Epilogue

The epilogue will consider how the effects of the practice of meditation on the brain were examined with the powerful tools of science. Yet, it is challenging to imagine the mutual contributions bringing together the universe of Buddhism and that of the cognitive sciences and psychiatry. This confrontation regards the world of the wisdom, morality and progression towards enlightenment, outside the limitation of the individual self, provided by Buddhism. Zen offers a most direct approach, and efforts have been made more recently to render Buddhist meditation and Zen more accessible to modern times and society. Science provides extraordinary methodological tools to better understand the insight sought by psychotherapies, and the enlightenment of Buddhism, as a natural state of the brain outside the rhetoric of scientific, spiritual and mystic approaches. The values of Buddhism may contribute to the de-medicalisation and de-psychologisation of the non-morbid sufferings accompanying the exposure to distressing life events and may render the universal message of Buddhism more actual than ever.