Home › Magazine › Winter 2007 › The Mindful Scalpel

The Mindful Scalpel

Can advancements in neuroscience make us happier and more compassionate? Jeff Greenwald visits neurosurgeon Dr. Katrina Firlik to investigate the relationship between the material mind and its spiritual potential.

Jeff Greenwald

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© Jeff GreenwaldDuring the lifetime of the Buddha, no one knew what the brain was, or where consciousness was located.

“Given . . . that ancient Indian science had detailed knowledge of the human anatomy,” writes the Dalai Lama in The Universe in a Single Atom, “it is surprising that there was no clear recognition of the role of the brain as the core organizing structure within the body, especially in relation to perception and cognition.”

Twenty-five centuries after the Buddha’s final sermon, I’m in a floodlit operating room on the sixth floor of New York University Medical Center, watching Dr. Werner Doyle—a brilliant neurosurgeon and practicing Buddhist—drill through the skull of Mr. S, a sixty-two-year-old epilepsy patient. S’s chronic seizures, Doyle hopes, will be cured by purging damaged tissue from his left temporal lobe.

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