‘No mind’: A Zen Buddhist perspective on embodied consciousness
Dance, Movement & Spiritualities July 1, 2018 Aska Sakuta
During movement, a deeply embodied state of consciousness can arise that dissolves the boundaries between mind and body, self and other, and human and non-human. This state, historically central to Zen Buddhist philosophy, is considered an enlightened and optimal way of being in which one viscerally experiences interconnection with the spiritual and physical world. The article unpacks this paradigm through Eastern movement practices—Nihon-buyo, martial arts, and Butoh—that use movement as a meditative process toward self-world transcendence. Finally, it reframes deeply embodied consciousness through neurophenomenology to argue for its validity in emerging scientific research on consciousness and attention.