Salon profiles B. Alan Wallace

In "Buddha on the brain", Salon profiles B. Alan Wallace, the author of "Contemplative Science":

The debate between science and religion typically gets stuck on the thorny question of God's existence. How do you reconcile an all-powerful God with the mechanistic slog of evolution? Can a rationalist do anything but sneer at the Bible's miracles? But what if another religion — a non-theistic one — offered a way out of this impasse? That's the promise that some people hold out for in Buddhism. [...]

B. Alan Wallace may be the American Buddhist most committed to finding connections between Buddhism and science. An ex-Buddhist monk who went on to get a doctorate in religious studies at Stanford, he once studied under the Dalai Lama, and has acted as one of the Tibetan leader's translators. Wallace, now president of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies, has written and edited many books, often challenging the conventions of modern science. [...]

In his new book, "Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge," Wallace takes on the loaded subject of consciousness. He argues that the long tradition of Buddhist meditation, with its rigorous investigation of the mind, has in effect pioneered a science of consciousness, and that it has much to teach Western scientists. [...]

I have a long list of books on the theme of "Buddhism and Science". Someday I will actually get around to reading them — and when I do, I will post my reviews here.

For now, however, my list has just increased by one.

南無阿彌陀佛

Meditation a popular way to improve health

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch comes a story about how meditation is catching on among people who want to focus their minds and improve their health:

Meditation, the practice of controlling your focus to feel better, has been a mystic art since before recorded history. Every culture in the world has practiced some form of meditation and still does.

But in the past 40 years, meditation has inched its way into Western mainstream health care, and for good reason.

Research shows that it counteracts chronic stress, a condition many scientists believe underlies most illnesses. Federally supported studies are looking into meditation as a means to improve heart health, relieve symptoms of diseases and improve the brain's long- and short-term health. [...]

The article focuses primarily on the mental and physical effects of meditation, while ignoring its spiritual or religious aspects, which is understandable given the audience. However, in the Buddhist tradition, one of the foundations of meditative training is morality, from which it cannot be separated. Buddhist teachings maintain that one does not get the full benefit of meditation without also engaging in moral training, such as upholding a set of precepts.

The article describes meditation as "the practice of controlling your focus to feel better", which is certainly not the goal of meditation in Buddhism at all, although it is one of its universally recognized side-effects.

The most telling research comes from the Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior in Wisconsin. A team led by neuroscientist Richard Davidson performed brain scans on a master meditator and found that his brain activity surpassed that of a professional athlete during intense competition.

While scientists still don't know exactly how meditation works, the research shows that it does work and can change the brain for the better.

For one thing, meditation appears to generate a biochemical anti-stress reaction that counteracts the biochemical stress reaction.

During meditation, the body produces nitric oxide, the chemical used by pharmaceutical companies to lower blood pressure. (That's not to be confused with nitrous oxide, which dentists use as an anesthetic or revelers use to liven up parties.) Nitric oxide lowers blood pressure by dilating blood vessels to take pressure off the heart.

"That's been shown... that when you meditate, or do yoga or tai chi or other methods, they actually reduce the blood pressure," says Jeffrey Dusek, a psychobiologist who teaches at Harvard Medical School and an associate research director at the Mind/Body Institute in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

It would be great if Buddhist meditative practice can be distilled into a secular form that helps a large number of people. But meditation is by its very nature introspective, so I'm skeptical that it can be turned into something like a dieting plan that a doctor can prescribe for a patient.

南無阿彌陀佛