Meditation calms the mind

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Meditation Shown to Light Up Brains of Buddhists

Wed May 21 - Science - Reuters -

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Buddhists really are happy, calm and serene

people -- at least according to their brain scans.

 

Using new scanning techniques, neuroscientists have discovered that

certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists, which

indicates positive emotions and good mood. This happens at times even

when they are not meditating.

 

 

" We can now hypothesize with some confidence that those apparently

happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes across in places such

as Dharamsala, India, really are happy, " Professor Owen Flanagan, of

Duke University in North Carolina, said Wednesday.

 

 

Dharamsala is the home base of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.

 

 

The scanning studies by scientists at the University of Wisconsin at

Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal lobes of experienced

Buddhist practitioners. The area is linked to positive emotions, self-

control and temperament.

 

 

Other research by Paul Ekman, of the University of California San

Francisco Medical Center, suggests that meditation and mindfulness

can tame the amygdala, an area of the brain which is the hub of fear

memory.

 

 

Ekman discovered that experienced Buddhists were less likely to be

shocked, flustered, surprised or as angry as other people.

 

 

Flanagan believes that if the findings of the studies can be

confirmed they could be of major importance.

 

 

" The most reasonable hypothesis is that there is something about

conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness

we all seek, " Flanagan said in a report in New Scientist magazine

 

 

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