No Self, No Problem: How Neuropsychology Is Catching Up to Buddhism

by Chris Niebauer

It may be that right-brain consciousness is also what happens when one is “in the zone.” Basketball player Michael Jordan popularized this phrase because it is how he described making basket after basket without thinking about it. Others may find this state naturally while engaged in certain activities that don't rely on conscious thought, such as playing a musical instrument, engaging in physical activity, being creative in some form, praying or meditating, or even fixing a motorcycle—as in the classic novel Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig. Being in the zone is very similar to what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has called flow, using this term to describe the experience that someone has while being totally absorbed in the doing of something. He defines flow as: “Being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.”4 On a side note, it is funny that he picked jazz as an example because as the great musician Louis Armstrong put it, “If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”