{"id":13059,"date":"2021-06-16T16:13:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T16:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/?p=13059"},"modified":"2021-06-16T17:17:34","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T17:17:34","slug":"how-a-scientific-attempt-to-demystify-buddhist-meditation-yielded-astounding-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/?p=13059","title":{"rendered":"How a scientific attempt to demystify Buddhist meditation yielded astounding results"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;In 1981, Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, set out to study the ancient meditation practices of Buddhist monks on the Tibetan Plateau. With the Dalai Lama\u2019s blessing, Benson spent roughly a decade in remote regions of the Himalayas in northern India researching an especially intense technique known as&nbsp;<em>tummo<\/em>, as well as the physiological effects of other advanced forms of meditation. Rather than debunking the seemingly tall tales of advanced practitioners capable of raising their body temperatures to dry cold, wet sheets around their bodies, Benson\u2019s work actually confirmed and expanded upon these anecdotes. In particular, by tracking vital signs and body-heat output during meditation sessions, Benson found that these monks possessed remarkable capacities for controlling their oxygen intake, body temperatures and even brainwaves. In 2013, a second&nbsp;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/journals.plos.org\/plosone\/article?id=10.1371\/journal.pone.0058244\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a>&nbsp;conducted on advanced Tibetan&nbsp;<em>tummo<\/em>&nbsp;meditators by Maria Kozhevnikov, a cognitive neuroscientist the National University of Singapore, corroborated much of what Benson had observed, including practitioners\u2019 ability to raise their body temperatures to feverish levels by combining visualisation and specialised breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This extended trailer for the UK filmmaker Russ Pariseau\u2019s feature documentary\u00a0<em>Advanced Tibetan Meditation: The Investigations of Herbert Benson MD\u00a0<\/em>relays portions of Benson\u2019s landmark research, which ultimately signalled a seismic shift in how Western science views Buddhist meditation. Simultaneously, the material makes evident the disparate ways that Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists understand the self.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Watch video of the  <em>Advanced Tibetan Meditation: The Investigations of Herbert Benson MD<\/em>  in the link below:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/aeon.co\/videos\/how-a-scientific-attempt-to-demystify-buddhist-meditation-yielded-astounding-results\">https:\/\/aeon.co\/videos\/how-a-scientific-attempt-to-demystify-buddhist-meditation-yielded-astounding-results<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/aeon.co\/videos\/how-a-scientific-attempt-to-demystify-buddhist-meditation-yielded-astounding-results\">https:\/\/aeon.co\/videos\/how-a-scientific-attempt-to-demystify-buddhist-meditation-yielded-astounding-results<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;In 1981, Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, set out to study the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-letters-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lediemchihue.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/10-20.jpg?fit=1325%2C734&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7bhGG-3oD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13059"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13065,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13059\/revisions\/13065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lediemchihue.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}