Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist--close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue--offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.

Ricard and Singer's wide-ranging conversation stages an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism's wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience's abundance of experimental results. They discuss, among many other things, the difference between rumination and meditation (rumination is the scourge of meditation, but psychotherapy depends on it); the distinction between pure awareness and its contents; the Buddhist idea (or lack of one) of the unconscious and neuroscience's precise criteria for conscious and unconscious processes; and the commonalities between cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. Their views diverge (Ricard asserts that the third-person approach will never encounter consciousness as a primary experience) and converge (Singer points out that the neuroscientific understanding of perception as reconstruction is very like the Buddhist all-discriminating wisdom) but both keep their vision trained on understanding fundamental aspects of human life.
Beyond the Self Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience, Matthieu Ricard and Wolf Singer, MIT Press, Hardcover, 282 pages, $29.95

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, trained as a molecular biologist before moving to Nepal to study Buddhism. He is the author (with his father, Jean-Francois Revel) of The Monk and the Philosopher, The Quantum and the Lotus (with Trinh Thuan), Happiness, The Art of Meditation, Altruism: The Power of Compassion, and A Plea for the Animals. He has published several books of photography, including Motionless Journey and Tibet: An Inner Journey, and is the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama.

Wolf Singer, a neuroscientist, is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Founding Director of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, the Ernst Strungmann Institute for Neuroscience in cooperation with Max Planck Society, and the Ernst Strungmann Forum.

	Preface	ix
1	Meditation and the Brain	1
	A Science of the Mind	1
	Awareness and Mental Constructs	5
	Working with Emotions	9
	Gradual and Lasting Changes	11
	Outer and Inner Enrichment	13
	Processes of Neuronal Changes	15
	Emotional Nuances	18
	Effortless Skills	18
	Relating to the World	21
	How Young Can One Start to Meditate?	23
	Mental Distortions	25
	Attention and Cognitive Control	25
	Attentional Blink	32
	Attention, Rumination, and Open Presence	36
	Mindfulness and Distraction	39
	Consolidating Learning through Sleep	42
	Compassion and Action	48
	Compassion, Meditation, and Brain Coherence	50
	Altruism and Well-Being	55
	Magic Moments	56
	Could Feedback Replace Mind Training?	57
	Are there Limits to Mind Training?	63
	Meditation and Action	67
2	Dealing with Subconscious Processes and Emotions	73
	On the Nature of the Unconscious	73
	Side Effects of Meditation	77
	Love versus Attachment	82
	On the Joy of Inner Peace	84
	Watching the Mind, Training the Mind	87
3	How Do We Know What We Know?	91
	What Reality Do We Perceive?	91
	How Do We Acquire Knowledge?	96
	Can There Be Valid Cognition of Some Aspects of Knowledge?	100
	Is Cognitive Delusion Inescapable?	104
	Each Person to His or Her Own Reality	110
	Is There an Objective Reality "Out There"?	111
	Causality as a Correlate of Interdependence	114
	Constructing and Deconstructing Reality	117
	Refining the Tools of Introspection	121
	First-, Second-, and Third-Person Experience	123
	A Physician and a Cure	126
	The Ethics of Practice and Science	128
	Three Aspects of Buddhist Philosophy	129
	A Summary	133
4	Investigating the Self	137
	Investigating the Self	140
	The Self Exists in a Conventional Way	144
	The Self and Freedom	146
	Weak Self, Strong Mind	147
	Ego and Egolessness	151
	The Scourge of Rumination	153
	Who's in Charge Here?	156
5	Free Will, Responsibility, and Justice	161
	The Process of Decision Making	161
	The Responsibility to Change	177
	Free Will and the Range of Choices	182
	Attenuating Circumstances	185
	Looking with the Eyes of a Doctor	188
	True Rehabilitation	191
	Horrendous Deviations	195
	Breaking the Cycle of Hate	197
	Is There a Self That Bears the Responsibility?	200
	Can One Prove Free Will?	203
	Architects of the Future	207
6	The Nature of Consciousness	211
	Something Rather Than Nothing	211
	Cultivating States of Subtle Consciousness or Pure Awareness	226
	On Various Levels of Consciousness	230
	Puzzling Experiences	246
	Remembering Past Lives?	253
	What Can Be Learned From Near-Death Experiences?	256
	Could Consciousness Be Made of Something Other Than Matter?	258
	A Concluding Note of Gratitude	263
	Notes	265
	Index	275