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Scientific research on the Jhanas

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Scientific research on the Jhanas
Answer
10/6/14 12:59 PM
Do you know any good studies and/or scientific articles on the jhanas? I'm making an essay about it for school, but I have a hard time finding legit sources on the subject...

RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas
Answer
10/6/14 2:36 PM as a reply to Pål.
Until Daniel's Dream of a New Scientific Journal comes into being, unfortunately not.

You might find what little research there is if you try different search terms, e.g.:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=samadhi

RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas
Answer
10/6/14 11:38 PM as a reply to Derek Cameron.
Thanks, hopefully I'll find something there! emoticon

I don't like it that there is so much research about such an undefined and broad term such as meditation, but practically none about the more concrete phenomenons and methods that the word meditation includes today.

RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas
Answer
10/6/14 11:51 PM as a reply to Pål.

RE: Scientific research on the Jhanas
Answer
10/7/14 3:15 AM as a reply to Not Tao.
"Very interesting" indeed -- thanks NT for digging this up.

From the abstract: "According to an historical-philological hypothesis (Wynne, 2009) the two forms of meditation could be disentangled. While mindfulness is the focus of Buddhist meditation reached by focusing sustained attention on the body, on breathing and on the content of the thoughts, reaching an ineffable state of nothigness accompanied by a loss of sense of self and duality (Samadhi) is the main focus of Hinduism-inspired meditation. It is possible that these different practices activate separate brain networks."

This dichotomy (Buddhist = vipassana, Hindu = samadhi as 'selfless' [not 'higher self/Brahman?']), if meant as strict either/or, is surprising -- will have to see how (Alexander) Wynne supports this view, apparently in a book: "The Origin of Buddhist Meditation."

btw: found a link having a bunch of articles (all downloadable) by this Alexander Wynne:
http://www.ocbs.org/lectures-a-articles-ocbsmain-121/alex-wynne-articles

This is the first I've ever heard of this author.

cjm