulation of the Left Dorsal Prefrontal Cortex Modulates Working Memory Performance, BMC Neuroscience 2011 (Jan); 12: 2. In this study, when anodal tDCS was applied to this left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex it enhanced working memory performance for letters and enhanced the underlying theta and alpha EEG activity. [MS: 135–138] Could the thalamus be involved in such changes? The lateral nucleus of the inferior pulvinar has been shown to connect with the cortex higher up in the ventral allocentric processing stream. [SI: 90, 285] These (and other) major interactions link all of the overlying cortex with nuclei of the thalamus. Therefore, thalamocortical interactions could be relevant to the potential mechanisms of tDCS effectiveness. Moreover, the reticular nucleus of the thalamus is poised at the interface between thalamus and cortex. Its synaptic contacts could easily shift, up or down, some phase relationships of the synchronized oscillations along the lower thalamotemporal pathway. How could such shifts, in phase and out of phase, reshape the integration of frontotemporal lobe functions? This question needs to be studied first in animal models using shielded intracranial recording electrodes. The following review provides an excellent discussion of how such network synchronizations shape normal brain functions: F. Varela, J. Lachaux, E. Rodriguez, and J. Martinerie, The Brainweb: Phase Synchronization and Large-Scale Integration, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2001; 229–239. High-frequency gamma oscillations (60–250Hz) correlate with cortical activation and with increased blood-oxygen-level -dependent (BOLD) fMRI signals. [ZBR: 44–48] Single nerve cells are also more likely to fire when their firing threshold is reduced by cross-frequency couplings. These couplings occur between low-frequency oscillations in the theta range and high-frequency gamma oscillations. See R. Knight, Neural Oscillations and Prefrontal Cortex, in Principles of Frontal Lobe Function, 2d ed., ed. D. Stuss and R. Knight (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 751–764.

26. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 185–189.

27. E. Luders, K. Clark, K. Narr, and A. Toga, Enhanced Brain Connectivity in Long-Term Meditation Practitioners, Neuroimage 2011; 57(4): 1308–1316. It is worth emphasizing that each large myelinated tract is also a heterogeneous bundle of axons. Some conduct impulses in one direction, others conduct impulses in the opposite direction. Moreover, these axons are expressing diverse excitatory and inhibitory functions at their terminal endings. After only two hours of training on a spatial navigation task, both humans and rats showed DTI changes interpretable as evidence of neuroplasticity. See Y. Sagi, I. Tavor, S. Hofstetter, et al., Learning in the Fast Lane: New Insights into Neuroplasticity, Neuron 2012; 73(6): 1195–1203. However, it is safe to say that we still do not understand the precise ultrastructural correlates of the DTI and structural MRI changes in gray or white matter. See: D. Kang, H. Jo, W. Jung, et al., The Effects of Meditation on Brain Structure: Cortical Thickness Mapping and Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience, 2012, doi: 10.1093/scan/nss056; N. Fayed, D. Lopz, E. Andres, et al., Brain Changes in Long-term Zen Meditators Using Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Diffusion Tensor Imaging: A Controlled Study, Public Library of Science One. March 2013; 8(3):e58476. Doi: 10.1371; K. Kantarci, M. Senjem, R. Avula, et al., Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Cognitive Function in Older Adults With No Dementia, Neurology 2012; July 5; 77(1): 26–34 doi: 10.1212/WNL.obcobo13e31822313dc.

28. H. Slagter, R. Davidson, and A. Lutz, Mental Training as a Tool in the Neuroscientific Study of Brain and Cognitive Plasticity, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 2011 (Feb 10); 10: 5–17, doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00017.

29. O. Klimecki, S. Leiberg, M. Ricard, and T. Singer, Differential Pattern of Functional Brain Plasticity After Compassion and Empathy Training, Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2013 (May 9); [Epub ahead of print].

30. These summary pages have the title “A Sequence of Topics to Help Clarify the Mechanisms of Selfless Insight-Wisdom.”

31. E. Luders, F. Kurth, A. Toga, et al., Meditation Effects Within the Hippocampal Complex Revealed by Voxel-based Morphometry and Cytoarchitectonic Probabilistic Mapping, Frontiers of Psychology 2013 (July 9); 4:398, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00398. eCollection 2013.

32. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty, 201.

33. Racehorses have been required to pass a saliva test for many years. Human athletes are now stripped of their awards after drugs are detected that could have given their performance an exceptional boost. One can foresee that attempts will be made to apply the principles underlying tDCS to enhance the effectiveness of meditative training. How will the basic mechanisms and neuroimaging correlates of the concentrative and receptive styles of meditation be changed when tDCS is aimed precisely at the most relevant targets in the two hemispheres? Only the most careful sham- controlled behavioral and neuroimaging research can answer this question. Cultural prohibitions that had prevailed at the racetrack will again surface. In the past, authentic Zen Buddhist precepts expressed a conservative posture: “meditation, not medication.” Given the accelerating pace of electronic technology, how soon might such a caveat be amended toward phrases like “meditation, not electricity”?

Chapter 15 Resources of Enduring Happiness; Opening to “Just This”

1. M. Ricard, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill (Boston: Little, Brown, 2003), 123, 266.

2. J. Masefield, The Ending (Poems from “The Wanderer,”), in The Collected Poems of John Masefield (London: Heinemann, 1923), 923, available at dspace.wbpublibnet.gov.in:8080/jspui/bitstream/ 10689/1483/23/Chapter%2020_928%20-%20969p.pdf.

3. Y.-Y. Tang, M. Rothbart, and M. Posner, Neural Correlates of Establishing, Sustaining, and Switching Brain States, Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2012; 16: 330–337.

4. M. Dambrun, M. Ricard, G. Després et al., Measuring Happiness: From Fluctuating Happiness to Authentic-Durable Happiness, Frontiers in Psychology 2012 (Feb 7); 3: 16, doi: 10.3389/fpsyg .2012.00016.

5. cf. Udana 2.1, Muccalinda Sutta: About Muccalinda, trans. T. Bhikku, available at Access to Insight, accesstoinsight.org/ tipitaka/.

6. J. Kluger, The Happiness of Pursuit, Time, July 8–15, 2013, 25–45. This five-part article includes two surveys. One is the 2012 World Happiness Report, ranking the United States (at only #23), far behind Iceland (#1) and New Zealand (#2). The other is Time’s 2013 telephone survey of 801 Americans, 18 and older, revealing that 38 percent of the respondents were using prayer or meditation to improve their mood.

7. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 129–136.

8. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty, 59–96.

9. J. Panksepp and L. Biven, The Archaeology of Mind: Neuroevolutionary Origins of Human Emotions (New York: Norton, 2012). The lucid discussion is supported by 46 pages of references.

10. Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step (New York: Bantam, 1992), 57. His experiences during the Vietnam War exemplify engaged Buddhism.

11. Thich Nhat Hanh, Fear: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm (New York: HarperCollins, 2012), 4–5, 7. You and your underpants know when you’ve been really scared, acutely.

12. J. Ford, If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life (Boston: Wisdom, 2012), 163–172. The heartbreak referred to will break open our former hard-heartedness. This liberation from our prior selfish personality constraints helps release our native virtues of compassion (see chapter 5).

13. K. MacLean, M. Johnson, and R. Griffiths, Mystical Experiences Occasioned by the Hallucinogen Psilocybin Lead to Increases in the Personality Domain of Openness, Journal of Psychopharmacology 2011; 25(11): 1453–1461. The six descriptors come from the NEO personality inventory. The first group of 35 subjects also received methylphenidate on separate occasions.

14. R. Carhart-Harris, D. Erritzoe, T. Williams et al., Neural Correlates of the Psychedelic State as Determined by fMRI Studies with Psilocybin, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2012; 109(6): 2138–2143. This report describes the results in the first minutes following the rapid intravenous injection of 2000 micrograms of psilocybin into 30 hallucinogen-experienced volunteers. Their average age was in the early 30s. An acute, major drop of cerebral blood flow occurred (12% in the thalamus and posterior cingulate cortex), together with reduced fMRI signals in multiple cortical and subcortical regions. Notably, these deactivated sites included the thalamus as well as the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex, and the angular gyrus. Each cortical region is a major component of the default network. Preclinical experiments indicate that the stimulation of serotonin 2A receptors goes on to enhance GABA inhibitory transmission. Clinical evidence further correlates these same 5-HT2A receptors with many of the subjective effects of related psychedelics and with tendencies toward spiritual ideation. [ZBR: 78] The findings in this psilocybin study are relevant to the plausible model of thalamocortical physiology developed in chapters 3, 6, and 11. Its subjects’ first-person reports confirm that this intravenous dose of psilocybin immediately captured their full attention. This could readily trigger a reciprocal, deactivating response from default regions. This brisk endogenous reactivity is consistent with the inhibitory capacities of the reticular nucleus and its allies. The lines of evidence discussed also raise the possibility that psilocybin could enhance the basic mechanisms that increase GABA-ergic inhibitory transmission. Similar GABA-induced inhibitions of thalamocortical oscillations are a key sequence in the proposal to understand how Self-referential functions dissolve during the state of kensho. [SI: 88 (figure 6), 103–121].

15. A. Bjørnebekk, A. Fjell, K. Walhovd, et al., Neuronal Correlates of the Five Factor Model (FFM) of Human Personality, Neuroimage 2013; 65(1): 194–208. This was a cross-sectional study.

16. Y. Taki, B. Thyreau, S. Kinomura et al., A Longitudinal Study of the Relationship between Personality Traits and the Annual Rate of Volume Changes in Regional Gray Matter in Healthy Adults, Human Brain Mapping 2012 (Jul 17), doi: 10.1002/hbm.22145 [Epub ahead of print]. Gross structural changes seek ultrastructural explanations.

17. J. LeDoux, Rethinking the Emotional Brain, Neuron 2012; 73: 653–676.

18. D. Denton, M. McKinley, M. Farrell, and G. Egan, The Role of Primordial Emotions in the Evolutionary Origin of Consciousness, Consciousness and Cognition 2009; 18: 500–514. This review also cites our intense normal desires to be free from pain, to seek relief from the anguish caused by an overdistended bladder or bowel, to sleep after having been sleep-deprived, etc. These kinds of emotions are associated with opposing changes in multiple regions. For example, severe thirst was found to activate 13 fMRI sites and to deactivate nine other sites. The two opposing sets of network sites are consistent both with (1) the elementary sensory stimuli that had registered, (2) with the anguished emotions and resistance then aroused, and (3) with the subjects’ immediate motivational intention to seek relief.

19. Besides zero fear (fearlessness), other bare existential comprehensions arise during this awakened state. They include zero time (eternity), zero Self (selflessness), zero words (silence), and a sense of all-inclusiveness (oneness).

20. J. Feinstein, C. Buzza, R. Hurlemann et al., Fear and Panic in Humans with Bilateral Amygdala Damage, Nature Neuroscience 2013; 16: 270–272. This rare genetically determined disorder is called Urbach-Wiethe disease. Other candidate sites that generate fear include our hypothalamus and the brain stem activating regions. [ZB: 189–196, 157–164].

21. J. Buhle, H. Kober, K. Oschsner et al., Common Representation of Pain and Negative Emotion in the Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2013; 8(6): 609–616.

22. D. Grupe, D. Oathes, and J. Nitschke, Dissecting the Anticipation of Aversion Reveals Dissociable Neural Networks, Cerebral Cortex 2013; 23(8): 1874–1883.

23. J. Kinnison, S. Padmala, J. Choi, and L. Pessoa, Network Analysis Reveals Increased Integration during Emotional and Motivational Processing, Journal of Neuroscience 2012; 32: 8361–8372.

In Closing

1. D. Suzuki, Studies in the Lankavatara Sutra (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 130), 297.

2. A. Switzer, D. T. Suzuki: A Biography (London: Buddhist Society, 1985).

3. J. Austin, Chase, Chance, and Creativity: The Lucky Art of Novelty (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), 139–141.

4. R. Wright. Why We Fight—and Can We Stop? The Atlantic, 2013, 321 (11):102–118. The author suggests a wide role for meditation in nourishing the seeds of enlightenment among the world’s hostile tribes.

Appendix A

1. W. Wordsworth, The Tables Turned, in The Complete Poetical Works (London: Macmillan, 1888).

2. This was B.C.E., before the chainsaw era.

3. U. App, Linji’s Evergreens, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1994; 21(4): 425–436.

4. G. Jun, Essential Chan Buddhism: The Character and Spirit of Chinese Zen (Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish, 2013), 23.

5. D. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959). The Japanese edition was published in 1938.

6. Personal communication from Albert Stunkard, M.D., May 2000. Cryptomeria trees are also known as Japanese cedar trees. Some of these stately pyramidal trees can grow up to 200 feet in height. The aroma of their crushed foliage resembles that of an orange peel.

7. Engaku-ji (“monastery of complete enlightenment”) was founded in Kamakura in 1282.

8. B. Park, Y. Tsunetsugu, T. Kasetani, et al., The Physiological Effects of Shinrin-yoku (Taking in the Forest Atmosphere or Forest Bathing): Evidence from Field Experiments in 24 Forests across Japan, Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine 2010; 15(1): 18–26.

9. Y. Miyazaki, J. Lee, B. Park, et al., Preventative Medical Effects of Nature Therapy, Nihon Eiseigaku Zasshi 2011; 66(4): 651–656.

10. Q. Li and T. Kawada, Effect of Forest Environments on Human Brain Natural Killer (NK) Activity, International Journal of Immunopathology and Pharmacology 2011; 24(1 suppl): 39S–4S. This investigation suggested that the increase in anticancer killer cell activity could last for a month. Further study is required to clarify how this increase could be related to the actual release of phytoncides (oil molecules released from pine forest needles) to decreased stress hormones or to other mechanisms.

11. R. W. Emerson, Nature, in Essays: Second Series (1844); Emerson’s Essays, ed. I. Edman (New York: Crowell, 1926), 382.

12. M. Berman, E. Kross, K. Krpan et al., Interacting with Nature Improves Cognition and Affect for Individuals with Depression, Journal of Affective Disorders 2012; 140(3): 300–305. The improvements in memory span were measured by improved scores on the backward digit span test. These improvements did not appear to be correlated with the improvements in mood. The participants did not consider that the thought content of their ruminations was different during the two separate walks.

13. P. Aspinall, P. Mavros, R. Coyne, and J. Roe, The Urban Brain: Analyzing Outdoor Physical Activity with Mobile EEG, British Journal of Sports Medicine 2013 (Mar 6), doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2012 -091877 [Epub ahead of print].

Appendix B

1. Source unknown; often attributed to James Thurber.

2. A. Sokolov, M. Erb, W. Grodd, and M. Pavlova, Structural Loop between the Cerebellum and the Superior Temporal Sulcus: Evidence from Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Cerebral Cortex 2012 (Nov 20), doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhs346 [Epub ahead of print].

3. J. Chikazoe, K. Jimura, T. Asari et al., Functional Dissociation in Right Inferior Frontal Cortex during Performance of Go/No-go Task, Cerebral Cortex 2009; 19(1): 146–152.

4. K. Kim and M. Johnson, Extended Self: Medial Prefrontal Activity during Transient Association of Self and Objects, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2012; 7(2): 199–207.

5. S. Harris, S. Sheth, and M. Cohen, Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty, Annals of Neurology 2008; 63: 141–147. The subjects were reacting to visual statements. The statements represented the following seven different categories of facts: autobiographical, ethical, factual, geographical, mathematical, religious, or semantic. They pressed a button to specify whether they found a statement to be true, false, or undecidable. Whereas belief was correlated with increased signals in the head of the caudate (L>R), disbelief correlated with increased activity in both the head and tail of the caudate (R>L). These observations confirm that we can activate this part of the dorsal striatum asymmetrically at a time when our personal belief systems lead us to either accept or reject events in the outside world. [SI: 133–139] (See also chapter 10, note 13.).

6. J. Ford, If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life (Boston: Wisdom, 2012), 44–45.

7. We today cannot be certain which cultural interpretations were placed on the original words for “just this” when they were uttered in other languages in distant lands. But some interpretations may have corresponded with the ineffable experience of advanced states of “suchness.” During such rare moments of awakening, when all things are comprehended directly—as they really are—their original nature is realized both in the fullness of allocentric processing and in the emptiness of Self. The Zen teaching is that the insight-wisdom of prajna unveils this moment of objective vision. [ZB: 549–553, ZBR: 361–364, 416–417].

Appendix C

1. ZB: 281–286; ZBR: 187–193; SI: 266–267; MS: 107–108. When dynamic causal modeling (DCM) is applied to neuroimaging data, it suggests the potential presence of cause-and-effect relationships and directions of communication that could link successive brain regions.

2. A readable antidote for the current overemphasis on neuroimaging, even though its pages do not discuss meditation, is S. Satel and S. Lilienfeld, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience (New York: Basic Books, 2013).

3. Z. Li, A. Moore, C. Tyner, and X. Hu. Asymmetric Connectivity Reduction and its Relationship to "HAROLD" in Aging Brain. Brain Research 2009; Oct. 27; 1295: 149-158. doi: 10.1016/j.brzinres .2009.08.004. Epub 2009 Aug 8.

Appendix D

1. S. Morinaga, The Ceasing of Notions: An Early Zen Text from the Dunhuang Caves, with Selected Comments (Boston: Wisdom, 2012), 93. Ven. Myokyo-ni and M. Bromley produced this readable English translation of a Tang Dynasty treatise. Soko Morinaga-Roshi practiced in the traditional, Kyoto style of Rinzai Zen for almost five decades. [SI: 12–13] The epigraph is one of many sage commentaries in The Ceasing of Notions. For example, Morinaga points to a “great and decisive difference” (69–72). This difference separates hesitant novices, stuck in their clinging attachments, from advanced practitioners, free to move instantly, flexibly, and appropriately in response to each changing circumstance. [ZB: 668–677].

2. The Blind Man and the Elephant (Udana 6.4), in In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon, ed. B. Bodhi (Boston: Wisdom, 2005), 214–215.

3. R. Spreng, J. Sepulcre, G. Turner, et al., Intrinsic Architecture Underlying the Relations among the Default, Dorsal, Attention, and Frontoparietal Control Networks of the Human Brain, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 2013; 25(1): 74–86.

4. K. Kim and M. Johnson, Extended Self: Medial Prefrontal Activity during Transient Association of Self and Objects, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 2012; 7(2): 199–207. Four other attributes describe the higher-level, more abstract psychological activities of the Self. They include its capacities to (1) recognize one’s own personal appearance, (2) be aware of one’s own actions, (3) know one’s own personality traits and abilities, and (4) process thoughts about one’s own hopes and duties.

5. B. Demiray and S. Bluck, The Relation of the Conceptual Self to Recent and Distant Autobiographical Memories, Memory 2011; 19: 975–992. Six higher-level psychological characteristics of the Self are cited in this article. They include (1) Self-acceptance, (2) positive relations with others, (3) autonomy, (4) environmental mastery, (5) purpose in life, and (6) personal growth, development, and realization of one’s potential.

6. J. Austin. Zen and the Brain: Mutually Illuminating Topics. Frontiers in Psychology 2013; article 784, pp. 1–9, October doi: 10.3389/fpsychg.2013.00784.