Intention
and Action
A
few days ago I started looking through the November 2014 issue of
Scientific American. There was an article entitled “Mind of the
Meditator” by Matthieu Ricard, Antoine Lutz, and Richard J.
Davidson that I decided to read. In it they briefly described the way
the tests were performed and there results. They also stated that
there was much more study to be done.
When
I refer to the above article remember that it is filtered through my
eyes; the standards that I have created to interpret the world I live
in. If you want to make sure what I say in this post about the
article is accurate read it. I may have misunderstood what they were
trying to convey.
Their
study involved three different types of meditation. One was focused
attention. The person's attention was on their breathing. Another was
open monitoring. The person was aware of all that was around him
without becoming mentally involved with any one thing. The third was
the practice of compassion and loving kindness.
As
I understood it the practice of the first two developed what I would
call humility. Humility is not a word that they used. Over the years
I have come to some conclusions about humility. One is that
humiliation has nothing to do with humility unless experiencing
enough humiliation makes one receptive to learning about humility.
The perfectly humble man (in other words no one) can never be
humiliated. The perfectly humble man (again no one) never gets angry.
The last two sentences disqualifies me. I can be humiliated and it is
a rare day when I don't get at least a little angry about something.
Those sentences describe a couple of the many manifestations of an
ideal. To further describe humility (I cannot define it), I have
heard people say that they were humbled by receiving some type of
reward. I only have myself and my observation of others to go on, but
it seems the person who received the reward is saying, “I am
proud.” while trying not to seem that way. Another example is when
a person says that they humbled themselves by doing something. To me
they are saying that they felt a little humiliation. Here again is
part of the ideal; the truly humble person does things because they
need to be done. They take action without thinking about it. Pride
and humility have nothing to do with their action. In summation, I
can become less self-centered and thus do less harm and more good if
I practice one or both of the first two meditations.
The
article describes the physical changes in one's brain as they
practice meditation over time. In Intentions and Actions I
have been trying to deal with good and evil, so the physical changes
will not be covered. But the “Scientific American” article shows
what I would say is the first dichotomy in humans striving for
understanding; material and non-material. The physical actions bring
about changes in the brain and mind or it could be put, in the body
and thoughts of an individual.
The
third type of meditation, compassion and loving kindness, is where
good comes from. That does not describe the only way to good, but
some of the best. The article went on to describe the different
results for people who tried to help others. The folks who empathized
with the people who they tried to help would experience burn out
after a time. The people who had compassion instead of empathy did
not experience the burn out. Both were doing good. A friend of mine
was reared in India. He told me that he was taught that if he could
do nothing more, he could look at the person with kind eyes.
As
suggested by the growing compendium of research, meditation may be
effective in treating depression and chronic pain and in cultivating
a sense of overall well-being.
That sentence is copied directly from the article. It goes on to say
that continued practice of meditation is required for results.