[Buddha-l] Volume 54 Issue 52

[jkirk]

Pleeeeeeeze, for the nth time: reference to who wrote this post
on Davidson's lab goes to Steve Feite, not to me.   

jkirk @ spro.net.

=============================== 


In a message dated 8/20/2009 12:11:11 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
jkirk at spro.net writes:
 
More recently the cutting edge research seems to be coming out
of Richie Davidson's lab at the Univ. of Wisconsin, who also
spoke at  the conference. They've actually identified two
important, basic forms in  Buddhist meditation--and mapped the
neural circuitry that goes along with  them. These two forms they
have named "Fixed Attention" (FA) which is more  a  "shamatha
with an object" style of meditation and Open Presence or  Open
Monitoring
(OM) meditation.  
They're of course also the lab  that first replicated samadhi in
a western Buddhist contemplative. I  understand that research has
now been independently replicated, several  times, at different
labs.
==
 
The book Destructive Emotions by Daniel Goleman  is compilation
of a series of talks and interactions of a group of
neuroscientists and The Dalai Lama. If I remember correctly
Davidson was a  member of the group. The scientists were engaged
in a series of experiments on  meditators using EEG and fMRI
machines. The book starts off with a series  of experiments on a
very experienced Tibetan meditator. They examined 6  different
types of meditation: a visualization, one-pointed concentration,
compassion, devotion, fearlessness and an open state (sounds like
vipassana).  The yogi would use one of the meditation techniques
for 60 seconds, not  meditate for 60 seconds, switch to another
meditation technique for 60  seconds, etc. Interestingly each
meditation method created a different  mental state involving
different parts of the brain.
 
Jack





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