Former TMers enjoy claiming that TM has the same effects as all other practices, but anyone who looks at the EEG signature of various practices instantly realizes that such people are either speaking from ignorance (willful or otherwise) or deliberately lying.
Here's a discussion of no-self and American Buddhism in the context of a course on Buddhist philosophy and how it fits in with the research on Buddhist meditation (mindfulness, though focussed attention practices such as Benson's Relaxation Response, Samatha and Metta, all have teh same overall effect): http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2014/05/buddhism-and-modern-psychology-week-five-looking-at-meditation.html http://www.patheos.com/blogs/americanbuddhist/2014/05/buddhism-and-modern-psychology-week-five-looking-at-meditation.html "Now that we’ve seen it suggested that the modular theory of the mind dovetails with the Buddhist theory of not-self, we look at how meditation might fit in to our picture. The first way this is discussed comes by looking at the Default Mode Network, which is the part of the brain that is active when our mind isn’t focused on anything. Brain scans have shown that meditation quiets this network. " The activation of the Default Mode Network (DMN) becomes greater during TM. Coincidentally, activation of teh DMN is associated with "sense of self," so the fact practice of meditation techniques that quiet the DMN also quiet "sense of self" is, well, a no-brainer. Likewise, the fact that TM, a mind-wandering practice, enhances teh activity of the DMN (including strengthening the activity of the brain associated with "sense of self") is a no surprising, either. People who insist that all meditation practices eventually lead to the "same place" are fooling themselves. Mindfulness and concentrative practices, in the long run, distort the functioning of the Default Mode Network. Maharishi called this "subtle damage" to the nervous system. TM enhances the normal restful functioning of the brain, aka the "Default Mode Network," which becomes active whenever the mind is allowed to wander. There's no reconciling the two approaches to spirituality.
