Nourish the very best within self

 B. L. Chakoo

AMIND free from disturbance or wandering has value in lessening human suffering, a goal shared by science and meditative paths alike. With nothing much else to ‘capture our attention’, the mind often wanders to what is troubling us — a root cause of everyday ‘angst’ or stress-related disorders. For this reason, when Harvard scholars, researching on contemplative neuroscience, asked thousands of people to report their ‘mental focus and mood at random points through the day, they found that ‘a wandering mind is an unhappy mind’: it does not build the brain. It simply turns on the brain’s ‘default mode’ which blossoms during the mind’s ‘downtime’.

However, today’s neuroplasticity (which is a way to resolve the battle between nature and nurture) offers an evidence-based scientific framework which emphasises how repeated training in meditation could create ‘those lasting qualities of being we had encountered in a handful of exceptional yogis, swamis, monks and lamas’. Their extremely positive meditative ‘altered traits’ — like equanimity, compassion, kindness, integrity, patience and humility — can show us ‘a path of self-actualisation’ that fosters transformation of being and nourishes ‘the very best within oneself’.

The Science of Meditation: How to Change Your Brain, Mind and Body by Richard Davidson, a Ph.D from Harvard, in psychology and Daniel Goleman, the author of five New York Times bestsellers, is a compelling narrative. Goleman also has the distinction of having ‘a long-standing interest’ in all kinds of meditation that dates back to his two years in India when he was a graduate student at Harvard. 

The book demonstrates the power of meditation, mindfulness, compassion and of empirically well-validated psychological treatment with a meditative basis. Here, the illumination of the writers’ incisive thinking and rigorous research on the varieties of meditation (including the silent mantra repetition which is ‘a voluntary and intentional focusing device’) extends far beyond psychology. What a treat to see clearly how meditation and neuroscience fit together, from religion to psychology to neurobiology, ‘all in one unified vision’.

A fascinating, multilayered brain’s inner art puzzle — one that offers an enlightening look into the origins of meditation and the scientific underpinnings of our civilisation — this book provides exciting stories of expert yogis, lamas and monks. Their stories matter. These tales show us with evidence that attaining deepening levels of meditation (which is, speaking scientifically, brain activity that is unforced and without strain) leads to a radical transformation, ultimately ‘freeing the meditator’s mind of the unhealthy mix’. Speaking spiritually, the stories also indicate genuinely that the purpose of meditation is not only to stabilise on the healthy side, embodying confidence, buoyancy and the like, but also to struggle to allow ‘the infusion of Being into the nature of the mind, and to make It permanent there’.

On the whole, The Science of Meditation ... is quite a well-intended book. It contains wonderfully researched 14 chapters. The writing of each chapter is excellent, clear, and lively. First four chapters, The Deep Path and the Wide, Ancient Clues, The After is the Before for the Next During, and The Best We Had, focus on the contemporary psychology of ‘beneficial changes from meditation and the ancient working models for achieving them’. The most interesting chapters that are quite captivating, gripping and challenging as well are A Mind Undisturbed, Attention, Mind, Body and Genome, A Yogi’s Brain, and Meditation as Psychotherapy. These chapters teach us how long-term meditation can lead to ‘profitable’ structural changes in the brain. The writers show here how they use neuroscience technology to detect minute brain currents and to identify the specific brain waves that correlate with particular conscious meditation experiences. 

The concluding chapters Hidden Treasure, Altering Traits, and A Healthy Mind, tell us, in a convincing and acutely fine prose, that contemplative neuroscience, which is today the emerging specialty that supplies the science behind meditation and altered traits, offers means and fresh possibilities — particularly ‘when we look at it through the Eastern lens’— to transform a person’s inner being.

Despite the appearance of mystery in meditation practice, the best hope of disentangling this knot will come from a neuro-scientific approach that combines testable theories and ‘well-designed experiments. This book is, in a profound sense, dedicated to this end. In short, The Science of Meditation is not only moving, and philosophically resonating but also a powerful exhortation to live ‘a more compassionate and meaningful life’. Entertaining and poignant, this book will enthusiastically reach out to scientists, religionists and general readers and swiftly draw them close.