How Zen's nonduality is confirmed by neuroscience

Every morning I experience in a concrete fashion the tension between science and spirituality.

In my meditation area I always have several books available for my morning caffeinated reading. Some are scientific -- about neuroscience, evolution, global warming. Others are spiritual -- mostly books on Buddhism, Taoism, mindfulness.

There are days when I start reading a science book and it seems too dryly factual. Others days I'll pick up a spiritual book and find it annoyingly airy-fairy, dogmatic, or preachy.

So often I'll bounce back and forth between several titles, searching for science with a poetic soul and for spirituality that is grounded in demonstrable facts about reality. Recently some passages in a Zen book, "The Wholehearted Way," hit the mark in the factual spirituality category.

(I'm pretty sure this book was recommended by a regular commenter, perhaps tAo. Whoever it was, thanks; I'm enjoying it.)

"The Wholehearted Way" is a translation of Dogen's Bendowa, which to me is almost impossible to understand without the helpful accompanying commentary by a contemporary Zen practitioner, Kosho Uchiyama Roshi.

Modern neuroscience has learned that our conscious perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and so on are but the tip of the brain's much vaster unconscious "iceberg." We never experience reality as it is, but as our brains have processed countless bits of incoming information.

So I could heartily agree with what Roshi wrote (apparently this is a transcription of a talk to an audience):

This cup I am looking at now is not the same one that I will be looking at in the next moment. Each of you is also looking at it from your own angle, with your own feelings, and these also are constantly changing.

This is the way actual life experience is. However, if use our common-sense way of thinking, we think we are looking at the very same cup. This is an abstraction and not the reality of life. Abstract concepts and living reality are entirely different. The Buddhist view is completely different from our ordinary thinking.

...What Buddhism is concerned about is not something abstract, but the very concrete and actual reality of life. All beings exist through life experience of the self.

...That which experiences and that which is experienced cannot be divided into two. This reality that cannot be differentiated into two is called dharma or mind, and it is the meaning of the expression "dharma and mind are one reality."

Therefore, we cannot say that we appear on the world's stage when we are born, and leave it when we die. We were born with this world in which we live out our lives as life experience. We live with this whole world. When we die, our whole world will die with us also.

...Dharma is the reality of life, and each and every one of us is living out absolute life, no matter what situation we find ourselves in. We live out the self that is only the self. No one can become a different person. In a sense, from birth to death, we are completely alone.

Even if you think that you have good friends, family, or a loving wife, the fact is that your wife can never be you. You and your wife have different dreams and think differently.

We sometimes say that we know everything about an intimate friend, but that is really just something that we have thought up. It is impossible to really understand another person. In this sense, every one of us is living out the self that is only the self, and living out the present that is only the present. This is an absolute truth.

Then, a few pages further on, I came to what was for me a fresh explanation of "nonduality." I've read a lot of books about nonduality. I like the notion of reality being "not two," because this seems like a nice compromise between Oneness and Manyness.

However, I'd been under an impression that nonduality referred to some sort of cosmic interconnectedness, a unity that manifested as separate stuff -- something like that. Here Uchiyama Roshi offered up a way of looking upon nonduality that struck me as wonderfully scientific and experientially unarguable.

How do we live on the ground of the reality of life in a concrete way, rather than living with our heads in the clouds of concepts? We see a cup, society, and money in our own particular world.

In this whole world, north, east, south, and west, no matter where we look we see nothing but our self. Instead of living in the world that is shared by all of us, the self lives in a world in which there is nothing but the self.

The oneness of this world is dharma. Both "wondrous dharma" and buddha-dharma" refer to this.

Seen from the point of view of absolute reality, every one of us was born holding our own world. As soon as we are born, we have a world in which there is nothing but our own self. We are born and live holding our own world. When we die, the world in which there is nothing but our self also dies with us.

In Buddhism, life like this, which is only self, is called shin. Therefore, mind (shin) and dharma are never divided into two. The world that we experience (dharma) and our life experience (mind) are not two, nondual. Mind or subject and dharma or object are one reality. In other words, one mind is all dharma and all dharma is one mind.

...In other words, by living my own life, all things come to exist in my own world. By living my life, all things are able to exist, and I create a world in which I live.

A final comment: what he's talking about here isn't idealism. Reality isn't created by our minds. It exists independent of us. But for us, there is no difference between our subjective experience of life and the objective existence of life.

We live with this whole world. When we die, our whole world will die with us also. If you interpret this incorrectly, it might be mistaken for experiential idealism [the idea of experience as produced by our consciousness.]...Yet what I am talking about is totally different.

People involved in Seicho no ie think that material existence is the shadow of our mind. They say that if we think there is no sickness, it won't exist. Then what will happen if a dump truck is coming toward you? If you think that the truck is a shadow of your mind, will the truck disappear?

If you are lucky, the truck driver will yell, "You idiot! WHere are your eyes?" If you are not lucky, you will be run over and killed. This is reality.

Comments

[Suzanne]

Life is simply what it is. Ta-dah.

[jptxs]

Where is the neuroscience part? I was looking forward to a connection after seeing the title. Maybe my fault for forming and expectation in the first place...

[Mike Williams]

To self ... or not to self

Our lives are a constantly changing
flux. Even consciousness is temporal.

There is nothing we can say is our
self.

There is only experience experiencing
experience. Each persons
experince is unique.

But, never personal.

The grand delusion is that there
is a self in any form.

A secure entity.

We cannot say the self is that which
experiences the flux.

Because that leaves the delusion
there is a entity in our brains.

We can say we uniquely experience.

But, that unique experience cannot
be personalized by an entity.

Jiddo Krishnamuti used to say the
subconscious thought is the same as the
conscious thought.

Science tells us 80% of our actions
are controlled by subconscious thought.

The entity, or delusional self, is
continually trying to wax itself
and sublimate. To be better than
all others religiously, or financially.

But, when the person realizes there is
no self that can be waxed in any fashion,
all spurious action immediately drops.

The self entity drops and will not
take actions to build a spurious self
image.

This wipes out most the subconscious
desires which erroneously motivate
us.

We cannot get rid of self desire by force.

We can only debunk the self entity, so
there is no longer a selfish desire.

There is no self watching even temporal experience.

[Blogger Brian]

jptxs, I guess I figured this single overarching paragraph (below) was enough to make my point, sort of like saying "Scientists know that humans have evolved through a process of natural selection" would give the big picture of how our species came to be as we are.
-----------------
"Modern neuroscience has learned that our conscious perceptions, thoughts, emotions, and so on are but the tip of the brain's much vaster unconscious "iceberg." We never experience reality as it is, but as our brains have processed countless bits of incoming information.
-----------------
I've written quite a few blog posts about modern neuroscience. A Google search of this blog will turn them up. Here's a link:

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=neuroscience&btnG=Google+Search&domains=http%3A%2F%2Fhinessight.blogs.com&sitesearch=http%3A%2F%2Fhinessight.blogs.com

"The Ego Tunnel" book is a good example of how neuroscience matches up with the Zen view of nonduality expressed in "The Wholehearted Way." See:

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2009/04/laying-bare-how-the-ego-tunnel-is-dug.html

And here's a recent post I wrote about David Eagleman's terrific new book, "Incognito."

http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2011/06/conscious-awareness-is-a-small-part-of-who-we-are.html

[Dogribb]

The Gateless Gate, by Ekai, called Mu-mon, tr. Nyogen Senzaki and Paul Reps [1934], at sacred-texts.com

Not the Wind, Not the Flag
Two monks were arguing about a flag. One said: "The flag is moving."

The other said: "The wind is moving."

The sixth patriarch happened to be passing by. He told them: "Not the wind, not the flag; mind is moving."

Mumon's comment: The sixth patriarch said: "The wind is not moving, the flag is not moving. Mind is moving." What did he mean? If you understand this intimately, you will see the two monks there trying to buy iron and gaining gold. The sixth patriarch could not bear to see those two dull heads, so he made such a bargain.

Wind, flag, mind moves,
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong.

[George]

It does sound precariously close to idealism.

If mind (subject) and dharma (object) are never divided, i.e. not two, then how can there be a reality independent of our minds?

In fact, he goes onto say:
"Mind and dharma are one reality. In other words, one mind is all dharma and all dharma is one mind."

Yet the dump truck mows us down even if we don't see it, i.e. regardless of mind. The quote suggests an equal bidirectional relationship between dharma and mind. However, realism suggests an unequal unidirectional relationship. That is, dhama (objective reality) is unaffected by (or independent of) mind, whereas mind is affected by objective reality.

[Blogger Brian]

George, my impression is that the basic message here is simply that a world exists for us only in our consciousness. The world appears when we are born and it disappears when we die.

Yes, there is an objective world that existed before us and will exist after us But experience of this world still is known only by conscious beings.

I might take another stab at this subject tomorrow, talking about a New Scientist article about the mathematical laws of nature. It comes to just about the same conclusion as Zen. Reality is both subjective and objective.

[George]

Yes Brian, I think that is more correct, but the lines often become blurred.

Dogribbs striking post seems to hint at something very profound (tho i'm not sure if the power of koans is simply their ability to play with language's limitations as oppose to revealing a deeper truth). But it got me thinking how similar this aspect of zen is to the idealism of berkeley who posed the now familiar question: if a tree falls in a forest does it make a sound?

Look forward to the article, but difficult to think how mathematics relates to subjectivity, since it seems to be fundamental code or language of the universe. But science does overlap here, i.e. the QM implications of the observer effect and entanglement. Wheeler described it as the universe trying to observe itself.

[Marina]

Nice post Dogribb!

Did you mean trying to buy gold and gaining iron or did I miss the point when you say 'trying to buy iron and gaining gold'?

"Wind, flag, mind moves,
The same understanding.
When the mouth opens
All are wrong."

lol lol

Marina

[Mike Williams]

Can a Mirror See Itself ?

Or, can it only FEEL its nature ?

[Mungos]

Yes Brian i was mentioning this book a few times on the blog.

[rodrigo]

no..the self is not an illusion
and there is in fact an entity observing things.. and that entity is you as consciousness . you are the consciousness that observe. (entity) that never dies. and I have lots of proofs of my claim . which no neuroscience can debunk

[michael]

jptx.. even to believe that you have no entity inside is already YOU as an entity believing in something .. I used to believe the same as you are believing now.. until I discovered that to negate self is already myself trying to negate self.. is just a belief from the self... self and ego are part of our consciousness and me 'molded' by us through life.. yes the self changes every year or month.. but the true "I' (maybe genetics influence ) never changes. and even more.. our consciousness perspective of one another is diff. we ate not even connected to the most basic level of reality.. but yes we are all part of the great field of consciousness.

[rill]

"Can a Mirror See Itself ?
Or, can it only FEEL its nature ?"

huh???
a mirror is an inanimate object, it doesn't feel anything. and doesnt have any "nature", whatever that means