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Meditate For A Bigger Brain
May 12, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
A group of researchers at UCLA using high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of people who meditate have found that meditation builds a bigger brain. In a study published in the journal NeuroImage and currently available online (by subscription), the researchers show that certain areas in the brains of long-term meditators were larger than in a similar control group.
Specifically, meditators showed significantly larger size oat the hippocampus and areas within the orbito-frontal cortex, the thalamus and the inferior temporal gyrus — all regions known for regulating emotions.
"We know that people who consistently meditate have a singular ability to cultivate positive emotions, retain emotional stability and engage in mindful behavior," said Eileen Luders, lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow at the UCLA Laboratory of Neuro Imaging. "The observed differences in brain anatomy might give us a clue why meditators have these exceptional abilities."
Research has confirmed the benefits of meditation. As well as having better focus and control over their emotions, many who meditate regularly have distinctly lower levels of stress and stronger immune systems. Research on the link between meditation and brain structure is a newer field of discovery.
The study consisted of 44 people — 22 control subjects and 22 who had practiced various forms of meditation, including Zazen, Samatha and Vipassana, among others. The amount of time they had practiced ranged from five to 46 years, with an average of 24 years.
Over fifty percent of the meditators said that deep concentration was an integral part of their practice, and most meditated between 10 and 90 minutes every day.
Two different approaches were used to measure differences in brain structure. One automatically divides the brain into several regions of interest, allowing researchers to compare the size of certain brain structures. The other divides the brain into different tissue types, allowing researchers to compare the amount of actual tissue within specific regions of the brain.
They found significantly larger cerebral measurements in meditators compared with controls. There were no regions where controls had significantly larger volumes or more gray matter than meditators.
Because these areas of the brain are closely linked to emotion, a researcher said, "these might be the neuronal underpinnings that give meditators’ the outstanding ability to regulate their emotions and allow for well-adjusted responses to whatever life throws their way."
What’s not known, she said, and will require further study, are what the specific correlates are on a microscopic level — that is, whether it’s an increased number of neurons, the larger size of the neurons or a particular "wiring" pattern meditators may develop that other people don’t.
Because this was not a longitudinal study — which would have tracked meditators from the time they began meditating onward — it’s possible that the meditators already had more regional gray matter and volume in specific areas; that may have attracted them to meditation in the first place, Luders said.
However, she also noted that numerous previous studies have pointed to the brain’s remarkable plasticity and how environmental enrichment has been shown to change brain structure.
Adapted from material on http://www.ucla.edu/
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Mindfullness Meditation – Jon Kabat-Zinn
May 8, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Jon Kabat-Zinn is a man who speaks my language. I’ve never read anything by him, but he has crossed my radar a few times recently so I explored a bit and found this short talk. He says in the talk that he never says anything different, and in many ways anyone talking about mind and meditation are mostly saying the same thing. It doesn’t really matter how many times you hear that the mind is pretty much always in the past or projecting from the past into the future and very rarely present in this moment. Until you start to use a practice like meditation to discover the nature of mindfullness of the now, it will remain just another idea.
The idea of mindfullness can also be taken to the point of narcissistic self indulgance, just as any spiritual practice can, thats why it’s a practice.
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8 Major Meditation Misunderstandings
May 5, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 9 Comments
Misunderstanding #1 Meditation is stopping thinking and having a blank mind.
This is probably the number one misunderstanding about meditation – that meditation is to “stop thinking.” Certainly, a benefit of long term meditation is a reduction in the the amount of thinking that goes on, and that is great. The inane, repetitive and usually negative chatter of thoughts that jump one to another in their minds is one of the first things people new to meditation are confronted by.
But what would a blank mind mean? The confusion arises because we are most of the time identify with our mental thoughts (our inner monologue) and we believe it is reporting the truth of our experience. So a blank mind is assumed to be the absence of thought. But the vastness of mind encompasses so much more that thought.
In meditation we aim to develop mindfulness, that’s the
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreTibetan Buddhist Meditation – Treatment For Memory Loss?
April 29, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Normally when we see something, it is kept in our visual short-term memory for only a brief amount of time (images will begin to fade in a matter of seconds). However, there have been reports of Buddhist monks who have exceptional imagery skills and are able to maintain complex images in their visual short-term memory for minutes, and sometimes even hours. Led by psychologist Maria Kozhevnikov of George Mason University, a team of researchers investigated the effects of different styles of Buddhist meditation on visuospatial skills.
The researchers focused on two styles of meditation: Deity Yoga (DY) and Open Presence (OP). During DY meditation, the practitioner focuses intently on an image of deity and his or her entourage. This requires coming up with an immensely detailed, three-dimensional image of the deity, and also focusing on the deity’s emotions and environment. In contrast, practitioners of OP meditation believe that pure awareness cannot be achieved by focusing on a specific image and therefore, they attempt to evenly distribute their attention while meditating, without dwelling on or analyzing any experiences, images, or thoughts that may arise.
Read the complete article here
Or take a look at the same story in the New Scientist and find out what the Dalai Lamas role was in how the experiment came about. Dalai Lama’s brain challenge produces split decision
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Mind & Meditation Tweets
April 25, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · Leave a Comment
Twitter is a buzz phenomena on the internet right now and I have been tweeting for a while as @consciousone. I have ‘met’ some really interesting, gifted and talented people on twitter that I sincerely hope I meet in person some day.
For anyone who doesn’t know what it’s all about it is communicating, sharing and connecting using 140 characters or less. Basically a sentence.It isn’t much to work with but it can help hone an idea to it’s essence.
Below are some of my past tweets loosely on the themes of Mind & Meditation , I will also make posts of tweets on Love, Unity & Oneness and another of Spiritual and Philosphical musings
◦ Meditation is the doorway to the Mystery of life beyond the realm of the mind, only the Mystery itself can pull you through the door
◦ mind exists within reality, it isn’t reality, it just thinks it is
◦ Where we experience problems or conflict in ourselves, the conscious mind, the subconscious and the superconscious are out of alignment
◦ Free you rmind – get rid of the TV
◦ It’s not all in the mind, it is all mind
◦ If meditation is only something you do on your meditation cushion, something is missing
◦ Practicing a meditation technique isn’t necessarily practicing meditation, meditation lies beyond the technique
◦ Imagine a world where meditation, self-awareness r integral to all education & life pursuits, business and relationships =respect & support
◦ Where there is absolute certainty, there is delusion
◦ It is a grand delusion to believe we can control reality
◦ When you are uncertain or confused, return to what is true and obvious
◦ Our ‘feelings’ register our direct experience of each moment, and they do this whether we are paying attention to them or not.
◦ The ego’s greatest fear is the truth that it doesn’t exists – hence constant striving to prove it’s existence
◦ Behind the smile that says – please like me – what is the fear?
◦ Start paying attention to the body breathing, choose to ‘let go’ & soften with each out breath, imagine breathing in peeeace
◦ When you really understand the question no answer is necessary
◦ where does desire come from, what gives it it’s energy?
◦ where do thoughts come from?
◦ are you thinking yoru thoughts – or are they thinking you?
◦ where do your beliefs come from? take a moment to ponder.
◦ all wounds are one, and all healing is one, the stories are irrelevant
◦ It is from separation consciousness that we toxify the earth, water and air; destroy eco-systems that sustain life, and harm ourselves
◦ if the world is on the edge of chaos, every intention, thought & act has immense power that can’t be forseen ‘be the change’ truer than ever
You can follow me on twitter for more waxing lyrical by clicking on the icon top right of the home page.
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreHow God Changes Your Brain
April 21, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 6 Comments
Mark Robert Waldman is an associate fellow at the Center for Spirituality and the Mind at the University of Pennsylvania. His latest book is called "How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist." The book was recently featured in a major "Time" magazine cover story. If his interview on PBS is anything to go by this book is a must buy.
Personally I really love the sciences exploring spirituality. Walderman and his co author on the book Andrew Newberg go deep into the kind of territory that could potentially begin to unify our understanding of some of the aspects of religion and spirituality from a non dogmatic or ideolagized view. That is of course from the perspective of their own scientific ideology. Within it though there is a clear intent to explore and explain within the parameters of psychology and neuroscience.
So how can these scientists help in the ways I’ve suggested?
"What we’re finding is that, if you engage in contemplative spiritual practice or meditation or prayer or even focusing intently on a positive thought and a positive affirmation, you can begin to make permanent changes in both the structure and the function of your brain in ways that enhance memory, cognition, awareness, consciousness, compassion, and it simultaneously suppresses the neuromechanisms in your brain that cause anxiety, depression, fear, anger and rage."
Sounds good doesn’t it, and here’s where the ‘unify our understanding of some of the aspects of religion and spirituality’ part comes in.
"what we’ve done is that we’ve distilled from all of the world’s religious traditions a set of 12 basic exercises that we have in Chapter 9, I believe, that anyone can do. And if you do these exercises for 12 minutes a day for eight weeks and we put you into a brain scan machine, we can show you that changes are being made in your brain that make all of the improvements that I just talked about."
So what he’s saying is that they have identified the aspects of religious and spiritual practices that have the greatest physiological and psychological benefits and….
"Thirty years of research shows that this is the most effective way to eliminate serious forms of depression and anxiety, and when you apply these types of spiritual techniques, you can take the theology out of them and use them in a secular form and, if you want to, you can take the theology from a different religion and put them back in. You still get the same neurological benefits."
Going further Waldman and Newberg asked thousands of people how they would describe God and their spiritual experiences and virtually nothing was held in common. The meaning they came to from this is that "God or spirituality is a profoundly unique experience."
So by distilling what works from the perspective of their own understanding of the human brain/mind/experience they have come up with things like exercises in compassionate communication that will be relevant and acceptable and more importantly effective for people of any religious, non-religious or spiritual persuasion.
Then instead of getting hung up on the differences that divide we can realize our common humanity. How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist
You can read an interview with the authors here
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreVipassana Meditation In Indian Prisons
March 21, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 2 Comments
This is a powerful film showing the transformational effects of vipassana meditation on the lives of prison inmates in India. I first saw this film in Darhamasala (home in exile of HH Dalai Lama) where I twice did the 10 day retreat. If anybody has any doubts about the benefits and power of meditation to positively impact a persons life, this film is for you – and it is a film so sit back and enjoy!
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The Magic Of DOING What You Are Doing!
March 2, 2009 by Kate Mathers · Leave a Comment
By Kate Mathers www.magicofallowing.com
More on the freedom and joy of being in the present moment – Spot Meditations: Doing What You Are Doing!
As part of the Mindfulness Meditation courses that I teach, I show participants how to incorporate ‘Spot Meditations’ as part of their daily routine. These involve taking some simple activity and making a meditation out of it. You can ‘spot’ the opportunity at any point during your day, no matter how busy. And literally anything can become a beautiful exampleof mindfulness – of living with awareness – in the present moment. This is the magic of DOING what you are doing!
The benefits? Tension diffuses on the spot. Your mind slows down. You bring all five senses to bear on what you are actually doing. And if your mind wanders off, just bring your focus and your senses – sight, touch, sound, smell, taste – back to whatever you are actually doing, and really BE THERE for WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU ARE DOING at that time! Most of the time we are either living in the past and thinking or worrying about something that we have or haven’t done, or we are away in the future thinking or worrying about some event that may or may not happen….. so try nourishing yourself daily (hourly if you like) with gifts of the present moment. Notice how liberating it feels. The scary thing is discovering how little of our time we actually spend in the present moment!
The transformative effect of this simple bringing of attention to the present moment is profound. In addition
to the diffusion of tension in our body and mind, we feel relief and joy and a sense of freedom when we bring our entire focus, our entire attention - including all our senses - to the present moment. This can be especially powerful when it concerns some routine activity that we usually carry out automatically, like cleaning our teeth, washing up, feeding the dog, answering the telephone, driving in traffic, eating a meal, preparing a meal, going for a walk, ironing, standing in a queue at the bank, gardening, walking up stairs……
You can use your senses to tune in at any given point during your day as to how you are sitting in your chair at your desk, how you are holding your pen, how you are using your computer keyboard, how you get up from your chair… and so on. Are you hunched over the desk? Are your fingers tense from gripping your pen too tightly? Are your wrists aching from bad positioning at your computer keyboard? Could you do what you are doing more effectively, expending less energy, if you were fully present?
As you can see, the range of possibilities is limitless!
Spot Meditations: Doing What You Are Doing!
Very broadly speaking, the following suggestions for spot meditations are biased towards those that might be more relevant for women in daily life. The next article will have suggestions oriented towards men. (Though, of course, all overlap.)
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For example, you can ‘spot’ meditate by consciously doing a simple activity such as hanging out the washing. Mindfully hanging out the washing means using your body with respect – balancing your stretching and bending movements equally left and right, enjoying the fresh clean smell of washed clothes, being grateful that you have two arms that can reach upwards, that you have a machine to do the washing; sensing the energy of the trees and plants around you, the sky above you, feeling the earth beneath your feet and the sun’s warmth on your back; it’s the difference between resenting the whole task as a chore and exploring it in mindfulness, moment by moment, and returning to the house enriched and balanced by the experience. If you use a dryer instead, incorporate the same sort of ideas in mindfully moving through the drying/folding process in a similar manner. See how many things you can identify to keep you in the present moment throughout the task. You can carry the same sort of ideas through to doing the ironing. With all of these, you can discover for yourself the magic of Doing What You are Doing!
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You can do a ‘spot’ meditation when you prepare fruit. BE THERE for the task. Really Do What you are Doing! This can involve noticing the way in which you hold, say, a mango, in between your hands, and feeling the shape, and then the texture and smoothness of the skin; being aware of the sensation of the knife as it pares into the flesh; the soft, yielding texture of the flesh as you cut into it, smelling the fruity aroma floating upwards; seeing and experiencing the orange energy of the colour; feeling the taste and texture once in your mouth;being grateful to all the people who have worked to bring that mango to your plate; being grateful that you have a mango to eat; it’s all about being fully in the moment as you prepare the fruit. The preparation and eating are themselves the meditation, when you are doing what you are doing!
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You can even make a spot meditation out of washing up. Make a point of actually being there as you wash the pots and pans, noticing the colours of the dishes or the gleam of the pan; aware of the texture of the food sticking to it, and the heat of the water; taking in the sound of the tap running, the smell of the dishwashing liquid, the texture of the bubbles;being grateful that you have food to cook; appreciating the fact that you have two working arms and two strong legs that enable you to carry out the task of washing up; it’s all about being fully in the present rather than somewhere in the future or the past. You’ll be amazed at how rewarding it is, at the reduction in tension, and the feeling of relaxation and peace. This is the magic of doing what you are doing – even when it is the washing up.
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Meditations like this can literally be just a few seconds long. For example, it’s raining while you’re wai
ting in car line
to pick up your child after school. Try focusing on the raindrops running down the windscreen. You could choose to focus on one raindrop only, and then on the next, and the next…….; or you could make the entire windscreen of raindrops your focus; whenever your mind wanders off, just come back to the focus of watching the raindrops running down the windscreen….. what they look like……. what they might feel like ……… be aware of any sound they make ………… imagine how the rain might smell ……..by the time your child is ready to get into the car, you will feel soothed and rejuvenated and refreshed. As opposed to irritated that you have had to wait,and resentful about the things you could have been doing instead. The Magic of Doing What you are Doing!The beauty of these ‘spot meditations’ is that we cannot help but Do What We Are Doing! This simple act brings us straight back into the present moment, where true peace, freedom and happiness lie. After all, the past is gone, and the future hasn’t arrived. All we actually have, at any given time, is the present.
email: kate@magicofallowing.com
“Living Liberation - Meditation Training, and so much more" "It changed my life"Find out moreThe Magic Of The Present Moment
March 1, 2009 by Kate Mathers · Leave a Comment
March 8, 2009 By Kate Mathers www.magicofallowing.com
Many of us run through much of our day without much focus on the present moment. In fact, we’re far more likely to be in the past or the future – often either beating ourselves up for what we haven’t done or achieved, or else worrying and stressing about what might be about to occur – and we miss the beauty and powerof the present moment entirely. Yet the restorative power of being in the present moment – even if only a few times a day – is truly magical.
Much is written about the power of tuning in to our breath, as it is a very convenient process to support awareness in our day-to-day life. As Jon Kabat-Zinn says in his book Full Catastrophe Living “As long as we are alive, it is always with us. We can’t leave home without it. It is always here to be attended to, no matter what we are doing or feeling or experiencing, no matter where we are. Tuning in to it brings us right into the here and now. It immediately anchors awareness in the body – in a fundamental, rhythmic, flowing life process.” The effect of just two or three conscious outbreaths can be remarkable. It’s often all we need to defuse tension, lower the metabolic rate a few notches and shift into a healthier state.
However, rather than trying to add more to a subject that is already well covered, I thought it would be interesting to talk about other ways of how we can tune in to being in the present moment, at any point during the course of our day – no matter what it is that we are doing. And reap the benefits of that restorative, re-grouping, powerful, centering energy that the present moment, and only the present moment, can provide. For example, try really being with yourself, mindfully, moment by moment, while having a shower first thing in the morning. This is how it might go……
Taking a Shower Mindfully
TRY: being aware of the way you step into the shower, what the floor feels like beneath your feet, how your arms and hands reach out to turn on the taps, the sound of the water flowing, the feel of the water as it flows over your body – each part of it, from the head right down the toes… be with the feelings of the water on your body, focusing on each body part in turn. Be aware of the smell of the water – can you smell chlorine, perhaps?… feel the sensations of the water on your eyes, your lips, on your face –the pressure, the pace…..be aware of allowing your feet to be fully grounded on the floor, letting the floor take your full weight………being fully ‘in your ribs’ will help you become completely grounded, so just put your attention in your ribs for a while, and feel how the body relaxes down, from head to chest, and from chest to feet, into the floor……….. be aware of the sensations of the soap in your hands and on your body, how it mixes with the water, what it feels when the soap is being rinsed off…..be aware of the movements you are making with your arms and hands, and your body in general, as you are washing yourself………be with your arms and hands as they reach out for the shampoo bottle, as you place the shampoo on your hair, as you massage it into your head….note the different movements, and what they feel like………and continue to pay attention in this way, right until you have finished the shower, and have mindfully turned off the taps and mindfully stepped out onto the bath mat…………and
TRY: seeing how long you can remain fully awake and conscious to each moment as you start to dry yourself and get dressed………
As the day moves along, there are limitless moments to tune in to, that can bring us back into the restorative space of mindfulness, return us to the magic of the being space – as opposed to the ‘doing’ – of the present moment. Life lived that way is all about the magic of allowing that to occur; minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, year by year ………
To finish, what better than a quotation from Jon Kabat-Zinn, that master of mindfulness and the present moment:
“The momentum of unbridled doing can carry us for decades, even to the grave,
without our quite knowing that we are living out our lives and that we have only moments to live.”
From The Full Catastrophe, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
email: kate@magicofallowing.com
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Healing Though Meditation
February 28, 2009 by Ray Baskerville · 1 Comment
Healing though meditation occurs in multiple ways. There are all the physical and psychological health benefits we gain from the practice. There are also deeper levels of healing available in meditation.
When we are practicing a body based meditation, we may begin to notice all manner of aches and pains in the body. They may range from gross to very subtle. If there is a pain in a particular part of the body our habitual reaction will usually be to want it to go away, to change it or move away from it. If it is not indicating a physical problem, with the knees for example, then there is the opportunity for release and healing.
Pain and tension in the body indicate a place of holding, a place where some unresolved, incomplete or unhealed ‘past’ is held in the subconscious. The body being the
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