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Original Title: Zen and the Brain: Toward an Understanding of Meditation and Consciousness
ISBN: 0262511096 (ISBN13: 9780262511094)
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Zen and the Brain Paperback | Pages: 872 pages
Rating: 4.1 | 437 Users | 30 Reviews

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A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen.

Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology" -- because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.

Point Regarding Books Zen and the Brain

Title:Zen and the Brain
Author:James H. Austin
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:First Edition
Pages:Pages: 872 pages
Published:June 4th 1999 by MIT Press (first published February 1998)
Categories:Science. Buddhism. Zen. Religion. Psychology. Philosophy. Nonfiction. Biology. Neuroscience

Rating Regarding Books Zen and the Brain
Ratings: 4.1 From 437 Users | 30 Reviews

Crit Regarding Books Zen and the Brain
Brain Bible. Awesome book. I've been reading it, off and on, since grad school in 2002-2003 - first of a library copy in Durham, then in Asheville, then a used copy I finally got for myself in 2005. Just getting through this opus is an accomplishment and the reward is that you learn A LOT. (It's also a great resource if you're writing .on anything having to do with philosophy of mind in almost any tradition, but certainly in comparing Eastern and Western general views on the mind and the brain.)

This is a very large, very dry, very dense book. (even with the much needed breaks for the author's personal anecdotes of his Zen practice and experiences) It took me nearly a year to get through it. It works well as an overview of not only the physiology of the brain, but an introduction to theories of consciousness. If you are interested in kensho as well as glutamate pathways, this one is for you.

Brilliant ideas, but this is a textbook not a light read.

This work is baffling, too large to approach in one go. It batters the reader with citations (over a hundred pages of footnotes alone!), hypotheses, studies, physiologies. It integrates broad categories of knowledge and experience. Ultimately, Zen is examined not in and of itself, but in light of its interrelationship with neurophysiology (Austin being both a student of Zen and an M.D.) - that is, what do these bodies of knowledge have to say to each other?In fact, these two fields practically

A huge book that frustrated me in the end despite all of its many insights, learnings and vast erudition. The author relays an enormouse amount of Western learning about the brain, and deep insight into Zen and his own Zen meditation. But all too often the book seemed to possess two warring vocabularies that never really talked to one another. We can learn all about the chemical pathways of the brain. Or, we can learn that Zen meditation quiets the mind and allows it to experience reality

This is an academic textbook, and is probably by now a bit dated. I'm not rating it with stars because I'm not a student with enough background to really judge it for what it's for.However, there's plenty of information in well-organised chapters of interest to a curious/interested layman interested in Zen, or neurology, or both.

Excellent book on Zen and neurology. Both the expert and the amateur neurologist can read this since he lets us amateur skip technical passages and still understand. Some awesome topics covered are: how finding a quarter makes us more altruistic, the 'bump' on Buddha statue heads is actually a neurological growth, and what happens when you give someone intravenous LSD when they are asleep!