The science behind a main
procedure of Vimalaramsi's way of doing the Buddha's meditation:
the science of the movement
towards enlighenment :
https://mynichecomp.com/sciMed.pdf
(also available as a Word doc:
https://mynichecomp.com/sciMed.doc
)
READ THIS FIRST (it's an ABSTRACT):
This is quite a unique position. Very few studies
or conceptualizations make much of 'intrusions'* that occur during meditation
(be it
simple breathing meditation or loving-kindness (metta) meditation). Though
it makes perfect sense that you, with
your quiet mind, could well-process
and thoroughly process 'intrusions' making full use of an otherwise free working
memory, typically only the after-effects AFTER meditation are focused on
when "benefits of meditation" are considered or
assessed. Yet, these
studies on effects of meditation OUTSIDE the meditation process offer
essentially nothing in the way of an
explanation based on psychological
process. The benefits to thinking (conceptualizing or active processing)
that could naturally
occur DURING meditation by just simply 'noting' the
'intrusions' have a very plausible psychological
basis (in terms of the well-
recognized psychological processes associated
with working memory and long-term memory: declarative and procedural memory).
[ FOOTNOTE: 'intrusions' are content
(thoughts, feelings, sensations) that are other than the object of concentration
(e.g.
other than your breathing or loving-kindness or whatever
else you have as a good object of concentration). ]
This concentration on only "after-effects" seems likely a large over-sight when one is trying to do INSIGHT meditation.
During insight meditation, 'intrusions' (some quite
welcome 'intrusions') can be conceptualized as making full
use of working
memory EVEN when one always limits one's response to simply just 'noting' the
intrusions, and, in fact,
the basically natural processing that may occur
during just-noting 'intrusions' may well (at times) be incredibly
adaptive.
Just quickly, but calmly, noting intrusions is always what is recommended. Its results, too, could carry over into
regular day-to-day life. It is thought that a full-blown moral
Buddhist life, and including the seeking to see 'things
as they really are'
(ardently striving), in regular day-to-day life is likely necessary to have any
likelihood of good
useful intrusions.
To see the paper, as submitted to an online scientific
community: you may download
THIS ZIP , containing both the doc and
pdf versions of the paper
submitted. You will see I only added to the title and added an abstract.
Otherwise it was submitted as is.