[Buddha-l] neuroscience: neural plasticity

[Michael Paris]

I've never understood what "spiritual" means, other than being related
to breathing and certain psychological states (e..g, school spirit,
which students are exhorted to raise in pep rallies). 

Seems easy to use "spiritual" as a tool of judgment, i.e., spiritual =
good, or at least better than average, and certainly much better than
non-spiritual. Related to a question of moral purity, perhaps?

"Any road...." (James Herriott)

Regarding meditation research, isn't the point of Buddhism to relieve
suffering? The use of skillful means is encouraged, no?

Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz, in _The Mind and the Brain_, discusses at length
his mindfulness-based approach to treating OCD. Jon Kabat-Zinn (_Full
Catastrophe Living_) also uses mindfulness meditation in treating
intractable cases of chronic pain. Some methods of cognitive therapy
are using mindfulness as part of a treatment regimen for depression.

So, why not study meditation to learn how it could help people in need?

Speaking of spiritual materialism, the flip side might well be
spiritual snobbery, something _all_ religions have in abundance. 


Or perhaps I've misunderstand you. If so, apologies in advance.


Michael



--- Joy Vriens <joy at vrienstrad.com> wrote:

[snip]

> 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    



       
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