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let's change the subject!!
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
In wishing to give members here something topical and Buddhist to read, I thought I would post this item here:
I have borrowed it, (with permission) from a fellow-Buddhist site, which is worth looking into and frequenting... I call it my 'next-door neighbour' site - I pop in frequently for a cuppa and a chat; It's a very new site and would benefit from friendly visits from us. I know others hop between the two....
Here's the Link to them. Incidentally, they also have a link to us.... so going to and fro' is just as friendly as we can get!
http://www.buddhachat.org/forum/index.php
The Dalai Lama was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, meeting with President Bush, giving a public talk on the subject of global peace -- and learning about meditation from Western scientists.
Wearing the traditional scarlet robes of a Tibetan monk and a bright orange eye shade emblazoned with a golf-company logo, the 70-year-old leader of Tibetan Buddhism listened intently as researchers at a conference on science and meditation described a growing body of research on the effects of meditation on the brain and the body.
The conference is the latest in a series of dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists that have taken place since 1987. Organized by the Mind & Life Institute, the conversations were private -- mostly taking place in the Dalai Lama's living room in India -- until 2003, when they were held in front of an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scientists present at this month's meeting included Richard Davidson, a Harvard University-trained neuroscientist who has done pioneering research on Buddhist monks, and Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University professor who studies the effects of stress on the body. They told the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and an audience of 2,500 about recent experiments showing meditation can strengthen the immune system, prevent relapse in people with depression and lower cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone associated with stress.
All this is pushing the envelope of contemporary neuroscience. "It came as a great surprise to (scientists) that there were such clear neural correlates of meditative states," said Wolf Singer, the director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, who also addressed the conference.
It's also pushing buttons for some scientists. The Dalai Lama's D.C. trip included a controversial keynote address to the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Calling the Dalai Lama a "religious symbol with a controversial political agenda," a number of neuroscientists urged the group to cancel his talk. An online petition opposing the talk turned into a forum for neuroscientists on both sides of the issue to weigh in.
The research is taking neuroscientists into realms not often studied in Western labs. Davidson's team at the University of Wisconsin, for example, is exploring what states like compassion or happiness look like in the brain.
His research shows that Buddhist monks doing a meditation that evokes feelings of compassion exhibit very specific changes in a part of the brain called the amygdala.
While much of Davidson's research has been on Buddhist monks with decades of meditation experience, he has also found significant changes in beginning meditators.
Davidson and another conference speaker, Jon Kabat-Zinn, taught employees at a biotech firm a form of meditation called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. After eight weeks, the researchers reported that workers who had received the meditation training had a stronger immune-system response than control subjects, based on their antibody response to a flu vaccination.
While Western researchers are exploring the effects of meditation on physical health, Alan Wallace, a leading Tibetan scholar and one of the Dalai Lama's translators, pointed out that when faced with physical ailments, Tibetans traditionally turned to doctors or healers, not to meditation.
The purpose of meditation, added the Dalai Lama, is not to cure physical ailments, but to free people from emotional suffering.
I have borrowed it, (with permission) from a fellow-Buddhist site, which is worth looking into and frequenting... I call it my 'next-door neighbour' site - I pop in frequently for a cuppa and a chat; It's a very new site and would benefit from friendly visits from us. I know others hop between the two....
Here's the Link to them. Incidentally, they also have a link to us.... so going to and fro' is just as friendly as we can get!
http://www.buddhachat.org/forum/index.php
The Dalai Lama was in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, meeting with President Bush, giving a public talk on the subject of global peace -- and learning about meditation from Western scientists.
Wearing the traditional scarlet robes of a Tibetan monk and a bright orange eye shade emblazoned with a golf-company logo, the 70-year-old leader of Tibetan Buddhism listened intently as researchers at a conference on science and meditation described a growing body of research on the effects of meditation on the brain and the body.
The conference is the latest in a series of dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Western scientists that have taken place since 1987. Organized by the Mind & Life Institute, the conversations were private -- mostly taking place in the Dalai Lama's living room in India -- until 2003, when they were held in front of an audience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Scientists present at this month's meeting included Richard Davidson, a Harvard University-trained neuroscientist who has done pioneering research on Buddhist monks, and Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University professor who studies the effects of stress on the body. They told the Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and an audience of 2,500 about recent experiments showing meditation can strengthen the immune system, prevent relapse in people with depression and lower cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone associated with stress.
All this is pushing the envelope of contemporary neuroscience. "It came as a great surprise to (scientists) that there were such clear neural correlates of meditative states," said Wolf Singer, the director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, who also addressed the conference.
It's also pushing buttons for some scientists. The Dalai Lama's D.C. trip included a controversial keynote address to the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Calling the Dalai Lama a "religious symbol with a controversial political agenda," a number of neuroscientists urged the group to cancel his talk. An online petition opposing the talk turned into a forum for neuroscientists on both sides of the issue to weigh in.
The research is taking neuroscientists into realms not often studied in Western labs. Davidson's team at the University of Wisconsin, for example, is exploring what states like compassion or happiness look like in the brain.
His research shows that Buddhist monks doing a meditation that evokes feelings of compassion exhibit very specific changes in a part of the brain called the amygdala.
While much of Davidson's research has been on Buddhist monks with decades of meditation experience, he has also found significant changes in beginning meditators.
Davidson and another conference speaker, Jon Kabat-Zinn, taught employees at a biotech firm a form of meditation called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction. After eight weeks, the researchers reported that workers who had received the meditation training had a stronger immune-system response than control subjects, based on their antibody response to a flu vaccination.
While Western researchers are exploring the effects of meditation on physical health, Alan Wallace, a leading Tibetan scholar and one of the Dalai Lama's translators, pointed out that when faced with physical ailments, Tibetans traditionally turned to doctors or healers, not to meditation.
The purpose of meditation, added the Dalai Lama, is not to cure physical ailments, but to free people from emotional suffering.
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Comments
If this organ is erroneously programmed in early life it can result in enormous emotional distress. For example, if one is born into a violent home and the environment is one of terror and rage, it is possible for the amygdala to be improperly programmed (or conditioned, or whatever terms you prefer) and be set on continuous alert, leading to anxiety and false alarms (panic attacks). But it can also become so stressed from a traumatic experience at any time in one's life that it begins to malfunction (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). These are just two examples of many.
Reprogramming this organ is beneficial for panic disorders and all other fear, anxiety or stress based emotion.
It fascinates me. A human being has the ability to overwrite neural pathways that have been conditioned abnormally. I believe this can be achieved with the help of a skilled therapist or a skilled meditation teacher.
But I also want to believe that highly developed meditative practice can influence the well being of the entire human body, and keep both mind and body healthy, as there is no separation, and I believe they influence one another.
It's all so fascinating. When I was younger I fantasized about being a brain specialist in one of my next lives. lol! It's such a beautiful mystery to me. And I so wanted to alleviate emotional suffering.
The amygdala "not necessary" how do we know how "Unecessary" something is when we know about less than 10% of our own brains??
P.S. you can leave my non-functioning organs alone-there may come a day when i may need them.
love you all.
Who said anything about removing the amygdala?
Am I dense?
Don't worry.
regards,
I didn't think you were attacking my post at all. I just don't know you very well yet and I didn't know if you're question was real or not, that's all. Is everything all right? When you get to know me you'll find that I very rarely use sarcasm. I'm a little unpracticed in the art. (However my father's a pro, so I really have no excuse for my ignorance.)
Sarcasm I try to steer clear of, it rarely works and is very negative anyway.
Love to you all
Sometimes my posts can be confrontational, but thats just me, I love the human mind and spirit and discussion.
Like:
"The English are not very spiritual. they have no notion of eternity. That's why they invented Cricket."
G.B.Shaw.
Now that's funny.
"If the Americans were clever, they'd learn French. If they were really clever, they'd learn English."
Ditto.
Now that's......oooooh!
Doesn't he just sit around now, all day long doing nothing with Paddy O' Furniture?
-bf
Mustapha Pee.....:buck:
Look what you've started, Genryu!
Are you happy now?
Are you proud of yourself?