Choose a topic from Tuesday's readings that you were particularly interested in. Your job is to do some more indepth research on that topic. That may mean looking up some of the original research cited in the chapter and finding and reading the original research article. It also could mean searching the internet for other content and information out there on this topic (ranging from videos, news releases, summaries of research findings, others' blog posts, etc).
One you have completed your search and explorations I would like you to clearly state what your topic is, discuss how it relates to the readings, and thoroughly discuss what you learned about this topic from your additional resources.
It is possible to do this assignment with one source (an original research article). I encourage you to use this approach for at least half of these types of assignments. The other method, is to find suitable internet content that helps you learn more about your topic. If you choose this method, I'd like you to provide 3 sources of information (in the form of internet links). Do not be tempted to just discuss each of the links separately. You must synthesize the information, and discuss the topic as a whole.
At the bottom of your post, please include several key terms that reflect your topic, as well as your sources (either the citation for the 1 research article, and link if it is available on line, or 3 links to the internet content you discussed).
Please be prepared to discuss your topic, as a portion of each in-class day will be devoted to hearing from all of you about what you learned.
The study I read for today’s assignment was cited in the chapter when referring to the brain’s involvement in self-transcendence. The researchers in this article refer to self-transcendence (ST) as a supposedly stable personality dimension, as assessed by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). “ST reflects the enduring tendency to transcend contingent sensorimotor representations and to identify the self as an integral part of the universe as a whole.” They identify the key aspect of ST to be identifying with the self as a part of the whole that is the universe, much the same way the goal of Dzogchen (being the main practice discussed in the chapter and presumably the book) is to reduce dualist thinking. Due to previous correlational studies, this study set out to determine whether or not selective damage to frontal and temporoparietal areas would decrease and increase ST. The researchers tested 88 patients with either high-grade glioma (HgG), low-grade glioma (LgG), recurrent gliomas or brain meningiomas. Within each patient group, half of the patients had legions in the occipitotemporoparietal cortex, and the other half had lesions in the frontotemporal cortex.
They found significant changes in the ST trait of patients following surgery. They found a significant increase in ST after removal of tumors affecting the posterior brain areas (in the occipitotemporoparietal cortex). The effects were observed shortly after the ablations, suggesting that the involved structures play a specific role, as opposed to observing a slow adaptation process. The changes after the surgery equally involved the three subscales of ST, which describe different aspects of transcendental self-awareness, namely subjective experience of spatiotemporal dimensions, individual worldview, and acceptance of spiritual phenomena. Those who score high on one subscale generally score high on the other two as well, which suggests that the findings of consistent increases across the subscales may provide neurophysiological support to the structure of the ST scale in the TCI model, and of the validity of ST as a consistent personality trait. I thought this was a very interesting study, and actually reminded me of the Ramachandran study involving the God module and micro-seizures of the temporal lobe. I think it is interesting that researchers can now find, and actually objectively measure things involving spiritual practice. It proves that the experiences felt by the devout religious or the noble monk are certainly real experiences, but doesn’t show anything more than that. I enjoy science providing answers to some questions while still leaving space for wonder and inquisition.
Urgesi, C., Aglioti, S.M., Skrap, M., and Fabbro, F. (2010). The spiritual brain: selective cortical lesions modulate human self-transcendence. Neuron 65, 309-319.
Although there is a growing number of research articles related to the topic of mindfulness, and meditation; there could be problems with the validity of this research. Many of these research articles are not complete in their description of what form of meditation they are using, and what thoughts the subjects are focusing on. Within the field of meditation there are three different major traditions of mediation, each with a different distinction on how to achieve mindfulness. These different schools are; (1)Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia, (2) Mahayana schools in China, Vietnam, and Japan, and (3) Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. On top of that there is the western psychology form of meditation known as mindfulness-based stress deduction (MSBR). MSBR differs slightly from the three schools in that it is not associated with a religion, and is uses mindfulness to force someone to pay attention to what is causing their stress. “MBSR describes mindfulness as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment”(pg 152).” Within each school of meditation there is another classification that can be made, focused meditation or open meditation. Focused meditation (FM) is focusing on a particular topic for the duration of your meditation, open meditation (OM) is allowing your thoughts to flow. Understanding, and stating all of these categories in research will allow the results to be validated in future research. While all schools share the same basic ideas (“the ultimate source of suffering is an uncontrolled mind guided by anger, attachment, and ignorance”), the difference between schools, FM, OM, and MSBR can produce activation in different brain regions. It has also been suggested that the mindfulness of MSBR does not entirely capture that of the three schools, the westernized idea has been seen as a bottom-up method instead of top-down. Future research should control for the type of meditation through a systemic approach, applying distinctions between schools and MSBR, and should include all types of mindful meditation practices. “Buddhist schools, [a]nd practices which may look [the] same on the surface, can be associated with phenomenologically distinct states, and likely, different cognitive and neural correlates.” These dissection are fundamental to research because it plays a more important role than previously assumed. Rigor and clarity when producing future research into meditation and mindfulness are essential for the complete validity and understanding.
I believe that this is an interesting look into the research that has been conducted on meditation, and it forces me to question some of the neuroscience behind the findings of some studies I have read. I find it interesting that the different forms of mediation can differ within the processes of the brain. However, I do have skepticism regarding this article because there is no direct proof that these different schools can produce different neurological differences. It is understandable that a distinction between FM and OM meditation could be visible in fMRI. While I do have my reservations being transparent during research has few downfalls; the study will not experience different results if the type of meditation were disclosed.
Dorjee, Dusana. (2010) Kinds and dimensions of mindfulness: why it is important to distinguish them. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. 1, 152-160. doi: 10.1007/s12671-010-0016-3
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/325/art%253A10.1007%252Fs12671-010-0016-3.pdf?auth66=1393643744_46c2e189a87ffe2709287c3f35d86c46&ext=.pdf
Terms: Buddhist Schools (Theravada Buddhism, Mahayana schools, Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism), Focused meditation (FM), Open meditation (OM), mindfulness-based stress deduction (MSBR)
I wanted to look more into the concepts of self-actualization and self-transcendence. I wasn’t able to find any scholarly articles about self-transcendence but I was able to find a pilot study about altruism and empathy, and meditation. This study only had 42 people total participating, but it yielded interesting results. Participations had weekly sessions with researchers where they practiced meditation and also received a CD of the sessions to practice guided meditation as well. Participants were both lectured on facets of meditation in addition to the practice. Participants had their empathy, stress levels, self-compassion, and mindfulness before and after the intervention.
As we have previously discussed, the participants unsurprisingly demonstrated great benefits from meditation. The reported a more positive affect, less perceived stress, self-compassion/self-kindness, etc. The group that meditated also showed an increase in empathy toward others. Researchers hypothesized that this could be do in direct to the meditation or because of the increase in mindfulness that participants experienced. This makes sense based on what the book was discussing. It appears that after meditating regularly for 8 weeks, one would be able to or able to try to reach the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The results also indicated an increase in altruistic thoughts and orientation. This didn’t necessarily correlate to an increase in altruistic actions but may definitely be a step in the right direction.
It is very clear from these results that the first three levels of Dzogchen’s pyramid of mind training are present. Surprisingly, the first level of intention was actually satisfied. Participants were volunteers who responded to fliers about the opportunity to learn more about and practice meditation. The second level, attention, was not explicitly focused on but was satisfied through the basic practice of meditation. The third level, emotional stability, was focused on more intensively. Participants discussed compassion, mindfulness, love, and more. I consider all of the topics covered to fall under the idea of emotional stability or positivity. The last part, change of consciousness, was not particularly explored by researchers.
I wasn’t necessarily surprised that this study supports the pyramid of mind training but I was happy to see research to back up the claims. I’m slightly disappointed that the participants were volunteers as I would have liked to see the first level of the pyramid challenged. However, it was very difficult to find a study like this at all. I was also not surprised but glad to see confirmation of the fact that meditation could increase altruism. I believe that this could be of significant importance when trying to push meditation to schools, companies, etc. Not only will students/employees be happier, but they will act better towards each other and towards you.
Terms: Self-actualization, self-transcendence, altruism, empathy, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, mindfulness, Dzogchen’s pyramid of mind training, intention, attention, emotional stability, change of consciousness
https://webspace.utexas.edu/neffk/pubs/altruism.pdf
For today’s blog, I took a look at one of the articles cited in chapter 2 of Dorjee. During the self-transcendence section, the author cites that self-transcendence serves as a mediator in the development of positive psychological dimensions like optimism and emotional well-being in challenging life situations, specifically looking at cancer diagnosis. Like millions of people on the planet, I have been personally affected by cancer. My grandfather and two of my uncles on my father’s side all passed away from cancer. One of those uncles was my godfather, with whom I was particularly close. My father has also had several bouts of non-malignant carcinomas that he has had surgically removed. Because I am aware of how prominent cancer is and I have personally felt the negative effects, not only physically but psychologically, of cancer diagnoses on both patients and families, I was interested in this article. I wanted to see if meditation, as a gateway to self-transcendence, could be therapeutic for those suffering from diagnoses. The experiment followed 93 women who had been diagnosed with breast cancer and were receiving radiation treatment. They wanted to investigate the relationship between optimism and emotional well-being (EWB), and to see how this relationship was mediated through social support, problem focused coping, and self-transcendence. This study was rather important because previous studies have shown that emotional distress during treatment is associated with increased non-adherence to treatment, poor satisfaction with care, and poor quality of life.
The study operationally defined optimism as the general tendency to believe that good things will happen in the future and the bad things will rarely occur. Many studies have been done of the affect of optimism on EWB during cancer treatment, but this study is different in that it seeks to explain the best method by which optimism is obtained. They looked at optimistic people using social support, problem focused coping strategies, and self-transcendence. They define social support as a multidimensional concept including quantity of social ties, quality of relationships, and perceived and actual availability of support. Problem-focused coping is defined as a coping method in which one defines the problem, generates solutions, and weighs and chooses the best course of action from alternatives. The article then defines self-transcendence as self-transcendence as an expansion of one’s conceptual boundaries inwardly through introspective activities, outwardly through concerns about others’ welfare, and temporally by integrating perceptions of one’s past and future to enhance the present.
The patients were each tested with a series of self-report surveys and questionnaires that measured their positive affect and life orientation levels (which measure optimism), their social support system, their coping styles, their level of self-transcendence, and their level of distress from symptoms of their disease.
In the end, the study found that social support and problem-focused coping did not have a significant effect as a mediator between optimism and EWB. However, self-transcendence was found to have a strong impact on optimism and emotional well-being. The article recommends that it would be important to identify factors that increase self-transcendence in women with breast cancer. I personally think that one method would be the use of meditation. Potentially, women who meditate while receiving cancer treatments may become more optimistic and as a result have a higher emotional well-being and quality of life.
I thought this study was really interesting and it raised a lot of questions for me. Specifically, I wonder how the results would be different if the patients were men instead of women. From learning about gender differences in relationships, I know that women are usually better at coping with emotional distress because of their tendency to seek support. However, because this study separated social support from emotional well-being, differences in the results might not be that extreme. Overall, I really liked this article. I’m glad I got an interesting one again. Last week sucked.
Terms: psychological distress, optimism, emotional well-being, self-transcendence, social support, problem-focused coping
Link to article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152259/pdf/nihms101101.pdf
I didn’t find very much of the chapter interesting but one common theme that came up a lot in this reading as well as other ones this semester was the power of positive thoughts. Something that goes along with positive energy is the law of attraction which I researched for this blog post. Although I began researching the law of attraction, I got a bit carried away with the information of quantum physics the search led me to so I got a bit off topic. First I would like to say that there is no scientific basis to the law of attraction. However, it was interesting enough for me to do more research on and it led me to real scientific proof of other related topics.
The law of attraction states that like attracts like. In other words, by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, you can bring about positive or negative results. Your thoughts and emotions manifest the things that come into your life; what you think about, you bring about. One source I found tried to find support for the law of attraction in phenomena in the brain and pointed to mirror neurons. I previously wrote an exploration blog about mirror neurons so the idea is familiar to me. Mirror neurons are neurons in the brain that fire both when a person is performing an action and when they are watching an action being performed by another. In these situations the person’s thoughts about the idea are making the neurons in the brain fire just as if that person was performing the action himself.
Other sources pointed to quantum physics to back up the law of attraction. This is where I got a bit carried away. In order to explain how it relates to the law of attraction though, I need to present a bit of background information about quantum physics. Scientists in the early 20th century realized that when it comes to the small, nanoscopic particles of the universe, the particles seemed to be controlled by entirely different rules than those that apply to particles that can be seen with the naked eye. A well-known experiment to illustrate quantum mechanics is the double slit experiment which showed nanoscopic particles behave as both particles and waves. Although the experiment was originally conducted using light, it has since been done using other matter such as electrons and atoms and has produced the same results.
In this experiment, scientists shot electrons at a screen containing two slits with a second screen behind the first. Some electrons went through the slits and some were deflected by the screen. It was expected (based on laws of physics that govern the objects visible to the naked eye) that the electrons would behave as particles and line up behind the two slits on the second screen. However, the electrons made a pattern characteristic of a wave; they were scattered across the back screen and did not line up directly behind the two slits. In a wave, this is called an interference pattern and scientists thought it must be occurring from electrons in the beam colliding with other electrons. The scientists then decided to fire electrons one at a time to ensure there was no interference but the same wave pattern occurred. This caused further confusion so the scientists wanted to determine which slit each electron went through. They put electron detectors by the slits and then the electrons started behaving like particles; they hit the back screen in a pattern directly behind the slits, not scattered in a wave pattern. That made the scientist think the detectors may have interfered with the electrons so they ran the experiment again. This time, they left the detectors on but didn’t record data and strangely enough, the electrons went back to behaving like a wave. The electrons behaved differently when they were measured than they did when they were not being watched and when data was not collected.
What happened next is a bit more difficult for me to explain. One physicist came up with the idea that the electron doesn’t exist as physical matter; it is just a probability distribution and the wave pattern is the result of the probability interfering with itself. It has the potential to be a particle, however. Physicists then concluded that the probability distribution becomes a physical particle when consciousness is involved such as when measurements are being taken. Only then is the behavior of the electron determined. In the trial where the electron detectors collected data at the slits, the electrons became physical particles and behaved as such from that point forward. In the trials where the electron behaved as a wave, no measurements were taken and the pattern was only observed when the probability distribution hit the back screen and stopped; no measurement had been taken before then so the electrons weren’t physical, remained as a probability wave, and created an interference wave. Reality, mass, and particles exist only as probability until an observation is made. Because the nature and physical existence of electrons in this experiment depended completely on whether or not conscious activity and data collection was occurring, new ideas about the role of consciousness in the universe were created. To quote Eugene Wigner, one of the founders of quantum physics, “the content of consciousness is the ultimate universal reality”. Essentially, reality is a product of consciousness.
As far as the law of attraction is concerned with quantum mechanics, quantum mechanics seems to support the idea that our conscious observance and thoughts affect what happens in the world at its most basic elements. According to the law of attraction, that means our thoughts have power and can bring the things we think about into our lives. Our thoughts make those things real in our lives just like observing the electrons makes them physical entities and not just theoretical probabilities. One analogy often used is that we are like communication towers in the universe and our thoughts are signals we send out. The signals are received by the universe and the universe sends those things to us. The law of attraction can be used to manifest everything from money to good health to happiness. It has been publicized in hundreds of motivational and self-help books worldwide which illustrate how it can be put into practice in our everyday lives. Three steps are involved in attracting all your desires: ask, believe, and receive. These steps remind me of the Dzogchen levels of the mind and the steps to enlightenment mentioned in this week’s reading. The first step is to ask the universe for what you want and you must be specific. The next step is to believe. You need to have blind faith that what you are asking for will become yours. The final step is to receive. Once you have received what you want it is essential to be thankful for what you have. Feelings and thoughts of love and thankfulness are the easiest way to attract more positive things in your life. Even if you think this is all a load of crap, you can’t say that being thankful for the things in your life that make you happy is a bad thing. I’m not sure if I believe in the law of attraction but it can’t be ignored that many good things happen to happy people, people who set specific goals achieve more, and people with a negative outlook often have more unpleasant things happening in their lives.
Sorry this post is so long. I got a bit carried away and explaining quantum mechanics takes more sentences than I originally expected.
Terms: Dzogchen, four levels of the mind, law of attraction, quantum mechanics, power of positivity, loving kindness
http://healing.about.com/od/lawofattraction/a/whatis_loa.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/srinivasan-pillay/is-there-scientific-evide_b_175189.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW6Mq352f0E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouos2w2N2wI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STF0moww_zQ
The topic I chose was about the relationship between optimism and well-being in accordance to challenging life situations, such as being diagnosed with cancer. In the article (2009), “Relationships among optimism, well-being, self-transcendence, coping, and social support in women during treatment for breast cancer,” 93 women receiving radiation for breast cancer completed questionnaires that measured emotional well-being, optimism, perceived social support, problem focused coping, and self-transcendence. Result showed a correlation between optimism and emotional well-being. Optimism was also related to social support. Optimism and problem focused coping were not related. Conclusions made were that positive effects of optimism on emotional well-being are in part measured by the level on self-transcendence in women. Previous studies have shown that emotional distress during treatment is associated with increased non-adherence to treatment, poor satisfaction with care, and poor quality of life. Overall, self-transcendence was found to have a strong impact on optimism and emotional well-being.
From what I read in Dorjee Chapter 2, I was hoping it would discuss optimism with survivor rates of breast cancer or look at the brain regions between those who are positive versus negative during treatment of breast cancer. Therefore, I looked up other resources. One resource I found was short and sweet. It talked about how research has found that laughter improves the immune system. The immune system is in relation to the growth of cancer cells. A deep laugh produces T-cells, which are cancer-fighting cells, in the bloodstream.
This topic is personal to me like it is to many others. My mother had breast cancer, as did my grandmother, aunt, and great grandma. People sometimes say that diseases, like cancer, seem to skip generations, but I don’t believe that is true whatsoever. Upon diagnosis, I have personally heard the doctors saying that the more optimistic the cancer patient is of their outcome, the more likely they are to achieve remission. I hope they do more studies on this, specifically searching the brain areas and bodily reactions to a healthy emotional well-being and increased self-transcendence and how it helps to fight cancer.
Key terms: optimism, well-being, self-transcendence, coping, social support, T-cells
Matthews, E.E. and Cook, P.F. (2009) ‘Relationships among optimism, well-being, self-transcendence, coping, and social support in women during treatment for breast cancer’, Psycho-Oncology 18: 716 – 726.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIvbOrSjkq4
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3152259/
For this week’s exploration blog I chose to focus on the four dimensions of well-being model explained by Dorjee. These dimensions include conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective. The interesting thing about this academic article was how it described the overlap between psychology and Buddhism. Wallace and Shapiro, the article authors, explain that while Buddhism doesn’t explicitly deal with mental health, it’s well-related to psychology due to its emphasis on well-being. Much of the beginning background was repeated information from the books we’ve read, like how the goal of Buddhism is to free the person from suffering and that in order to do that the person must not be dependent on external or internal stimuli for happiness. After doing much research on the subject of happiness, Myers and Diener have reportedly come to the conclusion that “satisfaction is less a matter of getting what you want than wanting what you have”, which is consistent with Buddhist philosophy.
So, with the study of meditation we understand that there are the people who are dependent on hedonism for happiness and people who are have eudaimonic happiness. Psychology has its own jargon to describe a very similar idea. They separate people into two groups: maximizers and satisficers. Maximizers are people who are always on the look out for something bigger and better. Satisficers have a threshold based on internal values, and once basic needs are met they are satisfied. What’s interesting is that research shows even though the maximizers may have greater quality of life, they are often much unhappier than the satisficers because their expectations lead to anxiety and disappointment.
Another piece of psychology that is becoming more aligned with Buddhism is the plasticity of people’s happiness. It used to be believed that based on temperament and other factors, that a person’s potential for happiness was fairly fixed their entire lives. Now science is finding that meditation increases activity in the left prefrontal cortex, an area responsible for positive emotion, which could point to increased potential for happiness.
The first component of the well-being model is conative balance, which deals with intention and goals. Intention was emphasized in the Dorjee reading this week. Intention can create incentive and motivation. What is stressed is the making of wholesome goals that have positive consequences for the person him/herself and the people in that environment. Like I wrote in the last blog post, unless we make goals that are constructive, the practice of meditation won’t do much good. Two problems can arise in terms of conation. One is a conative deficit, which happens when people buy into the “well, this is as good as it’s going to get” mentality. The second type is conative hyperactivity, which is when people become goal-oriented to an obsessive point and separate from the present. I know that I personally am quite susceptible to this because I enjoy making plans for the future.
The second component of the model is attentional balance. This involves overcoming the hyperactivity and attentional deficit by balancing laxity and excitation for maximum levels of concentration. Mindfulness and met-attention are used to keep this aspect balanced.
The third component was cognitive balance. This aspect was one of my favorite ones to read about. It involves experiencing and processing the world without distorting or biassing what’s going on. The three ways to have poor well-being in this area include having cognitive deficit, where someone is absent-minded; cognitive hyperactivity, where a person has a different idea than reality and confuses the two; and cognitive dysfunction, where the cognitive hyperactivity causes the person to misunderstand an event.
The last aspect of well-being is affective balance, which covers emotional regulation. The two ways that a person can be experiencing problems in this area include affective deficit disorder, which is appearing emotionally flat; and affective hyperactivity, which is having an excess of emotions and emotions inappropriate for the situation.
Something I really liked about the article was how it cleared up some of my false assumptions about meditation and enlightenment. The authors explained how just because friends/family, food, music, art, and many other things are impermanent, doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy them while on the pursuit for eudaimonic happiness. The purpose is instead to understand that these external things can’t be responsible for our happiness. An exercise to test this would be to imagine all the external sources of happiness being stripped away and looking at one’s satisfaction in the absence of these transient pleasures. The second thing that the article clarified was how it justifies observing and taking note of how your meditation practice is going while you’re in it. Previously, I believed that this would count as thinking and that I should clear it from my mind. Now I understand that this is meta-cognition and that to effectively meditate it’s useful to monitor so that if your thoughts are hyperactive you can relax more or if you are experiencing an attentional deficit you can instead focus more on breathing.
Terms: conative, attentional, cognitive, and affective, psychology, Buddhism, well-being, mental health, external, internal, stimuli, suffering, happiness, hedonistic, eudaimonic, maximizers, satisficers, expectations, anxiety, left prefrontal cortex, conative deficit, conative hyperactivity, hyperactivity and attentional deficit, mindfulness, meta-attention, cognitive deficit, cognitive hyperactivity, cognitive dysfunction
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/amp/61/7/690.pdf
I decided to research the topic of Dzogchen more in depth because it seems to be the focus of this book. I also learned through the readings that it is one of the highest levels of the Buddhist teachings. I want to get a better idea of what it takes to master Dzogchen.
Dzogchen has a few basic themes that are the foundation of the much more complex ideas it encompasses. Teachers believe that we are all pure from the beginning. This is at the level of view. At the level of path Dzogchen teachers believe that the best practice is “doing nothing” or “letting be.” Most types of Buddhism are very uncomfortable and inconvenient as well. Dzogchen has slowly been brought into Western culture because it is much easier to do, it doesn’t involve being uncomfortable, and you can feel confident in knowing that you are involved in the “highest” form of Buddhism. Dzogchen, however, cannot be seen as its own individual branch of Buddhism. It is still very connected and oftentimes people forget that it is a continuation of Buddhism that still requires a reflection on the basics (i.e. “unsatisfactoriness, non-self, compassion, etc.”). This source also discusses how many books are misleading because you can’t just talk about Dzogchen without also including the fundamentals of Buddhist practices. There are many misconceptions involving Dzogchen and the real truth behind it is that you must first master the fundamentals of Buddhism and its practices before you can practice or appreciate Dzogchen.
The particular article that I read spoke in more detail about the trouble you can run into with attempting to learn Dzogchen solely through a book. It specifically states that while a book can certainly be helpful, you will have much more success by being taught by an actual Buddhist teacher. There are many practices that you have to familiarize yourself with and it becomes much more difficult to teach yourself which is why a trained teacher is needed. I didn’t realize before reading this source just how complex Buddhist teachings and practices are. I felt like meditation has many different categories and types but I didn’t realize how complex Buddhism really can be. It’s confusing to me in some ways because it speaks so much about being very focused and centered but I feel like if I have to learn that much it would be hard for me to focus. Overall, the source I used helped to remind me that even the simple things take a lot of practice and effort and meditation isn’t going to be easy but once you master it, it will be very helpful .
The Dzogchen Primer
Studstill, R. (2002). The dzogchen primer: embracing the spiritual path according to the great perfection. Pacific World, 288-292.
http://eds.b.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=9&sid=7bab5eb3-739a-464c-b3bc-d28181d27615%40sessionmgr111&hid=101
The topic that I researched further into was about if meditation can help to increase attention by reducing “attention blinks”. The article that I used conducted a study to see if through mediation training, specifically Vipassana meditation. They presented the participants of their study with two targets to focus on when they are presented. The study was done to look at how the ability to recognize visual stimuli is limited with short-term memory. Mental training has been thought help change or rewire your brain. This was a three month long study in which participants learned and practice meditation for about 10 hours a day for one group, while the other control group was given a hour training course and told to meditate for 20 min before the tests occurred. I found this study to be interesting since it was trying to discover if meditation was able to help an individual better manage brain resources instead of increasing these resources like a lot of the readings I have done talk about. I found it interesting that in the study the results showed that not only did meditation help to reduce attention blink between targets one and two, but that the amount of attention used when target one was presented was less after the study was done for the meditation participants. I didn’t expect to read about this because I had never thought of attention as a limited ability. These tests were also done while meditation was not actively going on, which helps to prove that the skills used during meditation where transferred to other mental tasks in everyday life. This study specifically used Vipassana meditation, which is not the same type, that the book specially focuses on but I’d assume that the results for most meditation training would have similar results. The ability to increase attention and focus has always intrigued me but the most interesting point the study talked about was the capacity-limited stage of attention. This is a topic that I would like to possibly research more on not just relating to meditation but to how the brain works in general. As with most of the studies that I have read there are parts that I don’t really understand but this study didn’t measure, as many different factors that mediation had on the brain, which helped me to better, understand the material.
Key words: attention blinks, Vipassana, mental training, brain resources,
For this week’s blog I decided to look more in depth on Maslow’s research, specifically peak experiences. Peak experiences as described by Maslow (1968), are moments of highest happiness and fulfillment, and generally carry with them some important meaning and or insight for the individual. Maslow’ research also found that certain environments and activities spark peak experiences, one of them being meditation.
In a research article, further research was conducted on identifying the distinctive elements of wilderness settings that contribute to triggering peak experiences. McDonald, Wearing, and Pointing randomly selected subjects from a wildness registration system, which keeps records of park visitors. The researchers then sent a questionnaire to the subjects having them describe in their own words, a peak experience in the wilderness. Results found that the aesthetic qualities of the wilderness setting and being away from crowds, pressures, problems, and distractions were key within their peak experiences (McDonald, Wearing, and Pointing, 2009). With these results, meditation may further be explained as to why it may induce peak experiences.
Meditation is similar to the wilderness in that its purpose is to escape from everyday life, to relax, and help calm the mind by giving it a break. People these days are extremely busy and generally in a hurry. There are consistent distractions (cells phones, internet, work, school) that keep us from truly taking a moment to slow down and enjoy the little things and perhaps life in general. Both visiting the wilderness and practicing meditation are excellent ways to escape these distractions thus cause people to slow down, appreciate the life they’ve been given, which may lead to peak experiences. Visiting the wildness is an excellent way to calm the mind and body however not everyone has the luxury to visit it thus meditation can be extremely useful as an alternative. Meditation can be practiced anytime and anywhere. It gives us the chance to give our mind and bodies a break thus allowing us to focus better and see things more clearly. Overall peak experiences cause an intense feeling of happiness and belonging. If meditation is found to help induce these experiences why wouldn’t people practice it? I have not had a peak experience since meditation however I generally feel better and happier.
Terms: peak experiences, Abraham Maslow, meditation, happiness, fulfillment
McDonald, M., Wearing, S., and Pointing, J., (2009). The nature of peak experience in wilderness. The Humanistic Psychologist, 37: 370–385. DOI: 10.1080/08873260701828912. Retrieved from: http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=bda2fde9-592e-44c4-96a0-84b5ab72848a%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4211
This week’s readings talked a lot about our needs, and the hierarchies that they belong to. Hierarchies are like staircases in the sense that in order to get to a higher step, you have to get to the lower step first. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a very logically based system that makes sense when you just sit down and think about it, but isn’t really practiced. This was contrasted with the Tibetan Buddhist flow of needs, which is much more fluid and has really hard words to pronounce. The Buddhist way of doing things was a less step like way of thinking that allowed different levels of self-actualization all throughout life, rather than when all other needs have been met. I took this difference of need philosophies and tried to relate them to well-being, since they could have a huge effect on your perception of well-being.
With all of that being said, I found an article that explored well-being (using the PWI) of ethically Tibetan people. Well-being was defined as “a domain level representation of global life satisfaction” (Cummins and Lau 2005). The study was originally done because of a visit that the author made to one of the hills in Tibet. When he visited, a horrible winter storm was hitting and killed 80-90 percent of the livestock that most people lived off of. Yet these people didn’t react as if they were in a crisis.
This study had many levels, which in turn gave the author room to make many hypotheses. The study looked at a comparison between age, sex, education, and a standard of living. It was hypothesized that age would have a positive effect on well-being, that females would have a higher well-being score, that education would positively correlate with well-being, and that a higher standard of living meant higher well-being. All the data was collected through survey format and the translations were tested by two different translators (English to Tibetan, and then Tibetan back to English).
The study produced lots of information because of the various demographical information collected. The results show that the hypothesis dealing with females having a higher satisfaction was shown to follow the results. Women were showed to be significantly “happier” than men. People tended to have higher life satisfaction, are more content with life, feel more involved in the community, and feel that their future is more secure the older that they get. This was found to be true across all demographics, which gives it even more credibility. I found it strange that the next hypothesis of education was incorrect. The data shows that across all demographics, those with little to no education reported higher levels of well-being. Maybe this follows the line of thought that “what you don’t know can’t hurt you” or “ignorance is bliss”. To be fair, the qualification for education was a western education and not a more universal education such as that of maybe meditation or spiritual education.
As noted with some western research, standard of living does have an effect on our happiness, or in this case our well-being. Once basic needs were met for the Tibetan people, such as food and shelter, having more didn’t seem to have a large effect on their well-being. It seemed that most things were actually shared after ones needs were met, so the discussion could argue that there wasn’t accurate data conclude that well-being wasn’t influenced more by standard of living.
What I got out of this study was that we were trying to look at the Tibetan way of life and satisfaction through tunnel vision. The survey that was given was really raw and bare. Though the study produced lots of useful information, I think that the survey given should have been more in-depth and that we should have tried to get a better understanding of what Tibetan people defined well-being as. Since there is this barrier between western and Tibetan definitions, it limits what we can suggest from the information gathered.
Terms: Tibetan Buddhist, well-being, hierarchy, Maslow, “Happy”, life satisfaction, Needs.
Webb, D. (2009). Subjective wellbeing on the Tibetan plateau: An exploratory investigation. Journal Of Happiness Studies, 10(6), 753-768. doi:10.1007/s10902-008-9120-7
As I mention on Thursdays class, Dorjee discussed the need to belong theory in chapter 2 so I thought that it would be a perfect opportunity to talk about my research on social exclusion, social support and psychological and physical health.
At some point in their lives most (if not all) people will experience some form of rejecting or exclusionary behavior. For many, being excluded or rejected represents a particularly aversive experience and such behavior can have profound psychological and physical-health related consequences for targets. Social exclusion may well be the most common and important cause of psychological pain in the form of anxiety (Baumeister & Tice, 1990). Consistent with this, Barden et al. (1985) found that anxiety ensues if people are excluded from social groups. Additionally, Mathes, Adams, and Davies (1985) found that the loss of relationship status led directly to anxiety. Additionally, research on social support has indicated that people lacking in social support are more likely to experience worse outcomes (psychological and physical) when exposed to stressors compared to people who have an integrated social support system. The hormone cortisol is an important biomarker to assess in the context of social exclusion and is an essential regulatory hormone whose level is influenced by exposure to stressors such as social exclusion (Dickerson & Zoccola, 2013). CRP is an acute phase protein whose levels fluctuated in response to altered immunological functioning.
Here were our hypotheses for this study: Hypothesis 1: It is predicted that there will be a significant positive relation between social exclusion and self-reported psychological distress and physical health symptoms. Hypothesis 2: It is predicted that social exclusion will be positively related to both levels of cortisol and CRP. Hypothesis 3: It is predicted that social support will moderate the relation between perceived exclusion and psychological distress and physical health symptoms such that the relation between exclusion and negative outcomes will be stronger for individuals reporting lower levels of social support (compared to those reporting higher levels of social support).
This is the methodology which was used in the study. 87 undergraduate students from the University of Northern Iowa (male: n=24; female: n=62, one participant failed to indicate their gender). Participant’s ages ranged from 18-26 years. The majority of the sample identified as Caucasian (89.7%) followed by Asian or Pacific Islander (4.6%), Hispanic (3.4%), and African-American (1.1%). Participants completed a computer-based survey which included measures of psychological distress, physical health symptoms, social exclusion, and social support. Psychological Distress was assessed using the SCL-90-R (Derogatis, 1994). Physical Health was assessed using the Pennebaker Inventory of Limbic Languidness (PILL; Pennebaker, 1982). Social Exclusion was assessed with a 20-item Social Exclusion Scale (Hitlan, 2013). Social Support was assessed using the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (Zimet et al., 1988). Cortisol and CRP concentrations were assessed via saliva samples.
After all the data was analyzed here is what we concluded. As expected, social exclusion was positively related to psychological distress and physical health symptoms. Those participants reporting more frequent instances of social exclusion also reported higher levels of psychological distress and reported being more frequently bothered by physical health symptoms, compared to those reporting less frequent experiences with social exclusion. Results indicated that exclusion was negatively related to average log-transformed cortisol levels. Contrary to prediction, as perceived exclusion increased, cortisol decreased. Also, CRP was not significantly related to exclusion. A significant relation did emerge between cortisol and CRP levels, indicating that as cortisol levels (stress) increased so did CRP (inflammation) levels. Results of the moderated regression analysis indicated that social support by significant others moderated the relation between social exclusion and psychological distress. At mean and high levels of social support, the simple slopes illustrating the relation between exclusion and social support were significantly different from zero. Moreover, the highest distress was evidenced under conditions of high support and high exclusion.
Salinas, M., Hitlan, R.T., & Desoto, C. (February, 2014) Does social support matter? Examining the role of social support on the relation between social exclusion and psychological and physical health. Poster presented at the 15th annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Austin, TX.
Terms: Social Exclusion, need to belong, psychological health, physical health, social support, cortisol, c-reactive protein, saliva samples.
Chapter two from Dorjee centered on “intention”, however as I had mentioned in my summary of this chapter. It was hard for me to read and with this being said I figured it would be easier to find an article cited in the text rather than spend hours searching for something that may not have anything to do with this chapter at all. With this being said I came across an article with the title of “the Enhancement of Visuospatial Processing Efficiency Through Buddhist Deity Meditation”. Visuospatial is defined as the visual perception of the spatial correlation of specific objects and is connected to the prefrontal cortex. This study focused on two types of meditation; Deity Yoga (DY) and Open Presence (OP). Deity Yoga requires a multitude of a colorful three-dimensional image. The 3D image is believed or intended to temporarily swap the individuals sense of self or perceived perception of the real world. Open Presence requires equally divided attention that is not focused on any specific object. Researchers believe that this OP meditation has more an effect on disengagement of attention from something or a technique used to regain focus after noticing it fade. In contrast DY meditation does relate more to an enhancement of visuospatial processing. Though when both are being practiced we are able to gain more positive effects. So, as we have previously learned, continue to learn, and the article states, Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices and techniques are thought to have the ability to boost overall mental functioning, overall well-being, mindfulness, and certain cognitive functions like focusing attention, perception, and mental imagery. However, in 1994 some scientists, relating to the psychological view on imagery, focusing on a specific image for long periods/period of time cannot be done. Reason being, your mind never takes a break from the millions of tasks, memories, and thoughts it consists of. However, today’s research has began to prove otherwise. Neuroimaging has found that with repeated focus and meditation practice brain activation in the performance of visuospatial working memory has changed areas of the brain.
Terms: intention, visuospatial, neuroimaging, open presence, deity yoga, self, perception, attention, prefrontal cortex.
Article: The Enhancement of Visuospatial Processing Efficiency Through Buddhist Deity Meditation.
After reading Chapter Two, I couldn’t help but get the feeling that Dorjee was knocking western psychology and it’s finding so I found an article that uses psychology and Buddhism to mutually explain and expand on mental balance and well-being. The article describes the four mental balances as Conative Balance, Attentional Balance, Cognitive Balance and Affective Balance.
Conative balance is the first of the mental states discussed because it is the foundation that the other mental states can build on. A conative balance is, “a reality-based range of desires and aspirations oriented toward one’s own and others’ happiness.” With out this, you are unable to continue to balance your attentional, cognitive, and affective states. The research starts that, “A common misconception of Buddhism is that it promotes the ideal of having no desires or goals whatsoever.” This is how I understood Buddhism. But this is incorrect. Buddhism promotes wholesome values and desires such as the consciences desire to be a loving parent. It is all about setting goals that will improve yours and your family and friend life style. Western psychology support this. This idea of the right motivation and incentives can be found as the theory in the stages of change model of addictive behavior.
The next building block of well-being supported by Buddhists and psychology is Attentional Balance. This is the ability to focus. The research focuses on the attention deficit and the inability to focus such as day dreaming in the class room. Buddhist turn to breathing to remain focused. This is support by Western Psychology by finding that there is a need to want to stay focused on the task ahead.
The third building block is Cognitive Balance. This is all about not judging book by its cover. It is important to accept people as they are and to not condemn them to what they be physically presenting upon first impression. Understand and accept the person that cuts you off or doesn’t return a smile. Western psychology supports that finding the positives help reduce stress and enhance a person’s outlook. Last but not least is Affective Balance. This is similar in that your overall happiness will affect your life and those around you. You will be happier when you accept that the person cut you off.
http://www.robinbillingsphd.com/Mental%20Balance%20and%20Well%20Being.pdf
In this blog post I went and found an interesting comparison study about mindfulness and cognitive control. Most people know about the experiment were color words, like purple, blue, red, are filled in with a different color than the word. People are then supposed to name the actual color of the word not the word itself. With this experiment it has shown that people who practice this over and over again get better at it. In the experiment I found they compared the average person to those from a Buddhist meditation group’s score on the experiment. What they found was the meditation group had more success all around when doing the experiment compared to those that did not meditate. This would suggest that people who meditate on a regular basis having a higher cognitive control than those that do not. With this experiment they were not able to prove that the meditators did not have previous experience with this sort of test so they were not able to conclude this.
So another experiment was formed. They trained participants who never meditated before in a simple mindful breathing meditation and asked them to practice this for 16 weeks for around 10 minutes every day. They then tested them on the above color naming task before, half way through and at the end of the training, while at the same time recording their brain activity with EEG. This was to be sure that the changes over time might have something to do with the meditation practice, and not just with repeating the same task a few times. There was also a control group of people who did not meditate. They found that meditation led to an increase in brain activity that was related to focusing the attention on the color words, and the opposite was true for the control group.
http://meditation-research.org.uk/2012/02/mindfulness-and-cognitive-control/