Nice try David Brooks, but honestly I still don't think you nailed it. Brooks' op-ed "The Neural Buddhists" published in the May 13 New York Times, went deep into smug aging-boomer turf: science mysticism are not mutually exclusive. News flash! He cited (too briefly) that research trends are veering away from academic materialism, and into the emerging study of consciousness and emotions. This new direction for the Academy is exciting indeed, but where I got stuck in the op-ed is Brooks's use of the concept of Buddhism. His pre-packaged Whole Foods "I'm aethesist but spritual!" approach missed the point. He laid out several tenets that are critical to this new research direction:
1. The self is a dynamic concept.
2. Behind religious dogma, people have a common moral compass world wide.
3. We are physically rigged to be able to experience elevated states of being.
4. God is best conceived as the nature of being in that elevated state.
He calls this neural Buddhism. I get his point and I see the overlay with some Buddhist teachings, however where Brooks veers off course is that he tries to conflate theocratic systems and morality with a Buddhist system. It's a common Western trap, in my opinion. We are so trained to believe that there is or is not a God (believer or aetheist?), that question of God and where/how/what has to be the logical conclusion to an argument about consciousness. I beg to differ: there is no question about God. If you believe or don't believe is outside of the question of consciousness. There is no theocracy in Buddhism. If you believe in God, then it exists, if you don't believe, then it doesn't exist. God is a powerful idea but I don't think drills down into consciousness; if one is truly having a "direct experience" with God, a Buddhist would argue you would not even know you are having it because it would absolve the duality of self. That true enlightenment - the pinnacle of the elevated state of being (or feeling God in Brooks' words) - can ever been witnessed as an "other." When it is the other and you can speak about it as such, then you are not truly part of it.
What I am quite interested in learning more about is the elasticity of the brain and I hope that the academy continues to pursue that without getting caught in the God trap. (CN)
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