Not forgetting the body in meditation: Mind and Life Summer Research Institute

This year's theme was embodiment. What does that mean? It is the idea that we are not just brains in vats, but that our body matters too. Now that sounds pretty obvious, but in most of the science these days, we focus either on the body or on the mind, but not on how these two interact. There were presentations about a range of topics including embodied practices in the Tibetan tradition, which includes the spectacular debating that you may have seen on youtube. As Anne Klein said, as Western practitioners we have sometimes a tendency to just practise with our head, but the body needs to be included as well, otherwise the practice just doesn't have so much of an effect--it is more of a theory. She talked about how many Tibetan practices include visualizations of light streams, which tends to have a profound effect on emotions. And we have only barely begun to study the body in contemplative practice.

The little study that has been done on the body appeared for example from Richard Davidson's lab, including effects of meditation on the immune system. This tied in quite nicely with a talk by George Chrousos about the biological mechanisms behind stress. As you may know, meditation has been associated a lot with stress reduction, and George Chrousos suggested that one of the major causes of stress comes from feeling threatened by the environment, and meditation helps us to feel less threatened and have more self worth. Quite wonderful, isn't it? This threat to self was worked out in more detail in a cognitive model by Larry Barsalou.These models will provide quite a lot of opportunities for future research as we try to figure out how threats to self translate exactly into stress responses such as increased heart rate, and cognitive responses like rumination. On a more practical level, Catherine Kerr showed us how Tai Chi changes the ability to perceive very fine tactile stimuli and also brain waves in the muscles. In short, the main message of this Summer Institute for me was that we should think about research approaches in which we don't only think about the brain, but also about the body. And in my own meditation practice, not forgetting my body is also helpful.

See for a more extensive report the Mind & Life daily report.