Buddha on the Brain

[Semper Fidelis]

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.02/dalai_pr.html

Lutz asked Ricard to meditate on "unconditional loving-kindness and compassion." He immediately noticed powerful gamma activity - brain waves oscillating at roughly 40 cycles per second - indicating intensely focused thought. Gamma waves are usually weak and difficult to see. Those emanating from Ricard were easily visible, even in the raw EEG output. Moreover, oscillations from various parts of the cortex were synchronized - a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in patients under anesthesia.

The researchers had never seen anything like it. Worried that something might be wrong with their equipment or methods, they brought in more monks, as well as a control group of college students inexperienced in meditation. The monks produced gamma waves that were 30 times as strong as the students'. In addition, larger areas of the meditators' brains were active, particularly in the left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for positive emotions.

A few days before the Dalai Lama addressed the Society for Neuroscience, he stood before a similarly eminent crowd at the Mind & Life Institute's 13th annual meeting. The audience of 2,500 consisted mostly of scientists and clinicians, yet the mood was more dharma than Darwin. Sessions opened to the guttural chants of Tibetan liturgical music. Everyone stood and bowed when His Holiness entered the room.

During one presentation, Duke University professor of medicine Ralph Snyderman paused to tell His Holiness, "This is one of the most wonderful moments of my life, being here with you." It was a touching gesture. It also crystallized the dilemma. Scientists can try to test the validity of the Dalai Lama's first-person perspective. But if they allow reverence for him to cloud their judgment, they will cease to be scientists and take rebirth as something quite different: acolytes.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

Interesting, Rich. Thanks.

My thoughts---
The exerpts tell me this:

1) Meditation is a mental exercise.
And...?
Why is getting serious brain-wave activity amazing? "Oh, it was 30X normal! We never expected that! WOW! Isn't that miraculous?" You know what? There are thousands and thousands of people who are over 30X as physically strong as I am. That's not news. That's not miraculous.

These monks are "mental body-builders," or maybe more accurately "mental bicep-builders." They work on an exercise like those people who go to the gym and sit at one station working on their pipes. Reps, reps, reps. Meditation is a major discipline in that belief system. But in our faith, though it is commended in Scripture, and we ought to do more of it (it is a neglected discipline), meditation is not the central one.

We also have a "priesthood of believers"--our religion is based in the "general population and lived out in the world, not in a cloister. That is, unless we are mystics ourselves, or belong to churches that have a professional religious caste--priests who do the "mystic stuff" for us. Therefore, for that reason also we are going to find fewer people who are "bulked up" in meditation.

Control group? A bunch of "college students inexperienced in meditation." They did not need a control group to establish "baseline normal". No. They already had that. They wanted people to "try meditation" and measure that. So, if I go to the gym and they ask me to lift my max, to compare it to a "regular", he's going to do maybe 30X more than me. Why are these examiners in awe of the Dali? Because they have a "strong delusion" maybe?

I have a better suggestion. How about a control group of experienced meditators from other "faiths".

2) Second thing, this is like the "scientific studies" on the effectiveness of prayer. The empericits and religious naturalists are trying to "measure" religion, to quantify its effects. In other words, they are trying to exert mastery over it! They want Dominion.

They a) don't know what they are messing with, mainly because they don't even comprehend the "spiritual" realm or the power that is resident there--including the EVIL One; and b) being ignorant and restrained by their pre-interpretive grid, they are easily awed--they are suceptible to elementary rationalist tricks, because they are mainly empericists.

I have bad news for them: they are just as gullible as the "primitives" they pity (or mock) who live in awe of their "medicine men". Hence, their willingness to sit down and "experience" a worship service in a temple.


Here's the difference for them, in relation to the Christian faith. They walk into a Christian church and try to experience the like thing, its a crapsshoot. They may try a megachurch, a regular church, a small country-church, or a whole bunch. They will sample the "experience" of different denominations. They may even "feel" something on occasion.

But on the rare time they come into a true church, they may feel nothing at all, being hardened to the gospel. Even if the believers there "experence" God's presence in power, they may not. The words, "God is surely present with you!" may never escape their lips involuntarily. Experience of the presence of the Lord is not a matter of human will, but of divine will.

And even if they do meet God there, by his allowance, to what effect? Will the experience terrify them, and drive them further from God? Or will it draw them ultimately to faith in God? That too is in God's hands. But the bottom line is: they will never capture the real thing on a spectrograph, camera, EEG machine, ouija board, X-ray machine, CT scanner, data tables, interviews, or "dream-catchers."

The fact that they are investigating spirituality this way is just more proof that Paul (and Isaiah, etc.) were right about man's religious propensities, and The Preacher's observation that "there is nothing new under the sun." Human nature hasn't changed in (at least) 6000 years of recorded human history (not long enough to "prove" evolution wrong, but definitely in line with the Bible's testimony and uniform experience concerning the fixity of species ).

 

[VictorBravo]

I agree with Bruce.

This joins the Turkish quadra-ped article and others I've seen lately to confirm what I've heard Jacob Aitken say: "sin makes you stupid."

It is a marvel how so many scientists are willing to set aside their hard-won skepticsm when they see a chance at gnosticsm. I think science's roots in alchemy are still showing. (And I used to work as a scientist).

Vic

 

[Semper Fidelis]

Exactly.

Have you guys ever read or heard the great debate between Bahnsen and Stein?

Stein says something I've heard a lot of Atheists say (and even the Wired article is sympathetic to):

Well, Dr. Bahnsen has criticized Hinduism. I would make the case that Hinduism is no more irrational than Christianity is. Nor do I think that it is any more irrational than Islam is. Nor is it any more irrational than almost any other religion that you wanna name. With one exception; I´d say Buddhism is more rational than either Christianity or Hinduism. That doesn´t mean that I accept Buddhism either, but I just think it´s more rational. At least it makes some psychological sense, if nothing else.

Buddhism is so cuddly to them.

[singsongy voice]MORONS.....[/singsongy voice]

[Edited on 3-8-2006 by SemperFideles]

 

[faydawg67117]

My wife's father is heavily into buddism and kung fu. He can do some things that would freak these people out. He made my wife taste something that she did not put in her mouth; he also took head aches away from her and would wake up with spliting headaches himself the next day (basically transfering the head ache from her to him). Pretty scary considering these powers do not come from God and this is my father in law! (Please pray for him.) Buddism basically destroyed my wife's family; she hates it. My father inlaw stopped working and spending time with his family and would be at the temple instead. When I became a Christian my wife did not like it at all because she equated all religion with buddism. And because buddism was evil then Christianity (in her oppinion) must be also. My wife is now a Christian; Praise God!