Buddhist Meditation
Implications for Physical and Psychological Health

RELIG2212 Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices
April 13, 2009

RELIG 2212 Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices
April 13, 2009

I. Introduction a. Meditation as a central role in Buddhism b. Thesis statement: there is great potential for Buddhist meditation techniques to provide both physical and psychological health benefits.

II. Meditation and anxiety a. Meditation and anxiety reduction b. Study by John Miller on Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness Meditation- Based Stress Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.

III. Meditation and health a. Meditation and cardiovascular disease/blood pressure b. Study by Vernon Barnes on the “ Impact of Transcendental Meditation on Cardiovascular Function at Rest and During Acute Stress in Adolescents with High Normal Blood Pressure.”

IV. Meditation and neurology a. Meditation and mind and brain functioning/neuroscience b. Visual imagery/attention studies c. Studies on virtuous mental states/meditation on lovingkindness

V. Conclusion: These scientific studies demonstrating lowered stress and blood pressure, and demonstrating the possibility for a better understanding of brain functioning, make it clear that there is a great potential for Buddhist meditation techniques to provide health benefits and advances in modern science.

Under a Bodhi tree, a man in robes vows to remain in seated meditation until he achieves Enlightenment. Despite temptations and harassment by the evil god Mara, he remains undisturbed in a deep meditative state. Finally, he achieves perfect Enlightenment and the realization that makes him into the Buddha. This Buddhist story depicts a practice essential to an extremely diverse tradition. Buddhism is practiced in countries throughout the world and the stories told in the tradition have many different versions. Just as stories vary, beliefs and practices within the religion vary as well. Differing schools within the religion are unique. However, despite the immense diversity of the Buddhist tradition, there are several fundamental beliefs and practices common to all of Buddhism, including meditation. Meditation is an essential practice, ubiquitous in Buddhism. The ultimate goal of Buddhism is to overcome the suffering of everyday life and to attain a state of transcendence, or Nirvana. Tradition relates that the Buddha preached sermons to his disciples to teach them how to attain this goal. Included in these teachings was the Holy Eight Fold Path—a description of how to reach Nirvana. An essential component of the Path is the “meditative cultivation of the heart/mind” which is brought about by right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration in meditation practices. Such Buddhist meditation presents in many levels and forms, from mindfulness meditation to walking meditation, and is practiced by Buddhists all over the world. Each form of meditation offers different benefits to Buddhists, helping to further them along their path toward enlightenment. The benefits of meditation practices, however, might not be limited to Buddhists—the path toward enlightenment may hold benefits for non-Buddhists as well. There is great potential for Buddhist meditation techniques to provide both physical and psychological health benefits. Studies involving the practice of Buddhist meditation techniques have pointed toward health benefits through lowered anxiety and blood pressure. They have also contributed toward a greater understanding of the complex mental processes influencing mental health. In a study by John Miller as part of the Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, mindfulness meditation was shown to be a successful technique in stress reduction. Mindfulness is a key practice in Buddhism, as it the seventh practice on the Holy Eight Fold Path. Right Mindfulness is described as “a state of keen awareness of mental and physical phenomena within and around one.” Mindfulness is a foundation for other Buddhist meditation practices as well. Monks develop mindfulness of the body, sensation, and thought by becoming aware of posture and movement, pleasant and unpleasant sensations, and by becoming aware of individual thoughts themselves. Through this concentration, a monk is able to realize the momentary, transient quality of life. The practice of mindfulness may be used outside of sitting meditation as one may carefully observe the sensations involved in all movements. An example is mindfulness in walking, where one “walks back and forth along a path with the mind focused on the sensations in the feet and calf muscles.” These awareness and concentration techniques are employed in John Miller’s study of mindfulness meditation-based techniques as treatment for anxiety disorders. In this study, twenty-two medical patients, diagnosed with anxiety disorders, underwent an eight week group stress reduction intervention based on mindfulness meditation. The study was administered by the Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program, an outpatient clinic where patients attend sessions of intense training in mindfulness mediation and its applications in daily living. Patients learned a range of mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques and devoted at least forty-five minutes per day, six days a week to formal meditation techniques during the eight week period. Patients were assessed using a number of anxiety, depression, and panic scales on five occasions: during recruitment, pre-intervention, post-intervention, three-month follow-up, and three-year follow-up. After the program, patients demonstrated “clinically and statistically significant improvements in subjective and objective symptoms of anxiety.” For example, before treatment, the average Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety was at 25.65. After treatment, the average dropped to 17.29 and in the three-year follow-up, the average had remained at 17.24 showing a significant decrease in anxiety. In the follow-up study done three years later, a majority of the subjects had continued ongoing compliance with the meditation practices. It should be noted that the improvements demonstrated by the patients occurred whether they were taking anti-anxiety drugs or not. The treatment reduced the frequency and severity of panic attacks without regard to medication. This study provides strong evidence that mindfulness-based meditation can provide a clinically effective treatment for medical patients with anxiety disorders. Moreover, anxiety and stress are “often associated with and/or exacerbate many common medical conditions.” Thus, the benefits of practices like mindfulness meditation may be beneficial to overall health. Related to stress and anxiety, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease are major medical concerns in the United States. In a study by Vernon Barnes, the salutary impact of meditation on cardiovascular function was observed. Since teenagers with high normal blood pressure are at an increased risk for developing hypertension and cardiovascular disease later in life, Barnes studied meditation as a method to decrease cardiovascular reactivity in these adolescents. Thirty-five adolescents with a resting systolic blood pressure between the 85th and 95th percentile for their age and gender were included in the study. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups: a meditation group and a control group. The meditation group engaged in fifteen minute meditation sessions twice a day during school for two months. Additional sessions were prescribed at home. The control group participated in weekly lifestyle education sessions on lowering blood pressure through weight loss, diet, and exercise. These sessions provided the control group with comparable time and attention. Blood pressure, heart rate, and cardiac output were measured before and after the intervention. To ensure that results were not based on differences in demographics, the meditation group and the control group were demographically similar and had comparable blood pressure levels before the intervention. After the intervention, the meditation group exhibited a significant decrease in resting blood pressure compared to the control group. The meditation group also exhibited greater decreases than the control group in blood pressure, heart rate, and cardiac output from pre- to post-intervention when introduced to a stressor. These finding suggest that meditation practices help to reduce blood pressure in adolescents who are at risk for cardiovascular disease. If so, then meditation provides another important preventive tool in adolescent cardiac care. In addition to basic health benefits, Buddhist meditation practices are also associated with benefits in brain functioning. Buddhist monks and Western scientists have collaborated in a number of studies to learn whether trained Buddhist meditators can provide insights into neurology or psychotherapy. Buddhist meditation techniques such as attention meditation and visual imagery meditation are of particular interest to neuroscientists. According to Western neuroscience, attention cannot be held for long periods of time and mental images are fleeting. However, advanced practitioners of Buddhist meditation contradict these Western beliefs. Buddhists that practice visual imagery often meditate on a mandala, a circular device often used in Pure Land Buddhism to depict the Pure Land of a specific deity. Through the vivid visual expression of the mandala a “practitioner can familiarize himself with the deity’s world.” Mandalas are typically complex images that are symbolic depictions of the universe. Buddhists trained in visual imagery claim to be able to hold images of these detailed mandalas in their minds. If neuroscientists can determine whether trained Buddhist meditators are able to mentally retain these detailed images, then brain scans might reveal the neurological sources of this extraordinary ability. Another Buddhist meditation practice associated with unusual brain activity is the focus on virtuous mental states such as lovingkindness. Lovingkindness is “the heart-felt aspiration for the happiness of all beings, and is the antidote to hatred and fear.” Since Western psychology focuses mainly on negative mental states of fear, anger, and depression, neuroscientists are interested in the impact of the Buddhist focus on compassion and lovingkindness. Through the study of brain activity in Buddhist monks meditating on lovingkindness, neuroscientists hope to discover the means by which the brain might be placed into more positive emotional states. To assess positive and negative moods, scientists have found that in brain-imaging studies, a high ratio of activity in the left frontal region compared to the right frontal region of the brain is associated with positive emotions while a lower ratio is associated with a negative mood. When monks were instructed to meditate on compassion, they showed a much greater shift toward activity in the left frontal region of the brain than control subjects who were not trained in meditation. Because these results could not rule out the possibility that the monks’ brains were unusual even before meditation training, a further study took a different approach. Members of a biotech company underwent eight weeks of meditation training and scans of brain activity were taken before and after the training. Compared with controls, “those trained to meditate showed an increase in left-prefrontal activation.” These studies are not definitive. However, they point toward future studies which may lead to a better understanding of meditation and its relationship to brain functioning. These scientific studies demonstrating lowered anxiety, stress and blood pressure, as well as increased positive emotionality, support the claim that there is great potential for Buddhist meditation techniques to provide both physical and psychological health benefits. Many common health problems today are related to stress, anxiety, high blood pressure, and poor cognitive functioning. If meditation practices are able to provide insights into and treatments for such common health problems, people throughout the world would benefit greatly.
When the Buddha attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he did not set out to make claims about ultimate reality. Instead, the Buddha offered his followers a therapeutic approach by which they might reduce or even overcome their suffering. While not everyone is on the Buddha’s Holy Eight Fold Path to enlightenment, we might all take care to follow the Buddha’s prescription of meditation. It is the only means by which one may attain Nirvana. But it may also be an important means to good overall health.

Bibliography

Barinaga, Marcia. “Buddhism and Neuroscience: Studying the Well-Trained Mind.” Science 302 (2003): 44-46.

Barnes, Vernon, et al. “Impact of Transcendental Meditation on Cardiovascular Function at Rest and During Acute Stress in Adolescents with High Normal Blood Pressure.” J. Psychosomatic Research 51 (2001): 597-605.

Bhikkhu, Thanissaro. "Eightfold Path." Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay
Jones. Vol. 4. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. Retrieved 1 April 2009 from http://find.galegroup.com.webadvisor.emmanuel.edu.

Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History, and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Miller, John, et al. “Three-Year Follow-up and Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness
Meditation-Based Stress Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.” General Hospital Psychiatry 17 (1995): 192-200.

Strong, John S. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008.

Underwood, Frederic. "Meditation." Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay
Jones. Vol. 9. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. Retrieved 13 April 2009 from http://find.galegroup.com.webadvisor.emmanuel.edu.

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[ 1 ]. John S. Strong. The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008. 17.
[ 2 ]. Peter Harvey. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History, and Practices. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. 68.
[ 3 ]. John Miller. “Three-Year Follow-up and Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness Meditation-Based Stress Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.” General Hospital Psychiatry 17 (1995). 192.
[ 4 ]. Harvey. 70.
[ 5 ]. Frederic Underwood. "Meditation." Encyclopedia of Religion. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 5816-5822. Retrieved April 1, 2009 from http://find.galegroup.com.webadvisor.emmanuel.edu.
[ 6 ]. Harvey. 254.
[ 7 ]. John Miller. “Three-Year Follow-up and Clinical Implications of a Mindfulness Meditation-Based Stress Reduction Intervention in the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders.” General Hospital Psychiatry 17 (1995). 192.
[ 8 ]. Miller. 192.
[ 9 ]. Miller. 194.
[ 10 ]. Vernon Barnes. “Impact of Transcendental Meditation on Cardiovascular Function at Rest and During Acute Stress in Adolescents with High Normal Blood Pressure.” J. Psychosomatic Research 51 (2001). 597.
[ 11 ]. Barnes. 598.
[ 12 ]. Barinaga. 44.
[ 13 ]. Harvey. 209.
[ 14 ]. Barinaga. 44.