- seCtIon sIx: seLF AnD otHeR
permanent psychological transformation can occur suddenly in response to tur-
moil or trauma, perhaps because the intensity of suffering means that psycholog-
ical attachments have to be dissolved, and acceptance ensues (Taylor, 2012). It
may also be the case that trying hard to get good at introspection only reinforces
the sense of self that drops away at other times (Goldberg et al., 2006; discussion
in Block, 2007, and commentaries). But this does not mean that training and prac-
tice are useless. Perhaps deep questioning can prepare the person in some way.
On the other hand, perhaps poisoning can change a brain in ways comparable
to long years of meditation. Or perhaps there is just an element of luck about
it all. As one contemporary aphorism has it, enlightenment is an accident, and
meditation helps you become more accident-prone.
ENLIGHTENMENT
What, then, is enlightenment? Although Shakyamuni Buddha’s story is often
taken as the apotheosis of enlightenment, there were probably many people
before him who went through this transformation, and many are said to have
done so since. Among them are old and young, men and women, monks and
laypeople. They include modern Westerners: businessmen, artists, homemakers,
and psychologists (Kapleau, 1980; Sheng-Yen et al., 2002; Harris, 2014). We give it
a name, and its name – in Buddhist terminology, bodhi – means something like
awakening. Yet it is hard to say what has happened to them. Enlightenment is
apparently a profound transformation of what it’s like to be. But is it really? And if
it is (or even if it isn’t), what can we learn from it?
The term ‘enlightenment’ is used in at least two main ways (and probably many
others, too). First, there is the sense in which you can talk about the process of
enlightenment, which can be fast or slow, sudden or gradual. In this sense, there
is a path to enlightenment and practices that help people along that path. There
can also be temporary experiences of enlightenment, called kensho in Zen, and
these can be deep or shallow – tiny glimpses or deep experiences of opening.
The neuroscience of meditative practice has gained some traction on these tem-
porary openings-up. Austin (2009) points out that the dramatic shifts of kensho
are often triggered by unexpected sensory stimuli. So if a practised meditator is
deeply absorbed, a sudden stimulus might capture her attention, stop
all self-referential default-mode processing, and leave an experience
of emptiness without self or time. Austin has no direct evidence that
this actually happens in kensho, but the possibility hints at a potential
coming-together of the neuroscience of self with accounts of the ‘long
rigorous path toward selflessness’ (2009, p. 81).
A science of enlightenment experiences is still some way off, not least
because the concept of enlightenment is so imprecise compared to
the kinds of hypotheses current scientific paradigms are good at test-
ing. This means that there is often disagreement, within and between
Buddhist traditions, about which states or traits deserve to be called
enlightened, and whether a given individual has attained them. The
innovative methods we explored in Chapter 17 might well help here, however.
And interestingly, Buddhist teachers tend to practise the same sort of scepticism
that scientific inquiry needs: not taking self-reports at face value, but comparing‘But the deepest goal of
spirituality is freedom
from the illusion of
the self – and to seek
such freedom [. . .] is to
reinforce the chains of
one’s apparent bondage
in each moment’
(Harris, 2014, p. 123)
‘the brief awakenings of
kensho and satori are
“nothing special” ’
(Austin, 2009, p. 111)
them against a longer practice history, the manner in
which the report is given, and observations of other
behaviour (Davis and Vago, 2013). It seems also that
meditative practice helps reduce the very biases
which this scepticism guards against (and this reduc-
tion can be measured using scientifically developed
tests), so the prospects seem good for greater dove-
tailing of scientific and meditative practice.
One of the experiences often thought of in terms of
a temporary glimpse of enlightenment is the experi-
ence of ‘cessation of all phenomena’, an ‘inseparable
emptiness–luminosity–bliss state, not different in
nature from awareness itself ’ (Davis and Vago, 2013,
p. 1). In these moments, there is ‘pure consciousness’:
awareness without anything to be aware of or any-
one to be aware. Something of this kind has now
been studied with two experienced practitioners,
comparing these deeper experiences of cessation
with the more common experience of a sensory
object ‘passing or vanishing from conscious aware-
ness’ (p. 2), and finding much more significant levels
of activation at moments of peak clarity in frontal
polar cortex – pointing the way to finding potential
neural markers relative to individual baseline states.
Technological limitations like fMRI’s temporal resolu-
tion, and statistical limitations like reliance on a com-
parison between a state of interest and another state
of no interest, will need tackling along with the other
questions of methodology we have considered. But
for momentary experiences of enlightenment, there
seems a clear way forward.
Second, there is what is usually thought of as lying
at the end of the path: sometimes called ultimate
enlightenment, or full awakening. This is not a state
of consciousness like a mystical or religious expe-
rience, or even a kensho experience, which passes
away. Indeed, it is often said not to be a state at all.
Everything is just the same as it always was, because
everything is inherently enlightened. A famous Zen
proverb says, ‘Before enlightenment chop wood, carry
water. After enlightenment chop wood, carry water’.
This well describes John Wren-Lewis’s approach to life.
In this sense, there is no path to enlightenment
because there is nowhere to go and no one who
travels, even though there are many paths that each
of us treads. Those who speak of enlightenment
at all say that it cannot be explained or described.
Anything you say is beside the point. So in this sense‘does ordinary insight
differ from the brief
state of “enlightenment”
called kensho in Zen?’
(Austin, 2009, p. 125)
FIGURE 18.3 • An exercise in headlessness. How
many heads are there? Seeing
the world this way, you lose your
own head and gain everybody
else’s.