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monks practiced meditating on a
single object or thought, significant increases in the duration of
perceptual dominance occurred.
One monk was able to maintain
constant visual perception for 723
seconds — compared to the average of 2.6 seconds in non-meditative control subjects.
The researchers concluded that
the study highlights “the synergistic potential for further exchange between practitioners of
meditation and neuroscience in
the common goal of understanding consciousness.”
YOU CAN EXPAND YOUR
CAPACITY FOR HAPPINESS.
Brain scans revealed that because
of meditation, 66-year-old French
monk Matthieu Ricard, an aide to
the Dalai Lama, has the largest capacity for happiness ever recorded.
University of Wisconsin researchers, led by Davidson, hooked up
256 sensors to his head, and found
that Ricard had an unusually large
propensity for happiness and reduced tendency toward negativity,
due to neuroplasticity.
“It’s a wonderful area of research because it shows that meditation is not just blissing out under a mango tree but it completely
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changes your brain and therefore
changes what you are,” Ricard told
the New York Daily News.
Davidson also found that when
Ricard was meditating on compassion, his brain produced gamma
waves “never reported before in
the neuroscience literature.”
YOU CAN INCREASE YOUR EMPATHY.
Research at Stanford University’s
Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education made
One monk was able to
maintain constant visual
perception for 723 seconds
— compared to the average
of 2.6 seconds in nonmeditative control subjects.”
some incredible findings last year.
Neuroeconomist Brian Knutson
hooked up several monks’ brains
to MRI scanners to examine their
risk and reward systems. Ordinarily, the brain’s nucleus accumbens experiences a dopamine rush
when you experience something
pleasant — like having sex, eating
a slice of chocolate cake, or finding a $20 bill in your pocket. But
Knutson’s research, still in the