Sunday 25 April 2010

Why Meditate? (Matthieu Ricard)

Extracts from a talk by Matthieu Ricard

As a Frenchman, I must say that there are a lot of French intellectuals that think happiness is not at all interesting. (Laughter) I just wrote an essay on happiness, and there was a controversy. And someone wrote an article saying, don't impose on us the dirty work of happiness. (Laughter) "We don't care about being happy. We need to live with passion. We like the ups and downs of life. We like our suffering because it's so good when it ceases for a while." (Laughter)

One of the most common confusions is between happiness and pleasure. But, if you look at the characteristics of those two, pleasure is contingent upon time, upon its object, upon the place. Also, it is not something that is radiating outside. Like, you can feel intense pleasure and some others around you can be suffering a lot. Well-being is not just a mere pleasurable sensation. It is a deep sense of serenity and fulfillment, a state that actually pervades and underlies all emotional states and all the joys and sorrows that can come one's way. For you, that might be surprising. Can we have this kind of well-being while being sad? In a way, why not? Because we are speaking of a different level. Look at the waves coming here to shore. When you are at the bottom of the wave, you hit the bottom. You hit the solid rock. When you are surfing on the top, you are all elated. So you go from elation to depression, there's no depth. Now, if you look at the high sea, there might be beautiful, calm ocean like a mirror. There might be storms, but the depth of the ocean is still there, unchanged.

So how do we proceed in our quest for happiness? Very often we look outside. We know, by experience, that we can be what we call "in little paradise" and yet, be completely unhappy within. The Dalai Lama was once in Portugal, and there was a lot of construction going on everywhere. So one evening he said, "Look, you are doing all these things, but isn't it nice, also, to build something within?" And he said, "Unless that – even you get high-tech flat on the 100th floor of a super-modern and comfortable building, if you are deeply unhappy within, all you are going to look for is a window from which to jump." So now, at the opposite, we know a lot of people who are in very difficult circumstances manage to keep serenity, inner strength, inner freedom, confidence. So now, if the inner conditions are stronger – of course, the outer conditions do influence, and it's wonderful to live longer, healthier, to have access to information, education, to be able to travel, to have freedom, it's highly desirable. However, this is not enough; those are just auxiliary help, conditions. The experience that translates everything is within the mind.

If we look from our own experience – anger, hatred, jealousy, arrogance, obsessive desire, strong grasping – they don't leave us in such a good state after we have experienced it. And also, they are detrimental to others' happiness. So we may consider that the more those are invading our mind, and, like a chain reaction, the more we feel miserable, we feel tormented. At the opposite, everyone knows deep within that an act of selfless generosity, if from the distance, without anyone knowing anything about it, we could save a child's life, make someone happy. We don't need the recognition. We don't need any gratitude. Just the mere fact of doing that, fills such a sense of adequation with our deep nature. And we would like to be like that all the time.

We know we're not always angry, always jealous, always generous. So, because the basic fabric of consciousness is this pure cognitive quality that differentiates it from a stone, there is a possibility for change because all emotions are fleeting. That is the ground for mind training. Mind training is based on the idea that two opposite mental factors cannot happen at the same time. So there are natural antidotes to emotions that are destructive to our inner well-being. So that's the way to proceed. Rejoicing compared to jealousy. A kind of sense of inner freedom as opposite to intense grasping and obsession. Benevolence, loving kindness against hatred. But of course, each emotion then would need a particular antidote.

Another way is to try to find a general antidote to all emotions. Look at anger itself; it looks very menacing, like a billowing monsoon cloud or thunder storm. But we think we could sit on the cloud, but if you go there, it's just mist. Likewise, if you look at the thought of anger, it will vanish like frost under the morning sun. If you do this again and again, the propensity, the tendencies for anger to arise again will be less and less each time you dissolve it. And, at the end, although it may rise, it will just cross the mind, like a bird crossing the sky without leaving any track. So this is the principal of mind training. Mind transformation, that is the very meaning of meditation.

The brain was thought to be more or less fixed. All the nominal connections, in numbers and quantities, were thought – until the last 20 years, thought to be more or less fixed when we reached adult age. Now, recently, it has been found that it can change a lot. A violinist, as we heard, who has done 10,000 hours of violin practice, some area that controls the movements of fingers in the brain change a lot, increasing reinforcement of the synaptic connections. So can we do that with human qualities? With loving kindness, with patience, with openness?

So that's what those great meditators have been doing. Some of them who came to the labs, like in Madison, Wisconsin, or in Berkeley, did 20 to 40,000 hours of meditation. They do, like three years retreat, where they do meditate 12 hours a day. And then, the rest of their life, they will do that three or four hours a day. They are real Olympic champions of mind training. (Laughter) So what did they find? Here is the preliminary result, which I can show because it's already been shown. The bell curve shows 150 controls, and what is being looked at is the difference between the right and the left frontal lobe. In very short, people who have more activity in the right side of the prefrontal cortex are more depressed, withdrawn. It's the opposite on the left side: more tendency to altruism, to happiness, to express, and curiosity and so forth. So there's a basic line for people. And also, it can be changed. If you see a comic movie, you go off to the left side. If you are happy about something, you'll go more to the left side. If you have a bout of depression, you'll go to the right side. Here, the -0.5 is the full standard deviation of a meditator who meditated on compassion. It's something that is totally out of the bell curve. Some meditators are able, also, to control their emotional response more than it could be thought. Like the startle experiments, for example. If you sit a guy on a chair with all this kind of apparatus measuring your physiology, and there's kind of a bomb that goes off, it's so instinctive response that, in 20 years, they never saw anyone who will not jump. Some meditators, without trying to stop it, but simply by being completely open, thinking that that bang is just going to be just a small event like a shooting stars, they are able not to move at all.

Mind training matters. This is not just a luxury. This is not a supplementary vitamin for the soul; this is something that's going to determine the quality of every instant of our lives. We are ready to spend 15 years achieving education. We love to do jogging, fitness. We do all kinds of things to remain beautiful. Yet we spend surprisingly little time taking care of what matters most: the way our mind functions. Controlling our mind is the ultimate thing that determines the quality of our experience.

The blog & comments were originally published on Buddhist Travelers

4 comments:

  1. And something else I discovered is that meditation releases melatonin which improves sleep, negates toxicity and improves immune function.

    And not to mention it being an exercise in concentration as well as loving kindness.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unlike other parts of the brain which come in pairs, the pineal gland is singular. Its location in the center of the brain and presence in other species indicates it is an older part of humanity’s evolutionary brain system.

    The pineal gland is present in all lower vertebrae. In other species, like birds, reptiles and frogs, the pineal gland is called the parietal eye or “third-eye” as its functions closely resemble that of an actual eye. In these other species, the pineal gland has components of an actual eye, with a cornea, rod and cone. It is considered to be the vestige of a functional sense organ of early primitive vertebrates.

    Serotonin is found in greatest concentrations in the pineal gland and melatonin is synthesized in the pineal gland. Both serotonin and melatonin exhibit a circadian rhythm, serotonin concentration being greatest during the day and melatonin at night.

    Directly affected by the light taken in through the eyes, the pineal regulates sleep, menstrual cycles, mating seasons, hibernation, seasonal flight patterns and many other “instinctual” behaviors.

    Melatonin also controls eye pigmentation and thus regulates the amount of light reaching the photoreceptors. The pineal gland has been well named ‘the third eye’ as melatonin is active both in the pineal gland and in the eyes

    The universal mystic vision of God as an all-consuming white light, is believed produced from chemical reactions in the pineal gland which is extremely light sensitive. “Light, the eyes and the ‘third eye’ or pineal gland form a triad which directly controls and regulates normal or altered consciousness and many bodily functions? these three factors are also directly related to, or implicated in, mystical experiences.”Visions of white light are not only associated with mysticism, but are also a prevalent image recorded by those who experience the near-death state.

    At a neural level the single clearest effect of melatonin is that it induces drowsiness during darkness. Peak production is three to six hours after the onset of darkness. This could well shed light on other strange folklores surrounding psi phenomena. For example, many spiritual systems such as Catholic monks, Buddhists and Yogis all recommend rising at 3 a.m. to meditate, or to chant vespers, or some other practice which is primarily aimed at spiritual development but which seems to bring enhanced psi effects in its wake. And what about our own saying that ‘Midnight is the magic or witching hour, when witches ride abroad’? Not to be forgotten in this context is the seminal research concerning the psi-conducive nature of dreams, which of course was done at night. All of these practices become more meaningful when linked with our slowly emerging knowledge concerning the pineal gland.

    Source: http://sidhere.com/contemplative-practices/pineal-gland-third-eye/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unlike other parts of the brain which come in pairs, the pineal gland is singular. Its location in the center of the brain and presence in other species indicates it is an older part of humanity’s evolutionary brain system.

    The pineal gland is present in all lower vertebrae. In other species, like birds, reptiles and frogs, the pineal gland is called the parietal eye or “third-eye” as its functions closely resemble that of an actual eye. In these other species, the pineal gland has components of an actual eye, with a cornea, rod and cone. It is considered to be the vestige of a functional sense organ of early primitive vertebrates.

    Serotonin is found in greatest concentrations in the pineal gland and melatonin is synthesized in the pineal gland. Both serotonin and melatonin exhibit a circadian rhythm, serotonin concentration being greatest during the day and melatonin at night.

    Directly affected by the light taken in through the eyes, the pineal regulates sleep, menstrual cycles, mating seasons, hibernation, seasonal flight patterns and many other “instinctual” behaviors.

    Melatonin also controls eye pigmentation and thus regulates the amount of light reaching the photoreceptors. The pineal gland has been well named ‘the third eye’ as melatonin is active both in the pineal gland and in the eyes

    The universal mystic vision of God as an all-consuming white light, is believed produced from chemical reactions in the pineal gland which is extremely light sensitive. “Light, the eyes and the ‘third eye’ or pineal gland form a triad which directly controls and regulates normal or altered consciousness and many bodily functions? these three factors are also directly related to, or implicated in, mystical experiences.”Visions of white light are not only associated with mysticism, but are also a prevalent image recorded by those who experience the near-death state.

    At a neural level the single clearest effect of melatonin is that it induces drowsiness during darkness. Peak production is three to six hours after the onset of darkness. This could well shed light on other strange folklores surrounding psi phenomena. For example, many spiritual systems such as Catholic monks, Buddhists and Yogis all recommend rising at 3 a.m. to meditate, or to chant vespers, or some other practice which is primarily aimed at spiritual development but which seems to bring enhanced psi effects in its wake. And what about our own saying that ‘Midnight is the magic or witching hour, when witches ride abroad’? Not to be forgotten in this context is the seminal research concerning the psi-conducive nature of dreams, which of course was done at night. All of these practices become more meaningful when linked with our slowly emerging knowledge concerning the pineal gland.

    Source: http://sidhere.com/contemplative-practices/pineal-gland-third-eye/

    ReplyDelete
  4. L said: "Everyone carries an internal picture of how they perceive their self.
    For most of us this is a composite of all our ego programming.
    It's difficult for affirmations to always work because light travels faster than sound, so by the time you say 1 affirmation that picture you carry of your self has flashed over 100 times.
    What I had to do was work on several levels.
    Thought is always the ancestor of every emotion, so I had to begin with observing what my thoughts were.
    Most people experience the emotion but because they have not practiced the discipline of observing their thoughts are unaware why they feel like they do.
    Observing your thoughts allows you to do 2 things.
    One is get some distance from them, to begin to realize you don't have to identify self with them.
    It also allows you to begin to see the loop patterns as you realize certain thoughts are repeated. This in turn allows you to recognize the source of those patterns.
    It's not an over night fix, but it is a tool that works, or at least for me it worked.
    I would mention also that exercise helps on a short term immediate basis, but in other questions you have stated you stay busy.
    I also began running when I began observing my thoughts.
    As a bonus I had many experiences while running of the mystical flavor.
    Sometimes even when just walking.
    There is something about the body being engaged in a mechanical activity that frees the mind to soar.
    Many Blessings!"

    Jon: "The only thing I would add is to become as aware as you can of how your BODY feels. The body is constantly telling us what to do, what not to do, what is helpful and what isn't."

    ReplyDelete