Day of the Sparrow, 45th of Spring, 526 M.E. (Deneb): I'm nearing the end of Michael Pollen's A Mind Emerges - I'm reading it slowly to let each chapter fully sink in before moving on.

I loved that in the Introduction, Pollen recounted the recent history (if that's not an oxymoron) of cognitive science, recounting the work of the philosophers and neuroscientists that had informed my understanding of consciousness - David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, and Giulio Tononi. 

I love the book - I give it five stars and two thumbs up. But a lot of the "latest" ideas Pollan discusses, the 2026 post-Chalmers, post-Nagel, post-Tononi thinking, sounded familiar to me and I realized how lucky I was 10 years ago to have listened to the Zen Brain series of talks recorded at Roshi Joan Halifax' Upaya Zen Center in 2012 and 2014. The twelve-part Zen Brain: Emotions, Equanimity, and the Embodied Mind series from 2012 and the twelve-part Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation from 2014 not only neatly fill the gap between Chalmers et al and the conversations Pollan had over the past few years, but also present several other thoughts and concepts from both a scientific and Zen Buddhist perspective. 

The Zen Brain speakers - neuroscientists, philosophers, Buddhist scholars, and Zen teachers - explore how cognitive science looks at the mind as grounded in the complex transformative processes of life, and how neuroscience sees the brain as a complex adaptive system that constantly reshapes itself in response to context, experience, and practice. The conversations focus on the themes of embodied cognition, emergent processes, and enaction - cognition as embodied action. 

The talks are recorded quite clearly and can be found by following the links above, or digging through the archive on the Upaya Zen Center website, or even accessed through the Apple podcast app. I highly recommend them.

I walked an 8.5-mile van Buren today, re-listening to the first three episodes of the 2014 series through headphones. A lovely way to spend a mid-April afternoon in Georgia.