Last Updated on August 25, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org
Why does the Center of Healthy Minds in Madison not investigate meditators such as Milarepa?
The Center of Healthy Minds in Madison found out that the effect of 10 – 20 min of meditation can change the brain in an objectively measurable way.
But Milarepa meditated much longer than that:
“The stunning lesson in impermanence gave Milarepa the final push he needed to follow Marpa’s command to meditate in mountain retreat. He stayed there for many years, until his clothes turned to rags, his bones protruded, and the nettles he ate turned his skin green. Hunters and thieves who came upon him thought he was a ghost. When he went begging for food, his uncle, aunt, and neighbors attacked him, and he barely escaped. His sister, who had also become a beggar, wept in misery at his apparently even sorrier state.”
Who is interested in the effect of 10 – 20 min mind training? Brain scanner sellers? But will people talk about this in 1 000 years from know? Milarepa lived 1 000 years ago, and he is still very alive in many books and many teachings. But why are people such as Milarepa not investigated scientifically? Does someone perform such scientific studies?
Who investigates the process of getting enlightened which is according to the Buddhist teachings to be completely mentally healthy?
Was this not what the Dalai Lama wanted from Richard R. Davidson when he asked him for scientific studies about meditation?
We have one PNAS paper from 2004 about this topic:
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0407401101
But this paper is 20 years old. The term enlightenment is not clearly defined scientifically. But there are ways to investigate this phenomenon scientifically, as described by Daniel Goleman in the following video:
And again, should the Olympic champions among the meditators not be investigated more in depth and on the long-term, to find out more about this phenomenon?