On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem

On Being Mindless: Buddhist Meditation and the Mind-Body Problem examines a highly specialized issue in Indian Buddhist thought: the attainment of cessation, or nirodhasamāpatti, a meditative state in which sensation and conceptualization are said to come temporarily to a halt while bodily life continues. Through this problem, Paul J. Griffiths explores the relationship between meditation, soteriology, consciousness, and the mind-body question in Buddhist philosophy. The book shows that Buddhist reflection on meditation was not merely practical or experiential, but also deeply analytical, producing sophisticated arguments about mental continuity, physical processes, and the conditions under which consciousness can cease and later arise again. The study compares how three major Buddhist traditions understood this unusual state. In the Theravāda tradition, the attainment of cessation is examined in relation to the path of practice, meditative absorption, liberation, and the distinction between temporary cessation and final release. In the Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika traditions, the central problem becomes more explicitly philosophical: if all mental events stop during cessation, how can consciousness re-emerge afterward? The Yogācāra tradition offers a different solution through the doctrine of store-consciousness, presenting ālayavijñāna as the underlying basis that preserves continuity when ordinary forms of consciousness are inactive. By focusing on these debates, the book demonstrates that nirodhasamāpatti is not only a topic in Buddhist meditation theory, but also a crucial point of entry into Buddhist discussions of mind, body, memory, karma, personal continuity, and liberation. It raises fundamental questions: Can a living person exist without active consciousness? What sustains continuity when mental activity ceases? Is liberation best understood as knowledge, detachment, or the complete stilling of mental processes? Through these questions, Griffiths presents Buddhist scholastic thought as a rigorous philosophical tradition capable of engaging some of the deepest problems in comparative philosophy of mind.