On Jun 13, 2008, at 11:07 AM, curtisdeltablues wrote:
But getting back to meditation and its claim to make people kinder or
even more sensitive to the needs of others just by mechanically doing
the practice... can't we call this one here and now? We all know a
few too many long term meditators to make such a claim. It just
doesn't hold up, does it?
Different styles of meditation and different intentions in the
meditation creates different neuroplastic changes in the brain. It's
pretty well established that certain forms of mindfulness meditation
actually enhances and thickens the allocentric and social parts of
the brain. Not only are these parts of the brain responsible for
having loving and kind feelings towards others, they're also the
areas of the brain responsible for carry out loving and kind actions.
Of course, some forms of meditation can do the opposite, emphasize
the egocentric aspects of brain change.
And I'm not sure adding in religion shifts the balance too much
either. Too much talk and not enough walk, plus each religion has
conditions where you can act like a total dick to others, so it
becomes a choice of who to apply the "judgment" side to. Dickishness
becomes easier to apply if you only hang out with similar people in
customs and mindset, and harder if you mix it up more and know people
with radically different backgrounds and POVs. The effect of
interacting with different people from different cultures seem like a
good way to increase tolerance of others which is a good start on
compassion. You don't see them as the "others" so much.
So ethics from practicing meditation...I don't buy it. It may help a
person become comfortable with themself, which for some people may be
a basis for being compassionate with others. But I've seen a bit too
much evidence that this can go either way to even claim this.
We actually now have a pretty good idea of which parts of the brain
are associated with different virtuous thought-patterns and carrying
out actions associated with those patterns. There's a good talk on
TED Talks on this very subject:
http://www.ted.com/speakers/view/id/205
In any event, not all meditation is the same. Different types of
meditation produce different results. For some scientific input on
this idea, check out the article "Neuroscience May Explain the Dalai
Lama":
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23829470/
