No Self, No Problem Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus No Self, No Problem

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Zusammenfassung von No Self, No Problem

Name: No Self, No Problem
Rating: 4.7 (360 reviews)
Author: Chris Niebauer

Chris Niebauer

How Neuropsychology is Catching Up to Buddhism

4.7 (360 Bewertungen)

27 Min.

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What’s in it for me? Learn how neuroscience is proving one of the central tenets of Buddhism.

If you’re familiar with one sentence from the annals of Western philosophy, it’s probably this one: Cogito, ergo sum – I think, therefore I am. Formulated by René Descartes in the seventeenth century, these words encapsulate a particular, and particularly Western, worldview – namely, that humankind is defined by thinking.

Descartes would have you believe that there is a stable, continuous “I,” a thinking entity from whom thoughts emanate. And most people – in the West, at least – would agree with him. After all, each of us refers to ourselves as an “I” all the time, and, usually, we’ve got a pretty clear idea who we’re talking about.

But does this “I” really exist? The central argument of Eastern philosophy, as presented by Buddhism, is that there is no “I.” Rather, it is thought that creates the illusion of a continuous self – and that this illusion is at the root of all human suffering.

These blinks detail the ways that neuroscience is substantiating these millennia-old Eastern ideas, showing why Zen Buddhists might have been right when they said, “No self, no problem.”

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how yoga and meditation help the right brain;
that pattern recognition isn’t always a good thing; and
what the world looks like when the left brain goes offline.

Contemporary neuroscience and Buddhist teachings agree: the self is an illusion.

When you use the word “I,” to what, exactly, are you referring?

If you’re like most Westerners, this question probably seems bizarre in the extreme; when you say “I,” you mean you – the thinking consciousness that controls your body and seems to be located in your head, just behind your eyes. This conscious “pilot” is the implied referent of the word “I.” It’s the thing we’re talking about when we talk about our “self.”

If you live in the West, you probably take this self for granted, vaguely imagining it to be physically situated somewhere in your brain, like a pilot in a plane. But here’s the thing: when you look for the self in the brain, it’s simply not there.

Neuroscience has succeeded in mapping almost every function of the mind onto the brain. It’s located the physical centers for language, for compassion, for face processing, and for many other mental processes, and yet it hasn’t found a center for the self.

A Buddhist wouldn’t be surprised to hear this. For millennia, Buddhism and Taoism alike have taught that there isn’t a cohesive, continuous self. In fact, both teach that selfhood is an illusion.

That’s not to say that this illusion isn’t very convincing. You’re surely experiencing it right now, thinking thoughts such as “interesting” or “I’m not fully convinced yet,” and feeling confident that these thoughts are being generated by you, by that piloting “I” inside your head.

So what’s the big deal? What’s the practical harm in believing in your extremely convincing, but probably illusory, self?

Well, the short answer is that believing in the self causes us mental suffering. Before we get into that, however, and before we take a close look at exactly how this illusion of selfhood is created, let’s take a moment to review how the brain works.

The left brain is an interpreter and a story maker.

Back in the 1960s, a handful of patients underwent a radical and experimental surgery. Each had their corpus callosum severed. The corpus callosum is the thick bundle of fibers that connects the right brain to the left brain, allowing each side to communicate with the other. The surgery served its purpose, successfully reducing the severity of the patients’ epileptic seizures. But it also provided scientists with a group of people whose left and right brains were no longer in constant communication.

The work with these “split-brain” patients enabled researchers, for the first time in history, to completely isolate the functions of each side of the brain. A clear understanding of how these two sides work – and particularly how the left brain works – is crucial to understanding the illusion of the self.

The left brain uses language to categorize reality.

The left brain is the center for language. And not just audible utterances. We also use the left brain when silently talking to ourselves, engaging in the constant interpretation of reality that constitutes conscious thought.

You can think of language as a kind of map-making tool. We use words to navigate the terrain of reality. Agreeing on names for objects and abstractions makes this navigation much easier. For instance, if someone tells you to sit in a chair, you know to look for an object with a seat, a backrest and four legs.

The brain’s tendency to perceive patterns creates the illusion of the self and can cause mental suffering.

What do the functions of language and categorization have in common? Both rely on our ability to identify and reproduce patterns.

If you can’t recognize the patterns that govern grammar and conjugation, you’ll have a hard time using language. And if you can’t tell when a particular pattern of letters creates a correctly spelled word, you’ll have no way of differentiating between the categories of written language and nonsense.

We’re all capable of tuning into right-brain consciousness, as the case of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor demonstrates.

You’ve now got a pretty clear idea of how the left brain works. It’s the language center; it interprets reality; it looks for patterns. Together, these functions lead to the illusion that you are possessed of a stable, continuous self.

You know what left-brain consciousness feels like because you’re feeling it right now, as you read this. But what might it be like to approach the world with the right brain rather than the left brain? The case of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroanatomist, provides some clues.

The right brain is the spatial center, and movement-based activities are one way to tap into it.

Discussing right-brain consciousness is difficult. After all, to talk about it we’re forced to use language, and language is a left-brain function. Furthermore, since your ego – the self you’re referring to when you say “I” – is a construct of the left brain, there is no way for you, in the typical Western sense of the word, to experience right-brain consciousness.

In fact, the instant you begin to put words on an experience, you’ve already switched over to left-brain thinking. The only way to understand right-brain consciousness is to experience it – so let’s look at a few ways that you can do that.

Intuition is a crucial part of right-brain intelligence.

The right hemisphere may be the brain’s spatial center, but navigating space is far from the only thing the right brain does. It’s also the source of other forms of “nonconscious” – that is, nonverbal – knowing.

Just take intuition. Now, people who are left-brain dominant tend to explain away examples of intuitive intelligence as silly. When they hear people say, “I suddenly just knew that my friend was hurt, and when I called, he was” or “I don’t know why, but I brought an umbrella with me on a sunny day, and then it rained,” these left-brained folks think one word: coincidence.

You can exercise right-brain intelligence by being compassionate and grateful.

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a teaching known as prajnaparamita, which emphasizes a form of knowledge that doesn’t depend on language. It’s possible that this teaching, usually translated as “the perfection of wisdom,” is something that only the right brain can truly understand.

That would make sense. After all, as you now know, the right brain doesn’t work with categories or language; rather, it specializes in taking in the big picture, and is able to discern information that the left brain can’t access.

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Worum geht es in No Self, No Problem?

No Self, No Problem (2019) offers an array of neuroscientific evidence that supports an age-old Buddhist thesis: that there’s no such thing as a stable, continuous self. Recent research indicates that the self is an illusion, a nonexistent pattern created by the language center of the human brain.

Bestes Zitat aus No Self, No Problem

To think is to think categorically, and there is no way around this.

—Chris Niebauer

Wer No Self, No Problem lesen sollte

Scientifically minded spiritual seekers
Skeptics of meditation, yoga and tai chi
People who’ve been called “left-brained”

Über den Autor

Chris Niebauer is a professor at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania. Specializing in neuropsychology, he offers classes on the differences between the left and right brain, as well as on mindfulness and consciousness. His previous books include The Neurotic’s Guide to Avoiding Enlightenment and Catching up with the Buddha.

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