Sublime

Melanie Boly, a neurologist and neuroscientist at the Medical School of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is painstakingly collecting EEG data from long-term Buddhist meditators during a state known as pure presence, an experience with no self, no discursive thoughts, and no perceptual content except for a luminous expanse, an empty mirror. Att

abhidharma, the Buddhist system of psychology.

ANTHONY PEAKE, AUTHOR OF THE INFINITE MINDFIELD AND OPENING THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION AND COAUTHOR OF THE IMMORTAL MIND

One common observation is that psychedelics destabilize longrange cortical communication patterns and reduce activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and precuneus in the posterior regions of the neocortex. This is the compatible with our knowledge of the brains of people trained in mindfulness. It appears that the less these midline structures a

Vedanta philosophy.

—Alan Watts, The Way of Zen

The Buddha similarly commented on the powerful ability of thoughts to shape our experience of the world when he said, “Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.”

Ajahn Amaro