Upaya Dharma Podcats - Waking, Dreaming, Being

A fabulous podcast from neuroscientist Evan Thompson, who co-wrote several books with Francisco Varella, from the Upaya Zen Center.

Much gratitude to Roshi Joan Halifax for bringing such amazing people to her Zen center and making the discussions available to all of us!

Waking, Dreaming, Being

July 15th, 2009

Speaker: Evan Thompson

“What is the self?” To the ancient East Indians, it is “the light of consciousness.” How can we as Westerners study the self, including such tantalizing questions as posed by H.H. the Dalai Lama, “is there a physical basis necessary for consciousness to be present?” Meditators have studied various aspects of the self from the first-person perspective for thousands of years. The more objective perspective used by modern science is comparatively new, yet it offers helpful tools to investigate the great question of the self. Evan calls on both methods of study, since both grow out of an ethical concern to alleviate suffering in the world.

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Tags: Evan Thompson, self, Upaya Zen Center, Roshi Joan Halifax, Dharma Podcats, Waking, Dreaming, Being, Buddhism, brain, consciousness, neuroscience