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The Mindful Brain
GiddyupTim
Posts: 2,819 Member
Has anybody read The Mindful Brain, by Daniel J. Siegel, a clinical professor at UCLA?
So, coming from a Western and Christian perspective, which stresses compassion, love, charity, and giving as the path to spirituality and the way to enlarge oneself, I could never quite reconcile how Eastern meditation and yoga might be spiritual.
Of course, I knew that Western religion had a strong tradition of prayer and meditation, but those seemed kind of adjuncts.
Spirituality was getting outside of yourself, getting away from our self-absorption into the present, and meditation and yoga seemed like it was just focusing on yourself; in a way, being selfish.
Well, the book says that there is now neuroscience research to show that practices of "mindful awareness" -- of focused breathing and meditation and being in the present, like in yoga --actually do change your brain in ways that would appear to be associated with greater self-understanding and, yes, even compassion and sensitivity.
So, coming from a Western and Christian perspective, which stresses compassion, love, charity, and giving as the path to spirituality and the way to enlarge oneself, I could never quite reconcile how Eastern meditation and yoga might be spiritual.
Of course, I knew that Western religion had a strong tradition of prayer and meditation, but those seemed kind of adjuncts.
Spirituality was getting outside of yourself, getting away from our self-absorption into the present, and meditation and yoga seemed like it was just focusing on yourself; in a way, being selfish.
Well, the book says that there is now neuroscience research to show that practices of "mindful awareness" -- of focused breathing and meditation and being in the present, like in yoga --actually do change your brain in ways that would appear to be associated with greater self-understanding and, yes, even compassion and sensitivity.
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