On Aug 21, 2009, at 8:49 AM, raunchydog wrote:
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajradh...@...> wrote:
>
> Dying the cloth of inner happiness.
>
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3047291.stm
>
> "There is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that
> results in the kind of happiness we all seek."
>
> Paul Ekman,
> University of California San Francisco Medical Centre
>
> Buddhists 'really are happier'
>
> Scientists say they have evidence to show that Buddhists really are
> happier and calmer than other people.
>
> Tests carried out in the United States reveal that areas of their
> brain associated with good mood and positive feelings are more
active.
If, as TM critics say, we don't know what TM EEG brain coherence
means and therefore we cannot say it correlates with better
behavior, how can we say that we know what "activity in the left
prefrontal lobes" means in Buddhist meditation and correlates with
better behavior? If Buddhists "light up" only the left half of
their brain and feel happy, wouldn't it follow that TMer's
"lighting up" both halves of their brain would feel doubly happy?
They're not referring to EEG measurements, but PET and fMRI findings
of the brain, in real time when they're referring to things "lighting
up". We do know the areas of the brain associated with certain
positive emotions and qualities. For some reason perfusion or blood
supply to these regions of the brain increases, creating neuroplastic
changes to these areas, the cortex actually thickens. Since these are
lasting changes, it's actually as if these qualities are 'dyed" into
their brains. Thus in depression patients, it's now known that they
can even stop meditating and the alleviation of depression will
continue, they become "resilient" since they've physically altered
their brain for the better.
Regarding TM EEG "alpha coherence", that's probably the biggest
sleight of hand job ever pulled. Alpha coherence in the range seen in
advanced TM meditators, is actually within the normal range of
healthy humans who don't meditate. In fact alpha coherence is so
common in humans, it's not really anything special at all. The most
interesting findings seem to be coming from high-amplitude gamma
coherence which was originally found in Patanjali tradition yogis who
could go into samadhi at will. In Buddhists that EEG coherence, which
oddly connects the part of the brain associated with integration,
continues even when these yogis are not meditating.
"And that's the way it is", as Walter Cronkite used to say.
