Matthieu Ricard and Wolf Singer's Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience.

Abstract

Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically. But Buddhism has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In the book that is the subject of this review, two friends, one a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and the other, a distinguished neuroscientist, offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.