In the last essay I sketched the advantage of merging scientific with meditative currents of knowledge. This marriage of the experimental with the experiential provides the mental health world with a new paradigm, one that promises to finally solve many of the mind’s most troublesome afflictions.
Still, a few questions remain. First, given that meditative traditions have produced a vast and venerable literature backed by centuries of experience healing mental ills, can we be sure neuroscience adds anything useful? Although experimental work has greatly increased understanding, has it improved healing?
In an earlier essay I argued that neurobiology has offered lots of information about the brain, but little inspiration for the mind. Most of the practical suggestions that come from brain science sound like ancient prescriptions restated in the language of neurotransmitters and neural circuitry. They don’t offer new approaches as much as new ways of describing old ones.
Readers might argue that medications and other material interventions (like shock therapy) clearly differ from the methods of meditative traditions. Leaving aside the fact that Chinese and other holistic medical systems have long employed herbal preparations to settle mental derangement, we need to ask whether these material therapies are effective enough to be considered breakthroughs. I wouldn’t argue that they have no value, but even when they work well (and they often don’t) they merely mask symptoms. They don’t transform mental life or lead to deep insight. Add to this fact the awful side effects, withdrawal symptoms, financial cost, and corruption of our health care system by profit motives, and we can legitimately question whether scientifically derived treatments are a boon or a bust.
So I am not willing to concede much to the materialist perspective when it comes to these sorts of intervention. But the scientific view remains very valuable. First, it legitimizes ancient knowledge. Spiritual texts describe consciousness and its various expressions in deeply thoughtful terms, but they also contain mythologic and metaphoric language that troubles moderns. Empirical approaches validate the wisdom attained by yogis and restate it in objective language, which helps us accept the truth of it.
Furthermore, the neuroscience perspective gives us information unavailable to meditators. Two posts back I showed how the idea of competing circuitry can explain the unevenness of our behavior. Looked at in the right way, many experimental findings can be valuable in this way. For instance, we hear about mirror neurons, which fire in the brain when specific actions are performed either by the self or another person. That our systems contain such cells shows how tightly bound we are to one another. Yes, meditative practice suggests the same interconnection, but less verifiably.
Finally, although one goal of meditative practice is escape from affliction, another is insight. There is no doubt that brain research offers us profound information about who and what we are. The brain is by no means an entire personality, but it is a big part of one. By understanding our nervous systems, we understand ourselves.
When I am feeling down these days, I sometimes visualize my dense, twining circuitry busily churning out electrochemical signals within my skull. Pondering deeply on this view of my mind, I understand in a concrete way why yogis refer to the world as Maya, or illusion. There is undoubtedly something real outside our bodies, but what we experience within are scenes manufactured by billions of interconnected neurons. Does it make sense, knowing that, to believe that a particular emotion is catastrophic? How could one seriously contemplate suicide knowing aberrant neural circuitry to be the ultimate origin of suffering? Why should one feel afflicted at all?
In fact, with that understanding held in mind, any state at all can be viewed in a detached and admiring way. What a privilege to experience the workings of this marvelous living brain, this complex organic structure, while embraced by the whole of the biosphere. Appreciating our true situation allows us to dwell in the body with wise detachment, at once dispassionate and tender. Enlightenment is thus informed by both meditative explorations and experimental findings. We are privileged to have access to these two sources of understanding. Dare I say we are blessed?
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