How Meditation Reshapes Your Brain

[Dover]

Excerpt:

...Sharon Gannon, the co-founder of Jivamukti Yoga, the largest yoga center in the U.S., tells Big Think that meditation is all about ignoring stimuli. "We're so habituated to reacting to every stimulus," she says. If the phone rings, we answer it; if someone knocks at the door, we open it. But meditation is a space where we don't react to the stimuli that constantly bombard us; it is about letting go, and it paradoxically makes us better able to engage. "Without taking the time every day to let things come and let things go without acting upon it, you won't have clarity of mind," she says.

But what is actually happening in the brain as we seek nirvana? Meditators have long described their experiences as transformative states that are markedly different from normal consciousness, but only recently have researchers found the evidence to back this up.

Richard Davidson is one of the foremost researchers of meditation's effects on the brain. A Harvard Ph.D graduate and a friend of the Dalai Lama, he was chided early in his career for wanting to study something as unscientific as meditation. But in 2004 he became an overnight scientific celebrity for discovering that Buddhist monks exhibit vastly different brainwaves during meditation than normal people. ..cont'd

http://bigthink.com/ideas/24358


How to meditate:
http://www.how-to-meditate.org/

[Dover]

1. I don't consider meditation as :"ignoring sound" but rather that one is

hyper aware, acknowledging sounds, smells..etc...but not responding. It's a receptive state.

[Turbineguy]

2. A lot of people must be meditating

while driving or shopping or...???

[Skittles]

3. I routinely ignore ringing phones and knocks at the door

[AdHocSolver]

4. Would teaching meditation prevent teabagger syndrome and Republicanism? nt

[billlll]

5. Yes... "child rearing practices" determine personality

Within gene limits

All before age 3

Updates anyone? My info ten yrs old.

[Odin2005]

6. K&R +1,000,000,000,000

[verdalaven]

7. I believe

I took up meditation at age 25(I am 47) to calm my nerves. Previous to taking up meditation, I was an evangelical christian, very closed minded on many subjects. Within two years of my practice, I was open to many different religions and studying multiple belief systems. For about a decade, I self identified as a Buddhist, then about 5 years ago I decided that I am (always was and always will be) an atheist. I am far more accepting of my fellow man, more compassionate of others than I ever was in my youth. I even feel a little sorry for teabaggers - hell, I might have ended up being like them, if it hadn't been for my remarkable "change of mind."

I always wondered if it was meditation that opened me to a bigger universe. Seems like that it might have been the case. :)

[deutsey]

8. This is why I think so many rightwing Christians are cracking down on yoga

Stop all this runaway open-mindedness before it gets out of control.

[tinrobot]

9. Meditation definitely reshaped my brain....

My old brain liked being depressed.

My meditation-enhanced brain doesn't suffer from depression and is quite happy.

[Fire Walk With Me]

10. Yoga -is- a science.

Empiric method. Do A, get B, every time, for everyone (although some must work harder or extremely hard).