A 14 min edited webcast of the Forum, which lasted 2 hours, can be found on the ABCís website at http://www.abc.net.au/canberra/stories/s563764.htm.

 Other links  to story     http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,53820,00.html

R/L Brain Differences and Tibetan Buddhism: I received many emails about my own questions and comments at the Forum, which reflected my interest in some aspects of Buddhist philosophy that appear to be related to hemispheric function. For example, I drew attention to the fact that Tibetan Buddhist, brain-body diagrams of tsa (colour or affect), rlung (energy or chi) and thigle (channels) assign complementary binaries to the two sides of the body in a way that conforms to modern evidence about brain asymmetry (seewww.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/gallery.html). I asked the Dalai Lama how he thought that the ancient introspective methods had converged on those of modern neuroscience. Later it was suggested to me that acute observers of head injuries in times past may have been responsible for some of these observations, but the fact remains that many lateralised  phenomena seem to have been discovered by systematic introspection. While he did not have any specific ideas about this question, the Dalai Lamaís answer reflected a refreshing willingness to entertain a role for introspection in investigations of the mind. This viewpoint contrasts with the suspicion of first person techniques that is common amongst modern neuroscientists (Roger Sperry is a notable exception) and may reflect an overgeneralisation of the fallacy concerning the observation of neural images. While it is an infinite regress, and fallacious, to propose that the brain can observe a neural image as a source of action, it does not follow that we cannot make any valid observations on internally-generated neural images by introspection.

 Thong len: I received most email queries about a reference I made to a meditative technique for reducing pain and suffering called thong len or tonglen. I have a neurophysiological explanation for some aspects of this very effective technique that complements, rather than replaces, the philosophical account based upon karma. I tell my students that they do not have to believe in karma for the technique to work, although practice is certainly facilitated if one has the genuine compassion that comes from such a philosophy. Students may even be surprised to discover some effects of the meditation on others that are hard to explain in a conventional way. The following website gives detailed accounts of the technique from the points of view of different Buddhist practitioners.
http://theflow.org/tonglen/

The Dalai Lama has a section on thong len is his ìEssential Teachingsî (where I first learnt the technique).  A detailed account of thong len can also be found in the ìRed Bookî, Songpyal Rinpocheís ìThe Tibetan Book of Living and Dyingî.

JDP's Personal Experience with Thong Len: Lest the brief references to my own experience with thong len give the wrong impression, here is a personal account of the gradual way I gained expertize with this meditation. Some talented people may be able to jump in at the deep end and deal with a severe form of suffering at their first try, but this was certainly not true for me, even though the transcripts of the Forum might give the impression that dealing with a burnt arm was my first experience of thong len. Far from it. I spent a couple of years building up to that point, and I am still surprised that I was able to have any effect on such a severe kind of pain as produced by an extensive burn. Here is how I came to learn thong len:-

I was suffering a form of mental anguish that many will consider trivial, but which was the key motivating force in my case. A young lady had just abruptly terminated a relationship and refused any kind of contact. I understood at an intellectual level all the reasons for her decision, but could still not shed the need to talk to her about it. On the evening in question, I could not find any friends who were willing or free to talk with. After a long series on fruitless calls I decided it was time to solve the problem myself. By way of some self-indulgence, walked to a movie that was playing:-  "Seven Years in Tibet". I hated Brad Pitt's portrayal of Heinrich Harrer, who was a kind of hero from my climbing days, but the Tibetan scenes were inspiring and the various actors who played different ages of the Dalai Lama seemed to be sympathetic to what I knew. All in all the movie made an impression that was echoed in the morning when I passed a religious book shop that had the Dalai Lama's "Essential Teaching" in the window. I bought the book, devoured it at home, and then lay on my bed trying out thong len,  as directed by the Dalai Lama.
    The first task was to find, in my mind, someone suffering like me. It did not take me long to realise that I had brusquely broken off a relationship in the past,  in a similar way to the break that was now causing me trouble. I am not sure how important for the subsequent success of the meditation was the chagrin I now experienced in reflecting on my own lack of consideration of others. Nevertheless, I soon got the hang of synchronising my breathing to two complementary mental images:- ,my in breath linked to a clear mental picture of the suffering friend and my out breath linked to an image of the same person bathed in positive vibes and imagined light originating from me. After about 30 cycles of that kind of breathing, accompanied by "taking in the suffering" and "breathing out the love" I was surprised to find that I was now free of the unpleasant feeling that had dogged me for the previous 40 hours of so. That unsettled feeling returned a few hours later, but I found that I could banish it quickly with more thong len.
    As I became more proficient with the visualisation, which was helped by the fact that I could create a very detailed mental image of the person concerned, I found that I could do it while I was walking around or engaged in a non-demading activity. I understand that practised monks do it virtually all of the time, but I am certainly far from being able to engage thong len automatically irrespective of the other tasks in hand. For example, I doubt that I could engage thong len if beset by a torturer, in the way that Galden Pyatso had to face virtually every day for a couple of decades before he escaped from the hands of his torturers.
    I believe that the success of the technique relies on one's ability to successfully recreate an exact neural replica of your suffering, but in a separate location that is connected to the world outside yourself. In terms of my theory of interhemispheric switching and competition, if you are to wipe out the painful neural focus on one side of the brain (it is on the Right side in most humans, with a smaller proportion where the hemispheric assignment is switched), you have to match it exactly with a positive neural focus on the other side. This is easier said than done, but I found that I was able to graduate, from the "soap opera suffering" that introduced me to the technique and gave me some confidence that it was worth pursuing, to cope with more severe forms of suffering such as gastritis and arthritis, both of which I tend to suffer from fairly regularly. I have always been likely to get very painful stomach if I am forecd to wait very long after my habitual meal time, especially the evening meal, but now found that I could make myself quite comfortable by using the hunger I know to be prevalent in the world as a basis for thong len. Likewise with the painful joints. Finally, after about eighteen months of "building up" practice in this way, I was involved in a rope burn of my left hand, away from any conventional medical help. I did not know anyone with a burnt left hand, but could easily imagine this in my mind, for example by "travelling" to India. The pain disappeared, almost by magic, even though I was alert and aware of everything else. After an hour or so, the pain tended to return, but I could quickly banish it using a dozen or so cycles of thong len.

First Person and Third Person Approaches to Mind:
The philosopher at the Forum was surprised to find that neither neuroscientists was an adherent to the ìradical materialistî view that neurophysiology will ultimately prove to provide a complete account of mind. At this point the Forum got bogged down, partly because subtle semantic distinctions between definitions of ìmindî dramatically increased the time spent in interactions between the Dalai Lama and his brilliant Tibetan-English interpreter. Since I found a beginner exercise like thong len to be so effective, I am inclined to keep an open mind about the more advanced Buddhist mind techniques, even if I do not have the time or opportunity to master them and test them. My concluding statement at the Forum reflected this view, that a fruitful course of future research would involve an interaction between the first person studies of mind, such as the Buddhist meditative techniques, and the third person studies of brain for which there are increasingly sophisticated tools. Francisco Varela was undertaking such studies at the time of his death last year. The Dalai Lama offered himself as a future experimental subject for such studies.