1 Unpublished transcript of teaching by V.V. Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche on Chapter 9 Bodhicharyavatara, by Shantideva, September 1991

This is the second way in which the matter we experience in our daily life is not truly existent. Once again, science is following where Buddhist philosophers have been, and is in harmony with the Buddha’s teaching on dependent arising (Sanskrit: pratityasamutpada): that all phenomena are dependently co-arisen from their fundamental elements or conditions, and have no enduring, independent identity of their own. They are empty of self (existing on their own accord).

We search for the mind, and we are unable to find it…because it has no real nature, no true existence….

This brief analysis of Buddhist and scientific views of reality reveals that both systems, while using vastly different methods of investigation, have made almost identical discoveries: the nature of the world around us is not what it appears to be. To the scientist this is interesting for a variety of materialistic reasons. To the Buddhist it is an important ingredient of the philosophy of freedom. If there is nobody here to grasp and nothing enduring to be grasped, then why not give up grasping and experience the relief and joy that come with it?

Perhaps for members of technological societies, the empirical evidence of science will be an encouragement to rely with greater confidence on their own discoveries through meditation.

Neuroscience Confirms Positive  Effects of Meditation

The ground of the Buddha’s teaching is compassion. Students of Tibetan Buddhism are trained to develop a combination of compassion and intention called Bodhicitta.  1 All meditation and mind-training is inspired by this motivation on the understanding that enlightenment is not possible without it. Methods are graduated, working on the principle that sustained and repeated mind-training exercises produce cumulative changes over time – as with physical training.

Tranquillity (mindfulness) meditation is the foundation for all practices. In time the mind settles, becomes tranquil, and gives rise to stability, clarity and deepening levels of happiness.

During most training students report changes, not only at a psychological level, but also physically and neurologically. Almost standard amongst changes reported are increased feelings of happiness, joy, clarity and peace, often followed by a diminishing sense of “me”, and a loss of feeling separate from others. This can be followed by a feeling of expansiveness which becomes limitless, finally taking the meditator into a state of bliss and clarity where any sense of duality of limitation is lost.

These descriptions by meditators indicate that profound transformations of consciousness are brought about by the process, which is what it is designed to do. Now science is enabling us to ascertain how these changes manifest in the brain and actually change the physical structure of the brain.

During the past 20 years neuroscientists have shown great interest in the effects of meditation. In 2002 extensive tests were performed on eight long-term Buddhist meditators by an American team of top neuroscientists.1 These were highly sophisticated tests capturing a moment-by-moment record of changing levels of activity in different areas of the brain.

One of the long-term meditators was prone to severe panic attacks as a child. The fact that within claustrophobic space of the MRI scanner he could focus his mind on an altruistic and compassionate state confirmed the result of his training in meditation.

In one of the tests, brain activity during compassionate meditation was measured in meditators and a control group. The measurement of activation in the area of the brain stimulated by maternal love and empathy was significantly higher in the meditator group. In addition, the measurements of the long-term meditators were so much higher than in the control group that the laboratory technicians suspected that there was a malfunction of the recording machinery. In 2005, Time magazine interviewed Richard Davidson2  about these exciting results. He admitted: “We didn’t expect to see anything quite that dramatic.”

This piece of research is a small sample of a rapidly increasing body of evidence which establishes that there is an intricate interaction between how we use our minds and what happens to the brain.

1 Study reported in PNAS, November 16th, 2004. Vol 101 No 46 16373: Long-term meditators self-induced high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.

2 Richard Davidson: Neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.One of the studied meditators comments,Through the patient tutoring of experts in the fields of psychology and neuroscience….I’ve begun to recognize why, from an objectively scientific perspective, the practices actually work: those feelings of limitation, anxiety, fear, and so on are just so much neuronal gossip. They are, in essence, habits, and habits can be unlearned.1