Upcoming Science Based Meditation Workshop in the Bay Area(mindfulnessengineering.com)
mindfulnessengineering.com
Upcoming Science Based Meditation Workshop in the Bay Area
http://mindfulnessengineering.com/
8 comments
Someone should do this, but like for real. Start with a talk on the existing peer reviewed literature, including history and methodology. Tell me if we have evidence that meditation produces positive outcomes and what those are. Show the experiments and results. Show me live FMRI/EEG/EKG readings from good meditators. Tell me how to meditate. Let me get some guided practice. Let me try some biofeedback. Have some workshops, Q&A, etc. Don't lean on religion. Don't try to tie this into particle physics or some other transcendental nonsense. Don't talk to me about superpowers. I'll pay good money for an event like that.
I've wanted to actually try practicing mindfulness meditation for a long time. Maybe this will finally tip the balance.
Science based? Is that like evidence based? In which case, it's more of a marketing term...
> Science Based
How do the experimenters pull off double-blind trials?
How do the experimenters pull off double-blind trials?
The techniques are developed on models of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, with the mystic elements removed.
Listening to buddhist monks (people who know meditation usually very well) actually doesn't sound very mystic to me, because they normally don't talk about religion, miracles and beliefs, but about mindfulness and happiness.
Here is a Google TechTalk by Matthieu Ricard, who is a buddhist monk and a scientist:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=peA6vy0D5Bg
Another buddhist Google Talk (Mingyur Rinpoche):
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=peA6vy0D5Bg
Here is a Google TechTalk by Matthieu Ricard, who is a buddhist monk and a scientist:
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=peA6vy0D5Bg
Another buddhist Google Talk (Mingyur Rinpoche):
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=peA6vy0D5Bg
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For starters, this is a sales page, and the author is promising a lot of benefits, but fails to mention that meditation is sometimes stressful and unnerving. It perpetuates the popular hope that you'll gain mild superpowers from meditating like improved balance, learning, and memory.
How do they plan to provide "objective" feedback? Physiological and neuronal instruments are still very simplistic. There are a good number of dedicated researchers (Richie Davidson's lab, anyone affiliated with Mind and Life) trying to get decent neuronal measures of meditative states, and they've barely begun. I doubt something simple like muscle tone, heart rate or EEG is sufficient. Even in fMRI, the voxels are too large, and the acquisition rate too slow to adequately capture and isolate many effects.
For another, $590 for a weekend is a bit steep. In most buddhist traditions, the teacher receives nothing except by donation (the buddha explicitly forbade charging for teaching), and what fees there are, are for accommodations and food. If you do a Goenka retreat, you can get a whole ten days for free, since they operate strictly by donation.
Looking at the instructor's bio, he lists a lot of his math and martial arts training and experience, but nothing about where and with who he learned to meditate. This, and the tone of his writing, suggests that he's picked it up from reading, tried it for himself, has experienced some slight changes, and now believes he's qualified to teach it.
All that being said, if you were to go, I doubt this will be harmful, and it may be beneficial in the long run if you come out of it believing you can meditate more. I think the more likely scenario is that you will spend a bunch of money, and develop a relatively simple understanding of meditation.
If you're in the Bay area, I would suggest checking out places like Spirit Rock or SFZC/Green Gulch/Tassajara instead.