Meditation Research & Contemplative Pedagogy an overview

1. Meditation Research &Contemplative Pedagogyan overview Scott Simpson, Ph.D.Educational SpecialistTechnology and Innovation in Education

2. Sources:Association for the Contemplative Mind in Higher EducationACMHEWebinar: The Science of Meditation, a brief synopsis by Arthur Zajonc, Amherst College & ACMHEAl Kaszniak, Psychology & Neuroscience, University of ArizonaACMHE Webinar: Introduction To Contemplative Pedagogyby Arthur Zajonc, Amherst College & ACMHE Mirabai Bush , ACMHE

3. Research Overview • The Neuroscience of Meditation • Compassion • Attention studies • Neuroplasticity: neural transformation through mental training • Depression and the Cortex of the Brain • ADHD and Mindfulness • Center for the Contemplative Mind in Society Review of Research • Cognitive and Academic Performance • Mental Health and Psychological Well-Being • Development of the Whole Person

4. Brain Electrical Synchrony & Nonreferential Compassion Meditation • 128-channel EEG recorded in 8 long-term Tibetan Buddhist practitioners & 10 student volunteers. • Increased synchronous gamma (25-42 Hz) activity over lateral fronto-parietal areas during non-referential compassion meditation. • Suggests precise temporal synchronization of massive distributed neural assemblies. Lutz, A., Greischer, L.L., Rawlings, N.B., Ricard, M., & Davidson, R.J. (2004). Long-term meditators self-induce high amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. PNAS, 101, 16369-16373.

5. Phenomenal Clarity & Gamma Oscillations During Meditation • High-amplitude gamma oscillations emerge over a time-course of several dozens of seconds and correlate with the “clarity” (phenomenal intensity and vividness) of meditative experience as verbally reported “clarity of the mind” = phenomenal intensity and vividness during meditation 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Example: Adept 1 µV2 300250200150100500 Lutz, A. et al. (2006). Changes in the tonic high-amplitude gamma oscillations during meditation correlate with long-term practitioners’ verbal reports. Poster presented at the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness Annual Meeting,. Verbal report (rating 1-9); Gamma activity

6. Emotion in Long-Term Zen & Mindfulness Meditators LTM • Long-term Meditators (>10 years) • Report higher emotional clarity • Those with higher clarity show lower physiological & experienced arousal, & greater subtle positive facial expression in response to masked emotional pictures, consistent with regulation of emotion early in the emotion process. Cont STM • Nielsen, L., & Kaszniak, A.W. (2006). Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A comparison of long-term meditators and non-meditators. Emotion, 6, 392-405.

7. Hypothesized relation of meditation and the experience/regulation of emotion • Practice enables a shift from attachment & reactivity to a more equanimous emotional response. • Transformation occurs over many years. • Initially: Attention, awareness of bodily feelings, use of thought to regulate emotion expression, and physiological reactivity to emotional stressors all increase • Later: Emotional clarity increases, and explicit attention to emotion may no longer be as needed. Clarity may confer emotional regulatory skill, and attention to subtle emotion cues may become automatized & move to the conscious background.

8. Effects of mental training on attentionDavidson, Lutz et al. PLOS June 2007 • Attentional blink • Normally a 0.5 sec “blink” in attention after identification of a target (e.g. number in a sequence of letters). Second target missed. • Three-months of Vipassana meditation • Awareness without judgment or affective response. • Allocation of attentional resources • Less attention given to the first target, second seen by all practitioners.

9. Neuroplasticity:Transformation of the Brain • Known that difference in animal experience leads to differences in gene expression and so to different brain structure. So too with humans. • Sara Lazar et al. MRI showed increase in cortical thickness in subjects due to meditation. (Mass General/Harvard study, NeuroReport, vol.16, pp.1893-1897, 2005)

10. Lazar Cortical Thickness Study • Measured thickness of the cerebral cortex in 20 Insight meditation practitioners with average of 9 years practice of 40min/day • Mean thickness unchanged, but regions show difference • Slower thinning w. age Scatter plot of mean cortical thickness of each participant in the sub-region above threshold within each circled region of (c) insula and (d) BA 9/10, plotted versus age. Meditation participants: blue circles; control participants: red squares.

11. Research connected with Brain Cortex thinning & depression • Brain imaging of 131 individuals, including children and adults ages 6 to 54 • Half had family history of depression • Half had no family history of depression • Maps of cortical thickness showed significant thinning of 28 percent on right cerebral hemisphere in the high-risk group • The cerebral cortex is the region of the brain centrally involved in reasoning, planning and mood, and thinning of the cortex may affect an individual’s ability to pay attention to and interpret social and emotional cues, scientists suggested. • Images of the right and left hemispheres of the brain, as viewed from the side. The colors represent the differences in cortical thickness between the high-risk group, which has a family history of depression, and the low-risk group, which has no known risk. Blue and purple represent the thinning of the cortex, with purple regions having the greatest thinning. Green areas show no significant differences between the two groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/health/25brain.html?ref=health

12. ADHD and Mindfulness: UCLA Results indicate that mindfulness meditation training may be a beneficial complementary treatment approach for adolescents and adults with ADHD. Positive findings include: 1) the absence of any reported adverse events; 2) highly favorable ratings of the treatment by participants; 3) reductions in self-reported ADHD symptoms reported by over three quarters of participants, even though the majority were already being treated with medication; 4) significant improvement on several of the neuropsychological measures; and, 5) reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms for the adults. Zylowka, et al. (2008). Mindfulness meditation training in adults and adolescents with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 11, 737-746.

13. Toward the Integration of Meditation into Higher Education: A Review of Research A. Effects of Meditation on Cognitive and Academic Performance 1. Mindfulness improved ability to maintain preparedness and orient attention (Jha et al 2007) 2. Mindfulness improved the ability to process information (Slagter et al. 2007, attentional blink) 3. Concentration practice improved academic achievement (Hall, 1999, 56 undergrads, GPA) Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr

14. Review B. Effects of Meditation on Mental Health and Psychological Well-Being 1. Stress, anxiety, and depression reduced in students through mindfulness intervention 2. Mindfulness supports better regulation of emotional affect & the cultivation of positive psychological states Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr

15. Review C. Effects of Meditation on Developmentof the Whole Person 1. Creativity (small Zazen trial) 2. Interpersonal relationship skills (several studies of MBSR –Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction--and Zen) 3. Empathy (grad students studied, MBSR) 4. Self-compassion (2 studies w/MBSR) www.contemplativemind.org/programs/academic/reports.html Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr

16. Contemplative Pedagogy Mindfulness: Bringing one’s complete attention to the experiences occurring in the present moment in a non-judgmental or accepting way

27. Uses of Contemplative Exercises In class: • Exercises that support learning. • Attention • Emotional balance • Integration of contemplation into the disciplines.

28. Cultivating Attention • Posture that supports the practice • Settling the body and the mind • Attending to a simple object (breath, paper clip, memory image…) • Returning to the classroom • Optional • Descriptive writing • Observation, in pairs • Classroom discussion

29. Lemniscate of Attention Focused Attention Open Awareness

30. Openness The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment, Not seeking, not expecting She is present, and can welcome all things. Tao Te Ching 15 Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which makes the void. Simone Weil

31. Using the Lemniscate of Awareness • Posture, settling and attending • Place the content (image, word, natural phenomenon, question, concept…) into the center of attention. • Move slowly between Focused Attention and Open Awareness, two or three times. • Return with journaling and conversation. Every object, well-contemplated,opens a new organ in us. --Goethe

32. Publications • Education Research Review, Shapiro et al on our Website • Teachers College Record, vol. 108, Sept 2006 • Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry Arthur Zajonc

33. Upcoming events • April 24-26: Association conference at Amherst College • August 9-14: Summer school at Smith College • November 12-15:Faculty retreat For more information: • http://conference2009.tie2.wikispaces.net/Contemplative+Education+Opening+a+Space+for+Mindfulness • www.contemplativemind.org • dsimpson@tie.net To join the Association • www.acmhe.org

34. Readings for Contemplation

35. There must be a time of day when the man whomakes plans forgets his plans,and acts as if he had no plans at all. There must be a time of day when the man who hasto speak falls very silent.And his mind forms no more propositions,and he asks himself:Did they have a meaning?  There must be a timewhen the man of prayer goes to prayas if it were the first time in his lifehe had ever prayed,when the man of resolutions puts hisresolutions asideas if they had all been broken,and he learns a different wisdom: distinguishing the sun from the moon,the stars from the darkness,the sea from the dry land,and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill. --Thomas Merton, from Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Diegnan with a forward by James Finley and illustrations by John Giuliani

36. To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour ofany kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage totread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance onhow to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret,pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and toconform with the deadening personal opinions which are being continually thrustupon them. — George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form

37. MullaNasruddin was outside on his hands and knees below a lantern when a friend walked up. "What are you doing, Mulla?" his friend asked. "I'm looking for my key: I've lost it." So his friend got down on his hands and knees too and they both searched for a long time in the dirt beneath the lantern. Finding nothing, his friend finally turned to him and asked, "Where exactly did you lose it?" Nasrudin replied, "I lost it in the house, but there is more light out here." --- a traditional Sufi story, from Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart: Parables of the Spiritual Path from Around the World

38. FireWhat makes a fire burnis space between the logs,a breathing space.Too much of a good thing,too many logspacked in too tightcan douse the flamesalmost as surelyas a pail of water would.So building firesrequires attentionto the spaces in between,as much as to the wood.When we are able to buildopen spacesin the same waywe have learnedto pile on the logs,then we can come to see howit is fuel, and absence of the fueltogether, that make fire possible.We only need to lay a loglightly from time to time.A firegrowssimply because the space is there,with openingsin which the flamethat knows just how it wants to burncan find its way. --Judy Brown, from Teaching with Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach

39. Two Kinds of Intelligence There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired, as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts from books and from what the teacher says, collecting information from the traditional sciences as well as from the new sciences. With such intelligence you rise in the world. You get ranked ahead or behind others in regard to your competence in retaining information. You stroll with this intelligence in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more marks on your preserving tablets. There is another kind of tablet, one already completed and preserved inside you. A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness in the center of the chest. This other intelligence does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid, and it doesn't move from outside to inside through the conduits of plumbing-learning. This second knowing is a fountainhead from within you, moving out. --Rumi, from Teaching with Fire

40. This course moves rather slowly and covers material in depth rather than breadth. Try to be patient with going back over material in silence and slow time. I don't like to talk all the time, or to hear other people talk all the time. I often have to sit quietly in order to come up with an answer or analysis; sometimes I have to write a little, and perhaps I will stop class to do that: or perhaps that is not stopping class, but continuing class in a different way. I think that if we proceed in this rather contemplative manner we can get to deeper understandings. This is not McSchool; there are no golden arches out front. --excerpt from English syllabus, Mary Rose O’Reilley, Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice

41. Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a veryforeign language. Don't search for answers now, because you would not be ableto live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhapsthen, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, liveyour way into the answer. ---Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell, trans. Letters to a Young Poet

42. In the United States, I have a close friend named Jim Forest. When I first met him eight years ago, he was working with the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Last winter, Jim came to visit. I usually wash the dishes after we've finished the evening meal, before sitting down and drinking tea with everyone else. One night, Jim asked if he might do the dishes. I said, "Go ahead, but if you wash the dishes you must know the way to wash them." Jim replied, "Come on, you think I don't know how to wash the dishes?" I answered, "There are two ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes." Jim was delighted and said, "I choose the second way-to wash the dishes to wash the dishes." From then on, Jim knew how to wash the dishes. I transferred the "responsibility" to him for an entire week. If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not "washing the dishes to wash the dishes." What's more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future -and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life. ---ThichNhatHanh., The Miracle of Mindfulness

43. Attention: deep listening. People are dying in spirit for lack of it. In academic culture most listening is critical listening. We tend to pay attention only long enough to develop a counterargument; we critique the student's or the colleague's ideas; we mentally grade and pigeonhole each other. In society at large, people often listen with an agenda, to sell or petition or seduce. Seldom is there a deep, openhearted, unjudging reception of the other. And so we all talk louder and more stridently and with a terrible desperation. By contrast, if someone truly listens to me, my spirit begins to expand. --Mary Rose O’Reilley, Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice