"Flatlining" the brain at will (video)

CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; self-proclaimed jhana expert Vern Lovic

What are the intricate workings of the mind, and how are they experienced within?

 

(Gavin Johnson/flickr.com)

Vern Lovic: I'm curious. Has anyone run MRIs (magnetic resonance imagings) of meditators that have reached a flatline mind -- no thought... stopped mind?

WQ: a flatline would seem to indicate that someone is dead. But, yes, it's been done. It is causing a wave in new medical research. There is neurotheology, where people have "GOD on the brain." There is scientific mind reading. There is at least one meditator sufficiently skilled as to directly manipulate his EEG readings. (See below). He is not a monk but can flatten his line at will, a skill of great subtlety and practice. Yet, it would seem, he must be thinking to intend it and be aware that he is getting the results he is after.

Monk's fMRI (Zoran Josipovic video still)

In a laboratory tucked away off a noisy NYC street, a soft-spoken neuroscientist (Zoran Josipovic) has been placing Tibetan monks into a car-sized brain scanner to better understand the ancient practice of Buddhist meditation. Could this unusual research unravel the secrets of leading a harmonious life and also shed light on some of the world's more mysterious diseases? Josipovic, a research scientist and adjunct professor at NYU, says he has been peering into the brains of monks. Brains of meditating monks get MRI scans.

VL: The monks are meditating, so they're doing something. There is another state -- the state of, well, "flatline" for lack of a better word. 

WQ: We tracked him down, Vern, so you could see it for yourself. A functional MRI scan would certainly show activity. "Flatlining" is for graphs with lines, which is characteristic of an EEG (electroencephalograph) machine. It is the remarkable speaker Ken Wilber, who videotaped his own flatlining to demonstrate the amazing level of self control he can exhibit. 

His proficiency is such that he can enter states that would seem to be reserved not only to arhats but wondrous masters. We covered him back in 2009. Look: "Family Guy" Meditation Master Ken Wilber!

Flatline

(IntegralNaked) Ken Wilber stops his brain, flatlines, at will.

This is incredible! (psychcentral.com)

Ken Wilber can stop his brainwaves on demand. Actually -- and in a more serious vein -- this is the famous EEG machine recording where Wilber enters various meditative states, one of which is a type of "thoughtless," "image-less," or "formless" state: 

His brainwaves come to an almost complete stop, as clearly recorded on this portable EEG machine. (This video is discussed in One Taste, April 10 entry).

Wilber was asked to do a short 10-minute commentary on these various meditative states and the corresponding brain-wave patterns that are shown on the EEG machine in the video. He enters four meditative states (nirvikalpa samadhi with closed eyes, open eyes, sahaj ["ever present awareness"], and mantra-savikalpa), each of which has a very distinctive brain-wave pattern.

In his commentary, Wilber emphasizes that the patterns shown on this machine may or may not be typical, but they do emphasize that profound states of consciousness can be evoked at will, and these show immediate correlations in brain-wave patterns.

If nothing else, seeing somebody's brainwaves flatline in about four seconds is a sight not easily forgotten! It also explains why it was once heard that Wilber's girlfriend, upon delivering news that she thought might not be happily received, "Now, um, honey, make your brain waves go to zero..."

More seriously, as Wilber often says, "If you want to know God [Brahman], you've got to get your brain out of the way first. It's just one big stupid filter...."

Is Eckhart Tolle Buddhist? (video)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; video (Learning the Secret)

Be here now, sati-sampajjana (P-A)

Sitting on a park bench, not listening to Jethro Tull but talking with Eckhart Tolle (pronounced eK-heart TOLL-lay), after his own independent "awakening" to the power of NOW. There is this moment, the present moment, and it is always only this moment. So live now. The mind will complicate things. Pain will encourage suffering, but suffering is optional and mind-made. How can we live in the now?

Presence -- even if being only in the company of someone speaking from presence (mindfulness, presence of mind, alert, constantly aware that it is only the now, what the Buddha referred to as sati-sampajjanna or "mindfulness and clear comprehension) -- keeps us powerful and in the now.

Tolle seems to have realized, at least intellectually, that there is no self, no permanent "I" to identify with thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and so on. If he has had this realization to the profound level of a stream enterer, one who has entered upon the first stage of what the historical Buddha described as "enlightenment" (bodhi), glimpsing nirvana, certain to make an end of rebirth and all suffering within seven lives, that is doubtful or at least unclear. He does not make that claim. But his realization, however it happened and however he phrases it (since, by his own admission, Tolle is only ever saying the same thing, making the same point in a hundred different ways. See Even the Sun Will Die, a Sounds True double CD interview with Tami Simon), puts him in line with Buddhism. See Minute 28:55, where Tolle begins to talk about the Buddha and the conception of "emptiness" or "spaciousness" (shunyata), what he claims Jesus called "the fullness of life." And he often speaks highly of the Buddha and Buddha's teachings (Dharma).

He may only have come to a Vedantic conception of reality, the "Timeless or Eternal Truth" (Sanatan Dharma, as Hinduism refers to itself). The Buddha was aware of this perspective, which lives on very strongly in many Mahayana Buddhist conceptions. But the historical Buddha went beyond, to talk about things never heard by the Brahmin priests and ancient Vedic "seers" (rishis) thought to have composed the very ancient Vedas ("Knowledge Books" of the Indus Valley Civilization preserved as India's sacred texts). The Buddha rejected the authority of the Vedas and became not a teacher aligned with the Brahmins, but a Shraman (shramana movement) teacher, the iconoclastic tradition of "wandering ascetics" rejecting the Vedas and independent of Brahmin temple priests, engaged in ritual and memorizing Vedic verses).

The Power of (the bench) Now

Under a tree: girlfriend, Eckhart, and filmmaker

Eckhart Tolle's profound yet simple teachings have already helped countless people throughout the world find inner peace and greater fulfillment in life.

At the core of his teachings lies the transformation of consciousness, a spiritual awakening that he sees as the next step in human evolution that leaves behind suffering (i.e., mentally-produced pain).

 

An essential aspect of this awakening consists in transcending our ego-based state of consciousness. This is a prerequisite not only for personal happiness but also for the ending of collective violence on the planet.

Eckhart Tolle is a much sought-after public speaker who teaches and travels extensively. Many of his talks, weekend intensives, and retreats are published as CDs and DVDs. Most of the teachings are given in English, but occasionally he also gives teaches in German and Spanish. 

He is a pioneer in using technology to disseminate his teachings. At EckhartTolleTV.com, he gives monthly talks, live meditations, and answers questions from viewers. In addition to The Power of Now and A New Earth, he has written a book designed for meditative (contemplative) reading entitled Stillness Speaks. And a book consisting of selections from The Power of Now is also available, entitled Practicing the Power of Now.

• There is a lot of money to be made selling what we have difficulty finding as simple as we are told it is. Billionaire media mogul Oprah (oprah.com) pushes and capitalizes on Tolle, too: "I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read."

Final commentary

Many ask, "How can I achieve what you have clearly achieved?" To that Tolle has no answer, except to say that he sees it happening more and more, presumably spontaneously and only to a select few. This leaves us to wonder if he thinks no one can hasten the unfoldment, make faster progress, advance the process along, blossom more quickly the way the Buddha taught followers to blossom.

 

Eckhart Tolle may be a Buddhist at heart, or very close to liberating-insight, but he is not one publicly so. He speaks highly of the Buddha and speaks highly of the Dalai Lama (Minute 44:00), as if the Dalai Lama were an example of enlightenment, which the Dalai Lama very clearly says he is not. And given the way Tolle defines "self" (Minute 1:55) -- whether as presence, a watcher, the wider space in which things happen, the spaciousness in which experience unfolds, or as consciousness itself -- these are all very Hindu/Eastern philosophical conclusions that fall short of what a "stream enterer" realizes in order to make the breakthrough into what the historical Buddha defined as just the first stage of "enlightenment." As Mahayana-Buddhist as all his beautiful teachings may sound at times, it is not in line with the core Mahayana teaching of the Heart Sutra, namely that what is taken as "self" is actually devoid of self, is empty (shunyata). This is the epitome of the perfection of wisdom that liberates Kwan Yin/Avalokitateshvara, the protagonist in the great sutra and climactic mantra known in Sanskrit as the Prajna Paramita.

 

Hinduism points and says, "Thou art that." It is the twin teaching along with, "Thou art not that." Yet, constantly seeking identification with anything, the realization never dawns (on the Five Aggregates) that things arise dependently originated, not from an eternal "self" or "ego," not from an independent doer, watcher, or experiencer behind the experience. Without this monumental realization, one clings to one or more of the Five Aggregates of Clinging and calls it "self." Ego is bound in ignorance (avidya), bound by the Wheel of Rebirth and Suffering (samsara); ego is not released (moksha) by the ultimate (nirvana).