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The Buddha Just Might Have Been Right

by Lobsang Negi, Ph.D.

The legendary William James was once asked a question about psychology, during one of his presentations. James demurred, stating that the questioner ought to ask a Buddhist monk in the audience, because the Buddhist tradition has the greatest understanding of the workings of the mind. James, who became known as the father of Western psychology, intuitively understood even at the end of the 19th century that the Buddhist tradition offers an intimate account of mind: how it functions, and particularly how to harness its potential for our physical and mental well-being.

A century later, on the other side of the globe, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is engaged in an ongoing inquiry to find a scientific basis for the classic Buddhist paradigms of mind that James and other intellectuals have instinctively grasped. His Holiness often refers to Buddhism as the science of mind; in the company of Western scientists he is actively looking for empirical proofs for the truths that Buddhism has posited for thousands of years. As the 21st century dawns we are in a unique position to undertake such an exploration, for technology and scientific inquiry have become sophisticated enough to make possible such inquiries.

Meditation as a means for improving our quality of life has been studied extensively. Dr. Herbert Benson's discovery of the “relaxation response,” chronicled in the best-selling book of the same name, was perhaps the first mainstream exploration of the meditative tradition. The relaxation response is a bodily calm induced by a simple meditative process; it is accepted by the medical community as a powerful tool for counteracting the physical symptoms of stress. This practice has wide-ranging benefits, as the relaxation response is associated with lower blood pressure, heart rate, and metabolism, all factors contributing to good health.

Similarly, John Kabat-Zinn's mindfulness meditation, taught at his stress-reduction clinic at the medical school at the University of Massachusetts at Worcester, is a well-known model that has helped thousands of patients. Hundreds of other studies indicate that basic meditation can bring healthy changes in our bodies, including even enhancing our immune systems.

But the recent discoveries involving Tibetan Buddhist meditators are significant because they clearly demonstrate how, by consciously arousing certain states of mind such as compassion, we can actually alter our brain activity, reshaping the circuitry of the brain structures associated with healthy or unhealthy emotions.

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