The Science of Enlightenment: Teachings and Meditations for Awakening Through Self-Investigation

Shinzen Young is a rarity among meditation teachers. He is educated as a scholar in Buddhist studies and Asian languages. He lived as a Shingon monk in Japan, a branch of the Vajrayana school (a distant relative of Tibetan Buddhism), and has trained extensively in Zen and Theravadan Vipassana. Combine this with his studies of worldwide meditative traditions and you get a teacher with an extraordinary breadth and depth of experience and training, and decades of teaching experience. Shinzen is very articulate at describing meditation and spiritual practice with exceptional clarity. I have read many books by well-known teachers and I have attended several retreats. Yet, there were a few facets that were vague to me, but I didn't even realize it until Shinzen clarified it. For example, "clear knowing" is a fundamental aspect of vipassana meditation. However, I understood what this meant much better after Shinzen explaining it as meaning a finer grained resolution of experience (e.g. the tiny microsensations that make up any larger bodily sensation), as well as discriminating clearly between the components of experience (seeing, hearing, feeling, mental talk, mental image, etc.). Concentration serves as an awareness-extending tool in the same way a microscope allows a biologist to see what was not apparent to the naked eye. Maybe his most famous formulation is Suffering = Pain x Resistance, where "pain" can be any form of distressing experience (sensations, emotion, or thoughts). Equanimity, then is non-resistance to these experiences. So, as we reduce our resistance, the pain may remain the same, but suffering is progressively reduced. These are classic concepts in meditative traditions, but here they are seamlessly integrated and placed in the broader context. Shinzen further describes more subtle aspects of meditation practice and how these progress toward Enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a magical, mythological fiction, but in fact a real phenomenon, a shift in consciousness that happens to regular people who do sufficient and strategic practice, which greatly enhances a person's resilience, joy, wisdom, and compassion, magnifying their quality of life. Here is where the "science" part of the title really comes in. Shinzen is fascinated by the sciences and has a proficient understanding of them. He sees "spiritual" practice and science as two parallel but complementary human developments, where each can inform the other and collaborate. Ultimately the collaboration between these two endeavors may make enlightenment more accessible to a greater number of people, possibly changing the course of humanity for the better. Much of the content of this book was released from his audio CD series, also called The Science of Enlightenment, which radically changed my understanding and practice. This text version is not a mere transcription of that series, however. It is updated with a lot of newer material.

A generous reference of what Shinzen has been teaching for several decades. Thirty minutes into the book I was thinking it was a waste to read this as I have heard it all before the fifteen years I followed him. However, after finishing the book, I see it encompasses all the things he has emphasized in a neat package, including short descriptions of his favorite secular meditation techniques. Also his book balances both the contents across the pages and importance of the different meditation aspects, making me realize that I may have over and under emphasized parts of his teachings. As a sceptic, I have always appreciated to check out Shinzen's scientific and historical claims often originating in Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese or Japanese, which are languages he has known for many decades. Instead of hearing his words I can now get the correct spelling right away and enter into Google! I remember more than a decade ago, spending hours checking his claims about shunya, which was the first word for zero in its original country India. Before the numerical meaning of shunya it had the meaning of empty (within Buddhism), which Shinzen stresses more than other historians. After checking many other things he talks about I have found him both careful and accurate. Knowing how skilled Shinzen is, it has surprised me many times why he doesn't use his skills to make tons of money in many other ways (than to teach meditation). Knowing this has added to my admiration for Shinzen and his message, making me think that he is really happy forwarding the contents within this book, as if his happiness actually is the same as the central pillar of his book, he aims to convey.

This is a very good book with many insights of practical importance for the practice of meditation. A few noteworthy points: 1. This is not a "how-to" manual for meditation. Shinzen Young's system of meditation is concisely and precisely described in his various writings, available for free at his websites. This book should be used in conjunction with specific instruction available from these writings or directly from Young or his students. 2. This book explicates a global, unified, high level viewpoint based on the author's extensive experience in a wide variety of contemplative practices. Though it would be unfair to label it "theoretical" (because it is deeply grounded in practice and application), some people unfamiliar with the author's system may react to its apparent "conceptuality." (Compare to point #1 above.) 3. The book is more infused with philosophical and religious traditions in style and presentation than Young's practical and direct guides to his system of meditation. Strongly secular and materialist minded people may react to this. 4. Warning: this book contains passages of speculation. The author is very clear to delineate when he writes from direct experience and when he engages in speculation. Nonetheless, some readers ignoring this delineation may react.

This is truly a great book, in the sense that Adler and Van Doren define- it is a book that will stretch you, and reward you for the effort you make to read it, each time you read it. This compliment can also serve as a caveat. As the Editor states in the foreword- this book is “not intended as a beginner’s guide to practice. It’s probably most relevant to those who have at least some level of ongoing practice and meditative insight.” For people who have absolutely no prior experience with meditative practice, I’d recommend first Shinzen Young’s audiobook “The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation”, which includes a basic conceptual model of Meditation, as well as 20 minutes of guided meditation practice, and/or the Editor’s own recently published book- “The Mindful Geek.” Another caveat: Despite the title, this book is not intended as a comprehensive summary/review/overview of the scientific research on meditation. The author makes that clear in the Preface- that although one of his roles is mindfulness researcher (affiliated with University of Vermont, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvard Medical School, no less) this book was not written with the voice of a researcher, but with the voice of a Dharma teacher. Therefore, this book is not for individuals who are interested in this topic merely from an intellectual/academic standpoint. The amount of useful information in this book is astonishing. It’s the most comprehensive and insightful manual for meditative practice I’ve ever read. It's truly a masterpiece.

Our minds are perpetually bombarded by electronic intrusions in the form of phone calls, texts, and emails. The creative destruction of the modern global-automated economy is making people insecure in all aspects of their lives. The need for simplicity and peace is more urgent then ever. Organized religion, the conventional coping mechanism, is being abandoned in droves by Americans at accelerating rates. What is the solution? A return to internal simplicity. Shinzen offers a secular system of mental training where the difficulties of reality can be dealt with effectively. This book is an excellent introduction to the theoretical framework of his meditative system. A critic of the book asked a valid question “but does it work?” Actually that is the most pertinent question – because if it doesn’t work the book is just mere ramblings of an intellectual. For me, Shinzen’s system has been transformative! I know that is anecdotal. It would be naïve to believe that perfection lies at the other end of the rainbow. It does not. No one is 100% complete. The goal of the process is to improve. If you are waiting for a prospective randomized study for proof, or if you are expecting his “facilitators” to be saints you will be waiting a very long time.

This book presents a crystal clear description of what meditation is, what different stages of meditative experience look like and why it is a worthy endeavor, among a number of other interesting topics. The author of the book is a renowned meditation and mindfulness teacher, perhaps one of the best teachers alive today. Shinzen Young not only has a first hand experience in eastern techniques of self cultivation and liberation, he is also well versed in the western scientific paradigm and he writes with clarity and logic of a professional scientist. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in meditation practice, or in development of human potential in general.

For most of human history, a person who wanted to learn to meditate had one teacher who taught a single, unified approach, with a coherent set of practices and terminology. An American in the 21st century, however, faces a bewilderingly diverse array of traditions, each of which has its own practices and special terms. To complicate things further, many of these traditions use the *same* terms to mean different things and the same practices aimed at different goals. Faced with this Tower of Babel, it's easy to superficially jump from one approach to another, not sticking with any practice long enough to make any meaningful progress. It's also easy to respond to this confusion by throwing one's hands in the air and simply giving up. The value of this book is that it gives one a coherent mental framework with which understand all the world's meditation practices. This is the sense in which we can say the author presents a "science." Just as the scientific classification of animals equips a biologist to make sense of a newly-discovered species, this "scientific" classification of meditation practices equips one to make sense of the bewildering array of meditation practices they are likely to encounter in the modern "marketplace" of spiritual ideas. The book has much to offer in addition to this, but this is the biggest payoff for a new reader in my opinion.

Perhaps Shinzen is such a master of this topic that you can’t help but feel intimidated by his writing. Personally I was intermittently fascinated with how he points you to the undeniable continuum between inner and external phenomenon, and the focus on self as “verb” (as in process, interacting with all) rather than noun-thing. This sunk deep. Other times I feel he just writes for himself and goes off on tangents of monk stories and anecdotes that simple wear me down. I felt like 317 pages was 600 pages. And there is no instruction whatsoever… so I’m intrigued but weary. I’ll see if his YouTube videos help…there’s a lot of these to go onto next

Shinzen is a scientist as well as a mindfulness teacher. This is a great combination because he is able to almost communicate the nonduality of Enlightenment. Most Zen teachers turn zazen into a step by step process that takes years to achieve. Shinzen is one of the few who remove time from the equation. There are lots of useful practices in this book that will make your life fuller. As Shinzen says, "You will live three times bigger." I highly recommend this book. I've ordered it 3 times and gave away copies.

Excellent book. I would highly recommend this.

To anyone interested in the contemplative path in serious ways. This is the book that will give structure to what you have experienced and known about it before. It is an absolute recommendation to go deeper in the topic of meditation and the spiritual area of our lives.

This book is simply amazing! I've now read it twice and both times there was so much to ponder about. A timeless classic!

Increíble vale la pena para conocer más sobre Meditación y como puede ayudarte en tu vida diaria también conoces sobre la historia del budismo y amplia tú concepción de la realidad