| LawsonE 2006-04-29, 11:23 am |
| [alt.yoga, alt.meditation.transcendental, sci.skpetic, sci.med added to mix]
"NYC XYZ" <jack_foreigner@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1146224732.964635.294780@y43g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> Um...um...um....
>
>
> http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2006/04/28
>
>
>
> "Please Explain: Meditation
>
> "This week's Please Explain is all about meditation. We'll talk to
> Dr. Kevin Ochsner from Columbia University, and Alan Wallace, a
> Buddhist scholar with a PhD. in Religious Studies from Stanford, about
> the ways people meditate and the effects it has on the brain and body. "
>
I listened to the show. I was VERY disappointed. The participants (was a Dr.
Moore, not a Dr. Ochsner, BTW), were not at all familiar with meditation
research in general, and were locked into a Buddhist meditative perspective.
Ironically, Dr. Moore pooh-poohed research on Transcendental Meditation by
implying that it was guided by the beliefs of the researchers, while
constantly implying strongly that the "real" meditation research was
verifying what we already know about how the brain works (so much for
scientific impartiality and open-mindedness). The example he gave was how
meditation was using what neuroscientists had already found about how one
uses plasticity in brain: train one to have a specific intent and the brain
will consistently change.
As everyone who learns TM knows, there little-to-no intent involved in TM,
likewise with Zen. According to TM theory, at least, the most dramatic and
consistent changes in global brainwave patterns take place during meditation
in the long-term BECAUSE there is no intent or control and in fact, there
are radically different EEG patterns found in the various Buddhist
meditators that Dr. Moore and company have studied compared to those found
both during and outside TM practice.
I got the distinct impression that neither individual was familiar with
research that they hadn't done themselves, nor with researchers whom they
hadn't worked with personally. This is a rather sad state of affairs for
people being presented as "experts in the field."
At least the TM researchers are upfront about their own agenda, and DO
perform research in association with researchers who study and practice
other forms of meditation.
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