This Think Tank brings together engaged Buddhist and secular mindfulness practitioners, teachers, scholars, and activists from areas like minority rights and struggles, environmentalism and sustainability, critical pedagogy and liberal arts education. We draw on Buddhist and feminist and posthumanist thinking for inspiration to formulate our working questions: What is refuge? Where or when do we …
Topic Archives:
Study to design and assess the validity of the Emory Meditation Practice, Tradition, and Experience (EMPTE) scale
This study aims to develop and assess the Emory-Meditation Practice Tradition and Experience Inventory Short and Long Forms. These self-report measures are designed to capture research participants’ meditation experience in a particular contemplative tradition, and to standardize assessments of meditation practice in the field. These inventories, which rely primarily on common contemporary Buddhist-based contemplative practices …
Meditation and nonlinear neurodynamics: From state to trait
This study focused on brain dynamics changes in the meditative state (short-term changes) and their possible development into trait (long-term changes), in an EEG data set recorded from a group of Mindfulness Meditators (MM, n=36) with varying expertise, a group of transcendental meditators (TM, n=12), and suitable controls. We applied two measures: (a) a functional …
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A randomized controlled single-blinded pilot trial to compare effects of concentrative sitting meditation to moving meditation (tai chi) training on attentional network efficiency
Meditation training has been shown to positively affect executive attention function. Moderate aerobic exercise has also been shown to improve executive attention function. Tai Chi requires moderate aerobic exertion, is considered a form of moving meditation, and requires motor learning. Motor learning engages executive function. Thus, Tai Chi can be expected to positively affect executive …
Measurement and correlates of nonattachment
The Buddhist philosophy that non-attachment is important to well-being seems to contradict Western attachment theory’s notion that healthy attachment is a key to well-being. Nevertheless, the initial developmental paths of the two systems may overlap: Reliance on warm, responsive, and autonomy-supportive caregivers may promote felt security in both cases through the use of security inducing …
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Development and testing of determinants of meditation practice
Meditation health benefits have been difficult to document as efficacy studies have been marred by lack of statistical power secondary to small sample size and/or threats to validity from high attrition. To date no published studies have examined barriers to meditation which are likely responsible for low enrollment and high attrition. The purpose of our …
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The influence of meditative experience on pain perception
The subjective experience of one’s environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a non-evaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we examined brain activity by which meditation influences pain. After four-days (20m/d) …
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Study of mindfulness meditation on stress reduction and attention regulation in adolescents with mild learning disabilities
This study examines the effects of a contemplative education intervention for Asian Indian adolescents living and going to high school in Singapore. The intervention aims to (a) reduce adolescents’ perceived levels of life stress and (b) enhance their ability to regulate their attention. While relaxation techniques have generally been found effective in dealing with adolescent …
Developing a computational model for meditation using cross cortical synchrony in EEG data
This study uses a rigorous interdisciplinary approach to analyze EEG data collected during two 3-month long intensive meditation retreats in four steps. First, novel tools were developed for preprocessing the EEG data. Second, in order to identify the cortical correlates of meditation, longitudinal changes in the cortical activity were measured using spectral analysis. Three main …
Mathematical modeling of acute effects of meditation on cognition
The practice of meditative concentration has been proposed to be somewhat equivalent to an attention task. Because the attention and working memory systems are intimately linked, we hypothesized that practicing this particular attention task would make the working memory system more efficient. We tested 29 participants of a Dathun (a month-long intensive meditation retreat), before …
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