science and meditation: great article

http://www.biologynews.net/archives..._clues_to_brains_regulation_of_attention.html

rescent study (biologynews.net is a great bio/science news site) discusses how tibetan monks meditate in two different ways. though after reading the article i can not tell what the inferrior method of visualizing is. the supperior method they say is point focussing, or focusing on one thing. but is this with image use or without, or both?

at the same time, what do they mean about increased abilities? are they talking about seeing things that are not there without meditation? or...

just want some thoughts

 

"Point Focus" typically refers to the direction of all attention to an otherwise mundane task, like breathing. In "Point Focus", you would calmly breath in and out, focussing on only your breath. If you do this long enough, for an extended period of time, you'll learn to slow your breathing to a point of unaudibility. Then you'll hear some interesting sounds.

"Visualizing" typically refers to using your imagination to entertain your wandering in order to provide focus. "Visualization" is easier, since it mimics a child's ability to play "Make Believe", and allows free reign of our creative psyche. It isn't always the most productive, however, since we can often "space out" for stretches of time. During this period, the point of meditation is lost. Visualization is definately a great beginning point, though.

By "increased abilities", they are probably referring to heightened awareness and direct focus. In society today, we have SO many distractions that the ability to "hear what you want" as opposed to "hearing what is around" could be considered significant. In addition, when someone cultivates the inner focus required for meditating for long periods of time, diverting this focus to other areas (martial arts) isn't difficult.

May you achieve
Satori

 

I sometimes 'meditate' to stop myself from becoming excessively bored when I'm stretching. Does that count?

 

Don't see why not.

 

it does count, thats what american yoga is sappose to do.

qigong is stretching and training while meditating to. these both are "asana yoga" or yoga from position and movement.

thanks for the help translating that hehe. i try to meditate both ways. and that since ive been meditating both ways, my visuals are more dream like when i meditate. kinda cool, for a hippy

 

Thanks, jroe, for the link. Very interesting article.

 

Here's another article about the benefits of meditation. This gets into how Tibetan monks can more readily and easily perceive positive things due to their using meditation. Pretty neat stuff.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20050606/monk.html

 

Im not quite sure I understood what that article (The first one) was saying. Visual rivalry was being artificially induced, i.e. they had a different picture in eache eye right? Then in a normal person what happens and what was the difference in the meditationg monks?

Whats the practical benefit of it all?

 

The point of the article, is greater leangths of concentration on 1 object/subject. Imagine staring at a ball for 2 minutes, would you think only in your head "ball, ball, ball ball" or would you think "ball, soccer, chicks, ball, wow i need to go shopping, ball" lol. It does have a rewarding effect for studying, learning or meditation (all which require concentration/focus).

The visuals they are experiencing is based on their focus point for meditation. For example, you might be able to imagine a picture in your head for a few seconds. However, these monks can for long periods of time! So, if they meditate and focus on a buddha... they could then close their eyes and visualize the buddha in their head for a period of time.

Most humans are not able to do this or if so, only for very very short periods of time (less then 7 seconds?). However, through meditation training they are able to focus on an image/thought for longer periods of time.

It is often probably why people compare hellucigens to meditating monks.

However, the science in this article (I read it long ago) is to show how their brain patterns slightly change, so what is in their minds with their eyes closed, can now appear when their eyes are open!

That is a great meditative ability that most can not recreate without drugs or electric brain stimulation.

 

i speant 30 min looking for this, and like the article alot. please move this to the philosophy thread, since for some reason a long time a go i put it in questions/answers (but if this is more appropriate, keep it here)

 

buddhism and meditation would fall under both philosophy and/or religion =)