Do It Yourself Mental Health

Meditation-Higher Ground by oddsock

Wired Magazine had an article in the February 2006 issue entitled “Buddha on the Brain”. It tells of the speech the Dalai Lama gave as the guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience’s annual meeting. Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, did a research project of 12 Tibetan Buddhist monks. He found that the monks after tens of thousands of hours meditating did have altered brains.

Some scientists set up an online forum protesting the research which generally happens when a study is controversial. For Davidson’s first subject, he attached 128 electrodes to Mattieu Ricard, a monk from the Shechen Monastery,who has more than 10,000 hours of meditation. He asked Ricard to focus on “unconditional loving-kindness and compassion”. The research showed that there was powerful gamma activity and that the oscillations from the various parts of the cortex were synchronized. As John Geirland, the author of this article, states that the synchronizing is usually experienced by patients under anesthesia.

Yi Rao, a professor in the neurology department at Northwestern University, led a protest petition opposing the close relationship between Davidson and the Dalai Lama. In rebuttal, Davidson states that over half of the petition signers are Chinese. The Chinese forced the Dalai Lama to leave his homeland in 1959 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. In 1989 the Dalia Lama received the Noble Peace prize and is considered one of the world leaders of peace and compassion.

Davidson’s research is the beginning of meditation research. As Geirland states: “Scientists can try to test the validity of the Dalai Lama’s first-person perspective. But if they allow reverence for him to cloud their judgment, they will cease to be scientists and take rebirth as something quite different: acolytes.”

Into the light by mindfulness

Wikipedia identifies mindfulness as “the practice whereby a person is intentionally aware of his or her thoughts and actions in the present moment, non-judgmentally”. Although my faith is based in Jesus Christ, I am thankful that He has given me the gift of openness to explore and implement practices from other faiths and religions.

In 1976, when I began implementing breathing exercise with meditation practices, I immediately knew that finding my center and focusing on my breath in and breath out enabled calm and peace to flow through my body. Being human, I learned in a moment what has taken a lifetime to implement. Transcendental meditation has been found to decrease heart rate and blood pressure because the mind-body connection prospers when one experiences peace and calm.

The following websites can help someone to experience mindfulness, mediation and peace: From New Dream Network come several sites linked together: Energy Breath—-Healing Arts Online–-Thinking Peace. Although these blogs are selling selected books does not take away the thoughtfulness presentations here.

Some current articles or posts about mindfulness meditation:

Mindfulness Meditation and Concentration Meditation–by Matt Clarkson:

“Mindfulness meditation is also known as insight because the intention is to gain insight as to the true nature of reality.  While concentration involves the practitioner focusing their attention on a single object, in mindfulness meditation practice, every aspect of experience is welcomed and appreciated.”

“With concentration practice, we give the attention a target that keeps us anchored in the present moment.  The target can be a physical object, or more commonly, the breath.  We give the mind something consistent to focus on and this becomes the object of the meditation.”

“Whatever is used as the object for the attention, the aim is to keep the mind focused as often as you remember to do so.  As the mind starts to wander, we simply direct the mind back toward the object of attention with a sense of “friendliness.”

“What do I mean by friendliness?  Whenever we become lost in thought or confusion, we simply acknowledge those thoughts and then gently re-focus the attention.  If we consciously try to prevent thinking, it’s going to have a negative impact on our practice.  Instead, the moment we recognize we have become distracted, we gently bring our attention back.”

An Online Meditation Room (with video)

The following is a book review by  Shai Coggins:

“Arriving at Your Own Door (108 Lessons in Mindfulness) by Jon Kabat-Zinn (Non-fiction, Self-help) – A collection of short thoughts from Kabat-Zinn and some quotations that relate to the topic of mindfulness or meditation.”

“Review: If someone told me that I’d be interested in the topic of “mindfulness” or “meditation” a couple of months ago, I would’ve said they’re nuts. My mind runs a hundred miles a minute and it seriously hurts to try to make it go still. Unless I’m totally exhausted, the brain just won’t stop buzzing.”

“But, something happened to me at the end of last year that I can’t quite explain. And, that something led me to the concept of finding stillness within me. When I was trying to understand the whole thing better, I came across Kabat-Zinn’s work.”

“Since I wasn’t quite sure I’d be all for the mindfulness thing, I decided to read whatever was available from my local library. Thankfully, they had this concise version of one of his books. And, I’m glad I read it. I can’t wait to read more and to learn more. Of course, my mind still buzzes about – and I still struggle with the stillness. But, I am more aware of this concept, and I know I want to get to know it more and to see how it will work for me.”