Jhana Consciousness: Buddhist Meditation in the Age of Neuroscience

An interdisciplinary deep-dive into the Buddhist jhanas--states of meditative absorption--and how they can transform our understanding of self and consciousness.

Ineffable states of consciousness characterized by incredible joy and concentration, the jhanas are central to the earliest Buddhist teachings. For centuries in Southeast Asia, oral Yogavacara (yoga practitioner) traditions kept the practice of jh?na meditation alive, but in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, reforms in Buddhism suppressed jhana in favor of vipassana, or insight meditation. Traditional methods of jh?na meditation were nearly lost. Related aspects of traditional Southeast Asian Buddhism, such as the use of sacred mantras, amulets, and tattoos, were downplayed. Some began to consider the extraordinary states of consciousness induced by jhana meditation to be a thing of the past, unattainable in the context of modern life.

In Jhana Consciousness, Paul Dennison explores these aspects of Buddhism from a variety of angles, makes a compelling case for their vital importance to the Buddhist path, and demonstrates that modern laypeople can indeed access these wondrous states of consciousness. Having studied with one of the first Thai meditation teachers in England, practiced for decades in the UK's Samatha Trust meditation tradition, and published a peer-reviewed study on the effects of jhana meditation on the brain, Paul Dennison brings a lifetime of scholarly and personal insight to a subject that Westerners are only beginning to understand.

Employing traditional Buddhist doctrine, teachings from lesser-known meditation texts such as The Yogavacara's Manual, and findings from his groundbreaking neuroscience research, Jhana Consciousness offers a vision rooted in the ancient past yet oriented to our present age.