The Neuroscience Of Meditation

My dharma brother, Paul Tingen, recently published an article on the Mindfulness Bell website. The title of the article is “Using Mindfulness to Rewire the Brain: How the Insights of Neuroscience Can Aid Our Practice.” It explains Paul’s view on the neuroscience of meditation.

Buddha In Upper Hamlet

By dharma brother, I mean that both Paul and I are members of the Order Of Interbeing of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay by his followers). The Order Of Interbeing (OI) began in 1966 during the war in Vietnam. OI members are monastics and lay people who observe the Four Spirits: “non-attachment from views, direct experimentation on the nature of interdependent origination through meditation, appropriateness, and skillful means.”

The Mindfulness Bell is the magazine of Plum Village, France, the home of Thich Nhat Hanh. My article, Healthy and Free, appears in the Fall 2012 issue of the magazine.

The Neuroscience Of Meditation

The basic premise of the article is that there are parallels between the theories of neuroscience and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh. Paul states that mindfulness is a practice that deepens certain beneficial neural pathways in our brain.

Conversely, continuing to express our negative emotions can deepen our habitual ways of thinking.

For example, Thay teaches us that taking our anger out on a pillow cannot help us deal with anger. It can only serve to deepen the neural pathways that allow anger to arise in the first place. After all, what we are beating in this case is just a pillow anyway!

Paul puts it this way:

Thay has always disagreed with a widespread view in Western society that we can get rid of unpleasant feelings, particularly anger, simply through expressing them. He often warns against the danger of rehearsing these feelings. Neuroplasticity shows us that repeatedly firing off our neurological pathways indeed risks strengthening those very pathways. And so, again contrary to a lot of Western thinking, Thay has long recommended that people who come to Plum Village don’t immediately start digging into their suffering, but instead begin with watering their seeds of well-being. Once we are stable and our sense of well-being is strong enough, we can look at our suffering again and have a chance to transform it, rather than risk being overwhelmed by it.

The Analogy Of The Gardener

The essential teaching in the article revolves around the analogy of the gardener.

A gardener transforms compost (the mud) into flowers (the lotus). A skillful gardener knows how to create a pleasant garden with lots of flowers and just enough compost to feed them. Being a skillful gardener of our own inner garden is our spiritual work of self-love. To offer another analogy: neural pathways can be described as a collection of gullies, brooks, canals, and canyons; our feelings and thoughts can be considered the water in them. Mindfulness has often been described as a light, and in this case we could extend the analogy by describing mindfulness as the sun.

And so, it rains and a rivulet forms: the first arrow has hit and we suffer. The Buddha’s teachings tell us this is unavoidable; life will fire us arrows. Suffering is inevitable. But if we don’t handle this arrow correctly, if we add other arrows to it with wrong think-ing, the rivulet turns into a stream, a river, and eventually a flood of suffering. The one neural connection has turned into a pathway and is likely to join with other similar pathways, and all of them may be deepened. As these neural pathways are strengthened, so are the corresponding mental formations, and they will be more difficult to transform. And once this gully or canal or canyon has formed, new rain will be drawn to it, deepening these pathways still further.

So, if we are mindful gardeners, we can cultivate our minds to be calm in such a way as to minimize the effects of storms and restructure our neural pathways to be free of suffering. The suffering may still be there, but it is calmed down to the extent of not being a threat to our happiness.

For example, again when it comes to anger, Thay often teaches us that we need to embrace our anger like a mother embraces her crying baby. He tells us to talk to our anger in this way.

“Hello, my little anger! I know you are there and I am here for you! I will take care of you so you can go back to where your came from.”

Back in our garden, the anger has risen as a seed from our store consciousness. With mindfulness, we have managed to water enough wholesome seeds (the tender, loving care we have given it) and it returns to our store consciousness without doing any damage. We have used the neuroscience of meditation to dampen the effect of the seed of anger and weaken its neural pathway.

Research

We have seen in this article how the ancient teachings of the Buddha can be thought of in terms of neural pathways in the brain. There has been much research in the neuroscience of meditation.

One of the principle investigators in this field is Dr. Richie Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. He founded the new scientific field of affective neuroscience and is quite well known for his relationship to the Dalai Lama.

Dr. Davidson reported many of the results of his research in his new book, The Emotional Life of Your Brain. He gave the Meng-Wu lecture for The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University earlier this month.

Seeing him in person after reading so much about his involvement with the Mind and Life conferences (conversations between the Dalai Lama and renowned scientists from multiple disciplines) was a real treat for me.

Old Price: $25.95
Price: $12.93

I am currently reading the last chapter of this book and I am totally sold on the neuroscientific basis of emotions. The explanation and scientific evidence for Emotional Style is overwhelming, interesting and easy to apply. The exercises to develop various aspects of Emotional Style are well-written.

If you don’t buy the book from Amazon, be sure to get it from your library!

• READ NEXT
• RELATED
• OTHER SOURCES

• Richie Davidson Is Coming To Stanford
• Richie Davidson Came To Stanford
• Meditation Is Good For Your Brain
• Compassion Research Has Gone Mainstream
• Science Investigates Meditation Practices
• Meditation Practices Can Change Your Life – The Dalai Lama

Love Is Letting Go Of Fear

Love Is Letting Go Of Fear is the title of a book by Jerry Jampolsky.

He was the founder of the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito, California.

The center in Sausalito and other centers around the world have helped thousands of families and their children cope with life threatening diseases. They sponsor support groups that are oriented toward care takers as well as those who are ill.

The twelve principles of attitudinal healing are

1. The essence of our being is love.
2. Health is inner peace. Healing is letting go of fear.
3. Giving and receiving are the same.
4. We can let go of the past and the future.
5. Now is the only time there is and each instant is for giving.
6. We can learn to love ourselves and others by forgiving rather than judging.
7. We can become love finders rather than fault finders.
8. We can choose and direct ourselves to be peaceful inside regardless of what is happening outside.
9. We are students and teachers to each other.
10. We can focus on the whole of life rather than the fragments.
11. Since love is eternal death need not be viewed as fearful.
12. We can always perceive ourselves and others as either extending love or giving a call for help.

These principles underlie all of the classes and support groups of the Center for Attitudinal Healing.

Osho also has a saying about fear.

Love Is Letting Go Of Fear

When you are faced with a life-threatening illness, it takes a lot of courage to face all your treatments, whether they be chemotherapy, radiation, surgery or something else.

Most people just listen to their doctors and do what they say.

This is the wrong approach. Everyone who is ill should encouraged to take charge of their own healing.

They should do this by doing research on their illness and discuss their findings with the doctors.

They should investigate alternative medicine and adjunctive healing techniques that can increase their life expectancy and improve their quality of life. Some of the alternative healing methods include

• Acupuncture
• Hyperbaric Oxygen Healing
• Chiropractic
• Massage
• Feldenkrais
• Meditation practices
• Yoga
• Nutrition
• Herbs and supplements
• Active Visualization or guided imagery
• Psychotherapy
• Qi Gong
• Aroma therapy
• Calming music
• Inspirational books, CDs and audio recordings

They should find support groups like the Center for Attitudinal Healing and Mindfulness in Healing to deal with the emotional trauma associated with illness and prognoses. Support groups have been shown to increase longevity substantially and to improve the quality of life.

They should gather as much support as possible from family and friends. This could take the form of prepared dinners, massage gifts and help around the house, among other activities.

All of these activities reduce the fear and increase the quality of life.

Looking back at the principles of attitudinal healing, which item touches you the most? Please share your answer in the comments below and with your friends and family.

Old Price: $11.99
Price: $6.52

I have read the books a couple of times. It is written at very simple level and help to understand how love is letting go of fear.

Thanks for stopping by. Please join our community and enter your name and email address in the form below.

We will send you all the best articles, videos, quotes, contemplations, and news about meditation practices every Thursday morning.

Name:

Your Email:

We respect your email privacy

Meditation Is Good For Your Brain

Pedro Gargantilla Madera published an article on suite101.net with the title, “La meditación es buena para el cerebro.” The photo is from that site.

The article was sent to me by my daughter, Jessica, who lives and works in Quito, Ecuador.

I find the article to be quite interesting and related to other posts on this blog (see below).

Buddhist Monk

I’ve adopted the English translation to point out the relevance to Meditation Practices.

Meditation and mindfulness practices can change not only the way we work certain brain areas but also increase its size.

Millions of people flock to gyms several times a week to strengthen their abdominal muscles, weight lifting, cycling or aerobics. There are many strategies to strengthen our muscles, but what can improve the quality and quantity of gray matter that is in our brain? And, if so, how?

Meditation Is Good For Your Brain

There are many forms of meditation including different methods of mental concentration, mindfulness of breathing and active visualization, among others.  This makes meditation difficult to define.

All forms of meditation practices have been proven to involve important changes in brain functioning. One of the most important studies was conducted by a team of scientists at the Waisman Center (University of Wisconsin, USA) in collaboration with Schechen Monastery, Kathmandu (Nepal). [The Waisman Center is directed by Dr. Richie Davidson, whom we have written several articles about.] American researchers analyzed the brains of Buddhist monks who had practiced meditation in the Tibetan Nyingmapa and Kagyupa traditions for 10000-50000 hours, over a period of time between 15 and 40 years.

When compared to the brains of a group of American students who had not previously practiced meditation, the brains of the Buddhist monks demonstrated remarkable and valid results.

The researchers conducted studies of brain activity using EEG before, during and after a meditation practices. They found that there were significant differences between the brains of monks and students. The most striking was that Buddhist monks had gamma synchrony in the brain, which implies that there is enormous neuronal coordination in the brain.

Meditation Increases The Gray Matter

In a study conducted by experts from the universities of Yale and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that the practice of meditation can increase the amount of cerebral gray matter.

The researchers analyzed the fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scans of the cebral gray matter of 20 people who are known to practice Buddhist meditation averaging 40 minutes a day. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated that when people meditate regularly an increase in thickness of certain areas of the cerebral cortex occurs (related to sensory, auditory and visual perception) and also slows the thinning process of the cerebral cortex associated with aging.

Unfortunately, these benefits do not occur in all brain regions. The researchers found that they are primarily concentrated in the area of the right hemisphere.

Meditation Improves Emotional Intelligence

A group of scientists from the University of California, at Los Angeles (UCLA), found by brain resonance that there are areas of the brain that reach a larger size in those who meditate for long periods of time.

Areas that have a significantly greater volume are the hippocampus, the frontal cortex, the thalamus and the convolutions of the lower temporal lobe, which have in common that they are involved in the regulation of emotions. This finding would endorse the fact that people who meditate have a greater capacity to generate positive emotions, maintain a greater emotional stability and reduce levels of stress.

What remains to be answered is why there is an increase in volume: is it due to an increase in the number of neurons? Are the neurons larger? Are there a greater number of interneuronal connections?

In conclusion, meditation not only improves coordination between our neurons, but slows brain aging, increases the size of certain brain areas related to emotional intelligence and reduces stress levels.

I believe that all of these and more findings related to the scientific basis of how meditation is good for your brain have been presented before in other posts on this blog and it’s sister site, Best Meditation Videos. See the tabs below for more details and related posts.

The amount of scientific evidence is growing by leaps and bound, as the tabs indicate.

The bottom line is that meditation practices are good for your brain, longevity, and emotional intelligence.

Are you not yet convinced that you should have a daily meditation practice?

Please check out Active Visualization by clicking on the image below, then share with your friends.

Active Visualization

In Memory Of My Beloved Teacher, Gabrielle Roth

I am writing this post in memory of my beloved teacher, Gabrielle Roth. She died last night from lung cancer.

May her memory be a blessing to everyone she touched.

And boy, did she touch me!

I spent several years working with her and was with her when she began the Moving Center.

Before then, we were just a bunch of hippies getting together to dance to the apparent arbitrary rhythms chosen by Gabrielle and a handful of wonderful musicians.

Through the Moving Center, she developed the5Rhythms.

The 5Rhythms are states of being: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical and stillness.

They are a map to everywhere we want to go, on all planes of consciousness – inner and outer, forward and back, physical, emotional and intellectual. They are markers on the way back to a real self; a vulnerable, wild passionate, instinctive self.

Why Dance Them? In dancing them you can unearth a freestyle movement vocabulary rooted in unexpected, fresh ways of moving – visceral and highly personal.

In dancing them you can track perceptions and memories, seek out gestures and shapes; tune into instincts and intuitions. They reveal ways to creatively express aggressiveness and vulnerability, emotions and anxieties, edges and ecstasies. They reconnect us to cycles of birth, death and renewal and hook us up to the spirit in all living things. They initiate us back into the wisdom of our bodies and unleash movement’s dynamic healing power.

Dancing the 5Rhythms is a practice … a dynamic way to both workout and to meditate in the same breath. A wise old Taoist once said: “An ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.” Whether on the subway or the ski slope [or tennis court, in my case!], in the emergency room or the boardroom, practicing the five rhythms helps us become attuned to the underlying patterns in our everyday existence. They teach us that life is energy in motion, freeing us from any fixed notions about people, places, objects or ideas.

The 5Rhythms are my offering to a world in crisis to help us find our voice and become a vehicle for change and renewal. As Anita Roddick said, “Anyone who thinks they are too small to make a difference has not spent the night with a mosquito.”

In dancing them, the body becomes our spiritual path.

The above excerpt from Gabrielle’s website may inspire you to look into her teachings and perhaps find a teacher yourself.

My own personal indebtedness to Gabrielle goes back to when my son had cancer. I was supposed to assist her at one of her visits to Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. The morning we were leaving I got a call from my ex-wife who told me that Micah was in the hospital and he had a Wilm’s tumor – a cancer of the kidney. He was only seven years old.

When I told Gabrielle that I could not attend, she was deeply moved. She vowed to harness the energy of the 40 or 50 women in her workshop to send prayers to Micah. When I spoke to her later, she reported that all the women were touched by Micah’s condition and they had kept him in mind during their whole time at Esalen.

Earlier that year, Gabrielle and I put on a fund raiser (which made no profit) in honor of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who had inspired both of us. Over 250 people came to the Scottish Rite Temple in San Francisco. The event was a massive spiritual success, but only broke even financially.

Our paths have crossed quit a few times since them. Early on, I attended a few events where she led the 5Rhythms. My path had taken a different turn and I always will remember those moments when they crossed.

With true love in my heart, I offer these blessings to Gabriell, Jonathan, Robert and all those who also love her.

May we be at peace.
May our hearts remain open.
May we know the beauty and the radiance of our Buddha nature.
May we be healthy.
May we be free of suffering.
May we be happy, truly happy!

If you know of Gabrielle’s work or even if you don’t please share these blessing with your family and friends.

Active Visualization Can Change Your Life

Best Meditation Videos has page by the same name as this post, Active Visualization Can Change Your Life. This is not a coincidence. I found an article titled, “Active Visualization Can Dramatically Improve Your Future,” which is the subject of the article

I see very little semantic difference between these two titles, so we must be covering the same ground.

The author, Dennis Francis, begins his article with a quote from the Buddha.

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

Another quote from the Buddha appears later on in the text:

“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”

You must know by now that I love the teachings of the Buddha!

Back to the article!

Active Visualization Can Change Your Life

Francis states something that I find quite similar to my way of thinking about Active Visualization. He says,

Real change requires that our self-image adapts to our new way of seeing an understanding our situation. This is why it is so important to involve our imagination when focusing on our goals. Being able to change your self-image or to change your beliefs is an important part of growing and developing as a human being. This is something we have done consciously or unconsciously from the time we were children. Concentration and visualization is the key reprogramming the subconscious, which leads to reprogramming our beliefs.

This statement is all about your mindset. If you want to change your life, you must change yourself. If you want to change yourself, change your thoughts.

The Active Visualization process is outlined towards the end of the article:

Here are the steps needed for active visualization: Find a comfortable chair to relax and read your prepared statement outlining your goal in the present tense. Then close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Begin to daydream about that moment where you have achieved your goal; build on the scene as if you were the director of the movie or the artist creating the work of art. Begin to involve your senses so that you can experience the event as fully as possible. If your mind wanders, just catch yourself and return to where you left off. Some people even have their own theme song or soundtrack that brings them to a place of excitement or confidence.

This process comes close to what you will find if your order Active Visualization. The method employed in the audio recording involves seven stages and take about 1/2 an hour. Each stage develops a deepening state of relaxation so that distractions are a minimum.

I actually like the idea of reading a prepared statement outlining your goals and I may add this to the instructions.

So What Do You Think About Active Visualization?

Do the quotes from the Buddha speak to you in any way?

Does the idea of changing you mindset make sense?

Do you think you would like to try the process proposed by Dennis Francis?

Please share your answers in the comments and try Active Visualization.

Active Visualization Can Change Your Life

The Dalai Lama On Moral Ethics

Here is another awesome selection of Words of Wisdom chosen by Lama Surya Das.

“The practice of moral ethics should be entirely voluntary and implemented on a personal level. I often tell Buddhists, when I’m teaching, unless you practice with sincerity, there is a risk of religion becoming a cover for hypocrisy. There are people who pay lip service to religion, but seem to be praying, ‘Please bless me in my mischief.”Another question asked what young people can do to contribute to peace in the world. His Holiness’s answer was straightforward: ”Study. Become experts in different fields. Think more about society. Develop self-knowledge and emotional intelligence. And while you’re studying think more holistically, take the bigger picture into account.” HH Dalai Lama, Middlebury College, VT

Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves

Lying still
Breathing in, breathing out
Healthy cells grow all by themselves
I am free of cancer.

This poem came to me in a guided imagery session on the vernal equinox of 1997.

It was a life changing experience to see so vividly that I was going to heal from cancer.

When I told this poem to Sister Chan Khong 9 years later, she said, “I like healthy cells grow all by themselves!”

She said this when I was having breakfast with her and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh (known as Thay to his followers) in Thay’s room in New Hamlet, Plum Village in the Dordogne region of Southern France.

You may wonder why I’m bring this up to you today.

The reason is that the new issue of The Mindfulness Bell came out today and my article, Healthy and Free was featured on page 49.

Not only that, Brother Phap Dung, one of the senior monks, placed a special message containing the link to the 30th Anniversary of Plum Villagewebsite, which I played a major part in designing and kick starting.

The site features many of my own photographs and a few of my stories.

In fact, Healthy and Free is an edited version of My Breakfasts With Thay.

Healthy Cells Grow All By Themselves

There are a couple of main points in the article that I wish to include.

One of them was our discussion of healthy cells grow all by themselves.

The discussion went something like this:

…answer Sister Chan Khong’s question about cancer, starting with the famous Zenrin mentioned above. I spoke about the transformation I had had during the guided imagery session and recited my transformation of the famous Zenrin. I said that my purpose in teaching the class on Mindfulness in Healing was to inspire people to take charge of their own healing and use mindfulness practice to tune into their bodies to allow “healthy cells grow all by themselves.” I said that I would recommend guided imagery, acupuncture, Chinese herbs and supplements, deep relaxation, Feldenkrais, movement, and other adjunct methods to further their healing experience. The conversation drifted away for a while and Sister Chan Khong later said with a delightful smile, “I love the idea of ‘healthy cells grow all by themselves’”.

Another significant discussion related to the dharma talks (lectures about Buddha’s teachings) that I had heard on previous days in Plum Village.

I then told Thay that I thought the dharma [teachings of Buddha] was in good hands with the likes of Brothers Phap Yu and Phap An teaching as well as they did. He said to me, “I think you are doing very well yourself!” – and this from the Zen master himself.

Well, dear friends, now I am not only a blogger; I am also a writer of magazine articles and soon, you will be offered to order my books from Amazon and Kindle!

Please take some time to investigate The Mindfulness Bell and other teachings of Thay on the Plum Village website.

• NEXT READS
• RELATED ARTICLES

• Sister Chan Khong
• Practicing Right View – Thich Nhat Hanh
• Oprah Interviewed Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh

Compassion Research Has Gone Mainstream

Compassion Research Has Gone Mainstream

CCARE -The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University was founded in 2005 by Dr. James Doty. This organization demonstrates that compassion research has gone mainstream.The premise of CCARE is that compassion and altruism are innate qualities that all people (and animals – see photo!) share.

Their research is totally endorsed and supported by the Dalai Lama who is a significant donor to CCARE.

Compassion Research Has Gone Mainstream

In an excerpt of an article from the Shambhala Sun magazine (to which I have contributed photographs of Plum Village) on the CCARE site, author Barry Boyce asks,

Where does altruism reside? Can it be cultivated? And if so, what kind of training could work to make us more compassionate? In a world with so much violence and suffering these are not trivial questions, and the search for their answers has inspired the creation of a new academic field, one that looks at behavior not so much from the perspective of the dark side of human nature—our proven ability to inflict harm on each other—but from the perspective of our capability for compassion and altruism.

One of the leading researchers in this new field, affective neuroscience, is Dr. Richie Davidson.

His research was presented at the Meng-Wu lecture at Stanford University on September 2, which I reviewed in the article in this blog titled, “Richie Davidson Came To Stanford.”

This is what Barry Boyce had to say about Richie Davidson’s work:

At the University of Wisconsin, as part of his ongoing study of meditation adepts, Richie Davidson has been studying a group of Tibetan monks to see what effects their compassion meditation practice has on their brains, as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The article goes on to highlight other research on compassion. For example, Thubten Jinpa, a former monk, translator for the Dalai Lama and Tibetan scholar, developed a “compassion-cultivation training protocol:”

Jinpa developed the compassion-cultivation training protocol—essentially an eight-week course—that is being used and tested in a pilot program at Google and in other contexts. It is one of the core tools that will likely emerge from CCARE’s work and speaks to the “education” aspect of the center’s mandate. The course is taught only by instructors who combine academic understanding and “intimate familiarity with the contemplative practices associated with cultivating compassion.” As currently structured, the course consists of a two-hour session once a week that includes lecture and discussion; guided group meditation; interactive exercises; and what Jinpa refers to as activities to “moisten” the heart, such as poetry or reflecting on inspiring stories.

Other researchers have adopted Jinpa’s model:

Birgit Koopman-Holm, a doctoral candidate who came to Stanford from Germany to study with prominent psychologist Jeanne Tsai, has used Jinpa’s protocol in a CCARE study Tsai is leading that compares the effects of mindfulness meditation with compassion meditation. Koopman-Holm said that preliminary study results indicate that while mindfulness practice does not seem to perceptibly increase compassionate behavior, practices specifically intended to cultivate compassion do so. …

Like Tsai, Koopman-Holm specializes in how culture can shape our emotional life. She regards compassion meditation as a Buddhist cultural practice, but concludes that deep methods that evolved in one culture may well be applied effectively in other cultures. “Our research gives me some hope that these practices could work just as well with people of many different cultures.”

These and other activities are generally reported on at Meng-Wu lectures, like Dr. Davidson’s and conferences. For example, at  the Conference for the Language of Mental Life supposedly held in July, 2010,Philippe Goldin was one of the participants.

…a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist who also trained in Buddhist monasteries in Nepal (and leads the CCARE research on compassion in medical professionals). Goldin points out that, “There are many Buddhist texts but little research, in the way Western science would use the term. Also, the texts might offer gradations of experiences such as the four brahmaviharas[usually rendered as loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity], but they are described in words we’re not clear about, even after we translate them into English.”

How To Get Involved

The Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education offers many opportunities for people like us to participate.

Obviously, any research project like this is going to want you to donate.

Attending the Meng-Wu lectures is also fun and enjoyable.

You can even volunteer to assist in the research projects.

If you live too far from Stanford, you can at least spread the word that compassion research has gone mainstream.

For my part, I plan to attend additional Meng-Wu lectures when the spirit moves me and I have already signed up for the email list.

If you know anyone interested compassion research, be sure to share this article with them.