Contemplative practices often aim to cultivate the refining of attention and emotional regulation. Within the fields of psychology and neuroscience, keen interest in attention and emotion has resulted in robust theoretical frameworks and solid experimental paradigms that aim to determine how these processes work and how they might be modified through training. Thus, there is strong common ground between meditative and research traditions. We will explore recent findings from our work at this interface between contemplative and research traditions. Together with Alan Wallace and three-dozen collaborating researchers, we are investigating how attentional, emotional and physiological processes change over the course of three months of intensive training in meditative quiescence and emotional balance, in a study known as “The Shamatha Project.” Scientific measures include established paradigms in cognitive and affective neuroscience, stress and affiliation-related biomarkers, EEG, autonomic physiology, facial expressions of emotion, self report, daily journaling, and structured interviews. Our initial findings demonstrate improvements in adaptive psychological attributes, perceptual and attention-related skills, improvements in inhibiting habitual responses, decreased mind-wandering, changes in the emotional response to the perception of human suffering, and changes in biomarkers associated with cellular repair. Together, these findings demonstrate wide-ranging benefits of the retreat experience. Questions for discussion will include: What is the role of “world view” on the effects on contemplative practice? That is – does one’s belief system and/or cosmological perspective, be it Tibetan Buddhist, Christian, secular or other, limit or facilitate the fruits of meditation practice? From the Buddhist point of view is there a concept or basic tenet that captures something so central about inner life that our longevity might depend on it? What is most deleterious to health? His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said that to help others we should practice compassion; to help ourselves, we should practice compassion. In our research we see that compassion practice likely decreases spontaneous expression of some negative emotions. In the Buddhist tradition what is the breadth of effects on the practitioner due to the practice of compassion? 

• Dialogue 18
  14 sessions
• April 9, 2009
  Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
• share