Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience
This new book from Karuna-Shechen’s founder, Matthieu Ricard, presents converging and diverging views on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, perception, meditation, and other topics.
The wide-ranging conversation between Ricard and Wolf Singer is an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism’s wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience’s abundance of experimental results.
Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it 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 this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist — close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue — offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.
Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience
Matthieu Ricard and Wolf Singer
MIT Press
Matthieu’s share of the proceeds from the sale of his books go directly to Karuna-Shechen. Learn more about Beyond the Self and Matthieu’s other books here.
October 28 2020
“Karuna-Shechen breaks taboos on what rural women can and cannot do, thus changing attitudes. As Dalai Lama often points out, we more than ever need empathy, altruism and compassion: that is why it ...
October 16 2020
« One only needs to become conscious of the truth for error, no matter how deeply rooted, to disappear, just as one only needs to light a lamp for darkness to disperse in a cave, even if it has been...
September 30 2020
In the continuity of Yoga for Karuna, Karuna-Shechen, an association founded by Matthieu Ricard, launches Action for Karuna, to support humanitarian projects in Nepal. From November 2 to 8, 2020, use ...
September 2 2020
« Altruism is not a luxury, but a necessity. It is also the most pragmatic way to meet the challenges of the 21st century. Altruism is indeed not only the noblest state of mind of the human being, bu...
August 31 2020
Karuna-Shechen is committed, since 2000, to provide access to quality education to the greatest number of people. We believe in a more altruistic world and education is a tool of choice to encourage t...
