The mind in Tantric Buddhism. Between neuroscience and transhumanism

Abstract

This article reflects on the religious mind, using a self-investigative approach to achieve subjective transformation and illumination in the frame of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and particularly of Tantric Buddhism or vajrayāna, also known as the “Diamond Vehicle” in the mahayāna School. The initial assumption is that the corporal and spiritual technologies used by the system and applied to the body and the mind have a certain resemblance with scientific projects and technologies, and that their humanist leanings and a certain rational ethic aspire to improving the human condition both biologically and mentally. At the same time this resemblance is based on empirical work and the analysis of the conditions and the causality of phenomena as well as on the systematic use of pedagogy and methods that focus on exploring and understanding the brain and mental processes. In this field, neuroscience and philosophies based on scientific technology such as transhumanism and Buddhism, operate from their understanding of human beings and their experiences to overcome limits and work towards new evolutionary horizons.