Living Zen Remindfully: Retraining Subconscious Awareness

by James H. Austin

Overview

A seasoned Zen practitioner and neurologist looks more deeply at mindfulness, connecting it to our subconscious and to memory and creativity.

This is a book for readers who want to probe more deeply into mindfulness. It goes beyond the casual, once-in-awhile meditation in popular culture, grounding mindfulness in daily practice, Zen teachings, and recent research in neuroscience. In Living Zen Remindfully, James Austin, author of the groundbreaking Zen and the Brain, describes authentic Zen training—the commitment to a process of regular, ongoing daily life practice. This training process enables us to unlearn unfruitful habits, develop more wholesome ones, and lead a more genuinely creative life.

Austin shows that mindfulness can mean more than our being conscious of the immediate “now.” It can extend into the subconscious, where most of our brain's activities take place, invisibly. Austin suggests ways that long-term meditative training helps cultivate the hidden, affirmative resource of our unconscious memory. Remindfulness, as Austin terms it, can help us to adapt more effectively and to live more authentic lives.

Austin discusses different types of meditation, meditation and problem-solving, and the meaning of enlightenment. He addresses egocentrism (self-centeredness) and allocentrism (other-centeredness), and the blending of focal and global attention. He explains the remarkable processes that encode, store, and retrieve our memories, focusing on the covert, helpful remindful processes incubating at subconscious levels. And he considers the illuminating confluence of Zen, clinical neurology, and neuroscience. Finally, he describes an everyday life of “living Zen,” drawing on the poetry of Basho, the seventeenth-century haiku master.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262535328
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	03/09/2018
Series:	The MIT Press
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	4.90(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

James H. Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner for more than three decades, is Professor Emeritus of Neurology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and Courtesy Professor of Neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is the author of Zen and the Brain, Chase, Chance, and Creativity, Zen-Brain Reflections, Selfless Insight, Meditating Selflessly, and Zen-Brain Horizons, all published by the MIT Press. For more information, please visit www.zenandthebrain.com.

Table of Contents

Chapters Containing Testable Hypotheses x

List of Figures and Tables xi

Preface xii

Acknowledgments xv

By Way of a Personal Introduction xvi

Part I On the Path of Meditation 1

1 Can Meditation Enhance Creative Problem-Solving Skills? A Progress Report 3

2 In Zen, What Does It Mean "To Be Enlightened"? 18

3 Developing Traits of Character on the Way to Altruism 21

Part II Implications of a Self-Other Continuum 31

4 The Self: A Primer 33

5 Emerging Concepts in Self-Other Relationships 39

6 Early Distinctions between Self and Other, Focal and Global, Are Coded in the Medial Temporal Lobe 54

Part III Aspects of Memory 69

7 Remindfulness 71

8 A Remindful Route through the Nucleus Reuniens 83

9 A Disorder Called Transient Global Amnesia 88

10 Remindful Zen: An Auditory "Altar Ego"? 94

11 Following an Auditory Stimlus, Then "Seeing the Light" 109

12 Turning 116

13 Revisiting Kensho, March 1982 122

Part IV Neurologizing 127

14 A Mondo in Clinical Neurology 129

15 Two Key Gyri, a Notable Sulcus, and the Wandering Cranial Nerve 134

16 Paradox: The Maple Leaf Way Up in Ambient Space 145

17 The Nitric Oxide Connection 147

18 "Pop-Out" 151

19 Keeping Your Eye on the Ball 155

Part V Living Zen 159

20 What Is Living Zen? 161

21 Sometimes, Zen Is "Tor the Birds" 164

22 Basho, the Haiku Poet 168

23 Basho's States of Consciousness 184

24 Zen and the Daily-Life Incremental Training of Basho's Attention 195

25 A Story about Wild Birds, Transformed Attitudes, and a Supervisory Self 205

In Closing 213

Appendix A Back to Nature: Pausing in Awe 214

Appendix B Reminders: The Crucial Role of Inhibitory Neurons and Messenger Molecules in Attentional Processing 216

Appendix C Magnetoencephalography 221

Appendix D Diffusion-Weighted Imaging 225

Appendix E Some Newer Methods of fMRJ Analysis 232

Appendix F The Enso on This Cover 234

Appendix G Word Problems 236

Notes 241

Index 291

What People are Saying About This

Peter Fenwick

James Austin's unique combination of qualities make himwithout doubt the most knowledgeable Zen practitioner. He is a neurologist, a student of Zen who has achieved kensho, and a scientist of outstanding quality and intelligence. Living Zen Remindfully, the latest in a series of six books on neuroscience and Zen meditation,is the jewel in the crown of this important series, and should be on the bookshelf of every Zen practitioner andof any scientist who wantsto understand the fundamental processes which are involved in meditation.

Endorsement

James Austin's unique combination of qualities make himwithout doubt the most knowledgeable Zen practitioner. He is a neurologist, a student of Zen who has achieved kensho, and a scientist of outstanding quality and intelligence. Living Zen Remindfully, the latest in a series of six books on neuroscience and Zen meditation,is the jewel in the crown of this important series, and should be on the bookshelf of every Zen practitioner andof any scientist who wantsto understand the fundamental processes which are involved in meditation.—Peter Fenwick, MB BChir (cantab), DPM FRCPsych

From the Publisher

Dr. James Austin's unique and rich perspectives on the brain, mind, and Zen enrich and astound.

—Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center

In this enlightening book neurologist and Zen practitioner James Austin further explores the brain mechanisms that mediate Zen states, updated by the latest discoveries in neuroscience. He also offers an enjoyable mix of interesting insights: the miracle of birds triggering awakening, training the unconscious mind, functions of underappreciated brain areas, lessons from Zen masters, and haiku.

—Eberhard Fetz, Professor, Department of Physiology & Biophysics, University of Washington

James Austin's unique combination of qualities make him without doubt the most knowledgeable Zen practitioner.  He is a neurologist, a student of Zen who has achieved kensho, and a scientist of outstanding quality and intelligence. Living Zen Remindfully, the latest in a series of six books on neuroscience and Zen meditation, is the jewel in the crown of this important series, and should be on the bookshelf of every Zen practitioner and of any scientist who wants to understand the fundamental processes which are involved in meditation.

—Peter Fenwick, MB BChir (cantab), DPM FRCPsych

Roshi Joan Halifax

Dr. James Austin's unique and rich perspectives on the brain, mind, and Zen enrich and astound.

Eberhard Fetz

In this enlightening book neurologist and Zen practitioner James Austin further explores the brain mechanisms that mediate Zen states, updated by the latest discoveries in neuroscience.He also offers an enjoyable mix of interesting insights: the miracle of birds triggering awakening, training the unconscious mind, functions of underappreciated brain areas, lessons from Zen masters, and haiku.

Editorial Reviews

11/15/2016
To clinical neurologist Austin (emeritus, neurology, Univ. of Colorado Health Sciences Ctr.; Zen and the Brain), authentic Zen means committing to ongoing daily practice, which prepares people to unlearn negative habits and live more creatively. Blending the confluence of Zen, clinical neurology, and neuroscience to demonstrate how mindfulness can extend into the subconscious and cultivate the affirmative resources of memory itself, Austin demonstrates how we can adapt to change more effectively and experience the world genuinely. Verdict Ideal for mindfulness practitioners who want to probe deeply into the neuroscience of meditation.

Library Journal