Loving the left brain

Iain McGilchrist writes that the left brain is about focused attention, while the right brain is about broad attention. In humans this manifests in a left brain that is about manipulation and rule-following, he writes, while the right brain is about holistic understanding and loving kindness. Both are necessary, he writes, but it’s clear that according to McGilchrist the right brain is fundamentally more necessary. He writes as much very explicitly — in the very title of the book, the “master” is the right brain and the “emissary” is the left brain. According to McGilchrist the left brain ought to be subordinate to the right, but in the modern world it has forgotten its place and has come to believe that it and it alone can run the world, and it severely discounts input from the right brain.

But the left brain is not so meager as McGilchrist believes. In fact if you go far enough into the conceptual, the symbolic, the logical, the whole world opens up before you. From a distance, a ray of light projecting through a keyhole may appear to be insignificant compared to the whole of the door, but if you put your eye close enough to the keyhole, you may see the whole world looking back at you. The left and right brains are equally capable of seeing the world. There is a fundamental symmetry between them.

So it is with Circlers and Rationalists. Circlers have developed the right brain faculties for an all-encompassing loving awareness of all that is and could be present. Rationalists have developed the focused inquisitiveness required to see the whole world through conceptualization. It would be a grievous error to underestimate either one in any way.

Then where do the contemplative traditions stand on this spectrum? I suspect that my teacher, for one, stands more with the Circlers than with the Rationalists. He spoke of conceptualization as a useful tool for practical matters but not a path to awakening in itself. He spoke of a deep distrust for the modern world, and for rationalists in particular. Perhaps this is why he is so allergic to the world.

As for me, I agree with McGilchrist that the left brain is out of control and that the hemispheres are out of balance. I agree with him that the modern world needs more from the right brain, and that balance between left and right is what will lead to profound advancement. But I believe that the ideal balance will be a true partnership between the two, with neither subservient to the other.