Sciousness - Paperback

by Jonathan Bricklin (Author)

James's notion of sciousness or 'pure experience' is akin to Zen tathata (suchness). Japan's renowned philosopher Kitaro Nishida, in fact, used James's concept to explain tathata to the Japanese themselves. As this collection of essays makes clear, Western practioners of Zen and other nondual practices need not be spiritual vagabonds. We need, rather, to claim our inheritance from the 'father of American psychology.'

Author Biography

Jonathan Bricklin began researching William James in 1990 in response to fundamental shifts in consciousness experienced on Vipassana retreats at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massacusetts. The Non-Reality of Will, Self and Time: William James's Reluctant Guide to Enlightenment will be published next year. Several excerpts from the book have been published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies and The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. His essay "A Variety of Religious Experience: William James and the Non-Reality of Free Will" was anthologized in the book The Volitional Brain: Toward a Neuroscience of Free Will. Brian Lancaster, Principal Lecturer in Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University, hailed this essay as an "invaluable contribution." Jonathan is a Program Director of the New York Open Center.