While speaking with neuropsychologist Rick Hanson, author (with Richard Mendius, MD) of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom, he made some fascinating comments about the differences among the definitions of awareness, consciousness, and mind.
“I prefer to use the word awareness,” he said, ”because the word consciousness is so saturated with different philosophical and spiritual connotations depending on who you are talking with.”
“I think of awareness as a subset of the mind, and I define mind broadly as the flow of information through the nervous system,” Rick stated. “In other words the nervous system moves immaterial meaning or signals around, like the heart moves blood around. That material substrate, the physical letters on a page or the physical patterning of sound waves, conveys immaterial information. The meaning of the material symbols, D-O-G, for example, is a reference to a furry, four-legged beast that wags its tail when you come home.”
According to Rick most of the information moving around in the nervous system is unconscious—either momentarily or permanently outside of awareness. That said, nobody knows exactly how neural activity becomes the conscious experience of living. Nonetheless, within the framework of western science, it’s assumed that somehow the nervous system does this, and it is presumed that without the brain, we could not be aware.
The field of awareness has been called “the global workspace of consciousness.” Rick uses a different metaphor. “Awareness is like a stage,” he said. “In the focal field of attention, we are very aware of what is under the spotlight. And we are also somewhat aware of what’s going on elsewhere on the stage. Moment to moment, what’s on stage or under the spotlight continually changes. Awareness is a field in which different mental contents comes and go.”
As Rick shows in Buddha’s Brain, three facts establish self-directed neuroplasticity:
1. When the brain changes, the mind changes. If you alter the brain, either by getting a concussion or a stroke, or by drinking three lattes first thing in the morning, you’re going to change the mind, including your experience of living. In effect, the brain makes the mind.
2. When the mind changes, the brain changes. The flow of mental activity - both conscious and unconscious - continually sculpts neural structure, for better or worse, because “neurons that fire together, wire together.” In effect, the mind makes the brain.
3. Therefore, you can use your mind to change your brain to change your mind for the better. For example, if people use the mind to focus on truly good facts, like their positive qualities or on favorable events in the world, then over time that kind of mental activity will gradually sculpt positive neural circuits in the brain.
That’s the choice we each have. You can use your mind to change your brain and that will then change your mind over time in an increasingly positive way.
Rick has much more to say about the benefits of using mind-brain science to improve our lives in Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom. It is available locally at Barnes and Noble bookstores in Seattle, Tukwila, and Federal Way. For other intriguing information that Rick shared, click on the links Buddha’s Brain and the Consciousness Transcendental X-Factor.
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