Scott Simpson, Ph.D.
Educational Specialist
Technology and Innovation in Education
 The Neuroscience of Meditation
 Compassion
 Attention studies
 Neuroplasticity: neural transformation through mental training
 Depression and the Cortex of the Brain
 ADHD and Mindfulness
 Center for the Contemplative Mind in Society Review
of Research
 Cognitive and Academic Performance
 Mental Health and Psychological Well-Being
 Development of the Whole Person
 128-channel EEG recorded in 8 long-
term Tibetan Buddhist practitioners
& 10 student volunteers.
 Increased synchronous gamma (25-
42 Hz) activity over lateral frontoparietal areas during non-referential
compassion meditation.
 Suggests precise temporal
synchronization of massive
distributed neural assemblies.
Lutz, A., Greischer, L.L., Rawlings, N.B., Ricard, M.,
& Davidson, R.J. (2004). Long-term meditators selfinduce high amplitude gamma synchrony during
mental practice. PNAS, 101, 16369-16373.
 High-amplitude gamma
oscillations emerge over a timecourse of several dozens of
seconds and correlate with the
“clarity” (phenomenal intensity
and vividness) of meditative
experience as verbally reported
“clarity of the mind” =
phenomenal intensity and
vividness during meditation
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
µV2
Example: Adept 1
300
250
200
Lutz, A. et al. (2006). Changes in the tonic
high-amplitude gamma oscillations during
meditation correlate with long-term
practitioners’ verbal reports. Poster presented
at the Association for the Scientific Study of
Consciousness Annual Meeting,.
150
100
50
0
Verbal report (rating 1-9);
Gamma activity
Clarity
4
LTM
3
 Long-term Meditators (>10 years)
 Report higher emotional clarity
 Those with higher clarity show
2
1
0
-1
-2
Cont
STM
lower physiological &
experienced arousal, & greater
subtle positive facial expression
in response to masked
emotional pictures, consistent
with regulation of emotion early
in the emotion process.
Nielsen, L., & Kaszniak, A.W. (2006).
Awareness of subtle emotional feelings: A
comparison of long-term meditators and nonmeditators. Emotion, 6, 392-405.
 Practice enables a shift from attachment & reactivity to a
more equanimous emotional response.
 Transformation occurs over many years.
 Initially: Attention, awareness of bodily feelings, use of
thought to regulate emotion expression, and physiological
reactivity to emotional stressors all increase
 Later: Emotional clarity increases, and explicit attention to
emotion may no longer be as needed. Clarity may confer
emotional regulatory skill, and attention to subtle emotion
cues may become automatized & move to the conscious
background.
 Attentional blink
 Normally a 0.5 sec “blink” in attention after identification
of a target (e.g. number in a sequence of letters). Second
target missed.
 Three-months of Vipassana meditation
 Awareness without judgment or affective response.
 Allocation of attentional resources
 Less attention given to the first target, second seen by all
practitioners.
 Known that difference in animal experience leads to
differences in gene expression and so to different
brain structure. So too with humans.
 Sara Lazar et al. MRI showed increase in cortical
thickness in subjects due to meditation. (Mass
General/Harvard study, NeuroReport, vol.16,
pp.1893-1897, 2005)
 Measured thickness of
the cerebral cortex in 20
Insight meditation
practitioners with
average of 9 years
practice of 40min/day
 Mean thickness
unchanged, but regions
show difference
 Slower thinning w. age
Scatter plot of mean cortical thickness of
each participant in the sub-region above
threshold within each circled region of (c)
insula and (d) BA 9/10, plotted versus
age. Meditation participants: blue circles;
control participants: red squares.
•Brain imaging of 131 individuals,
including children and adults ages
6 to 54
•Half had family history of
depression
•Half had no family history of
depression
• Maps of cortical thickness
 Images of the right and left hemispheres
showed significant thinning of 28
of the brain, as viewed from the side. The
percent on right cerebral
colors represent the differences in cortical
hemisphere in the high-risk group
thickness between the high-risk group,
•The cerebral cortex is the region
which has a family history of depression,
of the brain centrally involved in
and the low-risk group, which has no
reasoning, planning and mood,
known risk. Blue and purple represent the
and thinning of the cortex may
thinning of the cortex, with purple regions
affect an individual’s ability to pay
having the greatest thinning. Green areas
attention to and interpret social
show no significant differences between
and emotional cues, scientists
the two groups.
suggested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/health/25brain.html?ref=health
Results indicate that mindfulness meditation training
may be a beneficial complementary treatment
approach for adolescents and adults with ADHD.
Positive findings include:
1) the absence of any reported adverse events;
2) highly favorable ratings of the treatment by participants;
3) reductions in self-reported ADHD symptoms reported by over three
quarters of participants, even though the majority were already being
treated with medication;
4) significant improvement on several of the neuropsychological
measures; and,
5) reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms for the adults.
Zylowka, et al. (2008). Mindfulness meditation training in adults and
adolescents with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 11, 737-746.
A. Effects of Meditation on Cognitive
and Academic Performance
1. Mindfulness improved ability to maintain preparedness
and orient attention (Jha et al 2007)
2. Mindfulness improved the ability to process
information (Slagter et al. 2007, attentional blink)
3. Concentration practice improved academic
achievement (Hall, 1999, 56 undergrads, GPA)
Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr
B. Effects of Meditation on Mental Health
and Psychological Well-Being
1. Stress, anxiety, and depression reduced in students
through mindfulness intervention
2. Mindfulness supports better regulation of emotional
affect & the cultivation of positive psychological states
Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr
C. Effects of Meditation on Development
of the Whole Person
1. Creativity (small Zazen trial)
2. Interpersonal relationship skills (several studies of
MBSR –Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction--and Zen)
3. Empathy (grad students studied, MBSR)
4. Self-compassion (2 studies w/MBSR)
www.contemplativemind.org/programs/academic/reports.html
Shauna Shapiro, Kirk Brown, John Astin, and edited by Maia Duerr
Mindfulness:
Bringing one’s complete attention to the
experiences occurring in the present moment in
a non-judgmental or accepting way
In class:
1. Exercises that support learning.
1. Attention
2. Emotional balance
2. Integration of contemplation into the
disciplines.
 Posture that supports the practice
 Settling the body and the mind
 Attending to a simple object
(breath, paper clip, memory image…)
 Returning to the classroom
 Optional
 Descriptive writing
 Observation, in pairs
 Classroom discussion
Focused Attention
Open Awareness
The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment,
Not seeking, not expecting
She is present, and can welcome all things.
Tao Te Ching 15
Grace fills empty spaces but it can only enter where
there is a void to receive it, and it is grace itself which
makes the void.
Simone Weil
 Posture, settling and attending
 Place the content (image, word, natural phenomenon,
question, concept…) into the center of attention.
 Move slowly between Focused Attention and Open
Awareness, two or three times.
 Return with journaling and conversation.
Every object, well-contemplated,
opens a new organ in us. --Goethe
 Education Research Review, Shapiro et al
on our Website
 Teachers College Record, vol. 108, Sept 2006
 Meditation as Contemplative
Inquiry Arthur Zajonc
 April 24-26: Association conference at Amherst College
 August 9-14: Summer school at Smith College
 November 12-15:Faculty retreat
For more information:
 http://conference2009.tie2.wikispaces.net/Contemplative+Education+Opening
+a+Space+for+Mindfulness
 www.contemplativemind.org
 dsimpson@tie.net
To join the Association
 www.acmhe.org
There must be a time of day when the man who
makes plans forgets his plans,
and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has
to speak falls very silent.
And his mind forms no more propositions,
and he asks himself:
Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time
when the man of prayer goes to pray
as if it were the first time in his life
he had ever prayed,
when the man of resolutions puts his
resolutions aside
as if they had all been broken,
and he learns a different wisdom:
distinguishing the sun from the moon,
the stars from the darkness,
the sea from the dry land,
and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.
--Thomas Merton, from Thomas Merton, A Book of Hours, edited by Kathleen Diegnan with a forward by
James Finley and illustrations by John Giuliani
To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced,
requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning.
Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading.
Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply
bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those
with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not
only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they
are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret,
pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic
diversions and to conform with the deadening personal
opinions which are being continually thrust upon them.
— George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form
Mulla Nasruddin was outside on his hands and knees below a
lantern when a friend walked up. "What are you doing,
Mulla?" his friend asked. "I'm looking for my key: I've lost it."
So his friend got down on his hands and knees too and they
both searched for a long time in the dirt beneath the
lantern. Finding nothing, his friend finally turned to him and
asked, "Where exactly did you lose it?" Nasrudin replied, "I
lost it in the house, but there is more light out here."
--- a traditional Sufi story, from Stories of the Spirit, Stories of
the Heart: Parables of the Spiritual Path from Around the
World
Fire
What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.
We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.
--Judy Brown, from Teaching with Fire: Poetry
that Sustains the Courage to Teach
Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through the conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
--Rumi, from Teaching with Fire
This course moves rather slowly and covers material in depth
rather than breadth. Try to be patient with going back over
material in silence and slow time. I don't like to talk all the
time, or to hear other people talk all the time. I often have to
sit quietly in order to come up with an answer or analysis;
sometimes I have to write a little, and perhaps I will stop
class to do that: or perhaps that is not stopping class, but
continuing class in a different way. I think that if we proceed
in this rather contemplative manner we can get to deeper
understandings. This is not McSchool; there are no golden
arches out front.
--excerpt from English syllabus, Mary Rose O’Reilley,
Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try
to love the questions themselves as if they were locked
rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't
search for answers now, because you would not be able to
live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the
questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you
will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the
answer.
---Rainer Maria Rilke, Stephen Mitchell, trans. Letters to a
Young Poet
In the United States, I have a close friend named Jim Forest. When I first met him eight years
ago, he was working with the Catholic Peace Fellowship. Last winter, Jim came to visit. I
usually wash the dishes after we've finished the evening meal, before sitting down and
drinking tea with everyone else. One night, Jim asked if he might do the dishes. I said, "Go
ahead, but if you wash the dishes you must know the way to wash them." Jim replied,
"Come on, you think I don't know how to wash the dishes?" I answered, "There are two
ways to wash the dishes. The first is to wash the dishes in order to have clean dishes and
the second is to wash the dishes in order to wash the dishes." Jim was delighted and said,
"I choose the second way-to wash the dishes to wash the dishes." From then on, Jim knew
how to wash the dishes. I transferred the "responsibility" to him for an entire week.
If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the
dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not "washing the dishes to
wash the dishes." What's more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the
dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at
the sink. If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea
either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware
of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future -and we are incapable of
actually living one minute of life.
---Thich Nhat Hanh., The Miracle of Mindfulness
Attention: deep listening. People are dying in spirit for lack of
it. In academic culture most listening is critical listening. We
tend to pay attention only long enough to develop a
counterargument; we critique the student's or the
colleague's ideas; we mentally grade and pigeonhole each
other. In society at large, people often listen with an agenda,
to sell or petition or seduce. Seldom is there a deep,
openhearted, unjudging reception of the other. And so we all
talk louder and more stridently and with a terrible
desperation. By contrast, if someone truly listens to me, my
spirit begins to expand.
--Mary Rose O’Reilley, Radical Presence:
Teaching as Contemplative Practice
Contemplative Modes
Educational Benefits
Authors for Further
Information
Contemplative (reflective) reading
nuanced processing text at deep
levels of meaning (i.e., careful close
reading
David Abram
Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche
reflective reading
open attentive engagement with/in the
visual or auditory arts; engaging the
ineffable
Christopher Dustin and Joanna Ziegler
Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
Deborah J. Haynes
suspending assumption and judgment
careful listening; avoiding
preconception (e.g., stereotyping);
dialogue
Edmund Husserl
Parker Palmer
David Bohm
cultivating compassion
perspective taking; valuing diversity;
anti-racist attitudes
Ken McLeod
Sakyong Mipham, Rinpoche
whole-hearted (devoted) commitment
to learning
deep engagement and intimacy with
object of study; intellectual humility
Evelyn Fox Keller
opening to panoramic awareness, i.e.,
wide distribution of attention
seeing the big picture; openmindedness
Lama Surya Das
Chögyal Namkhai Norbu
Brother Lawrence
authentic spontaneity, e.g., playful
mind
creativity; enjoyment
Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
Thinley Norbu