The Brain and Zen

JAMES H. AUSTIN

Summary. This chapter briefly touches on some plausible psychophysiological

considerations involved in several large topics. Topics highlighted include the
attentive aspects of meditation; meditative retreats and the momentary "quickenings"
that can occur during them; the superficial states of absorption; the deeper states
of awakening (kensho-satori) and of "Pure Being"; and the rare later advanced
stage of ongoing enlightened traits. If we wish to understand how the Zen training
process arrives at its transforming potentials, we need to clarify which brain func-
tions are "let go of" during these various steps. The psychophysiology of triggering
mechanisms and the dissociations during transitional intervals are useful points at
which to begin.

Keywords. Zen mechanisms, Enlightenment, Thalamus, Limbic system, Neuro-

messengers

With all your science can you tell how it is,

and whence it is that light comes into the soul?
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

An outline of the Path of Zen is presented in my companion chapter in this volume.

However, no such diagram suffices to answer Thoreau's question, nor could any of the
speculations briefly advanced in these next few pages. For our challenge is (1) to
"explain" meditation and quickenings; (2) next, to clarify the mechanisms underlying
such diverse states as the absorptions, the awakenings (kensho-satori), and Being; and
(3) finally, to explain how a sage's brain could mature into the rare stage of ongoing
enlightened traits. Elsewhere, the following abbreviated comments receive a more
detailed treatment (Austin 1998).

Zen Meditation as an Attentive Art

Starting from the foundations of calmness and clarity, two styles of meditation
emerge. They tend to be used alternately.

Department of Neurology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, CO

80262, USA

94

K. Miyoshi et al. (eds.), Contemporary Neuropsychiatry

© Springer-Verlag Tokyo 2001
 The Brain and Zen 95

Receptive meditation deploys an open awareness during "just sitting." Employing

a light touch, it becomes a simple, bare, inclusive noticing of events, distracting or
otherwise. Neither focused nor cultivated by struggle, it still notices when attention
strays, then brings it gently back to the present moment. Concentrative meditation is
a focused attentive process more willfully sustained and one-pointed. Finally, one may
become more or less absorbed in it.
True, the right inferior parietal lobule and the right middle frontal gyrus help us
"attend" to events in both sides of extrapersonal space (Johannsen 1997). Yet, attention
remains an "associative" function. It draws on deep subcortical reservoirs, including
the pulvinar of the thalamus. Moreover, most of our processing occurs subconsciously,
effortlessly, preattentively, in less than 1I20'h of a second (Austin 1998, pp. 271-281).

Meditative Retreats Involve Somnolence, Stress

Responses, Sensory-Motor Deprivation, and
Self-Discipline
Yes, breathing out tends to dampen the firing rates of nerve cells in the amygdala, and
theta waves in the EEG may correlate with the intervals of undistracted calmness and
clarity reached during deeper levels of meditation. However, meditators struggle
during prolonged retreats (Austin 1998, pp. 138-140). They struggle not only to
remain attentive and to stay awake but also to endure major degrees of physical and
psychic suffering (Austin 1998, pp. 355-358). During self-emptying (kenosis), one
learns self-discipline.
Retreats, like "Outward Bound" experiences, are opportunities to find the "inner"
self. Retreats become effective agencies of personal change, to the degree that they (1)
evoke in the brain a calibrated series of physiological instabilities and stress responses;
and (2) develop meditators' capacities to endure anguish and to find how much they
create their own discomforts, resistances, and boredom.
"Quickenings" reflect a variety of corresponding surges in the activities of mes-
senger molecules in the brain. Some of these varied phenomena tend to occur at the
advancing tidal edges of conventional arousals. They arise either as part of circadian
(daily) or of ultradian rhythms (every 90 min or so). Quickenings also seem to enter
during the dynamic transitions between waking/drowsiness and sleep/REM sleep.
Quickenings arise especially when the brain's own stress responses-releasing bio-
genic amines, peptides, acetylcholine, glutamate, and GABA-have gone on to desta-
bilize and disrupt sleep cycles and other biorhythms.

States of Absorption, of "Awakening" (Kensho-Satori),

and of "Pure Being"
These phenomena are extraordinary alternate states of consciousness. To understand
Zen, it is essential to observe what they "let go" of, or subtract. In this regard,
certain GABA, and peptide, inhibitory functions can help us understand how
these three categories of states could express such selective "deletions" from
consciousness.