Saturday, November 29, 2014

Meditation Works.

By Sue McGreevey, MGH Communications

Participating in an eight-week mindfulness meditation program appears to make measurable changes in brain regions associated with memory, sense of self, empathy, and stress. In a study that will appear in the Jan. 30 issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, a team led by Harvard-affiliated researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reported the results of their study, the first to document meditation-produced changes over time in the brain’s gray matter.

“Although the practice of meditation is associated with a sense of peacefulness and physical relaxation, practitioners have long claimed that meditation also provides cognitive and psychological benefits that persist throughout the day,” says study senior author Sara Lazar of the MGH Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research Program and a Harvard Medical School instructor in psychology. “This study demonstrates that changes in brain structure may underlie some of these reported improvements and that people are not just feeling better because they are spending time relaxing.”

Previous studies from Lazar’s group and others found structural differences between the brains of experienced meditation practitioners and individuals with no history of meditation, observing thickening of the cerebral cortex in areas associated with attention and emotional integration. But those investigations could not document that those differences were actually produced by meditation.

For the current study, magnetic resonance (MR) images were taken of the brain structure of 16 study participants two weeks before and after they took part in the eight-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at the University of Massachusetts Center for Mindfulness. In addition to weekly meetings that included practice of mindfulness meditation — which focuses on nonjudgmental awareness of sensations, feelings, and state of mind — participants received audio recordings for guided meditation practice and were asked to keep track of how much time they practiced each day. A set of MR brain images was also taken of a control group of nonmeditators over a similar time interval.

Meditation group participants reported spending an average of 27 minutes each day practicing mindfulness exercises, and their responses to a mindfulness questionnaire indicated significant improvements compared with pre-participation responses. The analysis of MR images, which focused on areas where meditation-associated differences were seen in earlier studies, found increased gray-matter density in the hippocampus, known to be important for learning and memory, and in structures associated with self-awareness, compassion, and introspection.

Participant-reported reductions in stress also were correlated with decreased gray-matter density in the amygdala, which is known to play an important role in anxiety and stress. Although no change was seen in a self-awareness-associated structure called the insula, which had been identified in earlier studies, the authors suggest that longer-term meditation practice might be needed to produce changes in that area. None of these changes were seen in the control group, indicating that they had not resulted merely from the passage of time.

“It is fascinating to see the brain’s plasticity and that, by practicing meditation, we can play an active role in changing the brain and can increase our well-being and quality of life,” says Britta Hölzel, first author of the paper and a research fellow at MGH and Giessen University in Germany. “Other studies in different patient populations have shown that meditation can make significant improvements in a variety of symptoms, and we are now investigating the underlying mechanisms in the brain that facilitate this change.”

Amishi Jha, a University of Miami neuroscientist who investigates mindfulness-training’s effects on individuals in high-stress situations, says, “These results shed light on the mechanisms of action of mindfulness-based training. They demonstrate that the first-person experience of stress can not only be reduced with an eight-week mindfulness training program but that this experiential change corresponds with structural changes in the amygdala, a finding that opens doors to many possibilities for further research on MBSR’s potential to protect against stress-related disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.” Jha was not one of the study investigators.

Monday, November 17, 2014

the meaning of life.


a few weeks ago, i admitted that i don't know the meaning of life. it was tough, but i have to sleep with myself. no, not like that. we're just friends. however, i also suggested one should be sceptical about anyone professing to have answers to those really big questions like 'what is the meaning of life? where do we go after death? why heavy snow in mid november during global warming?' these are questions i doubt anyone can honestly answer from direct personal experience. at the same time, i appreciate great people who answer in the affirmative. how is that not completely contradictory? well, in fact it is. only, the pivotol phrase is 'great people' and i didn't say i would necessarily believe or understand them.

the poet rumi allegedly wrote: 'death has nothing to do with going away. the sun sets. the moon sets. but they are not gone.' i love that. i don't necessarily understand it, but he was apparently a great man and i love it. arthur schopenhauer once said, with tremendous authority: "after your death you will be what you were before your birth." wonderful. who knew? to me, that comment is ludicrous, really. it's like saying: "after you take a bath you will be as clean as you were before you got dirty."

on april 1, 1991, the dalai lama visited santa fe, new mexico, to visit a small group of tibetan exiles. while there, he wanted to see a ski hill and went to a resort in the sangre de cristo mountain range.during a meal, a young waitress with tangled, dirty-blond hair and a beaded headband began clearing the table. she stopped her work to ask the dalai lama: “can i, um, ask a question?” “please,” he said. she spoke with complete seriousness: “what is the meaning of life?” apparently there was a brief silence at the table.

then the dalai lama answered: “the meaning of life is happiness.” he raised his finger, leaning forward, focusing on her as if she were the only person in the world. “hard question is not, ‘what is meaning of life?’ that is easy question to answer! no, hard question is what make happiness, money? big house? accomplishment? or …” he paused. “compassion and good heart? this is question all human beings must try to answer: what make true happiness?” he gave this last question a peculiar emphasis, as the story goes, and then fell silent, gazing at her with a smile.

“thank you,” the girl said, “thank you.” she got up and finished stacking the dirty dishes and cups, and took them away.




Wednesday, November 12, 2014

when we take off our bodies.


"clothes make the man. naked people have little or no influence on society." mark twain.

for a couple of years, i had been holding regular wednesday evening meditation sessions in ottawa. the number of participants dwindled over time and so i began to wonder if it was worth my driving in from wakefield every week.

when i mentioned that to the loyal attendees one wednesday evening, there was a gratifying expression of disappointment. i would be exaggerating if i said they were weeping, pounding their chests or gnashing their teeth. but, they were not pleased and one lady in particular was quite demonstrative. i liked that, until she began to blame me personally for the poor attendance. of course, it was a reasonable assumption, her main criticism being that i did not present myself properly. i did not act or even look like a guru. i could hardly argue the point, as i sat there wearing a 'wakefield general-store' cap, khaki pants, a checkered flannel shirt and a pair of 'tigre geant' checkered under-shorts. i don't think anyone ever saw my underwear, but you get my point.

i decided to dress up for the part, just as a joke really. for the next wednesday's session, i put on my long flowing white kurta, lungi and drove into town. as always, i stopped for dinner at the 'perfection-satisfaction-promise' vegetarian restaurant on laurier street before the class. i loved the place and still do. one feels that the food is always prepared with devotion, the music and ambience is peaceful. i had been going there virtually unnoticed for years. we know each other now, but the lovely, kind ladies there never paid me the slightest attention up until then. why should they? on that occasion, however, they saluted me reverentially with folded hands, bowed heads. i felt like pointing out that i was the same jerk who had been going there for like ever.

the fact is, the world works a lot like that. i guess my shirt got pretty dirty when i pumped gas at ryan's garage. i was expected to be nicely suited and booted when i was a high-end jewellery salesman on sparks street. i recall a client of mine saying, after handing over his rolex for servicing, that he felt naked every time he took his watch off. he asked if i knew how he felt and i responded by saying: "sure. i feel like that every time i take my clothes off." my employer, standing nearby, rolled his eyes and walked away.

lord krishna tended the cows. the great poet kabir was a weaver by profession. wasn't there a great sage who was a shepherd or a carpenter? what was his name? nelson mandela was a lawyer. johnny cash picked cotton and jay z was a drug dealer. i have no doubt they all dressed the part. viktoria beckham dressed up as a sperm on roller-skates in a bbc sex education show. there was a great sixteenth century sufi saint by the name of sarmad who refused to wear anything at all. contrary to mark twain's assertion, sarmad actually had a tremendous influence on indian society in his day. even while being threatened with a beheading, he steadfastly refused to swear allegiance to any one god. he insisted that god resides in every living being. he did, by the way, lose his head.

i am not the gas jockey in the dirty shirt. i'm not the jerk who wore the flowing white kurta and lungi. i am not the gentleman in the suit. i'm not even the guy in the flannel shirt. in fact, threatened with a beheading i'd dress up as a ballerina if that would save me. clothes, in fact, do not make the person any more than the color of ones skin. what makes the person, according to the great saints and sages throughout all time, is what's in ones head and heart.











   

Saturday, November 1, 2014

some images stay with you.

as the years passed, sleeping in my parents' apartment on my visits became a tremendous challenge. my mom slept in the large master bedroom on one side while my dad was delegated to the den on the other. it wasn't because he snored. it was because she snored. i never heard anything quite like it before or since. i had to sleep on the sofa in the living room, between the two rooms. you might say i was stuck between a rock and a hard place. suffice it to say, the general atmosphere was oppressive.

i vividly recall one winter visit specifically, for two reasons. firstly, i had pulled a chest muscle trying to do too many push-ups earlier in the day on their cold balcony. so i was even more uncomfortable than usual that night. secondly, while i tried to get some sleep, my mom woke up and wandered out into the living room looking for her cigarettes, buck naked. i also remember that occassion because of what happened later.

i tried to sleep, but eventually i just sat up and began to meditate. my head was throbbing and my chest hurt. i kept envisioning my old mom naked. i kept thinking of home. nevertheless, a great meditator observes whatever's happening without trying to cling onto the pleasant or get away from the unpleasant. a great meditator practices equanimity, being the watcher, the uninvolved observer. after a few minutes of that, however, i basically said "xxxx this bs", got dressed and went for a walk.

i walked for quite a while along icy sidewalks until i found myself in front of the 'north toronto general hospital'. seeing the lights and activity, and thinking it might be nice to sit down somewhere warm for a few minutes, i decided to go in. i was immediately escorted to a counter where a tired-looking woman asked me a few questions. when i produced my quebec health card she frowned. however, when she asked me what the problem was, for lack of anything else to report i said i was having chest pains and that changed everything. i had no idea what effect that would have on her. within moments, while a large room full of patients patiently waited, i was whisked through to an inner area, slapped onto a gurney, electrodes attached to my chest, a needle stuck in my arm and i was wheeled into a curtained-off cubicle. i had just wanted to sit down.

a nurse came in and told me that i would need to stay there for at least a couple of hours. i totally wasn't expecting that scenario, but i could hardly explain how i was simply out walking the streets because i couldn't get the image of my naked mother out of my head. so i settled back and decided to make the best of it. soon, i drifted off into what would become a wonderful sleep/meditation. a nurse would come once in a while and we would smile at each other. i heard somebody crying nearby at one point and i felt tremendous empathy, but it wasn't a terrible feeling. in fact, i felt at home and spectacularly comfortable.

as the morning approached, a doctor came in, announced that i was fine and that i could go. i was almost sorry to leave. however, walking into daylight, i appreciated the feeling of the cold air on my face, glad to have good health. and when i arrived in front of my parents' apartment door, i took a deep breath, prayed that there would be enough oxygen to go around, and then i entered. just a little later on, sitting around the breakfast table, mom asked how my night had been and i told her it had been really very nice. that seemed to make her happy.