Off-Center for Emergence Studies (OC4ES)

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Paul Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897

Mystique of Zen/Chan Enlightenment: A Psychological and Neuroscientific Interpretation

By Ming Dong Gu, PhD, October 2nd, 2025
Zen/Chan and its enlightenment experience have remained an ineffable mystery in the eyes of both scholars and practitioners, East and West. This article attempts to demystify the mystique of Chan and its enlightenment from a positivist perspective.