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Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist - close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue - offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity.

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Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk, trained as a molecular biologist before moving to Nepal to study Buddhism. He is the author (with his father, Jean-Fran‡ois Revel) of The Monk and the Philosopher, The Quantum and the Lotus (with Trinh Thuan), Happiness, The Art of Meditation, Altruism: The Power of Compassion, and A Plea for the Animals. He has published several books of photography, including Motionless Journey and Tibet: An Inner Journey, and is the French interpreter for the Dalai Lama. Wolf Singer, a neuroscientist, is Emeritus Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research and Founding Director of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, the Ernst Strüngmann Institute for Neuroscience in cooperation with Max Planck Society, and the Ernst Strüngmann Forum.

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