"If you've ever considered practicing meditation, you might believe you should relax, breathe, and empty your mind of distracting thoughts. Novices tend to think of meditation as the brain at rest, but a new international study concludes this ancient practice is quite the opposite: meditation is a state of heightened cerebral activity that profoundly alters brain dynamics. Researchers from the University of Montreal and Italy's National Research Council recruited twelve monks of the Thai Forest Tradition at Santacittārāma, a Buddhist monastery outside Rome."
"The study focused on two classical forms of meditation: Samatha, a technique that focuses on sustained attention to a specific objective, often steady breathing, with the aim of stabilizing the mind and reaching a deep state of calm and concentration, and Vipassana, which is based on equanimous observation of sensations, thoughts, and emotions as they arise in order to develop mental clarity and a deeper understanding of the experience."
Meditation induces heightened cerebral activity and substantially changes brain dynamics. Twelve monks of the Thai Forest Tradition were recorded with magnetoencephalography (MEG) to capture precise electrical brain signals during practice. Practitioners performed Samatha, a focused-attention technique often centered on breathing to stabilize the mind, and Vipassana, a practice of equanimous observation of sensations, thoughts, and emotions to cultivate clarity. Samatha narrows the field of attention while Vipassana widens it; both actively engage attentional mechanisms, with Vipassana typically more challenging for beginners. Researchers measured neural oscillations, signal complexity, and parameters related to criticality to evaluate these effects.
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