Anthropology of Consciousness

Abstract

Volume 13, Number 2, September-December 2002, pages 1-25

The Descriptive Mind Science of Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and the Nature of the Healthy Human Mind

Henry M. Vyner, M.D.
The Department of Anthropology
Tribhuvan University
Kathmandu, Nepal
and
The Center for South Asian Studies
University of California
Berkeley, California

There is no descriptive science of the stream of consciousness in the literature of the social sciences, and as a result, we do not have an empirical understanding of the nature of the healthy human mind.  This paper will: (1) demonstrate that an empirically valid theory of the healthy mind must be a theory that is derived from a descriptive science of the stream of consciousness (2) present the rationale and methodology for doing interviews with a specific group of Tibetan lamas who have been using meditation for over ten and a half centuries to develop a descriptive science of the stream of consciousness and (3) present brief excerpts from some of the interviews I have been doing with these lamas.  In these interviews, the lamas discuss their experiences of their own mind in meditation for the purpose of: (1) developing a descriptive science of the stream of consciousness and (2) using that descriptive science to discuss and describe the defining characteristics of the healthy human mind.

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