Flow, meditation and Eastern philosophy: the debate can (and perhaps should) continue (draft)

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Renteria-Uriarte, Xabier (2014) “Flow, meditation and the east-west dichotomy: the discussion can (and perhaps should) continue.” (Draft) https://www.academia.edu/6548766/Flow_Meditation_and_East-West_dichotomy_the_debate_can_and_perhaps_should_continue_Draft_

FLOW, MEDITATION AND THE EAST-WEST DICHOTOMY: THE DISCUSSION CAN (AND PERHAPS SHOULD) CONTINUE.

Xabier Renteria-Uriarte

University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) https://ehu.academia.edu/XabierRenteriaUriarte

[email protected]

ABSTRACT.

Since the beginning of modern science and philosophy, a number of proposals have been advanced on how to bridge two of the main cultural-philosophical traditions of the world – how to span the so-called East-West Dichotomy. Recently, varied encouraging proposals in psychology have addressed this issue, detecting parallels between flow, or optimal experience, and meditation practices. In this literature, flow largely appears as a collection of constants of eastern psychologies. This makes flow a potentially interesting topic of study that can straddle Eastern and Western approaches, since flow pertains to ‘daily activities’ (more closely hewing to the tradition of Western psychology), whereas meditation practices attempt to come to know the ‘deep consciousness’ (the focus of Eastern psychology). The most exhaustive review of this question, Delle Fave, Massimini and Bassi (2001), however, concludes that the two types of experiences have few meaningful correspondences. In this article, we argue that, even accepting the differences identified by these authors, and granting that the consciousness states conceptualized by eastern psychology are not equivalent to what we understand as optimal experience, the two concepts share a common essence. This common essence is not trivial. It relates to a feature of reality construction that it is at the core of scientific methodology: the dialectic between separation and unity. Therefore, we suggest, flow might in western psychology possess the same importance as karma yoga, samu or other action-meditations (like Buddha’s proposal of Vipassanā in daily activities) in eastern psychology. With the appropriate theoretical scaffolding, a new effective bridge could help fill the East-West epistemic gap. Thus, the work can, and perhaps should, continue.

Introductory comments on the East-West debate in flow research .................................................................................................................... 2  The essence of the debate: cultural commensurability in flow research ........................................................................................................... 3  Commensurability between epistemologies of different cultural traditions ......................................................................................................... 3  Cross-cultural psychological comparisons and flow ............................................................................................................................................ 3  Flow: a parallel to, a manifestation of, or unrelated to the concept of consciousness propounded by Asian psychology? ............................ 4  Flow as a collection of constants of Eastern psychologies ................................................................................................................................... 4  Consciousness states of Eastern psychology as something strictly different from flow ...................................................................................... 5  Differences between practices .............................................................................................................................................................................. 6  The core of the discussion ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 6  A first approach to a 'same-level-incommensurability' discussion ....................................................................................................................... 7  Asian philosophies as psychologies: Eastern dialectical emergentism and empiricality .................................................................................. 9  Eastern hypostasis and its dialectical logic ........................................................................................................................................................... 10  Eastern emergentism ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 11  Eastern intra-subjective empiricality. ................................................................................................................................................................... 13  Optimal experience and deep consciousness: what can be said and what must be silenced ............................................................................ 14  Flow and East-West dichotomy from dialectical emergentism ............................................................................................................................ 14  East-West commensurability in flow research ..................................................................................................................................................... 14  Is there anything of interest here for other scientific fields and disciplines? ........................................................................................................ 15  Conclusion: the debate can (and perhaps should) continue. ............................................................................................................................. 16  References. ........................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17  Appendix. .............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 19  

Similarities between meditation practices and flow in opinion of meditation masters and practitioners: a possible quantitative approach. .. 19  

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Introductory comments on the East-West debate in flow research Whereas the world economy is usually divided along a North-South axis, the main cultural-philosophical traditions of the world

are generally divided grouped into an East-West Dichotomy.1 The isolation between the two spheres was never complete (as ancient Greek accounts of encounters with the gymnosophists show),2 but it is undeniable that the exchange of ideas has increased exponentially in the last centuries. The British Empire in India and the establishment of working groups around Asian masters living in the West are two examples of important platforms for intellectual exchange. In this way, Eastern contributions to modern Western philosophy have been fully recognized at least from Schopenhauer onward and a variety of comparative philosophy exercises have been intensively practised (especially Hindu-Western or Chinese-Western and, more recently, Buddhist-Western comparisons have been popular). In the same way, diverse scientific proposals are grounded in or inspired by Eastern worldviews; for example, the physics of David Bohm (1981) draws on Hindu epistemology, the new view of globalization promoted by André Gunder Frank (1998) references the significance of Asian societies, and the scientific methodology of the so-called holographic paradigm (Talbot, 1991; Wilber, 1982) emphasizes the essential role of Eastern ontologies.

In psychology, the studies drawing on Eastern philosophies that have been the most successful (in the sense of having received the most acceptance from the scientific community) are centred on empirical validation of Asian techniques. The first ones reported evidence of the physical impact of yoga and meditation in the 1950s (Didonna, 2009; Keng, Smoski, & Robins, 2011; Rao, 1989; D. H. Shapiro & Walsh, 1984), while the more recent ones also attempt to disentangle the neurophysical correlates and psychological effects of techniques such as mindfulness meditation, compassion meditation and the like (Hanson & Mendius, 2009; Jindal, Gupta, & Das, 2013; Josipovic, 2006; Josipovic, 2014; Lutz, Dunne, & Davidson, 2006; Pagnoni, Cekic, & Guo, 2008; Sedlmeier et al., 2012). The experiments have been fruitful in advancing the understanding of different phenomena like brain plasticity, and – as a curiosity – gamma waves have been documented with intensity for the first time in the history of science. In addition, psychological proposals drawing inspiration from Eastern worldviews are also numerous and significant; for example, in psychotherapy, Cortright (1997) highlights Carl Jung’s and Michael Washburn’s new analytical psychology, Stanislav Grof’s holotropic model, Ken Wilber’s spectrum model, Hameed Ali’s diamond approach, Roberto Assagioly’s psychosynthesis, and other transpersonal approaches (existential, psychoanalytic and body-centred).

Flow or ‘optimal experience’ (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975; Csíkszentmihályi & Csíkszentmihályi, 1988) is the subjective experience of a person totally involved and absorbed, with complete concentration, in the activity she or he is performing. This psychic state entails a number of positive feelings, including freedom from self-consciousness or ‘loss of ego’, great enjoyment of the process, and a sense of being totally in tune with the performance. Therefore, the phenomenon is ‘autotelic’ or intrinsically motivated and rewarding. The appropriate situation for creating a flow state arises when there are challenges that match the person’s skills and when the person possesses clear goals, performative ability, and a sense of control. Theoretically, flow is an optimal mental state associated with optimal performance, and – although relational in structure – it is considered a private experience.3 The psychological concept of flow has been substantiated in a variety of settings (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997; Jackson, 1992; Kerr, 1997) which have proven remarkably robust through a number of studies (Nakamura & Csíkszentmihályi, 2012).

Since the inception of flow research, diverse scholars have suggested that optimal experience or some of its dimensions seem to bear a close relationship to the practices of Eastern traditions. Csíkszentmihályi (1990, 113-115) himself mentions similarities between flow and yoga, martial arts and Zen; for example, he notes that “[y]oga [is] a very thoroughly planned flow activity” (p. 114). Other researchers have linked flow to such Eastern practices as wu wei (Barrett, 2011), ashtanga yoga (Phillips, 2005), tai chi (Lein, 2004), non-attachment (Bermant, Talwar, & Rozin, 2011), yoga meditation (Shostak-Kinker, 2012), or anasakti (Banth & Talwar, 2012).4

1 The division of the world’s main cultures into Eastern and Western originated with the recognition that the great cultures of India and China

could not be assigned to the ‘ahistorical’ or ‘aliterate’ categories of the Western/non-Western division created by early anthropology and cultural studies (see a brilliant history of this theoretical evolution in Wallerstein, 1996). Northrop (1946) can be considered to be the first systematic work in East-West comparative thought within modern parameters; for more extended analysis or comments with epistemic and philosophical attention, see Pattberg (2009), Venkateswar Rao (1981), Liu & Allinson (1988) or Bremen et al (2006).

2 The gymnosophists (from Greek γυµνός gymnós ‘naked’ and σοφία sophía ‘wisdom’) entered Western history when Plutarch, in The Life of Alexander the Great (II AD/2004), described his encounter with ten practitioners of gymnosophy near the banks of the Indus River. Ancient references to gymnosophists are frequent, but reports of philosophical exchanges are scarce. According to Diogenes Laertius (3rd c./1970, ix. 61-63) Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of pure scepticism, met them when he was travelling with Alexander, and later, on his return, he imitated their habits of life. Gymnosophy had a modern revival in Europe and the USA from the end of the 19th century to the mid-20th century as a philosophical movement involving nudity, asceticism and meditation. Parmelee (1927) wrote the best-known manifest of gymnosophy and Joseph Needham was a one of its practitioners.

3 For three reasons, we regard the ‘challenges/skills balance’ not as a defining dimension of flow, but as one of the factors that results in flow. First, this balance promotes optimal experience but is not its sine qua non condition: “[m]ost flow research to date (…) operationally defined flow as experiences of balance”, while more recently, “researchers [have] begun to measure and experimentally manipulate challenges and skills separately and to test their relation to flow experience” (Baumann, 2012, 167). Second, we want to focus attention on the dimensions of flow experienced by the subject ‘inwards’, not in the dimensions with the environment ‘outwards’ (see below). Third, this balance can be present in other activity experiences without flow, which diminishes its significance as requisite for a definition.

4 Links between positive psychology and Asian worldviews have also been proposed in a more general scope: Confucianism, emptiness and good life (Sundararajan, 2005, Sundararajan, 2008, 2013); self/environment dialectics and happiness (Li, 2009); dukkha and samādhic happiness (Kolm, 2013); or positive and Buddhist psychologies (Murphy, 2011).

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Moreover, other relations have been suggested, like varna and flow (Kiran Kumar, 2006, 549-550). Nevertheless, the most systematic research on the subject, that reported in Delle Fave, Massimini & Bassi (2011a), holds the exact opposite view of Csíkszentmihályi and others: that none of the relevant phenomena that Asian meditation practices have shown an interest in resembles the optimal experience of flow.

The debate over flow is an interesting instance of the controversy regarding Eastern versus Western psychology more generally. Asian psychology differentiates between an ‘external mind’ (enveloped in ‘this-worldly’ or ‘everyday’ activities) and an ‘inner consciousness’ (which is envisioned as the origin of this ‘external mind’). The parallels so far suggested between Asian ideas and Western concepts, however, have concerned exclusively the ‘inward experiences’ (for example, the so-called ‘peak experiences’), even though Western psychology is traditionally more interested in the ‘outward experiences’. Therefore, an experience like flow, which is related to both the inner and outer psychic dimensions, has the potential to open new avenues in the East-West debate. In this article, we offer a new review of the parallels between flow and meditative states, with special attention to the arguments made in Delle Fave et al. (2011a). More specifically, we will consider whether the central aspects of the problem are in fact insurmountable: a) whether optimal experience and the psychic experiences that are objects of interest to Asian psychologies share some common essence; b) whether some understanding of flow experience is possible to locate in Eastern philosophies; and c) whether resolving these questions might help to improve the methodology of Western science. The East-West debate in flow research deserves a new round, and it is time to begin.

The essence of the debate: cultural commensurability in flow research

Commensurability between epistemologies of different cultural traditions

Over time, some cultural exchanges have become so intense that the apparently insurmountable East-West philosophical dichotomy seems to have been turned upside down; for example, Wilber (2000) asserts that nowadays yoga is practiced more in the West than in India. However, Western science remains reluctant to consider some key Eastern ontoepistemic proposals – what Eastern empiricality views as evidence, the Western viewpoint views as mere assumptions. Indeed, some Western philosophy of science (Feyerabend, 1962; Kuhn, 1962)5 calls into question the idea that scientific concepts belonging different frameworks or paradigms could be commensurable, which applies even more strongly to the possible commensurability between concepts from different cultural traditions. And indeed, Western science is more focused on worldly life from a materialistic point of view, while Eastern world views are more interested in the psychological origins and explanations of the elements of worldly life.

Such a rigid separation, however, is in stark contrast with some cross-cultural intellectual spaces, like the Mind and Life Dialogues. Since 1987, these biannual events have brought together the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan monks, on the one hand, and renowned Western psychologists like Ed Diener, on the other. In addition, Buddhist scientists like Matthieu Ricard occupy the – supposedly empty – intermediate space. For the Tibetans, one of the attractions of attention to Western perspectives is to apply the results of neuropsychological experiments to re-thinking Buddhism. For Westerners, the attraction lies in the opportunity to improve their propositions in broad fields like physics and cosmology, neuroplasticity and healing emotions, or economics and ethics. It does not seem like a bridge without a future; in psychology, for example, its continuation is guaranteed by institutions like Mind and Life Institute (founded amongst others by Francisco Varela) and other laboratories with an interest in the effects of meditation and mind training (e.g., at a number of leading U.S. universities like the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of California – Berkeley, Princeton, and Harvard, as well as at a research centres in Switzerland and Austria).

Cross-cultural psychological comparisons and flow

At issue in the East-West debate in flow research is the commensurability of ‘optimal experience’, a Western psychological construct, and ‘inner levels of consciousness’, an Eastern psychological concept. Delle Fave et al. (2011a) seem to defend the incommensurability of these two ideas a la Kuhn (1962) or even, in some cases, a la Feyerabend (1962), while other authors feel free to look for common features and dimensions.

Prior to any detailed analysis, it seems that incommensurability and commensurability can coexist in some spaces, as we have seen with the East-West case of Mind and Life Dialogues. The focus of attention may differ, and, obviously, the methods of a yogi or a monk will always diverge from the methods of a laboratory scientist with test tubes or from a field psychologist with questionnaires. Yet there remains the possibility of cooperation when shared objects of interest exist. In specific areas of interest, when the empirical focus is the same, radical incommensurability transforms into soft translatability between conceptual constructs. It is a less demanding requirement for intellectual exchange, because the obstacles are only ‘idiomatic’ (residing in terms) or ‘analytic’ (residing in procedures), not ‘empirical’ (residing in the objects of interest). This distinction, despite seeming obvious (though not for Feyerabend, 1962), needs to be highlighted to understand correctly the roots of the debate in the field of optimal experience.

5 For Feyerabend (1962), two theories are incommensurable when the main concepts of one can neither be defined on the basis of the primitive

descriptive terms of the other, nor related to them via a correct empirical statement. For Kuhn (1962), incommensurability arises when two theories present different problems (to be resolved) and standards (for the admission of solutions), due to the framework of their paradigms. Methodological and radical incommensurability have also been advocated by Rorty (1989) and Shweder (1989).

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Let us then assume that, as a minimum, Eastern and Western epistemic traditions can communicate when they share objects of interest, that they can reach more coherence in this way, and that perhaps some common work might be done as a result. And let us examine this in the specific context of flow research.

Flow: a parallel to, a manifestation of, or unrelated to the concept of consciousness propounded by Asian psychology?

Flow as a collection of constants of Eastern psychologies

The intra-subjective practices of Eastern psychology (what we know under the generic term ‘meditation’) show parallels with optimal experience even from the underpinnings of flow research, with the very denomination of the experience. “It was like floating” or “I was carried on by the flow” are “descriptions of how it felt to be on the top form” by people interviewed by Csíkszentmihályi, and these descriptions turned out to be crucial in the formulation of the issue: “we have called this state the flow experience, because this is the term ... in their descriptions” (1990, 40, emphasis in original). Compare this with Baccarani, Mascherpa, & Minozzo’s (2013)  evaluation of the effects of Zen meditation on individual well-being and organisational efficiency and productivity. They measured the effects of meditation on physiological indicators of stress reduction as well as on subjectively perceived well-being, and many of the participants reported the type of impressions that are also frequent in flow reports, including references to “flow” as metaphor of their experiences; for example, “I have realised it is better to ‘go with the flow’ and avoid fixed parameters” (p. 612).

The cases of individuals from which the psychological construct was disentangled are not very different regarding the parallelisms. For example, the experiences of Rico Medellin or Pam Davis, which canonically illustrate flow in Csíkszentmihályi (1990, 39-40), are not very different from (in fact, are nearly the same as) those that might be reported by persons practicing karma yoga6, samu7 or other ‘action-meditation’ practices8 (like Buddha’s proposal of Vipassanā in daily activities).9 And the particular psychological dimensions that can be inferred from flow reports are also similar to the psychological dimensions conceptualized in Eastern practices and philosophy. One good example of this is a key concept in flow research, autotelism.

In Hindu philosophy guṇas are dimensions or tendencies of existence present in all physical objects and beings, and they can be classified in several ways (for example, the 5 classifications of the Post-védic Epics10 or the 24 of the Nyāya darśanam 11), but the triguṇas of the Sāṃkhya darśanam12 and the Āyurveda13 are the most common: sāttva (balance, purity, essence, poise, order,

6 Hindu karma yoga is the yoga or ‘union’ with ‘pure consciousness’ through a selfless and altruistic discipline of ‘perfect action’ consistent with

the karma or ‘the true process of the existence’. Its canonical expression is the ancient Sanskrit scripture bhagavadgītā or ‘Bhagavad Gita’ (V-II BCE / 1979).

7 Zen’s samu is the experience of ‘true existence’ or ‘the reality as truly it is’ through mindfulness or ‘awareness of the present moment’ in daily tasks and chores. “[To] consider quietude right and activity wrong (…) is seeking the real aspect by destroying the worldly aspect. (…) Suddenly when in the midst of activity, you topple the sense of quietude, that power surpasses the [meditation] seat (…) by a million billion times” (Ta Hui, XII C. / 1977)

8 Action-meditation is, henceforth, used to refer to an intra-subjective empirical practice whose purpose it is to reveal to us our true or essential nature and whether this is the same as the apparently external reality. The technique, in essence, involves applying Pali- Jhāna or ‘meditative layers of consciousness’ to daily activities. The practitioner must accomplish the daily tasks without any ego, that is, with perfect awareness of the moment and compassion or altruism for others, like in karma yoga, samu or Buddha’s proposal of Vipassanā in daily activities. With discipline and rigour, the practitioner will begin to realize the unity of the separate dimension of existence.

9 Vipassanā or ‘clear insight’ can be described as ‘mindfulness’ in which ‘experiencing and awareness is pure, like in a mirror’. Buddha proposed to extend this meditation into all daily activities as the best way to realize deep consciousness (see below). In the pithy advice he gave to a man: “Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: in the seen will be merely what is seen; (…) in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized. (…) [T]hen, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' (…) [After it] then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' (…) [And finally] then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two” (Udāna 1.10).

10 The Véda or ‘knowledge’ are the large body of the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, probably composed around 1700–1200 BCE, understood as ‘directly revealed’ or śruti (‘what is heard’, not smṛti or ‘what is remembered’), and commonly organized in four collections. This period, primarily of liturgical hymns, ends with the Védanta (or ‘the end of the Véda), the fourth collection containing approximately 200 theological discussions of Upaniṣat or ‘Upanishads’ on the Brahman (the nature of ultimate reality) and the mokṣa (the way to realize Brahman). The main post-védic direction is the ‘speculative’ literature that ends in modern Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and the ‘mythological’ epics of popular (and, in the modern sense, also Hindu) Rāmāyaṇam and Mahābhāratam.

11 Darśanam or ‘view’ are the schools of thought derived from the ancient Vedic philosophy of India. In modern times darśanam are divided into nine: six āstika or ‘orthodox’ schools (which focus on the literature of the Vedas) and three nāstika or ‘heterodox’ ones (which consider also other sources of thought). Nyāya darśanam (commonly understood as the third one) is primarily a system of logic in order to unravel the validity of the sources to achieve true knowledge.

12 Sāṃkhya (‘empirical’ or ‘relating to numbers’ because it enumerates twenty five Tattvas or true principles) is regarded as the oldest darśanam, with roots that date back most likely to the Védas. In an atheist dualism, the universe is seen as consisting of Puruṣa (consciousness) and Prakṛti (phenomenal realm of matter), where a jīva (an individual and immortal manifestation of Puruṣa) lives in different material bodies and minds, due to its desires (of experiencing Puruṣa as prakriti) and its belief in being ahaṃkāra (ego or separated self), until it realizes mokṣa (liberation) discriminating the difference between conscious Puruṣa and unconscious Prakṛti (as a form of Puruṣa). This makes her or him a Jīvanmukti (liberated soul).

13 Āyurveda or ‘the knowledge to manage with life’ is the autochthonous medicine of India, with oral origins around 5,000 BCE and a presence in the Védas. It emphasizes living in balance with nature, manifested in human life as cycles (sleeping, working, meditation, hygiene, etc.), in the human psyche as urges (food, sex, etc.), and – in accordance with the urges – in the physical channels of the body as virtues (fluidity, dynamism, etc.). In this sense, both the physical/mental dimensions of human beings and humans and nature as interrelated agents of existence are seen as a unity, and illness derives from an incorrect equilibrium that originates in an erroneous understanding of nature, life and their interrelationships. In relation to the gunas,

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illumination, joy, etc.), rājas (creative energy, dynamism, process, change, movement, excitation, pain, etc.) and tāmas (preservation, inertia, substance, obstruction, indifference, heaviness, sloth, etc.). The human mind, as a manifestation of the wholeness of the reality, reflects guṇas as ‘climatic conditions’ (Chinmayananda, 1975) or ‘personality constructs’ Bhal & Debnath (2006). The relationship with work in sāttva, synthesized with the other dimensions as Western constructs by Bhal & Debnath (2006) from different sources (Chakraborty, 1991; Chinmayananda, 1975; Radhakrishnan, 1948), is as follows: “[t]hough they are hard working, they work for the inherent joy of working and the work itself becomes satisfying. They work without any attachment with [sic] the results and the outcomes” (p. 174). This aspect of sāttva personality seems to be very close to the autotelic personality (composed of two Greek roots, auto or self and telos or goal) of flow research: “autotelic denotes an individual who generally does things for their own sake, rather than in order to achieve some later external goal ... much of what he or she does is already rewarding ... they are less dependent on the external rewards ... they cannot be as easily manipulated with threats or rewards from the outside ... they are more involved with everything around them because they are fully immersed in the current of life” (Csíkszentmihályi, 1997, 117-118).

Consciousness states of Eastern psychology as something strictly different from flow

Despite the similarities noted above, we have to assume that the consciousness states which are an object of interest to Eastern psychology are different from flow, and cannot be reduced to it or represented as dimensions of it – at least not if we make the necessary distinctions. The reason is that Western science is interested in the functioning of the external world and, following this criterion, Western psychology studies the ordinary mind, which is, from the Eastern point of view, the level of consciousness that is the most superficial (in the sense of being the most closely related to this ‘externality’; see below). By contrast, Eastern philosophy and psychology are interested in the roots, in the origins of the external world and ordinary mind. For example:

Coming to the psychology of yoga, we have to draw a distinction between the field which it covers and the area of study generally associated with what we commonly know as psychology. [The last refers to] functions of the mind studied as they can be experimented upon or observed by the very apparatus of which the mind is constituted. (Krishnananda, 1984, 108)

According to Eastern logic (which we explain below), while one can study the mind with the apparatus of the mind, as Western psychology does, this implies a tautological methodology with circular explanations. One can only understand the mind by objective observation if one has previously developed the ability to observe the mind nearest to one, that is, one’s own, as an ‘external’ observer. However, this process will actually lead one to one’s ‘internal’ observer because, when we observe (seriously) the mind, we interiorize automatically towards the inner consciousness from which it emerges. In this sense, objectivity and ‘true reality’ are experienced only by our inner awareness of our ‘outer reality’, including both the external world and our ordinary mind.14 Therefore, the search for parallels between flow and Eastern psychology’s states of consciousness seems to make no sense. In the words of Delle Fave, Massimini and Bassi, “flow and meditation refer to different levels of psychological analysis” (Delle Fave et al., 2011b, 124).

If we want to find parallelisms between the proposals of Eastern psychology and the constructs of Western psychology, a more promising avenue seems to be offered by candidates other than flow; for instance, concepts like peak experiences, epiphany, or cosmic consciousness that are analysed by Western psychologies like the Jungian or the Transpersonal (see above). Those experiences, in which the subject has the feeling of transcending the ordinary mind, can be understood by Eastern psychologies as direct manifestations of the inner levels of consciousness. In contrast, it seems clear that flow has its roots in the superficial levels of mind (as Eastern philosophy would put it) linked to the external world and everyday life. In fact, as Delle Fave et al. (2011a, 124) point out, Eastern psychologies do not seem to have a construct like ‘flow’ (though we will see below that this absence is not complete).

To put it figuratively, samādhi is not flow. Satori is not flow. Mettā is not flow.15 And anyone who knows Asian philosophy and flow research can notice (and better if she or he has practiced the Eastern intra-subjective techniques we discuss below), that the consciousness states that are the object of interest for the former are not the type of experiences analysed by the latter. How the objects of study differ emerges particularly clearly Delle Fave et al.’s review of their ‘emotional’ differences:

[A] deep feeling of bliss is associated with meditative states. However, the prominent feelings are calmness, stillness, and evenness of mind. Excitement or elation is not compatible with this condition, in which steadiness and stability predominate on any kind of peak perception. [But e]motions do not necessarily play a prominent role in flow as well, ... feelings of excitement, enjoyment and pleasure may arise during optimal experience, but they do not basically characterize it. (Delle Fave et al., 2011a, 120)

Finally, it also seems clear that the consciousness states conceptualized by Eastern psychology are not the dimensions of flow, at least in the way by which they are substantiated in flow research. For example, if we compare the items in the long questionnaire of

Āyurveda accepts the three of Sāṃkhya and also the twenty inherent in all substances in antonyms (heavy/light, cold/hot, unctuous/dry, dull/sharp, stable/mobile, etc.).

14 This might sound 'spiritual' or 'esoteric' to a Westerner but, from an Eastern perspective, if we analyse the behaviours and minds of others to ensure objectivity – as Western psychology chooses to do – we commit another tautological fallacy, because all the apparent evidence of the existence of 'others' consists merely of perceptions in our own mind. In the Eastern view, the correct way to resolve this is an empirical test, on one’s own, of whether mind is observable by the objective internal observer.

15 That the states of consciousness described in the Upanishads, the zen literature, or the modern treatises of Indian Psychology are conditions different from flow is noted in a number of works; see e.g. (Rao, Paranjpe, & Dalal, 2008, Sarma, 2011).

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Flow State Scale (Jackson & Eklund, 2002; Jackson & Marsh, 1996) with the extensive reviews of psychic states in the Abhidharma’s (from 3rd century BCE / 1995),16 the differences seem manifest.

Differences between practices

Apart from the consciousness states that are object of interest for Eastern psychology (the second level of our prototypical synthesis below), there are a number of Asian ‘intra-subjective’ or ‘meditation’ practices designed to experience them (see below). The main differences between the practices of Eastern psychology and flow relate to: a) the matching of challenges to skills; and b) the clarity of goals and of the task. There are also two further sources of probable disparity: c) physiological and neurophysiological correlates; and d) non-essential dimensions or contexts.

The main difference seems to be, by far, the idea of matching challenges to skills. The Eastern initiation literature shows that this is not exactly what sages or masters try to achieve when they assign tasks to their disciples. In fact, the intent is exactly the opposite: not to offer something on a platter, but to give the disciples an opportunity to fight their ego. One of the canonical cases in this regard is the Tibetan Life of Milarepa (Gtsaṅ-smyon, 15th century), where the aspirant Jetsun Milarepa is obliged to undergo the most incredible trials and to suffer terrible humiliations prior to being accepted by his master. Another case is the well known story of Bodhidharma (Hui-chiao, 6th century), who accepted Huike as disciple only when Huike cut off his arm. These are extreme cases, but to our knowledge, present-day masters maintain this general pattern of behaviour in ashrams and monasteries and in initiations and practices. Community tasks and chores, initiation tests and trials, and also action-meditation practices like karma yoga or samu are not assigned on the basis of the receiver’s skills (especially if she or he is aspirant rather than an advanced member or disciple). With the purpose of annihilating the ego, orders to the disciples are given –mainly in their beginning of their stay in the community – independently of their suitability to the disciples’ abilities and frequently in explicit contradiction of them. Only after this stage can we say that tasks tend to be assigned taking into account the skills of the disciples and the sound functioning of the institution.

The differences between Eastern practices and flow relating to the clarity of goals and skilfulness of performance derive mainly from the same source. Since the mismatch between challenges and skills is almost an explicit purpose, the guru or master tends to hide the goals and the rules or the ‘secrets’ for the performance from the practitioner, something that is also omnipresent in the classics mentioned above. In this regard, the disciple is in most cases intentionally abandoned to his own devices. In meditation practices, too, traditional masters tend to give the minimum of instructions, and wait quietly for the reports of disciples.

Little empirical research in the Western scientific mould has been done on whether physical evidence can contribute to the debate over the commensurability between meditation and flow. Regarding neurophysiological evidence – seemingly now the standard type of evidence in the physiological study of psychological phenomena – Delle Fave et al. (2011a, 117-118) do not see a possibility of comparison: most studies on the neurophysiological underpinnings of meditation are based on evidence from small samples, and the neurophysiological investigation of flow is still in its infancy; therefore, they argue, we only have “scattered evidence [that] does not allow us to draw any conclusion” (p. 118).

Finally, we will group a number of disparities as non-essential dimensions or contexts. These are systematically reviewed by Delle Fave et al. (2011a). On the one hand, they highlight different epistemological perspectives (at the beginning of their comments on flow) and socio-cultural aspects (at the end of their essay). On the other hand, they emphasize a variety of phenomenological dimensions, with different onset mechanisms, as well as cognitive, emotional, and motivational features. Below, we examine whether – excepting the emotional features, commented above – these differences affect the thesis discussed here.

The core of the discussion

To sound out whether optimal experience and the psychic experiences discussed in Asian psychologies share some common essence, and to evaluate the possibility of understanding the flow experience using Eastern philosophy, we need to circumscribe the domains covered by Delle Fave et al. (2011a) since the broad scope they cover transcends our purposes. It is obvious that many aspects of meditation and flow are radically different; for example,

[M]editation is a key [to attaining] identification with the pure consciousness ... [while] optimal functioning ... is contextualized within the web of daily interactions, activities, and social roles, [and] the cultural representation of these two states affects the meaning attributed to them and their applications in intervention (Delle Fave et al., 2011a, 123-124).

These considerations are important for knowing what kinds of parallelisms between meditation practices and flow experiences cannot be assumed; nevertheless, they do not affect the essence of our questions. In the same way, different cultural representations, social frameworks or philosophical interpretations deny neither the possibility of some common essence nor some understanding of flow in Eastern philosophy. And the same could be said for different purposes, onset mechanisms, origins or physical external operations. All of this may change without implying changes in the primal focus of our interest, that is, in the essences of the optimal and meditative experiences. What we would have to determine carefully is, according to the previous quote, whether this ‘identification with the pure consciousness’ and this ‘optimal experience’ share some dimension or not, and if the latter can be understood in an Eastern way.

16 Abhidharma are ancient Buddhist texts from the 3rd century BCE that systematize lists of psychic states and mechanisms (see Frauwallner,

1995). Two main abhidharma have survived until recent times: the abhidhammapiṭaka, which is the third piṭaka or ‘basket’ of the Pali Canon of Theravāda Buddhism (Nyānatiloka, 1971), and the sarvāstivāda abhidharma of the Sarvāstivādin School (Dhammajoti, 2007).

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For these purposes we must carefully distinguish between the levels of analysis or, as philosophy puts it, between the universes of discourse. For example, if we want to know whether meditation is always an overcoming of the narrow mind-related self-definitions and whether all dimensions of the optimal experience are embedded in daily interactions, prior to excluding any potential common essence we must correctly set the universe of discourse within which each experience is described. And if we want to know whether some alternative philosophical or psychological interpretation is appropriate, then another universe of discourse, the meta-analysis, enters the theoretical scenery. Following the previous example:

The onset of optimal experience is related to the perception of engaging challenges to be faced with adequate personal skills. This implies a dynamic process of change with time ... [which] gives rise to a virtuous cycle fostering the ceaseless acquisition of increasingly complex information and the refinement of related competencies. ... This process supports development, that is the harmonization of individual life theme with environmental opportunities for action. ... [M]editation is a key instrument to overcome the narrow mind-related self-definitions and the attachment to sensory objects, thus attaining identification with the pure consciousness. ... [O]ptimal functioning entails qualities ... based on the evaluation of psychological qualities and features belonging to the realm of mind, to the manomayakosha17. (Delle Fave et al., 2011a, 122-123)

The blending of different universes of discourse is common in interdisciplinary research, and, in psychology, a number of ‘East meets West’ solutions are almost canonical cases, like the definition of ‘deep consciousness’ (object of interest in Eastern psychologies)18 as a ‘quantic phenomenon’ (in what can be exercises of conflating the levels of reality without the necessary additional arguments to exclude, for example, their ontological emergence). In Delle Fave et al. (2011a), the blending of different universes of discourse is appropriate, because their purpose is to highlight differences between the two objects of analysis. But if our intention is to find common essences, as it is here, then the appropriate search field is the same universe of discourse in both types of experience. This affects the controversy over the East-West parallels in flow research, because the thesis of incommensurability will not be well founded until the similarities are excluded also in the same levels of discourse. Let us next determine whether that is the case.

In the quotes above, the dimensions are as follows. When examining a flow experience, the object of analysis is the ‘external’ dimension of the experience; for example, its ‘context within the web of daily interactions’. When examining meditation practices, the object of analysis is not their external dimension but their internal purpose; for example, the ‘identification with the pure consciousness’. The first universe of discourse is the ‘outer’ consciousness of mind (or its interrelations with external world in a given activity), and it is taken into account in the case of flow, but not in the case of meditation. The second universe of discourse is the inner consciousness of mind (or its essence in the depths of the psyche), and it is taken into account in the case of meditation, but not in the case of flow. The problem is that, in Eastern philosophy, this gap between the outer context and the inner essence has important ontological implications, because each universe of discourse implies different levels of reality: inner consciousness is the origin of the outer consciousness and of the external world.

Why is it difficult to equate the universes of discourse in this case? The outer levels of meditation (that is, the interrelations of the psyche with the external world in meditation) is not the object of interest in Eastern philosophies, precisely because the purpose is to leave the external mind behind and become aware of its inner layers. Thus, masters always try to re-direct the attention of disciples; for example, when Shainberg (1995, 30) tried to contrast his apparent satori with that of his master. And this is because the mind is engaged with external world in the first steps of meditation. What does this imply? Inter alia, the first steps of practice are embedded ‘within the web of daily interactions’ until the process floods them with deep consciousness; in other words, they imply psychic operations (of concentration, for example) ‘at manomayakosha’ until equable observation is reached. In other words, the kinds of characteristics assigned only to flow in the previous quotes are also present in meditation practices.

If we, then, want to compare flow with meditation, we must compare – for the ‘outer’ universe of discourse – flow reports with meditation reports, or flow research with meditation research. And we may also compare – for the ‘inner’ universe of discourse – the considerations of Eastern sages on meditation with their considerations on flow, or the intra-consciousness reached when we meditate with the probable degree of intra-consciousness reached when we are in flow. The incommensurability between flow and meditation will not be well grounded until the same-level-incommensurabilities are absolutely confirmed. Until then, we face new and legitimate research fields waiting to be explored.

A first approach to a 'same-level-incommensurability' discussion

What would be the comparison after maintaining the coherence of the universes of discourse? Let us take as a case the first level of analysis. Flow research is an extremely “outer-empirical” field, that is, it is closely grounded in the reports of subjects on their flow experiences. Therefore, to follow the principle of keeping to the same level of analysis, the reports of practitioners on (the first steps of) their meditation practices must enter the debate. Unfortunately, we do not have as much research literature on this as we have on flow. Some cases, however, show the easier harmonization of the different experiences if the universes of discourse are the same. For example, the experiences reported by the participants in an introduction to Zen meditation are also frequent in flow reports (Baccarani et al., 2013), and the analogies lead the authors to consider “their ability to create [states of grace] while experiencing the fulfilment and satisfaction of acting ... in what Csíkszentmihályi … calls the flow” (p. 607), without any contradiction, simply as a “progressive fine tuning of consciousness” (p. 609). Other same-level-analogies are found between ashtanga yoga and flow by Phillips (2005), and between yoga and flow by Shostak-Kinker (2012).

17 One of the names of the ordinary mind, as the ‘sheath of the stuff of the mind’, in Hinduism (see below). 18 Here we use the term ‘deep consciousness’ to refer the levels of consciousness ‘inside’ the ordinary mind that can be ‘activated’ or ‘sensitized’

with ‘intra-subjective practices’ or ‘meditation’ (see below).

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In fact, any meditation practitioner can attest to the fact that differences between the same-level-experiences (what we understand as flow and meditation as practice) are much less extreme than those deriving from a comparison between the experience of flow experience and the purposes of meditation. Meditation practices (as a rigorous discipline for managing and controlling the mind) share the majority of the characteristics given in the previous quotes as differences between flow and meditation (now as the inner consciousness that we can activate thanks to this rigorous external practice). In other words, if we insert ‘meditation practice’ instead of ‘optimal experience’ in most of the sentences that are given as differences (in the last quotes), their sense would remain strong for a prototypic meditation practitioner.19 This shows the coherence of the similarities between the outer essence of optimal experience and the outer levels of the first stages of meditation.

In addition, the consideration of action-meditation practices will increase the parallelisms, because not only the ‘first external steps’, but also the ‘secondary more inner steps’ of meditation practitioners are engaged with the external environment. In this way, if we insert ‘karma yoga’, ‘samu’ or other ‘action-meditations’ in the sentences of the last quote their sense will remain even stronger.20

Finally, as we will see, the final purpose of any meditation practice is to bring the awareness and witness of inner consciousness to the ordinary mind and external world. In this sense, all meditation practice will end as action-meditation practice (which is known, for example in Zen, as the return to the market). Nhất Hạnh (1987), for example, emphasizes this overall criterion that mindfulness, or ‘being awake and fully aware’ can (and must) be done while the subject is eating, answering the phone, ironing clothes or performing any daily activity. Viewed this way, the similarities and common essences of meditation with optimal experience become more intense.

Delle Fave et al. (2011a) acknowledge that karma yoga and flow seem analogous, but they argue that they seem so only “apparently”, due to one “core difference”: “the detached attitude toward action” of karma yoga is “intentional”, whereas the “intrinsic motivation” in flow is an “emerging” feature related to the “rewarding interplay between challenges and skills” (p. 117). However, as argued above, that origins or motivations are different does not deny the possibility of common essences, which is influenced by differences only in particular cases.and only in some cases will they affect them. For example, the subjects studied by Shostak-Kinker (2012)  met the conditions of differences established by Delle Fave et al. (2011a) (different onset mechanisms and cognitive, emotional and motivational features) but, nevertheless, they continued to describe yoga practices and optimal experiences with close analogies.

A less scholarly, more experiential understanding of the practice of Eastern psychology sheds further light on the issue. Karma yoga always begins as an intentional act but, nevertheless, the ‘spontaneous emergence of the action’ is precisely the ‘true’ karma yoga: when karma yoga, samu or action-meditations are correctly done, the sensation is that action and motivation emerges or arises by itself from the process, and an ‘apparent maker’ ‘sees’ or ‘perceives’ that she or he is not the ‘real maker’.

To anyone who has engaged in disciplined action-meditation and has intra-subjectively observed her or his flow experiences, then, the similarities between the two experiences will seem unproblematic and acceptable despite their differences in intentionality. One might even argue that this is the way of meditation practice that most Asian meditation masters would consider correct. We are fortunate that some research documenting this aspect exists. For example, in Zen mindfulness meditation, with its ‘awareness of everything in the moment’, ‘each event seemingly happens for the first time’, and ‘do not exhibit habituation over many repetitions of a stimulus’ (Hirai, 1974; Kasamatsu & Hirai, 1966). Moreover, it is truly symptomatic that this spontaneous emergence so present in optimal experiences and in action-meditation practices is supposed to be the ‘natural consciousness state’ of ‘realized’ or ‘awake’ persons, as Eastern psychology’s tributes to masters often describe:

A roshi [Zen master] is a person who ... exists freely in the fullness of his whole being. The flow of his consciousness (…) arises spontaneously and naturally from the actual circumstances of the present. ... His whole being testifies to what it means to live in the reality of the present. ... [But what] perplexes … is the teacher's utter ordinariness. (Dixon, quoted in R. Baker, 1970, xix)

In this sense, the distance between the essence of optimal experience and the essence of the consciousness states of Asian psychologies diminishes. Nevertheless let us consider that someone, applying a rigid Aristotelian logic, still maintains that, in spite of all, the intentionality for an action is absolutely contrary to its spontaneous emergence. It is the moment to propose to her or him the comprehension of this logic into a more comprehensive framework, inherent in Asian logic, which can be termed ‘dialectical emergentism’. Action-meditation practices are a good case; for example, karma yoga is only reached when it is realized with ‘intentional effort to make actions without intention’, and samu is an activity related with mushotoku as the attitude of nothing to obtain. How are these seemingly contradictory achievements possible? They are dialectical activities, where intentionality is not opposite to its spontaneous emergence, and even more astoundingly, intentionality is not ‘previous’, but subsequent to the manifestation of the level of emergence (because, as we will see later, intentionality pertains to a ordinary layer of reality that emerges from an inner layer). We devote a full section to this question below but, to foreshadow a bit, see how beautifully Rabindranath Tagore described the dialectical emergentism of karma yoga:

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

19 Several meditation masters and practitioners were asked for their assessment of this statement, and they show an overall agreement. There is also

the possibility of achieving quantitative evidence with the phrases involved; see Appendix. 20 See Appendix for the sentences that best illustrate this.

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The last criterion necessary for understanding the differences and similarities between flow and meditation is something that we can describe as ‘the focus of deep consciousness’. It is hard to understand conceptually, and may perhaps be coherently comprehended only after a disciplined intra-subjective practice (in a not-conceptual but experiential sense). Therefore, we are not going to apply it here, but the idea is – more or less – as follows. Let us take the statement of Delle Fave et al. (2011a, 123-4) on the mechanisms of the development of each type of experience: “flow experience fosters development through the activation of a chain of desires, [whereas m]editation ... frees the person from the boundaries of such world realm”. Psychological categories are different, but the mechanism of the development process and its effects are strictly the same because all of those development-mechanisms pertain to this world. From the Eastern Weltanschauung a ‘sage’, a ‘master’, a ‘practitioner’ or ‘a subject in flow’ may experience different levels of consciousness, but the external world and the consciousness levels are necessarily the same for all of them. For example, “[t]he Yogācārins held that only consciousness is real. Consequently, neither the external objective world nor the ‘internal’ egological world exists. Both types of reality are the result of transformations of consciousness” (Larrabee, 1981, 4).21 Diligently engaged in certain practices, as the jñāna yoga question of ‘Who am I?’ (Maharshi, 1959; Nisargadatta, 1981), a practitioner’s consciousness can ‘rest in’ or ‘return to’ an inner awareness in which external world and external mind are ‘perceived’ or ‘witnessed’, ‘over there’, as twin mirrors of the same superficial perception level.

In other words, the mind and the levels of consciousness are the same for all the persons mentioned. Even the mythic figure of ‘an ancient sage lost in a Himalayan cave’ is subject to the laws of the external world and mind. The structure of consciousness, as we will see, is also the same for all; only the degrees to which subjects ‘realize’ or ‘activate’ each level of consciousness differ. From this perspective, all daily ordinary activities (without flow or action-meditation), flow experiences, object-meditation practices, and action-meditation practices share the same structure and interrelations; they only differ in the extent to which those levels of consciousness are activated.

This structure of consciousness that allows and explains different types of experiences by different degrees of ‘realization’, ‘awareness’ or ‘activation’ would be, then, the appropriate Eastern understanding of our object of study. Unfortunately, Eastern psychology has been centred on the deep levels of consciousness without an interest in systematizing the description of superficial experiences, while (the orthodoxy of) Western psychology excludes the deep levels taken here as criteria. Therefore some commensurability exercises capable of operating as epistemic bridges between Eastern and Western traditions need to be developed if we want to continue the debate.

Asian philosophies as psychologies: Eastern dialectical emergentism and empiricality It is no secret that Asian philosophy, including its purest ontology, is in essence a kind of psychology.22 Of greatest concern for it

are the functioning and the structure of the mind, whose fundamental nature is frequently called pure consciousness, as in the Upanishads. A clear example of this ‘psychologicity’ of Asian philosophy is the Yogācāra or Vijñānavāda, which is frequently defined and also referred to in various languages as the ‘Mind Only’ school (Hopkins, 2003; Wood, 1991).23

We can present the psychological essence of Asian philosophy with three main constants, as follows. First: a common hypostasis or real inner essence of reality and mind, which supposedly has been ‘penetrated’ or ‘known’ by earlier ‘existential seekers’ or ‘sages’ (reality and mind are, therefore, two interrelated and inter-conditioned parallel realities, and neither exists without the other). Second: virtual maps of the ordinary levels of reality/mind that are 'manifestations of' and 'emerged from' this inner reality/mind, which are in disposition for the new seekers or practitioners as an opportunity to empirically confirm or 'realize' the hypostasis. Third: a large

21 Another example: “[t]he dualism of Sāmkhya system is different from the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter because in Sāmkhya, both

matter and mind are viewed as the products of satva, rajas and tamas (i.e. Prakṛti), and hence there is no essential difference between the two. They may be considered to be on a continuum” (Kiran Kumar, 2013, 46). In the Western tradition, mind is considered conscious and matter unconscious (despite mind being an evolutionary product of matter). By contrast, as a part of the 23 components of Prakṛti, intellect (buddhi or mahat), ego (ahamkara) and mind (manas) are diverse forms of unconscious matter; therefore, matter includes both body and mind and they are all different from conscious Puruṣa (Haney, 2002, Keith, 1949, Larson, Potter, & Bhattacharya, 1987, Leaman, 2000). From a slightly different angle, “[i]n Taittirīya, Brahman is defined as that (…) by which they live and into which they are reabsorbed. (…) In all three states [waking, dreaming and dreamless ‘sleep deep’ state] the self that experiences, understands and realizes is not the self that can ever be the object of itself. It is (…) the ātman which, remaining constant with itself, directs and envisions its ultimate unity with Brahman” (B. Carr & Mahalingam, 2003, emphasis added).

22 The psychological essence of Asian philosophy is clearly attested to by its intense interest in consciousness, even though the Western concept of psychology appears strange or unfamiliar to Eastern cultures. The latter is due to the fact that “psychology ... in actual practice it is deeply enmeshed with Euro-American cultural values that champion rational, liberal, and individualistic ideals” (Uichol, 1995, 663). For example, “[a]round the time of the Meiji Restoration (1867-1868), when the Japanese government adopted a Westernized way of life, ... psychology was a completely new concept to Japanese people. … The current Japanese word for psychology is Shinrigaku, which was coined by Amane Nishi (1827-1897) ... [S]hinrigaku originally meant ‘mental philosophy,’ not ‘psychology’.” (Takasuna, 2007, 84). Some heterodox schools, like the German-Austrian psychological outlook, are closer to the Asian concept of psychology than the contemporary mainstream methodological principles (see a comparison of two Western currents in Sato, Watanabe, & Omi, 2007).

23 The psychologicity seems to be a cultural penchant or inclination of the main Eastern cultures; for example, the “continued improvement of mature adult mind is a more important theme in Asian than in western views of optimal living” (Bermant, Talwar, & Rozin, 2011, 431). After his psychoanalytic work with Indian and Japanese patients, Roland (1988) concluded that their self has a significant percentage of spirituality, and that it is a spirituality concerned with the individual’s attempt at discovering the deeper reality. Similarly, Kishimoto (1959, 35) notes that “[t]he practice of mental training has long been of prevailing interest to [Japanese] people”.

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number of intra-subjective techniques, according to which we can proceed with those maps if we have the intention to realize or to contrast those proposals as practitioners, and to verify or reject the empiricality of the framework.24

Eastern hypostasis and its dialectical logic

Overall, in Eastern ontology, the ‘true reality’ is the common essence of any dualistic reality perceived with our mind, and also of the dualism between the existences and the mind (henceforth we will term as ‘ordinary’ mind this layer of mind linked with the separateness).25 In other words, the apparently separated beings of the existence, and also the apparently separated outer existence and ordinary mind, are all inter-related parallel manifestations of a same hypostasis. This common essence is supposed to be non-conceptual (in fact the function of the concepts is to set the differences between beings and between ideas), which implies that it cannot be understood or known by the conceptual mind. It is referred to with different terms, like Nirguṇa Brahman, Nirvana, Tao, Śūnyatā, Saguṇa Brahman, the Mother, Satcitānanda, Dharmakāya, One Taste, Pure Consciousness, and so on, and also – in Western translations – with words like Emptiness, Voidness or Nothingness.

Terms and concepts become risky because, as soon as we use a particular term, the mind is directed to a particular approach, while Asian logic implies non-conceptual prima facie realization. For example, in the previous set there are the terms nirguṇic, ‘nude’ or ‘strictly non-conceptual’ approaches (after Nirguṇa Brahman), and the terms saguṇic, ‘dressed’ or ‘metaphorical’ approaches (after Saguṇa Brahman). Hypostasis and deepest consciousness are used here for this ‘original’, ‘essential’, ‘substantive’ and ‘creative’ reality; the former due to its tradition in Western culture, and the latter to emphasize – as in Eastern culture – its dimension as consciousness (in the sense we explain below).

The dialectic of Eastern psychology refers to this first assumption of its ontoepistemology: the outer existence and ordinary mind as inter-related manifestations of a hypostasis. The dialectic of Eastern psychology refers to hypostasis this way. The external world and the ordinary mind are not, obviously, Brahma/Nirvana/Tao or deepest consciousness (A); but the external world and the ordinary mind are also in fact Brahma/Nirvana/Tao or deepest consciousness (not-A). How can both A and not-A be correct (in contradiction of the first law of Western Aristotelian and Leibnizian logic)? By means of their common consciousness. A is true when our consciousness is in its dualistic or ordinary mode; not-A is true when our consciousness is in its non-dualistic intra-mode. This is much better expressed in a classic aphorism (attributed to Śaṅkarācārya):

The world is illusory. Only Brahman is real. [But] Brahman is the world.26

This “logic of dialectal unity” (Matsuo, 1987) is omnipresent in Eastern philosophy and psychology. Another canonical example is the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, which applies it to different manifestations of Śūnyatā.

The Tathāgata27 has had self-realization of the emptiness of all dharmas28, and this knowledge has been demonstrated. ... [S]elf-realization of the emptiness of dharmas is inconceivable. ... [E]mptiness of dharmas is itself Bodhi, without duality and without division. ... The Tathāgata and wisdom are without characteristics of duality. Emptiness is the Tathāgata, only existing as a name ... Inconceivable wisdom is like emptiness, without this or that, incomparable, with neither good nor bad, incomparable, and

without characteristics or appearance. ... [I]n the emptiness of dharmas, there is no perception of buddhas, Bodhi29, and so forth.30

24 These assumptions of Asian psychology are different combinations of ontoepistemology: the first is mainly ontological, the second is a mix, and

the third is mainly epistemic. In the synthesis of Krishnan (2001, 240) (after purifying it from religious terms and maintaining the philosophical ones), the “Indian way of life or worldview has [as its] basis ... a belief in the existence of a god or a reality underlying all phenomena, [which] can be realized ... when attempts are made ... [It] is thus not a question of mere faith, but a hypothesis to be empirically verified. Indian thought also considers [this] to be the supreme goal of human existence”. The assumptions might seem rather speculative or ‘esoteric’, but Western psychology is also, as any knowledge sphere, based on its own ontoepistemical suppositions and modes of empirical validation that may seem utterly speculative to other worldviews.

25 For example, in the Mandukya Upanishad (800-600 BCE / 1932) the states of consciousness are waking (jågrata), dreaming (svapna), deep sleep (suƒupti) and pure consciousness (turiya). ‘Ordinary mind’ is the ‘waking state’ or jågrata, and it is described as ‘outward-knowing’ (bahish-prajnya), ‘gross’ (sthula) and ‘inter-subjective’ or ‘universal’ (vaishvanara). Western psychology and philosophy postulate that this ‘waking state’ in which we are aware of our everyday world is the level of consciousness that perceives (or can perceive) reality as it is. In more Western terms, the waking state implies an everyday, this-wordly, ‘non-dreaming or sleeping’ and ‘non-altered’ (free from the effects of drugs or psychopathologies) consciousness.

26 Śaṅkara is credited with coining the aphorism, apparently by Ramana Maharshi (Wilber, 2000), but in fact it does not appear in his writings, though it can be derived from them (Kelamuni, 2011).

27 One of the names of Buddhas as arahants or ‘sage persons’. 28 Dharma is a very polysemic term in Eastern philosophy. Here it is used in the sense of ‘characteristics’ of the existence. 29 Here, Bodhi refers to the mind of the Buddhas. 30 Mahāprajñāpāramitā Mañjuśrīparivarta Sūtra (Taishō Tripiṭaka) is one of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra or ‘the discourse on the Perfection of

Wisdom’, and it is a key text for all Buddhist schools, though they use a variety of versions of it (this one is from the Chinese canon). Well-known in the West are the ‘Diamond Sutra’, the ‘Heart Sutra’, and also ‘the Perfection of Wisdom in one letter’, thanks mainly to Edward Conze (1973, 1975, 1960).

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This line of argumentation is not coherent if we associate knowledge with the conceptuality and conceivability of the ordinary mind, but it is completely coherent is we assume that true knowledge is non-conceptual and non-conceivable deep experience.31 Another dialectical example is the next Zen aphorism:

At first mountains are mountains. Then mountains are not mountains. Then mountains are mountains again.

The aphorism describes the dialectical emergentism of illumination: ‘ordinary consciousness / illumination / illumination extended to ordinary consciousness’. That is: first, someone perceives according to ordinary consciousness (as a perceiver subject); then, awakening occurs and it is experienced (without any subject); finally, awakening is extended also to ordinary consciousness (of the subject).

The first example was more ontological and the second one more epistemological; the last one is meta-epistemological: the articulation of main Buddhist schools as the three "turnings" of the wheel of Buddhist dharma32 by the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra (a foundational text of the Yogācāra):

The Hinayana as a realist form of assertion (samaropa). The Madhyamika and Prajnaparamita as a form of negation (apavada). The Yogachara or Vijnanavada as a new form of assertion (samaropa again).

In fact, the question of from which side each oriental philosophical approach shows this dialectical hypostasis is an important first key for their differentiation. For example, maximally (and overly simplistically) synthesizing some examples only for informative purposes, some Hindu darshana and Buddhist approaches tend to focus on ‘bliss’, ‘compassion’ or ‘consciousness’ as the experiences of inner consciousness most closed to hypostatic reality, and they frequently approve metaphorical and anthropomorphic approaches to help the practitioner (including gods and bodhisattvas). By contrast, other approaches like Buddhism, Taoism, Jñāna yoga or Shiva yoga focus more on ‘Śūnyatā’, ‘Tao’, ‘Brahman’ or ‘Shiva’ as non-conceptual and inconceivable hypostasis.33

In Eastern psychology, this dialectic necessarily permeates the analysis of consciousness, because the hypostatical dimension is in fact the core of consciousness and reality. See for example the next conversation between a Hindu swami (or sage) and the Zen master Soen-sa on the issue of ‘What is mind?’

The swami said, "Mind is the tendency of the self which goes out to do actions. When it goes inside, it becomes the self, and when it is outside, it does things in the world. The mind is no separate entity, it is not a modification of anything, it is nothing but the consciousness. When the universal consciousness becomes contracted and takes the form of outside objects, then we call it mind. And when the same mind goes inside and becomes the self, again it becomes the consciousness itself. It contracts and it expands."

Soen-sa said, "Mind has no inside and no outside. Thinking makes inside, outside, consciousness, mind-everything is made by thinking.

[Soen-sa concluded] So mind is no mind." (Seung Sahn, 1976, 192)

Here the swami applies a saguṇa and ‘ātmanic’ point of view (more frequent in Hindu traditions) while the Zen master applies the nirguṇa and ‘anātmanic’ point of view (more common in Buddhist traditions), but both experiences of intra-consciousness need a dialectical logic formulation so as to be conceptualized and symbolized.

Eastern emergentism

The emergentism of Eastern psychology refers to the second assumption of its ontoepistemology: the structure of the dimensions of existence as manifestations of the hypostasis of deep consciousness. Thereby, Asian philosophies consist not only of dialectical thinking between centres, they are also “emergentist maps” of reality. With those maps, the multiplicity of the ordinary world enters the ontology and, therefore, it is more difficult to propose a prototypical scheme.34 The simplest ones are the 'matter/mind/spirit'

31 Put more broadly: “When you are confused you think that emptiness is emptiness and existence is existence. When the confusion is cleared, you

know that emptiness and existence are equal. ... When there is existence, then emptiness manifests; when there is emptiness, then existence is apparent. There is no emptiness, and there is no existence. They are not two” (Hüan Hua, 1974, 250-251). For more comments on the significance of emptiness in Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra see Trungpa (2008); for more on its dialectical methodology, see Nagatomo (2000).

32 Here dharma means ‘Buddhist teachings’. 33 For example, both Kaśmir Śaivism and Advaita Vedanta advocate the view that consciousness is the essence of all being, but Kaśmir Śaivism

regards phenomenal reality as an expression of consciousness, and Advaita Vedanta as its māyā or illusion (Shankarananda, 2003); that is, Kaśmir Śaivism shows dialectical hypostasis in the statement ‘then mountains are mountains again’ and Advaita Vedanta in the statement ‘then mountains are not mountains’. The dialectic also permeates concrete principles of Eastern worldviews. For example, being and becoming represent dualistic ideologies (essence versus process) but, as Buddhists hold, one is incomplete without the other, while together they account for the whole (Paranjpe, 1998).

34 Eastern philosophy and psychology form an extremely broad field that is impossible to synthesize in a paper of this scope (or in an Encyclopedia, for that matter). We have two options. The first one is to focus on a specific case and generalize its characteristics, as done by a number of other academic studies, like Delle Fave et al. (2011a), discussed above. This solution is reasonable, since each Asian philosophical view shares a common logic (with some apparent anomalies like the ‘materialist’ Hindu Cārvāka school), but it does present the risk of falling into a mereological fallacy in extending the particular characteristics of the object of study, with the aggravating circumstance that in this case it is easier to focus on the details or la lettre of the proposals and not on their core message or l’esprit. The second option is to show directly a prototypical scheme of Asian

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schemas, while some of the more complex ones include, for example, certain Tibetan mandalas. An intermediate and common taxonomy is that of seven ‘dimensions’, ‘levels’ and ‘layers’ (in more Western terms), or ‘sheaths’ and ‘bodies’ (in more Eastern terms). The deployment of the hypostatic dimension in the ordinary or objective realities, according to this prototypical structure of Eastern ontology, is as follows:35

Nirvanic dimension or deeper reality and the only one truly real (deploys in) Brahmanic dimension or consciousness of the cosmos or the cosmos as such, unity and wholeness (which displays in) Atmanic dimension or state of consciousness in which the duality is given and in turn is known that duality does not exist

(which unfolds in) Creative dimension or creative consciousness with a bridge to ordinary layers (which expresses in) Rational Dimension or ordinary consciousness of rationality concepts, logic and language, and of other beings as such (and

which also expresses in) Emotional dimension or awareness of subtle material or "emotional" live contacts (and finally in) Material dimension or consciousness of matter as such.

In this scheme, a) all the layers of reality are manifestations of our inner consciousness; and b) all beings share this structure of reality, that is, of consciousness, and they only differ in the extent to which they ‘activate’, ‘sensitize’, ‘make aware’ or ‘realize’ each layer.36 The most closely related ontology in the Western tradition is (more than constructivism or idealism) solipsism. However, Eastern ontology is radically different and more complex from even this closest Western relative: Western solipsism is rooted in the subject’s ego or self, which is not multidimensional, and neither is it shared by different beings. Eastern solipsism, if there is any, would reflect the idea of the ordinary world as an illusion (for example, as the māyā of Advaita Vedanta) or as a factual but misunderstood reality (for example, as in the Kaśmir Śaivism) emerging from inner and common consciousness, and its conceptual approach would be, more or less, as follows: a) without consciousness, nothing can be perceived nor can be derived conceptually; b) our acts of creation, our acts of recreation (or mind), our acts of perceiving emotions or life, and the act of perceiving matter, are subsequent ‘solidifications’ of inner consciousness; c) the only evidence of the external live beings and physical objects is that they are subsequent ‘solidifications’ of inner consciousness. But the idea is more beautifully explained here:

[There are several] types of lens placed one over the other through which light rays have to pass; and we can imagine what the interpretation of this light would be in respect of [a final] object outside when it passes through five differently constituted lenses. The object will never be seen properly; it will be a completely made-up picture, a distorted form that is presented to the consciousness. We can imagine what sort of idea we can have of the objects of the world or of anything in the world if this were to be the reason behind our knowing anything and if these were the causes of our knowledge of anything in the world. ... We have to extricate our consciousness from involvement in these lenses, these vestures, these layers, these conditioning levels of being, stage by stage. (Krishnananda, 1984, Ch. 8)

‘Deep consciousness’ is used here to refer to the consciousness levels that ‘emerge’ or ‘unfold’ from the hypostasis or ‘deepest consciousness’ (the ‘nirvanic dimension’ or ‘pure consciousness’) and continue unfolding through various layers (synthesized here as the brahmanic, the ātmanic and the creative ones) until the ordinary mind (the ‘rational dimension’). We choose ‘consciousness’ because it seems the approach more understandable for Westerners (Balsekar, 1992), and ‘deep’ because it reflects better – in our opinion – the empiricality of the Eastern psychology, that is, the intra-subjective experience of meditation when the mind goes to the encounter with the inner consciousness.37

philosophy, with examples and details of its actual views; this is the case in Krishnan (2001), and also the method we follow here. In this case, the spirit of the psychology can be better presented, but there is the risk of oversimplification or of the inadequacy of the description in relation to the particular cases. To avoid this, the current prototype structure is based on different cases and the details of a variety of specific traditions.

35 Basically, we set aside the ‘horizontal’ aspects (for example, the three poisons and the five hindrances of Buddhism), in search of the ‘vertical’ ‘dimensions’, ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of reality/mind: the three assumed by Western ontology, a causality and creativity of a bridge level, and the two layers of the hypostatic dimension (saguṇic and nirvanic experience of hypostasis). The Hindu analogy is ‘sheaths’ or koshas (the physical or annamya kosha, the vital or pranamaya kosha, the mental or manomaya kosha, the intellectual or vijnyanamaya kosha, and the causal or anandamaya kosha) with the addition of the two aspects of Brahman, saguṇic and nirvanic. The Buddhist analogy is gross and subtle ‘bodies’ or kayas (matter, body, or kāyā; sensations, feelings or vedanā; mind, consciousness or cittā; mental contents as essences or dhammā), plus the highest kayas (buddhakāyā, dhammakāyā and related ontology). For the koshas the canonical source is the Taittiriya Upanishad (6-5th c. BCE / 1998, 6-5th c. BCE / 2008), the Buddhist gross levels are references for establishing mindfulness in Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta (5-1 c. BCE / 1967), and the saguṇic/nirguṇic difference is generally present in Eastern philosophy (see above) and especially developed in the more subtle Buddhist kayas (Sangharakshita, 1996). Other concrete instances of this ontology have been systematized This scheme is well assumed by some Western scholars (Poortman, 1978, Wilber, 2005) and by some advocates not welcomed in Western science (Osho, 1998, Powell, 1956); for more nuances see Aurobindo (1955, 1978).

36 More specifically: physical objects have only activated the material dimension; all living beings have also sensitized the emotional dimension; human beings have further activated the rational dimension; highly creative persons have realized the creative consciousness, and ‘deep practitioners’ differ in the degree to which they have reached the ātmanic, brahmanic, or nirvanic dimension (the ‘fully enlightened’ would be those who have realized completely even the nirvanic dimension). This explains why all beings have the same essence and at the same time so different.

37 In the prototypical scheme we are proposing, the deep consciousness can best serve to represent this idea to the Western worldview, which is rooted in the tools of the ordinary mind and is very interested in the mystery of consciousness . As Balsekar (1992) reminds us, when Asian sages refer to ‘God’ or ‘gods’, in Western terms they are speaking of ‘Consciousness’ and ‘levels of consciousness’. Thus, ‘deep consciousness’ can stand in for the Asian idea. Brahma/Nirvana/Tao, etc. and the abstract and intricate concept of ‘hypostasis’. Balsekar uses only ‘Consciousness’, but this may be misleading for Westerners with psychological training, where this term is strongly rooted in the idea of ordinary consciousness.

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Some implications of this emergentism are of particular relevance to the present proposal. First, unity is one of the key characteristics of deep consciousness. “Knowledge of the unity of Brahman with ātman is enlightenment and realization of the soul in being truly itself” and, therefore, as the Īśopaniṣad says, “Once unity is realized, there is no delusion, sorrow or misery” (B. Carr & Mahalingam, 2003, 275). Second, the role of the ego or ‘ordinary self’ in the emergence of reality, that is, in the ‘creation’ of ordinary and external world; as Ramana Maharshi (1959) illustrates, ‘I am’ is our first thought when we wake up, ‘creating’ the apparent external world. Third, this unity and transcendence of the ego as a criterion of valuing the ordinary life; for example, the Abhidharma orders the psychic factors as ‘positive’ or ‘negative’, the former being what helps to bring us closer to inner consciousness, and the latter what keeps us away from it. Those criteria are commonly synthesized as criterions for life, as in the ‘kusalaness’ of Buddhism:

Kusala is used in the sense of having accomplished with wisdom (kosallasambhūtatthena; kosallam vuccati paññā). ... [It] may be interpreted as wholesome or moral; [s]ome scholars prefer 'skillful'. ... Some types of consciousness are immoral (akusala), because they spring from attachment (lobha), aversion or ill-will (patigha), and ignorance (moha). Opposed to them are the moral types of consciousness (kusala), because they are rooted in non-attachment or generosity (alobha), goodwill (adosa), and wisdom (amoha). (Anuruddha & Na rada, 1987, § 4)

Finally, although it is not a necessary argument here, Eastern emergentism is accompanied by a criterion already advanced above with dialectics: “in the East certain philosophical views are not judged as correct and other ones as erroneous, as argued by the Western philosophical doctrines; each view is the way of adequate knowledge for a different kind of human vital and intellectual maturity” (Ballesteros, 1997, 87), because “[e]ach of these different schools (…) represents a certain spiritual experience, a certain status of consciousness” (Cortright, 2007, 165).

Eastern intra-subjective empiricality.

A large number of ‘intra-subjective techniques’ forms the essence of the empiricality of Eastern psychology. With their aid, anyone interested in contrasting the virtual maps of the realities and mind, or in contrasting them in relation to their hypostasis, will have a chance for it. As Gethin (1998, 10) says in the case of Indian religious texts, “the attainment of such states of consciousness [is] generally regarded as bringing the practitioner to deeper knowledge and experience of the nature of the world”. In such a way, the circularity of Eastern ontoepistemology ends and reaches empirical coherence.

Known examples are the forty śamatha-focused methods of the Visuddhimagga (430 CE/2010); the fifty Vipassanā-focused methods of the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta (Majjhima Nikaya 10);38 the hundreds koan and hua-t’ua cases of the Mumonkan (1228/1978), the Shōyōroku (XI CE/1998), the Hekiganroku (XII CE/2000), or the Collected Works of Chinul (XII CE/1983);39 the thousands of visualizations of Tibetan practices, for example in the Six Yogas of Naropa (XI CE/1977); and a large number of other practices also disseminated in the West (Goleman, 1988; Osho, 2004; Shear, 2006).

Most of those Asian intra-subjective techniques are encompassed in the polysemic Western term of ‘meditation’, which can be understood both as ‘techniques to reach a given level of consciousness’ or as such ‘levels of consciousness’. The English meditation is derived from the Latin meditatio and its verb meditation, "to think, contemplate, devise, ponder" (Bailey, 1737). It does not entirely match the Eastern meaning of the closest parallel term, that is, Sanskrit dhyāna, Pali jhāna, Chinese chan or Japanese zen, which refers to consciousness layers where we transcend the ordinary and logical thinking (and not to use it to 'think' or 'ponder').40 In a widely accepted definition, meditation is understood as “a family of techniques which have in common a conscious attempt to focus attention in a nonanalytical way and an attempt not to dwell on discursive, ruminating thought” (D. H. Shapiro, 1982).

A ‘deeper and subtler flow of consciousness’ is perceived with this ‘method of communicating with deeper layers of the mind’, following the ‘inward focus of attention in a state of mind where ego-related concerns and critical evaluations are suspended’, as Kohn (2010, 8) explains.41 The logic of this kind of empiricism is well explained in another passage of the previous conversation between a swami and a Zen master:

Soen-sa said, ... picking up an apple, "This is an apple, okay? But if you say that it is an apple, you have an attachment to name and form. And if you say that it is not an apple, you have an attachment to emptiness. Is this an apple or not?" "Both." "Both? ... To answer 'apple' is wrong; to answer 'not apple' is also wrong; to answer 'both' is doubly wrong. Why? This apple is made by thinking. It does not say, 'I am an apple.' People call it an apple. So it is made by thinking." The swami said, "We understand that this grows on a tree." Soen-sa said, "Yes! That is a good answer. A very good answer would be..." and bit into the apple. (Seung Sahn, 1976, 194)

38 The best known and most probable earlier version of Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta is Majjhima Nikaya 10 of Pali Canon; we also have the

Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta of Digha Nikaya 22 (5-1 c. BCE / 1967, 5-1 c. BCE / 1974); and other versions exist in the Chinese canon and in the Tibetan canon (a comparative survey of the various versions can be found in Sujato, 2006).

39 A meditation practice known in Chinese as hua-t’ou, popularized by the Chinese Zen master Ta-Hui (1089–1163) and by the Korean monk Chinul (1158-1210), is based in “a short phrase (sometimes a part of a koan) that can be taken as a subject of meditation and introspection to focus the mind” (Lachs, 2012, 2). There are no canonical standardized collections of hua-t’ou, though the above-mentioned Works of Chinul comes closest. For an introduction and a description of the differences between a koan and a hua-t’ua see Lachs (2012), for a more extended essay see Levering (1978).

40 Other parallel or closely related terms include the Sanskrit Samādhi (concentrations) and Śramaṇa (ascetic practices). 41 The term ‘meditation’ can be used to designate both the state of consciousness which is reachable by a formal practice and this formal practice

itself. Here we consider the second sense. Nevertheless, the concepts differ only in the ordinary or analytical sense. With respect to the depths of the mind, the meditative state and the meditation method are the same; for example, in Soto Zen Buddhism, ‘zazen (sitting meditation) is enlightenment’; in the present sense, when one sits on the zafu (meditation cushion), one is in the world of duality, but if one delves deeply into one’s own self or consciousness, the session and the deep consciousness are the same.

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Optimal experience and deep consciousness: what can be said and what must be silenced

Flow and East-West dichotomy from dialectical emergentism

As we have seen, meditation experiences pertain to a certain inner dimension of the consciousness different from the outer dimension of optimal experience. As two brief examples from Stuart Lachs explain:

A great fear of falling into emptiness can arise with the feeling that you will just disappear. It is common ... for most people to stop the process at this point because they are scared. (Lachs, 2012, 20)

A practice seeking quietness is actually a form of attachment to the present moment and state of mind. This is sometimes referred to [in the Zen tradition] as entering the ghost cave. (Lachs, 2012, 22, emphasis by the author)

These are, explicitly and obviously, experiences very different from those associated with flow. Nevertheless, differences in the overall framework or in the experiential dimensions do not deny the possibility of some common essences. For example, as Buddha says in the Satipaṭṭhāna sutta for what is probably the best known and most practiced meditation method in the world, one that begins with the stabilization of the body and the ānāpānasati:42

Herein, monks, an aspirant, having gone to the forest, ... sits down with one's legs crossed, keeps one's body erect and one's awareness alert. Ever mindful one breathes in, mindful one breathes out. ... Experiencing the whole body, ‘I shall breathe in’, ... ‘I shall breathe out’, just as a skillful turner or turner's apprentice, making a long turn, knows, ‘I am making a long turn’, or making a short turn, knows, ‘I am making a short turn’. (5-1 c. BCE / 1967, emphasis added)

As the emphasized passage shows, in Buddha’s opinion, the awareness and attention with which we must focus our meditation are not very different from the awareness and attention with which an ordinary worker must perform a task; and this awareness and attention – as we know thanks to flow research – are a central ground of optimal experience. If we extrapolate their comments on karma yoga, Delle Fave et al. (2011a) would say that even in those cases meditation and optimal experience are different; but there is no contradiction between accepting some differences (for example, in intentionality) and maintaining the possibility of common essences. Moreover, Buddha is not saying that the consciousness state of a working turner is the same as that of a meditating monk; obviously, they are different. He is saying that the correct awareness and experiencing process of the meditating monks are “just as” those of skilful turners. In other words, the centres of both consciousness processes (of these subjects in their actions) are the same, similar or at least analogous (as we have seen for example in the Bahiya sutra (Udāna 1.10).

This is well understood in Asian psychologies. According to their intra-subjective empiricality, existential seekers and practitioners are those who investigate this deep existence that is hard to find in their ordinary lives, according to techniques proposed by previous sages or advanced masters. This philosophical, psychological and existential way seems to be radically different from flow, which is basically a this-worldly experience. But what is the inescapable destination for anyone who delves into this way? She or he should also deepen it in this-worldly life. In the words of a Tibetan practitioner:

If one does not know how to integrate the presence of awareness with all one's daily actions, such as eating, walking, sleeping, sitting, and so on, then it is not possible to make the state of contemplation last beyond the limited duration of a session of sitting meditation. (Norbu, 2000)

And how can the awareness dimension of each experience (optimal or meditative, ‘of a turner’ or ‘of a monk or practitioner’) be so similar? According to dialectical emergentism, despite the fact that we perceive ourselves as separate beings and despite different levels of existence, all of them are manifestations and expressions of the deep consciousness; that is, they are deep consciousness layers. Outwardly, they are separation, ignorance, suffering, and materiality. Inwardly, they are unity, awareness, happiness, and subtlety. And which of these poles is more relevant to optimal experience? Obviously, the latter: in flow we are in unity with the act and the environment, with activity awareness, happiness sensations, subtle feelings and perceptions. From the perspective of the logic of Eastern psychology, the conclusion seems obvious: in the external world of everyday experience, when we are in flow, we experience a good collection of internal essences of existence. This explains why, when Eastern psychologies describe everyday activities that are made with awareness, descriptions are so similar to the research on flow. For example, in the history of Zhungzi's Cook Ding, “[d]oes not such a portrait resonate with ... effortless flow and [performing] at very high levels?” (Wong, 2011).

In this sense, the awareness dimensions of this type of outer experience like flow and of this type of inner experience like meditation correspond to each other so closely because, in fact, they share a same inner essence. In emergentist ontology, flow and meditation can differ in the extent to which their consciousness levels are activated or sensitized by the subject’s awareness; but they share, after all, those consciousness levels. From the subject’s experience, when we are aware in an optimal experience we are aware in relation to the act and the environment, but it is – in any case – our inner awareness (or an unfolding of it) that is present. Flow and its dimensions are, viewed from the focal point of the ordinary mind, external to the inner awareness; but from the viewpoint of awareness or inner awareness itself, they are just (another expression of) the unity of the existence.

East-West commensurability in flow research

The present framework gives us the opportunity to reinterpret the East-West debate in flow research not as a radical incommensurability, but as a soft translatability. For example, it is obvious that Asian psychologies have not focused on optimal

42 Mindfulness of breathing is based in focusing the mind on one’s breathing, then on one’s body, then on one’s feelings (vedanā), then on the

mind, and finally on the dhammas or ‘essences of the mind’.

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experience in the way that Western positive psychology has done, but it seems no mere coincidence when they describe ‘this-wordly tasks performed with awareness’ in a manner that very closely dovetails with the dimensions of flow. When the abhidhammapiṭaka of Pali Canon (commonly considered the psychological systemization of Theravāda Buddhism) reviews certain psychic experiences in this way,43 the hypothesis seems acceptable and coherent with the quotes above: very likely, what the Abhidharma writers had in mind was the awareness ‘present in’ (and, according to Eastern ontology, ‘origin of’) optimal experience.

Likewise, an exhaustive comparison of the canonical substantiations of flow (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975; Csíkszentmihályi & Csíkszentmihályi, 1988; Csíkszentmihályi, 1990; Nakamura & Csíkszentmihályi, 2012) with different Asian psychological writings would shed more light on whether the dimensions of the former have been common objects of research in the latter or not. For each dimension of optimal experience, after setting correctly the definitions and the distinctions, the probable common dimensions might be explored. For example, ‘action-awareness’ and ‘loss of self-consciousness’ are constants both in flow research and in Asian philosophy, but with a different rhetorical approach in each tradition. From the incommensurability perspective of Delle Fave et al. (2011a) we may infer that differences in rhetorics reflect differences in experiences. But from the dialectical-emergentism perspective we can search for contact points and common dimensions (between the two types of descriptions), make explicit the position (outwards or inwards) of each dimension, and also, if we fully expand the logic of this analysis, set the deep aspects as explanatory factors. Then, we would interpret them as having some degree of translatability, which in turn would call for future common work in order to reach the appropriate conclusion.

Case by case comparison exercises exceed the scope of the present article44 but, if dialectical emergentism is a valid framework, one may hypothesize that such comparisons would show that when we are dealing with the kinds of psychological experiences like flow, the provisional nature of any scientific verdict of incommensurability calls for further research. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the ‘analytical translatability by ontological bridges’ seems to offer a better framework for understanding some empirical evidence from the field. For example, the ashtanga yoga practitioners recruited by Phillips (2005) reported flow during yoga practice endorsing all nine dimensions of flow state “at least moderately”; when the levels in flow scores were low, they were still “significantly higher” than in other physical activities, and the years of ashtanga yoga experience were a predictive factor of flow experiences.45 It is not by chance, according to our framework, that the author of that research emphasizes the dimension of absorption in both flow and yoga. Flow and yoga are obviously differ substantially, but their inner absorption and awareness seem to be (or to pertain to) the same psychic dimension.

Once the commensurability and translatability are accepted, new interconnections and interpretations between the Eastern and Western traditions might be explored. For example, from the Eastern point of view, if the ordinary mind is a dimension unfolded from deep consciousness, perhaps optimal experience associated with this level of the ordinary mind could also be interpreted as a special kind of unfolding of deep consciousness: completely enveloped in daily activities and this-worldly aspects, but also retaining its original essences of awareness (explaining the action-awareness of flow research), of inner-self-consciousness (explaining the loss of self-consciousness), etc.

Is there anything of interest here for other scientific fields and disciplines?

Could the re-opening of the East-West debate in flow research be interesting not only for this field of psychology, but also for other fields and disciplines? Probably yes, and perhaps with far-reaching implications that could be pertinent even for the essence of science, that is, for its methodology. Deep consciousness is a manifold state with different manifestations like bliss, compassion, wisdom, or unity. Some of these (like wisdom or compassion) have been of interest to Western scholars, but none of them seems relevant beyond psychology and even less so for science as a whole. None, except one: the attribute of unity. Any worldview and knowledge system unavoidably makes assumptions about the relationship between the parts and the totalities, and this issue implies a postulation of ‘separativity’ and ‘unitivity’ that operates as its fundamental key (Renteria-Uriarte, 2013). Optimal experience also seems to offer an intriguing ‘scientific singularity’ at the edge of ontological boundaries: while it is interwoven with daily activities, this-worldly intentions and their separativities, it shows also a good collection of unitive aspects.

Examples are numerous from the earliest beginnings of flow research with Csíkszentmihályi (1975). “You don’t see yourself as separate”, “your energy is flowing”, “I become one with the atmosphere”, or “nothing exists except the act” are common in flow reports (pp. 39-40), and the author synthesizes this “transcendence of individuality” and “fusion with the world” (p. 42) as follows: “[the actor] experiences it as an unified flow from one moment to other … in which there is little distinction between self and environment, between stimulus and response, or between past, present and future” (p. 36). Therefore, the unity dimension permeates the very definition of flow, which is “the holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement” (p. 36).46

43 Primarily in the Dhammasangani (from 3rd century BCE / 1900), the book of Abhidharma known as ‘Enumeration of Phenomena’, where

several descriptions remind us optimal experience – for example, some aspects of ‘conception (vitakko)’ and ‘self-collectedness (cittass'ekaggata)’, and particularly the ‘faculty of mindfulness (satindriyam)’, and especially the ‘faculty of energy (viriyindriyam)’.

44 For example, the ‘action-awareness’ construct or formulas like “I feel present. Therefore, I experience flow” (Jin, 2011) can easily be compared with awareness descriptions in Zen literature; and the ‘loss of self-consciousness’ construct with the conclusion in the ‘daily vipassanā’ Buddha proposed to Bahiya, as well as in the idea that “then there is no you in connection with that” (now by Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s 5-2nd c. BCE / 1996 version).

45 The group consisted of 127 practitioners, and the flow reports of FSS-2 and DFS-2. 46 Later examples from Chen, Wigand, & Nilan (2000): "[I am c]onnected to the material, (…) moving between them without pause"; "It's not that

the outside world doesn't exist (…) [b]ut (…) I'm totally engrossed"; “I was totally blind to the world"; "I become the words I'm typing or reading”; “I become the persona I present in the newsgroup”.

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Subsequently, reflections and manifestations of unity have maintained their prominent presence in the substantiations and dimensions of optimal experience (Csíkszentmihályi, 1975; Csíkszentmihályi & Csíkszentmihályi, 1988; Csíkszentmihályi, 1990; Nakamura & Csíkszentmihályi, 2012): our concentration on the present moment is such that attention and its focus become undivided; we are so absorbed in the action and so immersed in the activity that merging of action and awareness occurs spontaneously; we are not aware of ourselves as an actor separate from the action; neither are we aware of being separate from the environment; and we have a chance to expand to those dimensions the concept of who we are. In synthesis, we experience an undivided attention and union with the moment, the action, and the world around; we are ‘in flow’ and union with the existence.

In this sense, optimal experience is “a coherent and complex reciprocal integration” allowing “cognitive, motivational and emotional components [to] coexist” as “a multifaceted experiential state” (Delle Fave, Bassi, & Massimini, 2008). This capacity to integrate aspects of daily life and ordinary mind, which compose – from the Eastern point of view – the level of separativity, makes it highly interesting for alternative science methodologies that try to overcome traditional atomism and specialization with holism and transdisciplinarity. In this context, flow and its ‘intense unitivity attribute’ appear as a potentially appropriate ground for a unity-based and perhaps happiness-based Western methodology of science.

Conclusion: the debate can (and perhaps should) continue. If lines of communication between the main epistemic traditions of the world are broken, this is not a minor issue for world

knowledge, and is indeed unfortunate. Similarly, it is a loss for flow research if the opportunity to take advantage of the alternative insights and suggestions from Eastern worldviews is closed. We have pointed out that, in addition, some opportunities open to the methodology of Western science would also be closed. Delle Fave et al. (2011a) is a praiseworthy attempt to determine what cannot be said in this regard, but even accepting their arguments regarding differences, examining aspects of different philosophical traditions within a single universe of discourse shows – at least in the present case -– that some legitimate objects of study are still waiting to be explored.

The state of the East-West debate in flow research suggests, then, that interdisciplinary and cross-philosophic endeavours must exercise care and acknowledge the obvious differences between the innerly empirical Eastern tradition and the outerly empirical Western science, taking seriously into account the risks highlighted by Feyerabend (1962) and Kuhn (1962). But when the aim is to search for common essences, and this search is coherent, optimal experience remains for several reasons an appropriate candidate in psychology. The translatability and complementarity between the two poles of the discourse is, for example, what Wong (2011) shows when he comments on the differences and similarities between Zhungzi's stories and flow: “[t]he Daoists recommend a way of life that they explicitly characterize as one that cannot be argued for, but their recommendation receives some support through commonly shared experience”.

After detecting how optimal experience reflects intensively in daily activities the attribute of unity, which is one of the main qualities of deep consciousness, our conclusion is excellently synthesized – somewhat paradoxically – in a final remark by Delle Fave et al. (2011a, 124): “[c]onsidering its features of deep concentration and absorption, [flow] could be interpreted as one of the spontaneous experiences of integration and complexity that arises during daily life, providing the individual with an unintentional and transient glimpse into higher-order levels of consciousness and identity”. In the same spirit – at least so it seems – as the conclusion reached by Delle Fave (2013) in a more recent work, where she highlights “a convergent pathway between Western science and Āyurveda”, and finds “[the] psychological dimensions, resources, and processes identified by health psychology [to be] consistent with the view provided in the classical texts of Āyurveda”, in spite of their “major differences” (p. 157). In this sense, flow might have in Western psychology the same importance as karma yoga, samu or other action-meditations in Eastern psychology, because all of them are those experiences in daily activities that can operate as ‘glimpses into inner consciousness’.

On this basis, optimal experience can function in scholarly debates, at least, as an empirical singularity that offers us an opportunity to compare and contrast existing scientific laws and theories, akin to the role of black holes in physics. It is unfortunate that a scientific field should miss this opportunity. More ambitiously, the possibility for reaching more comprehensive theoretical and methodological frameworks is awaiting us. From the Eastern side, Wong (2011) suggests that the ‘picture’ of flow made in Daoism “must in the end be evaluated by explanatory power in some very broad sense”. From the Western side, when such an experience like flow that absolutely pertains to daily activities also shows – and so evidently – the attribute of unity, its consequent dialectical essence between separation and unity makes it extremely interesting and important, because this is such a key question for Western methodology of science. Therefore, the message is clear: not only can the debate continue, it should continue.

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Appendix.

Similarities between meditation practices and flow in opinion of meditation masters and practitioners: a possible quantitative approach.

Similarities of meditation and flow in “outer relations”, according to the sentences of Delle Fave et al. (2011a) (the word ‘meditation’ instead the word ‘flow’ or ‘optimal

experience’). Commitment

Average

Number of responses.

Responses

Please express your commitment to those sentences from 1 to 5 (from 1 strongly disagree, to 5 strongly agree)

1 “The onset of meditation practice is related to the perception of engaging challenges to be faced with adequate personal skills”.

2 “Meditation practice implies a dynamic process of change with time: the active investment of time and effort in the practice and cultivation of optimal activities

progressively leads to an increase in skills and competencies, and to the search for higher challenges in order to support the engagement, concentration, and

involvement that characterize meditation”.

3 “Meditation gives rise to a virtuous cycle fostering the ceaseless acquisition of increasingly complex information and the refinement of related competencies”.

4 “Meditation practice can be considered the ‘psychic compass’ supporting the developmental trajectory each individual autonomously builds and follows

throughout life”.

5 “The preferential cultivation of meditation promotes individual differentiation and growing complexity (i.e., internal order and integration)”.

6 “By pursuing meditation practice, individuals can creatively devote themselves to the cultivation of specific activities, discovering innovative goals, and thus spreading

new information”.

7 “With the support of meditation practice, the human ability to create and to select opportunities for action that enhances psychic complexity can be considered the

basis of cultural change”.

Take now also into account meditation practices that imply meditation with daily activities like karmayoga, samu or other action-meditation practices.

8 “Given the interdependence of individuals and culture, the growth of complexity derived from meditation involves constructive information exchange with the

environment”.

9 “This process supports development, that is the harmonization of individual life theme with environmental opportunities for action”

Similarities of karma yoga and flow in intentionality, according to the sentences of Delle Fave et al. (2011a) on differences between karmayoga and flow experience.

10

“Karmayoga, samu or other action-meditation practices are the result of an intentional detachment effort, but intrinsic motivation is an emerging feature of

them related to the rewarding interplay between challenges and skills”.

11

“When the task is complex, highly structured, and challenging enough to promote active engagement and the mobilization of individual skills toward a well-defined

objective, the fruits of karmayoga, samu or other action-meditation arise spontaneously though unpredictably, without effort and intentionality.”

12

“When you are in such progress in karmayoga, samu or other action-meditation practices, you can ‘find yourself’ doing this type of meditation in other activities

(different to those assignated to the practice).”