Jul 12, 2018 08:43 PM
https://aeon.co/essays/can-meditation-re...tter-place
EXCERPT: . . . Initially, the results were promising. Our meta-analysis indicated that meditation did indeed have a positive, though moderate, impact on prosociality. But digging deeper, the picture became more complicated. While meditation made people feel somewhat more compassionate or empathetic, it did not reduce aggression or prejudice, nor did it improve how socially connected one felt. So the prosocial benefits are not straightforward, but they are apparently measurable. The issue is the way in which those benefits were measured.
[...] My aim is not to discredit science, but scientists do have a duty to produce an evidence base that aims to be bias-free and aware of its limitations. This is important because the inflated results for the power of meditation fuel magical beliefs about its benefits. Mindfulness websites market it as a ‘happy pill, with no side effects’; it is said it can bring world peace in a generation, if only children would breathe deep and live in the moment. But can we be sure that there are no unexpected outcomes that neither benefit the individual nor society? Is it possible that meditation can fuel dysfunctional environments and indeed itself create a path to mental illness?
The utilisation of meditation techniques by large corporations such as Google or Nike has created growing tensions within the wider community of individuals who practise and endorse its benefits. Those of a more traditional bent argue that meditation without the ethical teachings can lead into the wrong kind of meditation (such as the sniper who steadies the killing shot, or the compliant worker who submits to an unhealthy work environment). But what if meditation doesn’t work for you? Or worse, what if it makes you feel depressed, anxious or psychotic? The evidence for such symptoms is predictably scarce in recent literature, but reports from the 1960s and ’70s warn of the dark side of transcendental meditation. There is a danger that those few cases that receive psychiatric attention are discounted by psychologists as having had a predisposition to mental illness.
[...] There must be a more balanced view of meditation, one that understands the limitations of meditation and its adverse effects. One day there will be a more complete picture of this potent and poorly understood practice. For now, our understanding is mostly warped....
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/can-meditation-re...tter-place
EXCERPT: . . . Initially, the results were promising. Our meta-analysis indicated that meditation did indeed have a positive, though moderate, impact on prosociality. But digging deeper, the picture became more complicated. While meditation made people feel somewhat more compassionate or empathetic, it did not reduce aggression or prejudice, nor did it improve how socially connected one felt. So the prosocial benefits are not straightforward, but they are apparently measurable. The issue is the way in which those benefits were measured.
[...] My aim is not to discredit science, but scientists do have a duty to produce an evidence base that aims to be bias-free and aware of its limitations. This is important because the inflated results for the power of meditation fuel magical beliefs about its benefits. Mindfulness websites market it as a ‘happy pill, with no side effects’; it is said it can bring world peace in a generation, if only children would breathe deep and live in the moment. But can we be sure that there are no unexpected outcomes that neither benefit the individual nor society? Is it possible that meditation can fuel dysfunctional environments and indeed itself create a path to mental illness?
The utilisation of meditation techniques by large corporations such as Google or Nike has created growing tensions within the wider community of individuals who practise and endorse its benefits. Those of a more traditional bent argue that meditation without the ethical teachings can lead into the wrong kind of meditation (such as the sniper who steadies the killing shot, or the compliant worker who submits to an unhealthy work environment). But what if meditation doesn’t work for you? Or worse, what if it makes you feel depressed, anxious or psychotic? The evidence for such symptoms is predictably scarce in recent literature, but reports from the 1960s and ’70s warn of the dark side of transcendental meditation. There is a danger that those few cases that receive psychiatric attention are discounted by psychologists as having had a predisposition to mental illness.
[...] There must be a more balanced view of meditation, one that understands the limitations of meditation and its adverse effects. One day there will be a more complete picture of this potent and poorly understood practice. For now, our understanding is mostly warped....
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/can-meditation-re...tter-place