[Buddha-l] neuroscience: neural plasticity

[Joy Vriens]

Steven,

>Would research get funded if it was trying to emphasize a new,   
>subjective science? Accepting drug compay monies would essentially   
>force researchers to take a scientific materialistic POV and this may   
>be in direct contradiction to the style of thinking necessary for   
>advanced meditation research. What it boils down to is two opposing   
>ways of looking at reality: one which says that consciousness is an   
>artifact of the physical brain and another which says that   
>consciousness itself is primary and the brain secondary. One relies   
>on materialism, the other on the "taboo" of subjective inquiry. 

It strikes me that "meditation research" is already flawed *from a spiritual point of view* in similar ways as yoga or tantra. It makes the -in my most humble POV- mistake of defining (and reifying) a result and then looking for possible other ways to achieve it (utilitarianism). It's driven by control wheras genuin spirituality, as I see it and which goes along the lines of William James' "surrender of self", isn't. It's driven by a belief in methods, technics and technicality (magic we would have called it in a remote past). 

"Advanced meditation" is another word that makes my Spiritual Materialism Alarm (which has a frightfully low tolerance treshold I admit) go off. The only purpose I can see for using levels of meditation (measuring, statistics etc.) is that the person using them thereby shows that he/she is as lost as I am and has more work to do.

Humbly yours,

Joy