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| Two spiritual warriors whose weapon is compassion recognize one another, the Dalai Lama and Brother David Steindl-Rast |
After catching up on some reading and giving things some thought, there are two more stories in the Catholic world which seem to be gathering momentum and may burst with the same explosive force as the Australian abuse scandal. The first is Vati Leaks, and the second is the status of women in the Church. I will get to these two topics in later posts, but for now, there is this article on the new science of contemplation and it's intriguing findings about humanity's innate capacity for compassion. This is a critical new field of scientific study because it holds within it's framework the synthesis of religious/spiritual contemplation and neuroscience. It also holds out hope for finally getting past our religious barricades, as mindfullness techniques are part and parcel of amost all religious contemplative traditions.
I've written this before, and I'm sure I will write it again--The future belongs to comtemplatives and mystics. The good news is that deep down inside it is innate to our biological brains. It is exactly what Jesus taught.
When Mindfulness Meets Compassion: Close Encounters in Contemplative Science
A philosopher of science might explain that remarkable feel in light of the history behind the meeting. An unlikely array of individuals and teams -- exploring dozens of converging paths around the nation and world, after decades of patient progress -- suddenly find themselves assembled as one global community embodying a breakthrough field. A science journalist might explain the event's uncanny feel by the fact that a once-obscure Buddhist contemplative practice called mindfulness, introduced in the late 1970s into pain management by Kabat-Zinn, has defied all the skeptics and all the odds by becoming one of the hottest topics in mainstream clinical research today.
But as a contemplative psychiatrist, I found the conference remarkable because what brought its participants together was less the cutting-edge science being discussed there than something far less tangible. Kabat-Zinn announced as much in his keynote address by confessing that what he really meant when he chose the word "mindfulness" for his popular stress-reduction program was "dharma," the ancient Sanskrit term for spiritual teachings and contemplative experiences like Shakyamuni Buddha's. Richie Davidson echoed this sentiment by sharing that his groundbreaking research was inspired not just by a lifelong interest in meditation but by a spiritual challenge from a renowned Buddhist leader. "What the world needs most in our global age," the Dalai Lama told him, "is new brain science that clarifies the causal basis and beneficial effects of compassion." (The Vatican's evangelization efforts would go much better if this melding of science and compassion were being taken as seriously by the Vatican as it is by the Dalai Lama. Instead Catholics get a new Pontifical academy for the study of Latin. I kid you not.)
As an exploding body of clinical research confirms that mindfulness helps reduce stress and promote healing, learning and neuroplasticity, a parallel line of study on the related practice of loving-kindness has begun to converge with exciting new research on positive emotions and the brain.
As the conference unfolded, the shape of that convergence came clear. The new contemplative science is not just consolidating its broad foundation in mindfulness, but is also opening an emergent frontier of basic research and application: the deep, healing and transforming power of compassion.(Or to put this differently, a state of compassion helps return a biological/emotional system to it's innate wholeness.)
What I found most surprising about the new compassion research is that for most of human history, this cutting-edge scientific frontier has been the province of religious professionals and lifelong contemplatives.
In panel after panel, researchers from a handful of labs around the world shared recent work involving cognitive-behavioral compassion training based on the Tibetan Buddhist practice called mind-training. The gist of the four studies I heard about is that such training enhances novices' natural capacity to experience and respond to human suffering with proactive compassion, rather than with the sympathetic distress some call empathy, and others, emotional contagion. The studies not only show a significant change in subjects' reported experience but also show measurable changes in brain processing, suggesting a shift from simple mirroring of distress to deeper, positive emotional engagement and prosocial responsiveness.
These and other studies in the new frontier were the exclusive focus of another historic conference, The Science of Compassion: Origins, Measures and Interventions, which took place in Telluride in July, featuring the renowned Tibetan scholar Thupten Jinpa.
In the last few months, some exciting new studies in this new breed of contemplative science have been published, introducing the budding field to the larger public for the first time.
What does this new frontier mean for our everyday lives? My strongest close encounter moment at the Denver conference came in a panel that brought together neuroscientist Tania Singer with lifelong advocates of compassion Sharon Salzberg and Brother David. Although the two contemplatives used contrasting language from the Buddhist and Christian traditions, they were both able to explain in human terms the shift Singer and her team found on fMRI scans of subjects' brains.
Brother David used the metaphor of Michelangelo's statue of David, who stands firmly on one leg and "plays" with the other. Our normal, stressful life in the world, he said, reflects a stance where we rely mainly on our disconnected identity and social role, and only play with fleeting glimpses of deeper attunement and connection to others. Instead, a proactive life of social engagement involves a stance where we rely mainly on a deep sense of caring interconnection, and flexibly play with the identities and social roles that seem to separate us from others. (This means a heavier reliance on the intuitive right brain while simultaneously disempowering the social indenties developed by the self aware ego to maintain it's ascendancy.)
What made this moment so profound for me had less to do with an otherworldly encounter than with an unexpected homecoming. As a science-minded teen in a progressive Catholic school, I recall asking my philosophy teacher why the infinite connectedness of people and things should be conceived as a personal God? At the time, I was bemused by the only answer he gave me: his caring smile. Thanks to meeting Robert Thurman and eventually the Dalai Lama at Amherst College, by the time I got to med school I'd learned enough to know my professors were dead wrong to warn compassion would cloud my objectivity and cause burnout. Yet after 30 years integrating contemplative psychiatry with Tibetan mind-training, it was listening to Tania and Brother David that the right and left sides of my brain clicked together, bringing me back to the visual koan of Father Eichner's smile.(Seriously, sometimes the only answer to an astute question is to smile--with compassion.)
In mulling over what makes these new developments so historic, I kept recalling the words of T.S. Eliot: "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."(Nor shall we stop evolving as a self aware sentient consciousness, whether our religious authorities want to admit that or not.)
The rest of this article can be read here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-loizzo/mindfulness-research_b_2092829.html?utm_hp_ref=religion&ir=Religion
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