Meditation and Neural Connections: Changing Sense(S) of Self in East Asian Buddhist and Neuroscientific Descriptions
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MEDITATION AND NEURAL CONNECTIONS: CHANGING SENSE(S) OF SELF IN EAST ASIAN BUDDHIST AND NEUROSCIENTIFIC DESCRIPTIONS ________________________________________________________________________ A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board _______________________________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ________________________________________________________________________ by Kin Cheung Diploma Date, May 2017 Examining Committee Members: Shigenori Nagatomo, Advisory Chair, Department of Religion Marcus Bingenheimer, TU Department of Religion Khalid A. Y. Blankinship, TU Department of Religion Shanyang Zhao, External Member, TU Department of Sociology . © Copyright 2017 by Kin Cheung All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Since its inception in the 1960s, the scientific research of Buddhist-based meditation practices have grown exponentially with hundreds of new studies every year in the past decade. Some researchers are using Buddhist teachings, such as not-self, as an explanation for the causal mechanism of meditation’s effectiveness, for conditions such as stress, anxiety, and depression. However, there has been little response from Buddhist studies scholars to these proposed mechanisms in the growing discourse surrounding the engagement of ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Science.’ I argue that the mechanistic causal explanations of meditation offered by researchers provide an incomplete understanding of meditative practices. I focus on two articles, by David Vago and his co-authors, that have been cited over nine hundred and three hundred times. I make explicit internal criticisms of their work from their peers in neuroscience, and offer external criticisms of their understanding of the cognitive aspects of meditation by using an extended, enactive, embodied, embedded, and affective (4EA) model of cognition. I also use Chinese Huayan Buddhist mereology and causation to provide a corrective for a more holistic understanding. The constructive aspect of my project combines 4EA cognition with Huayan mereology and causation in order to propose new directions of research on how meditative practices may lead to a changing sense of self that does not privilege neurobiological mechanisms. Instead, I argue a fruitful understanding of change in ethical behavior is a changing sense of self using support from a consummate meditator in the Japanese Zen Buddhist context: Dōgen and his text Shoakumakusa. iii Contemporary research looking for mechanistic causation focuses on the physical body, specifically the brain, without considering how the mind is involved in meditative practices. The group of researchers I focus on reduce the senses of self to localized parts of the brain. In contrast, according to Mahayana Buddhist terminology, Huayan offers a nondualistic understanding of the self that does not privilege the brain. Rather, Huayan characterizes the self as a mind-body complex and meditation is understood to involve the whole of the person. My critique notes how the methodology used in these studies focuses too much on the localized, explicit, and foreground, but not enough on the whole, implicit, and background processes in meditative practices. Bringing in Huayan also offers a constructive aspect to this engagement of Buddhist studies and neuroscience as there are implications of its mereology for a more complete understanding of not just meditation, but also of neuroplasticity. To be clear, the corrective is only meant for the direction of research that focuses on neural-mechanistic explanations of meditation. Surely, there is value in scientific research on meditative practices. However, that emphasis on neural mechanisms gives a misleading impression of being able to fully explain meditative practices. I argue that a more fruitful direction of engagement between Buddhist traditions and scientific research is the small but growing amount of experiments conducted on how meditative practices lead to ethical change. This direction provides a more complete characterization of how meditative practices changes the senses of self. iv 獻給父母 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to countless people and fortunate circumstances that made this project possible. I have been blessed to receive so much help, training, mentorship, and support along the way. Apologies if I have left someone out. Firstly, my supervisor Shigenori Nagatomo advised me not only in scholarship, but also in what it means to help others. I am grateful to the kind and inspirational faculty at Temple University, including Marcus Bingenheimer, Douglas Duckworth, Rebecca Alpert, Laura Levitt, Monte Hull, Julius Tsai, Jeremy Schipper, Khalid Blankinship, Terry Rey, John Raines, Kathy Uno, Shanyang Zhao, and Joseph Margolis. Faculty at New York University who fostered my interest in graduate work in this area include Jean Graybeal, Louis Nordstrom, and Angela Zito. Teachers at Stuyvesant High School who nurtured my curiosity in philosophy and religion include Amy Katz and Ira Bindman. The camaraderie from my fellow graduate students and Buddhist studies cohort at Temple made this journey enjoyable. Thank you Edward Godfrey, Ermine Algaier, Patricia Way, Beth Lawson, Per Faaland, Steven Pustay, Adam Valerio, Patricia Kolbe, Vishma Kunu, Dennis Stromback, Holly Gorman, Amy Defibaugh, Adrian Tiethof- Aronson, John Dyck, Tin Le, Minjung Noh, and Masaki Komori. Peers from other institutions provided encouragement while walking along the path of graduate school. Thank you Se-Woong Koo, Kay Duffy, Courtney Bruntz, Matt McMullen, Kristopher Kersey, Jason Protass, Ira Helderman, Douglas Gildow, Ori Tavor, Justin Whitaker, Justin B. Stein, Steven Miller, and Brendan O’Kane. vi Senpai Pamela Winfield, Hsiao-Lan Hu, Tao Jiang, John Krummel, and Gereon Kopf offered valuable advice. Senior colleagues I have met at conferences and elsewhere, including Pierce Salguero, Ron Purser, Ann Gleig, Richard Payne, Susie Andrews, Dhammadipa Sak, Bhikkhunī Dhammadinnā, Weijen Teng, and Hank Glassman provided support and presented me with worthwhile opportunities. I am thankful for the mentorship of Insook Lee and Louis Komjathy, and guidance from Hagop Sarkissian, Sallie King, William Waldron, Elliot Ratzman, Jimmy Yu, Stuart Young, Patricia Mushim Ikeda, Martha Hanson, Paula Arai, Steven Stanley, Linda Heuman, Jared Lindahl, Clifford Saron, Andrew Newberg, Maggie Brown, Edwin Ng, Charles Goodman, Robert Sharf, and Linda Barnes. Colleagues and friends at Stockton College (now University), Dharma Drum Buddhist College (now Institute of Liberal Arts), and Haverford College cheered me on. Audience members at my presentations gave useful feedback. I continue to be influenced by meaningful conversations over the years with people I have not listed. Any mistakes and errors that remain in this dissertation are solely my fault. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my close friends and family who have always been there for me. Thank you all! vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................. viii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................ x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: DIALOGUE BETWEEN ‘BUDDHISM’ AND ‘SCIENCE’ ......................................................................................................................... 1 Introductory Remarks to Situate My Project .................................................................. 1 Engagement Between ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Science’ Against the Background of ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ ................................................................................................................... 4 Rhetorics of Compatibility .............................................................................................. 6 Typology of Relationships between ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Science’..................................... 8 Options and Stances ........................................................................................................ 9 The Focal Point of Meditation ...................................................................................... 12 Earliest Scientific Research on Meditation ................................................................... 14 Buddhism and Mindfulness Meditation ........................................................................ 21 What has been Neglected in this Dialogue and My Contribution ................................ 26 Chapter Summaries ....................................................................................................... 29 CHAPTER 2 RECENT RESEARCH ON MINDFULNESS-PRACTICES .................... 32 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 32 Meta-Analyses of the Positive Effects of Mindfulness-Based Meditation Practices ... 33 Research of Mindfulness-Based Meditation Practices on the Brain ............................. 40 Research Context and Assumptions.............................................................................. 45 Vago and His Co-Authors Arguing the Mechanism of Mindfulness as the Changing Senses of