Chapter
Eighteen
Waking up
concluded that the gap between the two may not be as wide as it seems. Indeed,
Varela suggested that Buddhist mindfulness meditation could be used in neu-
rophenomenology, and that ‘the Buddhist doctrines of no-self and of nondualism
that grew out of this method have a significant contribution to make in a dialogue
with cognitive science’ (Varela, Thompson, and Rosch, 1991, p. 21).
PRACTICE 18.1
WHAT IS THIS?Read the story about Hui Neng and the monk in Concept 18.1. Think about
the question he asked: ‘What is this thing and how did it get here?’
Think about it as applied to the monk, standing there at the monastery after
days of walking in the mountains. Think about it as applies to yourself,
sitting here, walking there, realising you haven’t thought about the question
for half an hour, and now standing here. Think about it whatever you are
doing. ‘What is this thing and how did it get here?’ Go on asking the
question all the time. The words do not matter. As you carry on practising,
they will probably fall away until you begin the question and ‘Wh.. .?’These may be some of the reasons why many psychologists have turned to
Buddhism and found both methods and theories relevant to the psychology
of consciousness. A large proportion of these focus on the Zen tradition within
Buddhism. Why? Because, according to American neurologist and author James
Austin, Zen is ‘the approach most systematic yet most elusive, the clearest yet
most paradoxical, the subtlest yet most dramatic’ (1998, p. 7), and is ‘untainted
by belief in the supernatural or the superstitious’ (Kapleau, 1980, p. 64). It is also
less preoccupied with outward forms than Tibetan Buddhism, which uses elabo-
rate altars and images, and complex visualisations of deities, each with different
FIGURE 18.1 • A young monk arrives at Hui-Neng’s famous mountain monastery. What is it?