--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jul 26, 2005, at 4:40 PM, sparaig wrote: > > > No less biased than anything that comes out from the TMO, IMHO. > > How could you tell from such a brief exposure?
For one thing, all meditation research appears to start in 1979 and only Buddhist meditation, meditation research and meditation researchers are mentioned. Keith Wallace launched the modern study of meditation with the publication of his PhD 10years earlier, and the Esalen INstitute has a listing of ALL meditation research (that they've been able to find mention of in 20 years of publishing the list) since the 1930's. > > Clearly it's less biased from the get go simply because these are > researchers from many different places--not just MUM, MIU, MERU-- and > they aren't using their research to sell and market a "product". Only thing mentioned was Buddhist meditation techniques. Go to > the web site and look at the list of researchers. It's like a who's who > of neuroscience. > > Another major difference is in previous meditation studies these often > focused on "the psychological and physiological effects of meditation > training, but most of such studies have been based on fairly simple > pre-post (rather than longitudinal) research designs; focused on state > rather than trait (i.e., long-lasting) changes in mental abilities; > focused on physiological changes, such as indicators of relaxation, > rather than cognitive, sensorimotor, neurological, emotional, and > ethical changes; and were conducted before the advent of contemporary > social-cognitive and brain-imaging techniques, which allow researchers > to track changes in the mind and brain associated with meditation > training. In addition, the meditation techniques under study were often > not firmly grounded in a deep understanding of ancient meditation > traditions and not conducted over an adequate period of time by an > experienced instructor. For these reasons, we still do not know a great > deal about how professionally administered meditation training of a > particular kind, followed over an extended period of time (as is common > in the traditions from which the meditation techniques are drawn), > affects attentional, sensorimotor, and emotion-regulation skills or > ethical responses to human suffering." Yeah, but there ARE longitudinal, double-blind studies on TM comparing its effects with those of other meditation techniques, conducted by teams of researchers that include researchers from several different institutes (including Harvard) who practice several different meditation techniques. In fact, the longest longitudinal double-blind study on meditation's long-term effects has been done on TM vs mindfulness vs Benson's Relaxation Response where at least one researcher from a major university was a proponent of each technique. To claim to be giving an unbiased report about meditation research *in general* while not mentioning the TM studies, especially the one I just described, shows either extreme ignorance or extreme bias. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
