http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43006-2005Jan2.html

Brain research is beginning to produce concrete evidence for something that Buddhist practitioners of meditation have maintained for centuries: Mental discipline and meditative practice can change the workings of the brain and allow people to achieve different levels of awareness.

Those transformed states have traditionally been understood in transcendent terms, as something outside the world of physical measurement and objective evaluation. But over the past few years, researchers at the University of Wisconsin working with Tibetan monks have been able to translate those mental experiences into the scientific language of high-frequency gamma waves and brain synchrony, or coordination. And they have pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex, an area just behind the left forehead, as the place where brain activity associated with meditation is especially intense.

"What we found is that the longtime practitioners showed brain activation on a scale we have never seen before," said Richard Davidson, a neuroscientist at the university's new $10 million W.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior. "Their mental practice is having an effect on the brain in the same way golf or tennis practice will enhance performance." It demonstrates, he said, that the brain is capable of being trained and physically modified in ways few people can imagine.

Scientists used to believe the opposite -- that connections among brain nerve cells were fixed early in life and did not change in adulthood. But that assumption was disproved over the past decade with the help of advances in brain imaging and other techniques, and in its place, scientists have embraced the concept of ongoing brain development and "neuroplasticity."

Davidson says his newest results from the meditation study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, take the concept of neuroplasticity a step further by showing that mental training through meditation (and presumably other disciplines) can itself change the inner workings and circuitry of the brain.

The new findings are the result of a long, if unlikely, collaboration between Davidson and Tibet's Dalai Lama, the world's best-known practitioner of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama first invited Davidson to his home in Dharamsala, India, in 1992 after learning about Davidson's innovative research into the neuroscience of emotions. The Tibetans have a centuries-old tradition of intensive meditation and, from the start, the Dalai Lama was interested in having Davidson scientifically explore the workings of his monks' meditating minds. Three years ago, the Dalai Lama spent two days visiting Davidson's lab.

The Dalai Lama ultimately dispatched eight of his most accomplished practitioners to Davidson's lab to have them hooked up for electroencephalograph (EEG) testing and brain scanning. The Buddhist practitioners in the experiment had undergone training in the Tibetan Nyingmapa and Kagyupa traditions of meditation for an estimated 10,000 to 50,000 hours, over time periods of 15 to 40 years. As a control, 10 student volunteers with no previous meditation experience were also tested after one week of training.

The monks and volunteers were fitted with a net of 256 electrical sensors and asked to meditate for short periods. Thinking and other mental activity are known to produce slight, but detectable, bursts of electrical activity as large groupings of neurons send messages to each other, and that's what the sensors picked up. Davidson was especially interested in measuring gamma waves, some of the highest-frequency and most important electrical brain impulses.

Both groups were asked to meditate, specifically on unconditional compassion. Buddhist teaching describes that state, which is at the heart of the Dalai Lama's teaching, as the "unrestricted readiness and availability to help living beings." The researchers chose that focus because it does not require concentrating on particular objects, memories or images, and cultivates instead a transformed state of being.

Davidson said that the results unambiguously showed that meditation activated the trained minds of the monks in significantly different ways from those of the volunteers. Most important, the electrodes picked up much greater activation of fast-moving and unusually powerful gamma waves in the monks, and found that the movement of the waves through the brain was far better organized and coordinated than in the students. The meditation novices showed only a slight increase in gamma wave activity while meditating, but some of the monks produced gamma wave activity more powerful than any previously reported in a healthy person, Davidson said.

The monks who had spent the most years meditating had the highest levels of gamma waves, he added. This "dose response" -- where higher levels of a drug or activity have greater effect than lower levels -- is what researchers look for to assess cause and effect.

In previous studies, mental activities such as focus, memory, learning and consciousness were associated with the kind of enhanced neural coordination found in the monks. The intense gamma waves found in the monks have also been associated with knitting together disparate brain circuits, and so are connected to higher mental activity and heightened awareness, as well.

Davidson's research is consistent with his earlier work that pinpointed the left prefrontal cortex as a brain region associated with happiness and positive thoughts and emotions. Using functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) on the meditating monks, Davidson found that their brain activity -- as measured by the EEG -- was especially high in this area.

Davidson concludes from the research that meditation not only changes the workings of the brain in the short term, but also quite possibly produces permanent changes. That finding, he said, is based on the fact that the monks had considerably more gamma wave activity than the control group even before they started meditating. A researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Jon Kabat-Zinn, came to a similar conclusion several years ago.

Researchers at Harvard and Princeton universities are now testing some of the same monks on different aspects of their meditation practice: their ability to visualize images and control their thinking. Davidson is also planning further research.

"What we found is that the trained mind, or brain, is physically different from the untrained one," he said. In time, "we'll be able to better understand the potential importance of this kind of mental training and increase the likelihood that it will be taken seriously."

old but good

ttt

I suggest each one of you start meditating. The benifits are subtle but powerfull

+1

What Meditation Is -- and What It Is Not





There are many different, even contradictory ideas, about what meditation is. Primary to the Osho approach is the need for the meditator to understand the nature of the mind, rather than fight with it.

Most of us most of the time are run by, dominated by our thoughts or feelings. It follows that we tend to think we are those thoughts and feeling. Meditation is the state of simply being, just pure experiencing, with no interference from the body or mind. It’s a natural state but one which we have forgotten how to access.

The word meditation is also used for what is, more accurately, a meditation method. Meditative methods, techniques or devices are means by which to create an inner ambience that facilitates disconnecting from the bodymind so one can simply be. While initially it is helpful to put time aside to practice a structured meditation method, there are many techniques that are practiced within the context of one’s everyday life – at work, at leisure, alone and with others.

Methods are needed only until the state of meditation – of relaxed awareness, of consciousness and centering – has become not just a passing experience but as intrinsic to one as, say, breathing.

Some Common Misconceptions

Meditation is…

1) Only for people who are on a spiritual search.
The benefits of meditation are manifold. Chief among them are the ability to relax and to be aware without effort. Useful tools for just about everyone!

2) A practice to gain “peace of mind.”
Peace of mind is a contradiction in terms. By its very nature the mind is a chronic commentator. What you can discover through meditation is the knack of finding the distance between yourself and the commentary, so that the mind, with its constant circus of thoughts and emotions, no longer intrudes on your inherent state of silence.

3) A mental discipline or effort to control or “tame” the mind, to become more mindful.
Meditation is neither a mental effort nor an attempt to control the mind. Effort and control involve tension, and tension is antithetical to the state of meditation. Besides, there is no need to control the mind, only to understand it and how it works. The meditator does not need to tame his mind, to become more mindful, but to grow more in consciousness.

4) Focusing, concentrating or contemplating.
Focusing, like concentrating is a narrowing of awareness. You concentrate on one object to the exclusion of everything else. By contrast, meditation is all-inclusive, your consciousness is expanded. The contemplator is focused on an object – perhaps a religious object, a photograph or on an inspiring aphorism. The meditator is simply aware, but not of anything in particular.

5) A new experience.
Not necessarily – sportsmen know this space, which they refer to as “the zone.” Artists know it – through singing, painting, playing music. We can know it through gardening, playing with the kids, walking on the beach or making love. Even as children we may have had experiences of it. Meditation is a natural state and one that you have almost certainly tasted, although perhaps without knowing the name of the flavor.

So are there definite benefits? All I saw from the article is that there are "differences between trained and untrained minds". I've considered meditating before, but I don't trust it. It is a powerful thing that a lot of people don't really understand. I like my mind to be sharp. Frankly, I don't like the mentality of Buddhist monks and have no desire to emulate them.

i find buddhism to be probably the least repulsive religion

Meditation = Self Hypnosis

Self Hypnosis is better than Mediation in my opinion because you can install programs in your mind to make you better. You can run a program to sleep for 20 minute cat nap and wake up exactly 20 minutes after you go under on command.

I did this the other day and I've just started to get into this programming.

You can program yourself for all kinds of things.

If anyone wants this stuff I can send the links.

self hypnosis might be really benificial like you are saying but it is NOT meditation.

Self-hypnosis has quite a bit in common with meditation--similar neural states, for instance.

self hypnosis might be really benificial like you are saying but it is NOT meditation.

Really?

Explain.

Self-hypnosis has quite a bit in common with meditation--similar neural states, for instance.

Yup. Its the same thing but people want to use different words and then put their own beliefs behind it which is fine but its still basically the same thing whether you want to call it meditation or self hypnosis or focussed states or inward projection or any number of words.

I'm saying once you're in a receptive state to communicate with your unconscious mind, then you can easily install components and thinking patterns you would like to loop through in the background of your life.

Really?

Explain.

Meditation is nothing but watchfullness, it is actually dehypnotization or deprogramming. It is basically doing nothing.

there are many meditation techniques but the concept is same.

1. vipassana meditation - in this you observe your breathe as it goes in and it goes out s you leep doing it, thoughts keep coming in your head, you let them come and subside and you keep observing your breath, as you keep doing this, slowly you observe that you are just observing your breathe as it is happening naturally, you are not the one doing it, it is happenning on it's own. You are just watching it. hen it starts getting really peacefull and thoughts pooping up becomes less and less. The highest state is where there are no thoughts, now you are just the watcher and your breathe is happening automatically and your mind is completely silent. This is the state of no mind.
Now your mind is working, but there are no thoughts. Your mind is just reflecting what is happening. This is what is meant in zen as the lake reflecting the moon. your mind is the lake, no mind state is where there are no ripples in the lake and the lake is reflecting the moon perfectly.

Meditation is nothing but watchfullness, it is actually dehypnotization or deprogramming. It is basically doing nothing.

there are many meditation techniques but the concept is same.

1. vipassana meditation - in this you observe your breathe as it goes in and it goes out s you leep doing it, thoughts keep coming in your head, you let them come and subside and you keep observing your breath, as you keep doing this, slowly you observe that you are just observing your breathe as it is happening naturally, you are not the one doing it, it is happenning on it's own. You are just watching it. hen it starts getting really peacefull and thoughts pooping up becomes less and less. The highest state is where there are no thoughts, now you are just the watcher and your breathe is happening automatically and your mind is completely silent. This is the state of no mind.
Now your mind is working, but there are no thoughts. Your mind is just reflecting what is happening. This is what is meant in zen as the lake reflecting the moon. your mind is the lake, no mind state is where there are no ripples in the lake and the lake is reflecting the moon perfectly.

I reached nirvana like that a few times with right mindset and weed.

Meditation is nothing but watchfullness, it is actually dehypnotization or deprogramming. It is basically doing nothing.

there are many meditation techniques but the concept is same.

1. vipassana meditation - in this you observe your breathe as it goes in and it goes out s you leep doing it, thoughts keep coming in your head, you let them come and subside and you keep observing your breath, as you keep doing this, slowly you observe that you are just observing your breathe as it is happening naturally, you are not the one doing it, it is happenning on it's own. You are just watching it. hen it starts getting really peacefull and thoughts pooping up becomes less and less. The highest state is where there are no thoughts, now you are just the watcher and your breathe is happening automatically and your mind is completely silent. This is the state of no mind.
Now your mind is working, but there are no thoughts. Your mind is just reflecting what is happening. This is what is meant in zen as the lake reflecting the moon. your mind is the lake, no mind state is where there are no ripples in the lake and the lake is reflecting the moon perfectly.


What you just described is also known as a hypnotic state. You don't have to programme anything in a hypnotic state. Its just a state different then a consciously driven one, normally achieved in deep relaxation.

With this self hypnosis program I suggested, you can start adding things in. And thats the same as a lot of buddhism as well. They might not call it programming but theres quite a few different types where they chant sayings they believe in. Thats the same as programming.

Its not worth arguing though. If you feel like you want to try to break the two apart thats fine. But I think if you look into hypnosis more and the variety of hypnotic states, you'll find they're basically the same thing. And that hypnotists, Richard Bandler in particular, went to many guru's to study what they did and copied it and broke it down for the average person to better understand, and to go deeper into and use more efficiently.

I reached nirvana like that a few times with right mindset and weed.

I have some good news and bad news for you. The good news is you smoke a lt of weed because you have a lot of testosterone in your system.

The bad news is some of the excess testosterone will convert to estrogen and you will have manboobs by the time you are 30.

ok i will try the selfhypnosis and see how it goes.

I have some good news and bad news for you. The good news is you smoke a lt of weed because you have a lot of testosterone in your system.

The bad news is some of the excess testosterone will convert to estrogen and you will have manboobs by the time you are 30.

Yeah that much is true i agree 100%

i even told my buddies i will stop smoking weed hopefully by 21 in 2 years or so

Meditation is nothing but watchfullness, it is actually dehypnotization or deprogramming. It is basically doing nothing.

The consequences of this is the elimination of the subject / object duality. This is how meditation is different to self hypnosis. Hypnosis preserves the duality, meditation strives to eliminate it.

The consequences of this is the elimination of the subject / object duality. This is how meditation is different to self hypnosis. Hypnosis preserves the duality, meditation strives to eliminate it.

You're talking gibberish but it sounds cool...

You're talking gibberish but it sounds cool...

Not gibberish, people talk about it pretty frequently in all sorts of religious ecstasies and the like. Pretty sure only Buddhists call it "loss of subject/object duality" or mumbo-jumbo like that, but the gist is that in a meditative state, you have the perception that your "self" is expanding and unifying with the rest of the world and you get a very real sense of "oneness" with the world. This subjective phenomenon has been described pretty clearly by any highly religious or mystic person, but of course is described in the terms of whatever particular religious framework the person is in.

Even the arch-atheist Richard Carrier has described having an experience when he was very involved in Taoism.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/testimonials/carrier.html

You're talking gibberish but it sounds cool...

Jill Bolte is a neuro scientist who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of the brain. She remembered and wrote down her experience. Here's a quote that more eloquently describes the subject object duality obtained during meditation.

http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php

And I lost my balance and I'm propped up against the wall. And I look down at my arm and I realize that I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can't define where I begin and where I end. Because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy. Energy. And I'm asking myself, "What is wrong with me, what is going on?" And in that moment, my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button and -- total silence.

And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of energy around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt enormous and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was, and it was beautiful there.

Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online and it says to me, "Hey! we got a problem, we got a problem, we gotta get some help." So it's like, OK, OK, I got a problem, but then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness, and I affectionately referred to this space as La La Land. But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space and any stress related to my, to my job, it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine all of the relationships in the external world and the many stressors related to any of those, they were gone. I felt a sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of emotional baggage! I felt euphoria. Euphoria was beautiful -- and then my left hemisphere comes online and it says "Hey! you've got to pay attention, we've got to get help," and I'm thinking, "I got to get help, I gotta focus." So I get out of the shower and I mechanically dress and I'm walking around my apartment, and I'm thinking, "I gotta get to work, I gotta get to work, can I drive? can I drive?"

Interesting.

When I went into a hypnotic state through my own control(self hypnosis) I was flying around the earth and my whole being was pulsating as I felt energy shooting through my body and especially my left hand which felt like the hand of god. None of this was consciously done. My brain just created it for me and connected me to this scenario. It was pretty fucking awesome.


Once again, were all talking about the same phenomenon but using different words.

I prefer the worlds hypnosis. You prefer the world meditation. But you also specify what kind of meditation it is. That's great. But its all the same thing.

I have found many different ways of finding all kinds of different states. And if you went into the meditation in front of me I could connect to it and go into the same state as you through intense rapport which I would establish before you started going into state.


Good stuff all around. I like this thread.

Yes, both are trance states.

Kronker, be skeptical of the stuff you read in NLP. First, there is no NLP meta-theory, so a lot of the stuff you hear touted as "NLP" may not necessarily be the NLP that you have originally learned about, so don't think it is all of the same status.

Second, skeptics have hit NLP hard, and for good reason. Basically everything that has been tested directly and empirically under controlled psychological settings regarding NLP has failed. There have been a number of review articles in psychology journals stating the lack of evidence that exists for general NLP principles. Even the Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (a military group connected with the US National Research Council) which was very excited about the potential of NLP as a performance enhancer became quickly disillusioned.

Personally, I'm pretty skeptical of it as a system, although I've warmed to some of it, especially the stuff closest to Ericksonian hypnotherapy, which seems to be similar to the stuff you're talking about.

Basically everything that has been tested directly and empirically under controlled psychological settings regarding NLP has failed. There have been a number of review articles in psychology journals stating the lack of evidence that exists for general NLP principles.

Do you remember which of NLP's principles they were testing? Most of the principles in the early books (structure of magic, etc) sound plausible to me.

But as you say, NLP has been usurped by the new age feel good crowd.

Yes, both are trance states.

Kronker, be skeptical of the stuff you read in NLP. First, there is no NLP meta-theory, so a lot of the stuff you hear touted as "NLP" may not necessarily be the NLP that you have originally learned about, so don't think it is all of the same status.

Second, skeptics have hit NLP hard, and for good reason. Basically everything that has been tested directly and empirically under controlled psychological settings regarding NLP has failed. There have been a number of review articles in psychology journals stating the lack of evidence that exists for general NLP principles. Even the Committee on Techniques for the Enhancement of Human Performance (a military group connected with the US National Research Council) which was very excited about the potential of NLP as a performance enhancer became quickly disillusioned.

Personally, I'm pretty skeptical of it as a system, although I've warmed to some of it, especially the stuff closest to Ericksonian hypnotherapy, which seems to be similar to the stuff you're talking about.

The phobia cures still work for sure.

You see all kinds of people permanently stop smoking from hypnosis.

A lot of the oldschool NLP isn't as effective as a lot of the improved methods. Like breaking your mind into parts isn't a great idea since its making you more disassocaited and can bring about multiple personality disorder, which is the exact thing NLP is trying to stop.

Some of the newer stuff out there is Neuro Hypnotic Repatterning. The hypnosis stuff is still really cool though.

Also, of course the psychiatric profession is going to discredit it because it puts them out of jobs.


Some of the things I'm still skeptical about are embedded commands and nested loops. Hypnosis is definitely cool especially when you do it to yourself and are in a controlled state. Coming back to your body is really interesting. Takes you a bit to phase back in.

Eye focus technique, Zap command, 5 stage model, tightening then loosen, fingertip breathing are all really simple ways to go into hypnosis.

Do you remember which of NLP's principles they were testing? Most of the principles in the early books (structure of magic, etc) sound plausible to me.

But as you say, NLP has been usurped by the new age feel good crowd.

Um...

I like the "feel good" crowd. I want to feel good all the time.

http://members.aol.com/nflpntrs/cage-talosian.jpg

^tito's biological father?

Do you remember which of NLP's principles they were testing? Most of the principles in the early books (structure of magic, etc) sound plausible to me.

But as you say, NLP has been usurped by the new age feel good crowd.

The were testing preferred representational systems and eye movement connections with spoken predicates and internal imagery. To be fair to the NLP crowd, a lot of it is rather difficult to test and verify. Also even the critics have said that if NLP backed off from its more profound and original claims, then NLP could be viewed simply as an effective compendium, rather than a theory--a compilation of methods instead of something new.

The were testing preferred representational systems and eye movement connections with spoken predicates and internal imagery. To be fair to the NLP crowd, a lot of it is rather difficult to test and verify. Also even the critics have said that if NLP backed off from its more profound and original claims, then NLP could be viewed simply as an effective compendium, rather than a theory--a compilation of methods instead of something new.

Oh yes. Richard Bandler has even stated himself and so have a lot of the newer people involved in the study of human performance improvement, that the preferred representational system isn't very effective.

Using words that are visual for people that you find out are visual thinkers. Because everyone is kinesthetic, visual, auditory etcetera so to try to use words that represent their "Represenational Pattern" is ridiculous because their representational pattern is all of the senses and more so.

Theres other, better ways of using their mind for their own good.

The eye movement patterns are legit though and you can test them out yourself if you don't think so. I did and found them to be legit.

And you make a good point about being a bunch of tools together instead of a whole new system but the truth is, they've added a bunch of different stuff to the counselling, self help, peak performance genre.

Of course things like anchoring(Pavlov) and Gestalt and others were around but they weren't integrated properly into a therapeutic or successful way that others could learn.

Now the usage of anchoring is so profound and easy to learn that its become a mainstay of any therapist.

Check this shit out.

http://ninjashoes.net/forum/showthread.php?t=50034

Oh yes. Richard Bandler has even stated himself and so have a lot of the newer people involved in the study of human performance improvement, that the preferred representational system isn't very effective.

Using words that are visual for people that you find out are visual thinkers. Because everyone is kinesthetic, visual, auditory etcetera so to try to use words that represent their "Represenational Pattern" is ridiculous because their representational pattern is all of the senses and more so.

Pacing visual words for visual thinkers is just part of building rapport. Representational states shine when you change the representational state you use in your thinking processes.

Here's an example - spelling. When we spell we first select and arrange letters, and then verify the assembled letters to be sure it is a correct word. Most good spellers use a visual process to assemble the letters and a kinesthetic process for verifying the arrangement. Poor spellers tend to use a different process, e.g. auditory for the arrangement and visual for verification.

NLP tells us that if poor spellers model the representational processes of good spellers, their spelling will improve. I tested this on myself and my friends. I used to use an auditory process to assemble letters. I switched to a visual process and my spelling improved.

To me, modeling is the greatest strength of NLP.

Pacing visual words for visual thinkers is just part of building rapport. Representational states shine when you change the representational state you use in your thinking processes.

Here's an example - spelling. When we spell we first select and arrange letters, and then verify the assembled letters to be sure it is a correct word. Most good spellers use a visual process to assemble the letters and a kinesthetic process for verifying the arrangement. Poor spellers tend to use a different process, e.g. auditory for the arrangement and visual for verification.

NLP tells us that if poor spellers model the representational processes of good spellers, their spelling will improve. I tested this on myself and my friends. I used to use an auditory process to assemble letters. I switched to a visual process and my spelling improved.

To me, modeling is the greatest strength of NLP.

Yes the modelling is awesome. Also their "Systems of Learning".

Going from Unconscious Failure to Unconscious Success. Like learning to drive. Then getting better and being able to drive with total focus. Then being able to drive subconsciously.


The reason people use auditory for the spelling of words is because teachers would say "Sound the word out" and get people all fucked up.