I meditate. If forced at gunpoint to pick a religion I would say "Zen Buddhist." It's all about the meditation, really. As I see it, the Buddhist part of Zen Buddhism is mostly window dressing. Something to entice you into sitting still for periods of time, bringing your body and mind to a state of greater tranquility. That state of greater tranquility may bring insights, but I refrain from dressing them up in supernatural terminology. I remain skeptical and scientifically-oriented.
And so I welcome research such as this item found at ScienceDaily: Demystifying Meditation: Brain Imaging Illustrates How Meditation Reduces Pain.
The study method:
For the study, 15 healthy volunteers who had never meditated attended four, 20-minute classes to learn a meditation technique known as focused attention. Focused attention is a form of mindfulness meditation where people are taught to attend to the breath and let go of distracting thoughts and emotions.
Nothing supernatural about that. Though I must say that 15 subjects is paltry if not pathetic. And where's the control group?
The results:
"We found a big effect -- about a 40 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 57 percent reduction in pain unpleasantness. Meditation produced a greater reduction in pain than even morphine or other pain-relieving drugs, which typically reduce pain ratings by about 25 percent."
While the above is not surprising to me, I welcome the news. For I realize that my own experience is not a reliable guide to truth. Self-deception comes waaaay to easily. And so I turn to science, not some so-called holy dude, for a reality-check.
Tags: meditation, perception, religion
May 27th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Self-deception does come way too easily for all of us. But you didn’t decide to try mediation only after reading several scientific studies, did you? And certainly, 99% of meditators in the world did not decide that way. None of the “turned to science” first — they were inspired by something they read or someone they heard. And I doubt those sources were quoting studies.
The studies help us to see if we can gather evidence to support what we have found useful and to explore, if useful, why they are useful. The science is an exploration.
Let’s say this study did not show a decrease in pain. Would you have kept meditating?
Curious, have you sat with any groups or do you only sit on your own?
May 27th, 2011 at 10:22 am
@ Sabio – No, science didn’t lead me to Zen (Buddhism) and meditation. What I call “window-dressing” did. All sorts of reasons. As with many if not most psychological phenomena, there are reasons, plural, for a given thought, feeling, behavior. Although we do love to simplify.
I now practice shikantaza at home (just a short-cut term, nothing woo-woo about it, for me) — a term you are likely familiar with. Just sitting.
In the distant past (roughly two and a half decades ago) I did sit/meditate with a number of groups. Even went on retreats. Once to a monastery of the Rinzai sort.
As for the pain study, if the only benefit I found in meditation was a perceived reduction in pain, I would certainly think twice about the endeavor if scientific evidence clearly revealed I was fooling myself.
Good points. Good questions. Thanks for commenting!