BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Spiritual Practice and Our Brain

(this is carried over from another thread)


Yes, equanimity is part of seeing things as they really are. But within Buddhist teachings it is very specifically associated with the capacity for non-judgement. It is one step to seeing things as they really are. Usually the 'judging' mind is evaluating every perception as 'good' or 'bad', 'true' or 'not true', 'pleasurable' or 'not pleasurable' and it happens so quickly after the perception that we can barely separate the perception from the mental judgement.

So part of true meditation and mindfulness practice is being able to see this movement of our mind and choosing not to follow it, so that we rest in the pure perception, without the judgement.

What is so interesting about the neuroscience research going on right now is that they are discovering how we are actually 'rewarded' for judgements. We get a 'hit' of endorphins when we feel we are right. So it is a difficult pattern to break.

Of course we are also rewarded on the physiological level for letting go of this, in terms of the endorphins and theta states that doing into deep meditation generates. But this takes a longer time to generate - it's not an immediate hit the way being right is.

This is why regular practice is so important. Because we have to put the time in in order to reprogram ourselves, and in order to experience the physiological benefits of meditation.

It's interesting to me that on so many levels, neuroscience is starting to support the teachings on practice and meditation, and especially what it takes to really change our brain's habitual responses. I am hoping to review Hardwiring Happiness, a new book on a lot of this, soon.

To Lisa ,
Regarding Equanimity ,I can If I make a little research ,give many definitions of Equanimity.The one I gave was the easyist to understand.

loong
part of the Universe

I've often wondered,

Spirituality is a very big part of my life. And I hear, especially these days, the "Living the Now," "Living in the moment." Spiritually and non-judgment, does play a VERY large part in this, for me.

However, in it's entirety, when or can rather, non-judgment turn to complacency or even releasing one's self from interjecting, say a person in harms way, a robbery, bullying, etc.?

I would intervene. But I keep hearing just in conversations, "Everything is happening just as it should. Don't think about it." And, recently,

"I just want to live in my own little bubble."

It made me re-think the whole thing, like this person just wanted to live w/out disruptions. When I asked, what would you do if you saw a child or elderly person being hurt, unable to defend themselves.

There was kind of shrug or nervousness.

So, I guess if there's non-judgment of what is right and wrong, then as human beings, how is it we react in helping where we could or in making a difference in the world of Mankind?

Hi Elleise, at the level of living in the world, I agree completely with you. We have to assess situations and decide what values we want to support and further in the world. So I agree with you, and by non-judgement I didn't mean having no opinions or taking no action in the face of cruelty in the world. And I do think the 'acceptance' thing can get overused in a spiritual context these days to justify complacence.

I was talking more about 'equanimity' as it is used in Buddhist teaching, which has to do with our immediate response to some perception. Our tendency to immediately jump from the perception to the judgement, and in many cases for that judgement to be pre-determined by views we already have. The neuroscience I mentioned is showing that we don't see through fresh eyes at all - we see through this prism of beliefs we already have, and our brain actually rewards us when we recognize and 'match' something to our beliefs, by seeing it a certain way.

So this prevents us from ever seeing anything with 'fresh' eyes. We are locked into our habitual perceptions and judgements, based on the past and our declared opinions and affiliations (think politics, religion, family conditioning etc.)

So in this context equanimity is more at the moment of perception - how can we see the situation clearly, without preconceptions? Then we can choose how to act, and it may not be with acceptance.

Loong, I was not arguing with your definition of equanimity, just adding to it and tying it into the neuroscience research, which is what this thread is about.

Perfection Lisa!

I love your insight. You've touched on every N, S, E & W, really.

I used to say, "Everything I learned, I learned from my garden." From there, I went to perception is EVERYTHING!

There's not one thing, at least I can think of, when you look at it, you have either the choice of seeing it in a positive or negative fashion, or simply that from a different view - in a more centered position.

When I'd go out to my garden and pick my tomatoes. I was certain I'd picked every single one. Each time, I was wrong. So, I learned - "the colors of the wind,"

Taking a step back can bring a person to a position into an entirely different light. Catch the things you missed, and make a different assessment than that which you were first presented.

No more tiny bubbles

To Lisa

Just received this morning in my e-mails ,another definition of Equanimity by Banthe (thera)



Friends:
Equanimity gives delicate Peace & Happiness!

Equanimity (Upekkhā) entails a composed equipoise of solid mental balance!
It is Tatra-majjhattatā = keeping to the moderate middle of all phenomena.
Equanimity balances consciousness so it prevents both all excessiveness and
any deficiency. Neither too much or too little of anything. In equanimity mind
is neither attracted by attractive things, nor repelled by repulsive things.
The cause of equanimity is seeing the law of kamma: All beings are born and
created by their kamma. They are formed, conditioned & restricted by their
kamma. They are owners of their kamma, debtors to their kamma, and they
inherit their kamma. Whatever they do, whether good or bad, the later effects
of that will be theirs only. This accumulation follows them like a shadow of past!
The serene yet superb effect of Equanimity is threefold:
Exquisite, relaxed and subtle peace felt as calm happiness is instantly gained.
Equanimity purifies and completes all the 7 crucial core Links to Awakening...
Equanimity is the proximate cause of knowledge and vision (ñānadassana)!

Dear Elleise,

If ever I would see someone beating someone else,a child an animal ,breaking trees,molesting a woman ,I would without hesitation ,jump in ,I was stabbed once ,would not mind being stabbed a second time to help something in need.

One thing for sure is I would not hide behind beleifs of compassion and loving kindness.

There is a story by Buddha where he says that if he would meet animals in search of food ,he would give alll he has ,and if that was not sufficient.HE WOULD GIVE HIMSELF.

loong
part of the Universe

Yes, this is perfect, exactly what I am talking about. Here they use the term 'karma', and those are what I mean by the forces that shape our perception. What is so interesting is the way neuroscience is discovering the biological basis for this - the way that our brain and endocrine system supports getting and staying attached to certain views (the manifestation of karma). Equanimity is the ability to perceive 'beyond' or 'without' our karma, our or preconceived notions, getting in the way - direct perception.

This teaching uses 'excessiveness' and 'deficieny' as the opposite of equanimity, and that really describes perfectly the mental process of being attached to a certain fundamental view - it becomes 'excessive'. Or if we deny something vehementaly, it is 'deficient.'

So this is what I mean - that modern science is confirming the classic teachings of Buddhism, and of many spiritual traditions really, when it comes to mindfulness and meditation.

I don't think science is the answer to everything, I just find it interesting, and I think it has a lot to add to our understanding of practice.

I have just been reading more about neuroplasticity - the ability of our brain to 'rewrite' old neurologically-based patterns. Neuroplasticity is the foundation for the changes they found in Buddhist monks' brains in the now famous experiments - they discovered that meditating for years on compassion had actually weakened the parts of the brain associated with aggression and strengthened those parts associated with compassionate acts, and that this could be seen and measured on brain scans. They have found changes in stroke patients also, in terms of their ability to 'reroute' brain functions during recovery. And also athletes - visualization of a 'perfect' athletic feat can also help to change the brain to support the performance of that feat.

So truly, what we think about, we become! It takes a lot of hard work, but we can 'rewrite' who we are.

To all or none,

A thought is like a stream of a river,without any staying power;as soon as it is produced it breaks up and disappears.A thought is like the flame of a lamp,and it proceeds through causes and conditions.A thought is like lightning,it breaks up in a moment and does not stay on...
Searching for thought all round,he does not see it within or without.He does not see it in the skandas,or in the elements,or in the sense-fields.Unable to see thought,he seeks to find the trend of thought,and asks himself:WHENCE IS THE GENESIS of thought?

And it occurs to him that "where there is an object,there thought arises" Is then the thought one thing ,and the object another?
No,what is the object ,just that IS the thought.If the object were one thing,and the thought another,then there would be a double state of thought.SO THE OBJECT ITSELF IS JUST THOUGHT.

From the book by TNH,The Miracle of Mindfulness.

Loong
Sharing his findings

and the trick is to experience this, to realize it directly, not simply to philosophically understand it. if we understand it in our mind, it becomes another object in our mind.

To all or none,
a thought is like the steam of a river,without any staying power;as soon as it is produced it breaks up and disappears.A thought is like the flame of the lamp,and it proceeds through cause and conditions.A thought is like lightning,it breaks up in a moment and does not stay on.

Loong'comment:Same principle applies to our body,each nanosecond
or a Now ,all our body dies and re-births,because at every now ,
all our cells changes,we are never the same person ,to me this is part of the wheel of Samsara.

Loong
simple Buddhist.

Fascinating interview by Jon Stewart with Michio Kuko, a theoretical physicist on current brain research and technological advances:

The Future of the Mind

As he puts it, science is coming close to creating a 'downloadable brain' - our memories and responses can be recorded and externalized. This is how paraplegics like Stephen Hawking are able to type and operate wheelchairs - a chip is placed near their brain that actually picks up on their thoughts and acts upon them (Stephen Hawking's is in his glasses.)

Of course, as Kuko readily admits, consciousness itself is still a mystery. This is the part meditation accesses - consciousness itself, apart from all the functions and data of our brain. So they may be able to download all the 'contents' of someone's brain onto a disc some day, but will that be them? Is that consciousness? I would say no, but that is the debate going on in science these days. Science and spirituality are meeting at the forfront of this discussion...

Just found this great quote from Kuko that encapsulates the way science and spirituality are coming together in his estimation:

"...the laws of physics, carefully constructed after thousands of years of experimentation, are nothing but the laws of harmony one can write down for strings and membranes. The laws of chemistry are the melodies that one can play on these strings. the universe is a symphony of strings. And the "Mind of God," which Einstein wrote eloquently about, is cosmic music resonating throughout hyperspace."

In Buddhism, in many ways we study the laws physics and chemistry as they function in our own brain and mind. Through this we unravel all the layers that we usually are entrapped by, until we are free of all of that, and living in the 'mind of god' as he has defined it here...

This quote from the Dalai Lama says a lot about modern Buddhism...

"If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."

― Dalai Lama, in the The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality

It's a perspective not all religions share, although Buddhism isn't a 'religion' in the sense of others, since there is no supreme deity. But to the extent that awakened mind has a corresponding 'brain' state, and we now can see how meditation changes the brain, we may someday understand the enlightenment/awakening process from a neuroscientific perspective. I don't think that will ever explain it because I think consciousness is beyond the brain, but that is one of the hotly contested issues in neuroscience today...

I was just reading about some new research related to meditation that I had not been aware of before. I was reading about it in a book called 10% Happier by ABC Nightline co-anchor Dan Harris. Jud Brewer, a researcher at Yale, has invented a real-time neuro-feedback mechanism that shows when a meditator has shutdown the 'Default Mode Network' of their brain - the 'self' region of the brain that generates most of our ego-based mind chatter. When the ego part of the mind is busy with thoughts, red displays, and when it is quite blue displays. The color is gradated depending on how deeply quiet and aware this part of the mind is (deep blue) or if it's just starting to quiet (a purplish hue.) The researcher's vision is that one day a machine like this could actually help people meditate, by giving them real-time feedback.

The researchers are also approaching the idea of enlightenment in this way - that awakening or enlightenment is a retraining of the mind, to respond to the world in a different way, and to live in this state - the 'blue' state - and live from this level of awareness, all of the time. That this begins in meditation, and then over time that one can retrain the mind to live from this place. It is a kind of scientific definition of enlightenment.

I was just reading another article on studies done on brain changes from meditation related to handling stress. In this study, MRI images of participants brains were taken, along with other measurements (both medical and self-reported) of their stress levels. Then the participants meditated daily using mindfulness meditation (MBSR, or mindfulness-based-stress-reduction). Most participants reported feeling less stressed (regardless of whether anything in their life had changed.)

In those that reported feeling less stressed, the density of their amygdala region of the brain had decreased. This is the part of the brain linked to our 'flight or fight' response to threatening situations. Decreased density there indicates less triggering of this stressed feeling. This is very significant because as in other studies, it indicates meditation actually leads to physical brain changes, not only a decrease in stress hormone production (like cortisol and adrenaline, which scientists already knew decreased with meditation.)

Dear Lisa,

Compassion can be seen two ways ,thinking about it (meditation)
and really living it.

loong

I agree, but did you mean this in response to the Sharon Salzburg quote on the other thread? I am not sure how it relates to this one...

Meditation has also been shown to improve concentration, but this aspect of it requires a bit more dedication. While meditating just 20 minutes a day has been shown to reduce the production of stress chemicals (cortisol and adrenaline), the main study used to prove meditation improves concentration was based on retreat participants who were meditating 4-5 hours a day. But the changes appeared to be permanent - i.e. even when they stopped meditating, they seemed to have better concentration than before they ever had...

I am reading a book about the latest in genetics research, including epigenetics, or how environmental factors impact which genes express in each of us. Two people can have the same gene, but it will only activate in one. What makes genes toggle on and off is one of the most interesting forms of research going on today. And meditation is very much in the mix! They are discovering the ways that different brain activities, including meditation, impacts the brain. Stress chemicals are particularly volatile, and appear to play a role in activating a number of different disease genes. So to the extent that regular meditation helps to decrease the stress hormones in our system, it helps decrease our chances of developing certain diseases, even if we are genetically prone to them...amazing stuff!

Focusing on the breath during meditation is one of the most common forms. There are two main variations of this - in yogic traditions, we are often asked to focus on 'belly breathing' - bringing our awareness down to our belly, and gently expanding our belly as we inhale and letting it fall as we exhale. This is also the form most often taught to elicit the relaxation response in medical settings.

Insight meditation is often taught with the focus on the breath as it moves in and out of the nose while we meditate. The idea is to notice with great mindfulness all of the sensations of the breath.

According to a new study from Brown University, focusing on the breath in your nose or in your belly during meditation will result in two distinct mental states. Researchers found that belly breathers tend to feel more in touch with their somatic—or bodily—sensations, while nose breathers tend to be more aware of how their attention ‘feels.’ So belly breathing increases our body awareness, and nose breathing increases our emotional and mental awareness. Makes a lot of sense.

I think ultimately they both lead us back to a deeper awareness of our own mind and body as not separate, as one fluid stream of awareness. But depending on why someone wants to meditate, what issues they are hoping meditation will help them with, this study may offer some insight as to which type of meditation is the best starting point.

I have read more about this Brown university study, and will probably write about it in an article, as it is very interesting. The main purpose of the study was to really evaluate the meditation research out there. There has been a lot of research on meditation over the last 3 decades, and a lot of claims made about its benefits. Two things this study honed in on were:

- All the various contemplative techniques called 'meditation' - the various studies out there use different methods, which mean just saying 'meditation helps you manage stress' doesn't really mean anything - you need to know which method, and for how long, was used in the study to realize its benefits.

- Some of the studies did not have adequate control groups or didn't meet scientific standards. So part of the purpose of the study was to sort all this out.

To be sure there are still plenty of benefits attributed to meditation. But this study really highlighted the need to be clear about what your goals are when meditating before selecting a practice. If its stress management, one type may be better, if its sleep aid, then another. For example MBSR (mindfulness-based-stress-reduction), the most studied form of meditation, doesn't really appear to aid insomnia. But some others - guided relaxation exercises - might.

I think the other thing it threw into question was the premise that meditation makes you happier (i.e. per the book 10% Happier that I reviewed in another thread.) What's clear is that many forms of meditation definitely increase self-awareness, and in that sense they are a great complement to personal growth. But whether or not that increases someone's happiness really depends on what they want out of life, and how they view themselves.

More to come on this topic...