Buddha and the Brain

Have you noticed lately a plethora of books and articles connecting Buddha and brains? Buddha's Brain and Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge are a couple of the books and here's a link to a PT article. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/neuro-atheism/201101/buddhism-and-neuroscience

I'm not sure why or how this sudden interest in the connection between Buddhism and the brain has come to the fore and I'll research some more. Guess I better read more of the literature on the topic. From my perspective the technique of detachment, useful in stress reduction, and particularly useful as an advanced technique for eliminating negative self-talk, shares some similarity to what happens in a meditative state. You're there but not there. You notice what's going on in your head, but don't react to it. Instead you just let it go without judgment or reaction, behavior or action. In a book that I like called thoughts without a thinker, discussing Buddhism and psychotherapy, the term bare attention is used to describe a form of detachment. 

In a different way, the articles about spending time staring into space with nature are essentially about detaching from the stuff that's getting to you, and focusing your attention instead on something else — anything else that distracts you from your stress, but especially the green, blues, reds and yellows, the smells and sounds, of relatively tranquil outside spaces.


Read more about detachment in June, 13, 20, and 27, posts plus August 1, 2011 intelligentwomenonly.com