Does meditation change your brain?
People with great compassion for others deserve admiration and respect. Responding to others’ pain, misery, or even ill-will through simple intentions of benevolence… this is more powerful than the thugery or posing of those generally desiring control.
The Dalai Lama, for example, maintains his compassion despite the Chinese government’s repressive response to peaceful demonstrations in his Tibetan homeland. The Buddhist leader can be considered an expert meditator, so why doesn’t he threaten the PRC with the razor-sharp intentions of his focused mind?
The Dalai Lama must have a generous heart, but the answer to his benevolence may rest inside his cranium.
A study published March 26 in the journal PLoS ONE shows that, like the Dalai Lama, we can learn to become more compassionate through mindfulness.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison research team placed 32 subjects, experienced or new to meditation, under a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and exposed them to sounds that evoke empathy. Sounds included a baby laughing, a woman crying, ambient noise in a restaurant.
The researchers discovered significant activity in the insula, the frontal portion of the brain that maps emotional response. In effect, people who meditate cultivate tendencies that are empathic and altruistic.
The study was part of an effort to investigate reflection, self-control, generosity, and other-oriented behaviors typical of mindfulness practitioners.
Neuroscientists have begun searching for clues that link meditation with improved cognitive function and immune response as well as with stress reduction. Mindfulness is also being investigated as a treatment option for disorders, such as ADHD and depression.
Harvard researcher Sara Lazar led a study that found mindfulness practitioners had thicker gray matter in the frontal portion of the brain responsible for attention and sensory processing. UMass Medical School researcher Jon Kabat-Zinn has documented meditation’s positive effects on patients with chronic pain and stress related disorders.
Mindfulness practitioners have claimed since Buddha that loving-kindness can be developed through the practice of meditation. Not only does being present and focusing on the breath have beneficial effects on the physiology of the brain. Now, science is proving that the 2,500-year-old practice can help us learn to be kinder.
