Neuroscience and Meditation

Abstract

Abstract In recent years a style of thought has emerged that privileges molecular biology, in the form of cognitive neuroscience, as the preferred or even only valid foundation for the scientific study of mind and mental life. Despite the lack of progress and honest positive prognosis, neuroscience has managed to create a false but pervasive sense of achievement and meaning that dominates debate not only in scientific circles, but also in the popular domain. This chapter examines how this has happened and spells out the limitations of this approach. It analyzes how neuroscience communications, including popular fMRI brain imaging, function as persuasive discursive formations giving rise to a popular conception that mind is simply a function of brain activity. The implications for meditation practice are considered using the example of Madhyamaka Buddhism. This analysis makes use of concepts developed in post-modernism, especially in the thought of Michel Foucault. Post-modernism has some parallels with and differences from Madhyamaka, and these are explored. It is arguable that the neuronal-self concept strengthens the sense of ultimate materiality of mind and self and thereby impedes meditative realization of emptiness.