It is really interesting to see the "Western" approach to meditation.
I grew up in a Buddhist community and have sat week long meditation retreats without anyone quantifying results.
It is interesting that Westerners have to be scientifically convinced that meditation will have a quantifiable outcome for it to be a helpful practice. It's like we know that eating fresh vegetables is good for us, but only when it is proven to us are we convinced that we should go ahead and eat fresh.
And what's even more scary is many people's desire to "extract the active components" and turn them into pills/supplements/apps right away.
[Copy-pasting my previous comment:]
Sleep helps replinsh brain cells - let's make a pill that does just that so we don't need to sleep as much! Vegitables are good for you - let's have a pill that has all their nutrients so we don't need to eat them! Exercise betters the mood - let's isolate those chemicals so we don't need to exercise! Being barefoot is good for you - let's all buy "barefoot shoes"!
I really don't get it. Why are people so averse to natural ways and ofetn simple moderation. I did not grow up in North America, so maybe it's just a cultural difference.
right on! it's like, we totally know that healing energy crystals benefit everyone, why do you have to come in here with your silly ideas about "reproducibility" and "cost benefit analyses"?
Catholic prayer meditation has been around for many centuries. By "western approach" I think you just mean the secular TED crowd yuppies. They could just as well go to very old Christian monastery retreats, but Christianity makes them uncomfortable.
>> It's like we know that eating fresh vegetables is good for us, but only when it is proven to us are we convinced that we should go ahead and eat fresh.
How exactly do you think we came to know that eating fresh vegetables is good for us? The answer is science.
I mean, sure, humans have preferred fresh vegetables over non-fresh ones for ages, but that's because fresh looks, smells and tastes better than non-fresh.
1) Can it be wiser often to rely on ‘fresh looks’ instead of science in our choices? Using scientific findings to make the right choice requires access to these findings, ability to interpret them properly, and certain time investment. Most people can't do that, especially considering that we face a lot of choices.
2) With practices such as meditation, there are no ‘fresh looks’ to judge it by, and scientific knowledge on the matter related to our mind and consciousness seems to be limited. How do I rationally decide whether or not should I meditate?
his articles seem to be submitted in waves. Whenever he writes on some relevant topic there's always a big resurgence of interest in his site. Not that I'm complaining!
Interesting to see such an amount of work done but it fails to take into account that a single month of meditation is not nearly enough to even begin to properly feel the beneficial effects it can have.
In some areas, simply feeling might also still be a better choice than quantifying.
Interesting analysis but I think the last sentence sums up my sentiments: "Even if all the other issues could be dealt with and mindfulness meditation did improve arithmetic, what is it a valid proxy for?"
Improved arithmetic is a side effect. I doubt there is any way to meaningfully quantify the beneficial effects of mindfulness meditation. Any long-term practitioner would be able to tell you that.
Hmm. Tell Alan Wallace, the Shamatha Project, and the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain! There's a lot of interesting variables and correlations to study in relation to meditation.
My Zen teacher talked about some Shamatha Project study that found sustained concentration meditation to decrease neuroticism and increase conscientiousness. Anecdotally, he confirmed that this is what he has seen as a meditation teacher.
I find it really weird to measure the efficacy of meditation by arithmetic puzzles, though. Is anyone claiming meditation makes you better at math? That doesn't seem like a big area of interest to me.
I grew up in a Buddhist community and have sat week long meditation retreats without anyone quantifying results.
It is interesting that Westerners have to be scientifically convinced that meditation will have a quantifiable outcome for it to be a helpful practice. It's like we know that eating fresh vegetables is good for us, but only when it is proven to us are we convinced that we should go ahead and eat fresh.