Living Zen Remindfully: Retraining Subconscious Awareness

305 Pages·2016·1.79 MB·English

by  James H. Austin

Also by James H. Austin
Zen-Brain Horizons (2014)
Meditating Selflessly (2011)
Selfless Insight (2009)
Zen-Brain Reflections (2006)
Chance, Chase, and Creativity (2003)
Zen and the Brain (1998)
Living Zen Remindfully
Retraining Subconscious Awareness
James H. Austin, M.D.

The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2016 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or
information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book was set in Palatino and Frutiger by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited. Printed and bound in
the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Austin, James H., 1925– author.
Title: Living Zen remindfully : retraining subconscious awareness / James H. Austin, M.D.
Description: Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016015015 | ISBN 9780262035088 (hardcover : alk. paper) eISBN 9780262336451
Subjects: LCSH: Meditation—Zen Buddhism. | Awareness—Religious aspects—Zen Buddhism. |
Consciousness—Religious aspects—Zen Buddhism. | Zen Buddhism—Psychology.
Classification: LCC BQ9288 .A935 2016 | DDC 294.3/4435—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015015
ePub Version 1.0
In memory of Scott Whiting Austin (1953–2014)
To my early teachers Nanrei Kobori-Roshi, Myokyo-ni, and Robert Aitken-
Roshi for their inspiration; and to countless others whose contributions to
Zen, to Buddhism, and to the brain sciences are reviewed in these pages
The Zen Way is a demanding way, but it
leads to the depths, to the light of clearly
seeing what is when the veil is rent, and
to the warmth of the heart that touches and engenders growth.
1
Myokyo-ni (1921–2007)
The only true law is that which
leads to freedom. There is no other.
2
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Notes
1. I. Schloegl. The Zen Way (London: Sheldon Press, 1977), 16.
2. R. Bach. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (New York: Macmillan, 1970), 83. The
Zen Buddhist Path also has ethical guidelines (shila).
Table of Contents
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Acknowledgments
By Way of a Personal Introduction
Part I On the Path of Meditation
1 Can Meditation Enhance Creative Problem-Solving Skills? A
Progress Report
2 In Zen, What Does It Mean “To Be Enlightened”?
3 Developing Traits of Character on the Way to Altruism
Part II Implications of a Self–Other Continuum
4 The Self: A Primer
5 Emerging Concepts in Self–Other Relationships
6 Early Distinctions between Self and Other, Focal and Global, Are
Coded in the Medial Temporal Lobe
Part III Aspects of Memory
7 Remindfulness
8 A Remindful Route through the Nucleus Reuniens
9 A Disorder Called Transient Global Amnesia
10 Remindful Zen: An Auditory “Altar Ego”?
11 Following an Auditory Stimulus, Then “Seeing the Light”
12 Turning
13 Revisiting Kensho, March 1982
Part IV Neurologizing
14 A Mondo in Clinical Neurology
15 Two Key Gyri, a Notable Sulcus, and the Wandering Cranial Nerve
16 Paradox: The Maple Leaf Way Up in Ambient Space
17 The Nitric Oxide Connection
18 “Pop-Out”
19 Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
Part V Living Zen
20 What Is Living Zen?
21 Sometimes, Zen Is “For the Birds”
22 Basho, the Haiku Poet
23 Basho’s States of Consciousness
24 Zen and the Daily-Life Incremental Training of Basho’s Attention
25 A Story about Wild Birds, Transformed Attitudes, and a
Supervisory Self
In Closing
Appendix A: Back to Nature: Pausing in Awe
Appendix B: Reminders: The Crucial Role of Inhibitory Neurons and
Messenger Molecules in Attentional Processing
Appendix C: Magnetoencephalography
Appendix D: Diffusion-Weighted Imaging
Appendix E: Some Newer Methods of fMRI Analysis
Appendix F: The Enso on This Cover
Appendix G: Word Problems
Index
List of Tables
Table 1.1 Types of Meditation
Table 24.1 Bird Citations in Basho’s Haiku
List of Illustrations
Figure 6.1 A hippocampal crossroad and the limbic circuitry. Impulses
already undergo much processing on their way down to CA 3 cells (bottom
square). From CA 3 cells, they are shunted on to CA 1 cells, next to the
subiculum, and then relay to the mammillary body of the hypothalamus via
the mammillothalmic tract (MTT). From the anterior thalamic nucleus
impulses flow up to the cingulate gyrus and then back down to the entorhinal
cortex of the parahippocampal gyrus. From there, they enter the dentate
gyrus of the hippocampal formation via the perforant path (P. PATH) and
relay on to the hippocampal CA 3 cells. This completes the Papez circuit,
shown in thicker black arrows.
The CA 3 cells also send off a second branch. This path leads through the
lateral septum on to the mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus and thence up
to the orbitofrontal cortex. Axons called mossy fibers relay impulses from
granule cells to CA 3 cells. Many axons of the perforant path release
glutamate, an excitatory amino acid (appendix B). The arrows shown on this
and the next wiring diagrams are oversimplifications. Sometimes the
situation is more reminiscent of a haystack. Countless pathways go in many
—and frequently reciprocal—directions. The diagram is therefore highly
selective and schematic. (Adapted and modified from multiple sources.)
Figure 6.2 Two pathways from the parahippocampus into the
hippocampus via the perirhinal and entorhinal cortex: A schematic
overview. Much of this figure is based on Knierim et al. (n.1) and on box 2
of Moser et al. (n.4). Many other pathways leading into and out of these
regions cannot be included in so simple a diagram (n.10). Moreover, the
lateral and the medial entorhinal systems differ in other ways. For example,
the LEC innervates the outer third of the molecular layer of the dentate
gyrus. The MEC innervates the middle third.
†In humans, the perirhinal cortex is heavily interconnected with the
amygdala, the ventral temporopolar cortex, and the lateral orbitofrontal
cortex (see n.12). Its activations correlate both with our sense of familiarity
and with our learning of meaningful associations about objects, including
their affective and motivational significance. ††In rats, the postrhinal cortex
responds to scenes in a manner similar to the ways our parahippocampal
gyrus responds to scenes.
Figure 15.1 A basal view of the left hemisphere, emphasizing the
temporal lobe. The frontal lobe is at the top. The occipital lobe is at the
bottom. Notice that the parahippocampal gyrus leads (imperceptibly) first
into the perirhinal cortex and then into the entorhinal cortex as it nears the
(hidden) hippocampus. Proceeding from the midline at the left and moving
laterally toward the right, the three largest temporal gyri begin with this
parahippocampal gyrus. Next in line is the fusiform gyrus, and finally the
inferior temporal gyrus. The uncus is a major entry site for the uncinate tract.
Its two-way connections link our temporal lobe functions with those of the
inferior frontal lobe. In the hypothalamus, the mammillary body issues the
important tract that connects the hippocampus with the anterior thalamus.
The nomenclature follows that in J. Mai, J. Assheuer, and G. Paxinos. Atlas
of the Human Brain, 2nd ed. (San Diego, CA: Elsevier, 2004), 92, 121–219.