Last Updated on April 8, 2026 by pg@petergamma.org
How can warm-heartedness, kindness, compassion, happiness & wellbeing be measured in a brain scanner? I have learned from the Tibetan Buddhist Monk that there are many words for «happiness» in the Tibetan language. Especially if it is about science, then scientific clearly defined terms are necessary to avoid confusion. And here is where problems start.
The Dalai Lama asked Richard Davidson basically to study kindness & compassion in a brain scanner. But how can this be done?
Matthieu Ricard who participated also in these scientific studies used the terms «Happiness & Wellbeing»
But immediately, Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk with a PhD. in Cellular Genetics was critizised for using the word «Happiness», as a «dirty» word. And also Diego Hangartner, who teaches meditation in Switzerland and has a degree as a pharmacologist from the Swiss Federal Institut of Zurich who participated also in scientific studies about meditation from the beginning in the year 2001:
Diego Hangartner says in the following interview, that it is not possible to measure how happy a person is in a brain scanner:
But as Richard R. Davidson explains in the next video, it is possible to compare gamma waves of long-term meditation practitioners to gamma waves of ordinary people in a brain scanner:
But as former scientist who did research at the Brain Research Institute of the University of Zurich who also published papers there, I am asking critical questions about this topic. For instance, why is there no continuous monitoring of the «world champions» in mind training?
If there is, for instance with Diego Hangartner as a participant, where are the scientific results about those? In the book «Altered Traits»?
But is “Altered Traits” a manual for scientists, or only a popular scientific book? Richard R. Davidson is a neuroscientist, but his co-author Daniel Goleman is not a scientist, but a psychologist, author, and science journalist, which answers part of this question.
And the most important question: These scientific studies with Buddhist monks started around 20 years ago. And these scientific studies where triggered by the Dalai Lama the 14. The Dalai Lama teaches all around the world how to get a healthy mind, a healthy brain through practicing meditation. But if there would be a scientifc break-though in science about meditation, would for insctance not also the psychotherapists in Switzerland know about it and teach it to their patients? But me personally, I do not know of such psychotherapists in Switzerland.
But what does this mean? Are the current scientific equipment to study meditation not sufficient enough for a break-through in science about meditation?
Tibetan Buddhists teach at least since Milarepa who was born around 1000 years ago about the causes of mental suffering and how to alleviate it:
And the Buddhist teachers around the world continue to teach about meditation as a training and teach about the causes of mental suffering and how to alleviate it. But where are the scientists and the medical doctors who teach meditation on a scientific basis? I mean the scientists except from Jon Kabat-Zinn with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Zindel V. Segal with his Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)?
Richard R. Davidson does it, but why does he do this at the Landguet Ried in Switzerland, and why is he not invited by scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich to give a talk there?
Is Richard Davidson not invited to give a talk there, since the scientific results are not there so that other scientists invite him to Zurich? Diego Hangartner was invited to talk at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, but only by students.
There are Buddhist teachers in Switzerland who teach about the causes of mental suffering and how to alleviate it. But these teachers are rare in Switzerland. We would like to mention Rita Riniker, Lama Pema Wangyal and Looten Darotsang in this context. These teachers teach about the causes of mental suffering and how to alleviate as Buddhist teachers in Switzerland.
But back to science, would knowledge be passed down for thousands of years if it didn’t contain a substance which is helpful, so helpful that also scientists are interested in this topic? But the question remains, are the scientific tools which are currently available sufficient enough to satisfactorily investigate this substance which is in those teachings about meditation? And if scientists would find a scientific method to find out about the causes mental suffering and how to alleviate it, wouldn’t that be a Nobel Prize topic? But unfortunately, no one has yet received a Nobel Prize for doing research about meditation. But who knows what the future will bring?