Noah D:
This is cool, thanks. Maybe post a 1 paragraph summary & a 5 paragraph summary.
Sure, I can explain the gist of it in a nutshell.. The whole duality is created by something called left-brain interpretor in the left hemisphere of the brain. The left-brain interpretor is what divides the world into 'me' vs 'world', good vs bad. and 'how I am' & 'how I want to be'.. It is interested in categorising things and try to find a meaning in everything. It creates the whole story of 'me', a personal identity...
And according to the principle of operant conditioning, there arises a need to protect and enhance this self-concept, the personal story of the illusory identity. i.e anything that enhances the self-concept is rewarding and anything that damages our self-image is painful. Soon, a structure in the brain called amygdala starts to react to every threat for the self-image. This is what creates suffering.
There is already a strong evidence for the fact that mindfulness increases well-being, helps in emotional regulation and changes the perspective of self. Continous practise of mindfulness rewires the brain and helps us find the way out of suffering. Also, this change brought about by mindfulness can be directly observed in the brain. Since enlightenment breaks the walls of the illusory idenity, it should reduce all the self-referential thoughts. A network called default mode network in the brain is responsible for all the mind wandering, rumination and self-referential thoughts that happens in our mind. Long term meditators and enlightened people have very little or sometimes no activity in the default mode network. Also, they have a small amygdala that has week connections to the higher parts of the brain, which shows that the suffering has been reduced.
I have also included some links to various studies that have been conducted and the various ways enlightenment has been defined..