Into the Mystic

After spending 8 years training in the meditative practices of Zen
Buddhism, neurologist James H. Austin spent a sabbatical year from 1981
to 1982 at the London Zen Center. On a pleasant March morning, while
waiting for a subway train on a surface platform and idly glancing down the
tracks toward the Thames River, Austin got his first taste of spiritual
enlightenment.

Instantly, the panorama of sky, buildings, and water acquired a sense of
what he calls “absolute reality, intrinsic rightness, and ultimate perfection.”
He suddenly shed his formerly unshakable assumption that he was an
individual, separated from the rest of the world by a skin suit. The sky and
river remained just as blue, the buildings just as gray and dingy, yet the
loss of an “I-me-mine” perspective imbued the view with an extraordinary
emptiness, he says.

Within seconds, other insights dawned. These included the notion that
Austin had experienced an eternal state of affairs, had nothing more to
fear, couldn’t possibly articulate what had happened, and felt a rush of
mental release that impelled him to take himself less seriously.

In Zen and the Brain (1998, MIT Press), Austin described how this brief
experience spurred him to investigate brain processes that underlie
spiritual or mystical encounters. Science News