Neuropsychology & Buddhism: No Self, No Problem by Chris Niebauer (Book Summary)

About the Book (& Workbook)

Chris Niebauer received his Ph.D. in cognitive neuropsychology in 1996 and says: “My interest in psychology and the inner workings of the mind began after the death of my father when I was twenty years old. The impact of this event was profound, and the deep suffering I experienced led me to study the mechanics of mind with the goal of helping myself and others. I believed that if there were a way into this mess, there had to be some way out, and I was set on finding it.”

• “This book will explore strong evidence suggesting that the concept of the self is simply a construct of the mind, rather than a physical thing located somewhere within the brain itself. Put another way, it is the process of thinking that creates the self, rather than there being a self having any independent existence separate from thought. The self is more like a verb than a noun. To take it a step further, the implication is that without thought, the self does not, in fact, exist. It’s as if contemporary neuroscience and psychology are just now catching up with what Buddhist, Taoist, and Advaita Vedanta Hinduism have been teaching for over 2,500 years.”
• “This book aims to unpack and explore the thinking mind and move toward our ultimate goal, which is to integrate everything we are (brain, body, emotions, and more) and live in the mystery and wonder of clear consciousness.”
• “Our goal here is to test the following truth: You are not the story in your head, but something much greater (even if you don’t know exactly what that is).”
• “My goal for this workbook is that it will serve as a tool to help you go beyond the veil of thought and reconnect you with the experience of what I like to call clear consciousness, or those moments when you are living entirely in the present moment, neither controlled by nor obsessed with the voice in your head.”

Left Brain & Right Brain

“While each side of the brain specializes in certain types of tasks, both sides are usually in continuous communication. When this connection was disrupted, however, it became possible to study the job of each side of the brain in isolation. For example, until this connection was disrupted, scientists relied on either brain damage or indirect methods to test for differences between the left and right brain. However, with the sides disconnected in these epileptic patients, scientists could test each on its own and gain insight into the functional differences between the left and right sides of the brain. These patients were referred to as ‘split-brain’ patients.”

Left Brain:

Spotlight attention, language center, interpretation/stories, labels/categories, sequential/patterns, nonliving/mechanical.

• Spotlight attention: attention is focused and narrow; focuses on the local elements; narrow focus will shine a spotlight on the flaws and lose sight of the big picture; maintains a kind of spotlight of focus on one thing at a time, intense and narrow.
• Language: language is the pen with which the left brain draws maps of reality; includes the inner speech we use when we talk to ourselves.
• Interpretation/stories: constantly interprets the world and tells stories to explain it; endeavors to solve the problems it believes arise out of the stories it has created (most of the time, it uses language to create these stories); creates explanations/reasons to help make sense of what is going on.
• Often wrong: when actions or facts arise from someplace to which the left brain does not have access, the interpretive portion of our mind will simply explain them (this explanation may have nothing to do with reality); constantly making interpretations without a full account of the facts and it believes these interpretations to be true, much of the time without doubting its conclusion.
• Labels/categories: focuses on parts/objects in space, labels them, categorizes them, and tries to make sense out of them; dividing things into categories and making judgments that separate the world.
• Sequential/patterns: senses the world in series (one thing at a time); separating time into ‘before that’ or ‘after this’; thinks in terms of cause and effect; pattern recognition.