THE SNOW LION NEWSLETTER

Woven throughout the three days of dialogue were two contrasting themes: the ability of the brain, with training, to change (neuroplasticity); and the humbling need-particularly difficult for the can-do Western mentality-to recognize that there are things we cannot control. His Holiness began by recalling that even the great Indian siddhas of Nalanda achieved their realizations as much through logic as meditation, but that there is nonetheless a need for revision in Buddhist thought. "Some Tibetan descriptions of cosmology are quite a disgrace," he acknowledged. "These things we cannot accept." He also reported that henceforth traditional monastic education would be supplemented by systematic scientific study.

Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic UMASS, opened the scientific presentations by outlining his work on Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). The pause involved in observing the present moment, he stated, is an authentic form of meditation even when abstracted from any religious context, and is "a radical act, an act of self-compassion." MBSR also demonstrates to chronic pain patients that pain can be separated from the secondary suffering we create around it. It is this realization, noted Sharon Salzberg, which creates a dividing line between loss and despair, misfortune and bitterness. After eight weeks of guided MBSR, Kabat-Zinn reported, patients following through on their own experienced continued physical relief as much as four years later.

Dr. Richard Davidson, Director of the Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior, elaborated on meditation's benefits by citing a study of psoriasis patients who were treated in an enclosed, ultraviolet-emitting "cell," a potentially stressful experience. Those who were coached in visualization meditation healed four times faster than those who weren't.

Davidson then discussed the role of meditation in maintaining personal contentment. "We here think of happiness as a right," he said, whereupon His Holiness interjected, "Only in America!" "Yet our culture hasn't taken happiness seriously enough. Surveys reveal that marriage can buy happiness, but only briefly," he said to the amusement of the audience, "as after five years the happiness level dips below baseline! Widowhood can cause an initial major decline in contentment, which in a few years returns to baseline. As for material plenty, when the GDP rises, the contentment level of the population as a whole remains constant, or even declines slightly. However, training in emotional regulation actually impacts positively on the brain, modulating the amygdala (seat of emotional reactivity), driving down cortisol levels (connected to anxiety and depression), and increasing the gamma signals in the pre-frontal cortex, the area that in long-term meditators corresponds to the experience of luminosity. Compassion also affects the striatum, an area correlating with motor activity, such that the yogi is capable of instant action." Acknowledging his debt to Dr. Kabat-Zinn, who started him on the path to mental training 30 years ago, Davidson cited a randomized control trial they had conducted together in which meditators showed increased activity in the left pre-frontal lobe, an area relating to immune function. When flu shots were administered to meditators and non-meditators, the former showed a marked increase in antibody titres.

Dr. Wolf Singer, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research, took the conference in the direction of the Buddhist notion of non-self by reporting his findings on synchronized brain activity. Whereas the West has traditionally held the Cartesian view that the brain is organized around a center at which all information converges, modern research reveals that while areas of the cerebral cortex are interconnected, there is no evidence of one center, or in Buddhist terminology, no place in the brain where an "I" can be located. In this diffuse system, neurons must fire synchronously, or else we cannot use our imagination, integrate multiple senses, or process long and short-term memory. A secondary finding is that the schizophrenic brain has difficulty both producing and synchronizing brain waves, which may account for why sufferers are hard put to coordinate thoughts. The relation to meditation? Mindfulness training appears to enhance synchronicity, which could have a profound effect on brain function. Dr. Singer signaled this as a prime goal of future research.

At this point His Holiness injected a story illustrating the exacting nature of such work. A meditator friend, who had been incarcerated in a Chinese-run prison for decades, decided after fleeing Tibet that he would try to do single-pointed meditation on his own mind. But after several months he admitted to His Holiness that it was much harder than being in prison! When asked if science could ever enrich meditation practice, Dr. Singer replied that bio-feedback might hasten progress because a meter can show instantly how one is faring.

When researchers ask test participants to focus on a particular site in the body, blood flow soon increases. "But while the brain can control itself to an amazing degree," he said, "the system we humans are involved in cannot be controlled by us because it's an evolutionary system. We can't control the dynamic process we generate. Thus, there is a danger of collective depression, so we must be more humble in understanding what we can't know."

His Holiness echoed this statement, saying: "Humility is the answer in dealing with a supposed self. The mind desires to know all; that is why the concept of enlightenment exists!"

Examining the function of meditation in alleviating psychiatric illness, Dr. Zindel Segal, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, reported a reduction in depression relapse rates of 50% in patients using Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), and had even found that those patients who previously experienced the greatest number of relapses were the ones who benefited most. Dr. Jan Chozen Bays, a pediatrician and Zen priest, likened depression to being stuck in the First Noble Truth. Through MBCT patients are freed to move on to the other Noble Truths, to which Jack Kornfield remarked: "My own mind is sometimes like a bad neighborhood; I try not to go there alone!"

Dr. Ralph Snyderman, Professor of Medicine at Duke University, presented his view of how the spiritual-scientific dialogue might contribute toward a more integrative approach to wellness. In the process, he countered recent complaints by the scientific community against the Society for Neuroscience for inviting His Holiness to address their meeting. "How do we find the potential of mind?" Snyderman asked rhetorically. "We look at people who for thousands of years have developed expertise in contemplative insights. They use rigorous technology. As a reductionist molecular scientist, I find it reasonable to study people who have the equivalent of years of medical training. It is no surprise that the Society for Neuroscience would invite His Holiness to speak. We have the opportunity, thanks to him, to bring another distinct way to the investigation of the problem of mind. What can a monk tell neuroscientists? This attitude exists whenever a revolutionary idea is introduced."

Dr. Kabat-Zinn closed the conference by addressing the Dalai Lama whose energy, though muted by a head cold, nonetheless pervaded the event, evoking the best from its participants. "It is moving to me," he said, "that you make these house calls around the world, and embody what it is like to fulfill man's greatest potential. The audience doesn't know the consequences of having eavesdropped on these conversations in Your Holiness's portable living room, but this conference is like a bell. It is now ending, the bell has rung, but the reverberations will go on and on."

To read more on this topic, visit:

• Mind and Life Institute
  
• Snow Lion Publications' Psychology and Science book section

Upcoming related events:

The Power of Mindfulness retreat with Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn

Ajahn Amaro teaching events at Spirit Rock and Abhayagiri