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Mindly Stuff
By gartenfische | April 7, 2008
It may be obvious by now that I am interested in meditation, mind training, mind/brain stuff. Linda pointed me toward this fascinating conversation about the Shamatha Project with Buddhist scholar B. Alan Wallace. So I listened, and, as she said, it is right up my alley.
B. Alan Wallace, author of The Attention Revolution and Embracing Mind, joins us to discuss the initial results from The Shamatha Project—one of the most extensive studies on the long-term benefits of meditation practice ever conducted. The terabytes of data that were collected during the course of the retreat-study included physiological and psychological measurements, thousands of entries from student journals, and the ongoing evaluations from Dr. Wallace as he interviewed with the students. Find out what his evaluations were, and how deeply the yogi’s progressed over the course of their 3-month retreats.
The subjects were trained in meditation and then spent six to twelve (!) hours a day—eight average—sitting in meditation for three months. My half hour of morning meditation is beginning to seem piddling! (And even with that small commitment, I have noticed significant changes over the past six and a half years—doubtless, they’d be more significant if I devoted more time.)
Some of what I gleaned from Reverberations from The Shamatha Project:
Dr. Wallace describes “areas where there was very clear benefit”—effects that were immediately clear, in spite of the fact that the results will take a long time to fully analyze:
° as weeks and months went by, people’s attentional sustainability definitely increased—their minds calmed down, they were able to sustain focus for longer and longer periods (One to two hours without losing attention.)
° meta-cognitive awareness—their ability to monitor their own mental states—got sharper and more and more discerning
° their overall vividness of attention clearly increased
And he describes “one of the strongest characteristics”: I saw people shifting priorities . . . away from looking for happiness from the outside world (from stimuli, from senses, etc) and shifting to cultivating the inner causes of happiness and recognizing the true causes of suffering are within our own minds.
Wallace explains that, People over time gradually became happier and happier—people were experiencing greater well-being.
And here is something that even I, with my limited practice, have experienced: “You end up dredging your psyche”—old memories, desires, emotions, fantasies come up. They come up, and then, bit by bit, they lose their hold. You become freer. This is why meditation is so healing.
He says that meditation practice may develop attention skills, but it is essentially “a path of self-knowledge”: You start to know your mind: your impulses, your motivations, your values. You’ve got this ringside seat on your mind. And that’s all you’re doing for maybe eight hours a day. It was really a path to self-discovery for everybody.
You can read background on the project at the Shambhala site.
The Dalai Lama’s statement on the project:
I am delighted at the progress being made in developing the Shamatha Project, a scientific study designed to examine the effects of long-term, intensive practice of shamatha together with the four immeasurable qualities of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity. I believe this research project has the potential to be of significant benefit for advancing scientific understanding of the effects of meditation on attention and emotional regulation, as well as in showing that traditional Buddhist meditative practices can be extremely effective in alleviating the inner causes of suffering and bringing forth the potentials of human consciousness in today’s world.
HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA, 1/31/06
A wonderful aspect of meditation is that anybody can practice it and obtain the benefits, you don’t have to be a Buddhist.
Listen to the interview, it’s enlightening. (Also can be downloaded as a podcast.)
Topics: meditation |
April 7th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
That is amazing! I must go listen to the audio.
Thank you for this.
April 8th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Thank you. I finally took the time to read anything. This confirms what I know to be true, but what I intermittently practice–daily meditation brings major changes. I want that, but evidently not enough to commit. Your testimony of 6 1/2 years and the changes you’ve seen in yourself may tip the scale for me. Thank you, thank you.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
i know I need to be more mindful… thank you for re-minding me (again).
April 12th, 2008 at 9:17 am
hi, GF! off-topic, but I thought of you when I read a review yesterday of the book MERTON & BUDDHISM.
the review said that Merton said (am paraphrasing) that dzogchen was the way to go, forget about the esoteric rituals.
thought you might be interested!
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I am on the same page as you as far as being a Christian but also interested in the deeper aspects of other religions, especially when it comes to yoga/meditation. I have read through the writings of Merton, and Keating etc. and everyone seems to be saying the same thing but in different words.
What you said about dredging your psychic “old memories, emotions, fantisies surfacing etc.) reminds me of the chapter in “open Mind, Open Heart” - The Unloading Of The Unconscious.
I also like the writings of Yogananada (The Second Coming Of Christ: The Resurrection Of The Chirst Within You).
Meditation relates to altering brainwaves and inducing deep relaxation which often evades us even during sleep. If you can meditate deep enough and pass beyond the sub conscious (area of dreams, astral stuff etc.) you eventually hit a level of deep rejuvenation and recharge. This is similar to deep, dreamless sleep (except that you are conscious) and corrresponds with the vibrating “mmm” sound at the end of “aum”, but few reach this level even during sleep and are often caught in dreamland as the emotions get sorted out.
Sorry for going on and on. I like your blog and viewpoint on life etc.