Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/files/Yang_2...

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/files/Shinoz...

May this work benefit many 🙏

Meditation Research Program

Select Publications

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

For those curious about the emerging empirical science of meditative endpoints and what has been called enlightenment, here are links to our website and latest studies:

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

What if this is the beginning of new possibilities for our consciousness, a powerful leap? Not a leap of faith this time, but informed by science, a leap of our own consciousness.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Even if not everyone reaches the deepest levels of meditation, knowing enlightenment is possible—and having science guide us part of the way—could give us a new source of meaning, resilience, strength, and purpose in challenging times.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Seen this way, the science of EC is a reminder, perhaps just in time, that the future of humanity may lie less in building ever smarter machines, and more in cultivating ever deeper modes of being fully human.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

What if our ultimate humanity lies in our now-measurable ability to turn emptiness itself into a new lease on life—like advanced meditators in EC do?

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

our ability to relate without transaction, to release old attachments, to recognize our shared humanity, and to glimpse incredible mysteries that may remake our experience.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

As AI improves at the tasks we once thought made humans special, the question becomes: what remains human? Our research at the Meditation Research Program points us away from mere information processing and toward new depths—

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Why does this matter now? Because this emerging science suggests our deepest human capacities may not just be thinking, producing, or competing, but rather radical new possibilities out of nothingness.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

This is followed by a striking psychological renewal with a clarity, peace, and joy that is challenging to capture using ordinary language. Until now, this might have sounded implausible. But state-of-the-art brain wave measurements and scanners tell a very different story.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

really, the beginning of an empirical science of what we call meditative endpoints, including enlightenment, awakening, nirvana, and other phenomena—feels so timely. EC is a rare, radical state in which advanced meditators suspend their consciousness.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

But there are real challenges to this narrative, and something else may be opening up.

This is why the emerging science of Extended Cessation (EC)—

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Modern culture has long conditioned us to see ourselves as isolated, rational individuals chasing private, often materialistic happiness in a competitive world.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Right now, we are living through ecological, social, psychological, and technological ruptures—what some describe collectively as the ‘metacrisis’ or ‘polycrisis’. The stakes are so high that for many, it is unraveling the very stories we’ve told ourselves about who we are and what life is.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

Rarely has it been seen as something modern scientists should take seriously, let alone as something we might study, verify, and learn from.

And now, strangely enough, modern science is starting to catch up.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 1d

What if it takes losing our minds to save our minds?

For centuries, enlightenment, known by many names, has been considered largely in myth, metaphor, or mystical verses. In most secularized contexts, it has been treated as a beautiful but largely superstitious story.

⤵️

1 2

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

Absolutely fantastic, bravo Andres and team

2

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

FOR COMMENT SECTION:

You can find the full preprinted manuscript here:

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu/files/Shinoz...

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

May this work benefit many 🙏

Meditation Research Program

Select Publications

meditation.mgh.harvard.edu

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

If you find this work exciting, we would be deeply grateful for reposts and comments to reach more people who may be interested~

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

A big congratulations to Kenneth Shinozuka, Winson F.Z. Yang, Ruby M. Potash, and Terje Sparby for bringing such rigor and pioneering vision to the farthest frontiers of modern mind and brain science.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

— and the awe-inspiring afterglow of this strange yet scientifically observable state could have far-reaching implications for well-being, resilience, and farthest reaches of human flourishing.

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

What’s perhaps most promising and exciting is that EC may provide a unique experimental window into what philosophers have called “pure consciousness” or “minimal phenomenal experience”...

1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

It also raises the possibility that EC is not a collapse of consciousness, but a content-free baseline from which it can re-emerge with renewed intense clarity, vividness of perception, and deep sense of joy and inner peace.

1 1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

That puzzling paradox of no consciousness with high neural complexity is the opposite of what several leading theories predict, and therefore challenges some of the most established scientific models of what consciousness is thought to require.

1 1

Matthew D. Sacchet @matthewsacchet.bsky.social · 8d

These results have several radical implications for how we currently understand consciousness, flourishing, and the brain itself. Unlike deep sleep, anesthesia, or coma, EC doesn’t simply switch consciousness off. Instead, it seems to leave the brain in a state of surprising complexity.

1 1