In this new mini review from Frontiers in Cognition, Lippelt, Hommel, and Colzato compare three meditation types (focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness) in terms of their effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity.

The three research areas the authors covered in this review (attentional control, performance monitoring, and creativity or thinking style) seem to imply the operation of extended neural networks, which might suggest that meditation operates on neural communication, perhaps by impacting neurotransmitter systems. They speculate:

Finally, it may be interesting to consider individual differences more systematically. If meditation really affects interactions between functional and neural networks, it makes sense to assume that the net effect of meditation of performance depends on the pre-experimental performance level of the individual—be it in terms of compensation (so that worse performers benefit more) or predisposition (so that some are more sensitive to meditation interventions).

Full Citation: 
Lippelt DP, Hommel B and Colzato LS. (2014, Sep 23). Focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation: effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity – A review. Frontiers in Psychology: Cognition. 5:1083. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01083

Focused attention, open monitoring and loving kindness meditation: effects on attention, conflict monitoring, and creativity – A review

Dominique P. Lippelt, Bernhard Hommel and Lorenza S. Colzato

• Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute for Psychological Research and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, Netherlands

Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a topic for scientific research and theories on meditation are becoming ever more specific. We distinguish between what is called focused Attention meditation, open Monitoring meditation, and loving kindness (or compassion) meditation. Research suggests that these meditations have differential, dissociable effects on a wide range of cognitive (control) processes, such as attentional selection, conflict monitoring, divergent, and convergent thinking. Although research on exactly how the various meditations operate on these processes is still missing, different kinds of meditations are associated with different neural structures and different patterns of electroencephalographic activity. In this review we discuss recent findings on meditation and suggest how the different meditations may affect cognitive processes, and we give suggestions for directions of future research.

Introduction

Even though numerous studies have shown meditation to have significant effects on various affective and cognitive processes, many still view meditation as a technique primarily intended for relaxation and stress reduction. While meditation does seem to reduce stress and to induce a relaxing state of mind, it can also have significant effects on how people perceive and process the world around them and alter the way they regulate attention and emotion. Lutz et al. (2008) proposed that the kind of effect meditation has is likely to differ according to the kind of meditation that is practiced. Currently the most researched types of meditation include focused attention meditation (FAM), open monitoring meditation (OMM), and loving-kindness meditation (LKM). Unfortunately, however, the methodological diversity across the available studies with regard to sample characteristics, tasks used, and experimental design (within vs. between group; with vs. without control condition) renders the comparison between them difficult. This review is primarily focused on FAM and OMM studies¹ and on how these two (proto-)types of meditation are associated with different neural underpinnings and differential effects on attentional control, conflict monitoring, and creativity.

Meditation Types

Usually, FAM is the starting point for any novice meditator (Lutz et al., 2008; Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). During FAM the practitioner is required to focus attention on a chosen object or event, such as breathing or a candle flame. To maintain this focus, the practitioner has to constantly monitor the concentration on the chosen event so to avoid mind wandering (Tops et al., 2014). Once practitioners become familiar with the FAM technique and can easily sustain their attentional focus on an object for a considerable amount of time, they often progress to OMM. During OMM the focus of the meditation becomes the monitoring of awareness itself (Lutz et al., 2008; Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). In contrast to FAM, there is no object or event in the internal or external environment that the meditator has to focus on. The aim is rather to stay in the monitoring state, remaining attentive to any experience that might arise, without selecting, judging, or focusing on any particular object. To start, however, the meditator will focus on a chosen object, as in FAM, but will subsequently gradually reduce this focus, while emphasizing the activity of monitoring of awareness.

Loving-kindness meditation incorporates elements of both FAM and OMM (Vago and Silbersweig, 2012). Meditators focus on developing love and compassion first for themselves and then gradually extend this love to ever more “unlikeable” others (e.g., from self to a friend, to someone one does not know, to all living beings one dislikes). Any negative associations that might arise are supposed to be replaced by positive ones such as pro-social or empathic concern.

Meditation Types, Attentional Scope, and Endogenous Attention

Whereas some meditation techniques require the practitioners to focus their attention on only a certain object or event, other techniques allow any internal or external experiences or sensations to enter awareness. Different meditation techniques might therefore bias the practitioner to either a narrow or broad spotlight of attention. This distinction is thought to be most evident with regard to FAM and OMM. FAM induces a narrow attentional focus due to the highly concentrative nature of the meditation, whereas OMM induces a broader attentional focus by allowing and acknowledging any experiences that might arise during meditation.

In a seminal study, Slagter et al. (2007) investigated the effects of 3 months of intensive Vipassana meditation (an OMM-like meditation) training on the allocation of attention over time as indexed by the “attentional-blink” (AB) deficit, thought to result from competition between two target stimuli (T1 and T2) for limited attentional resources. After the training, because of the acquisition of a broader attentional scope, participants showed a smaller AB deficit as an indication of being able to distribute their brain-resource allocation to both T1 and T2. The reduced AB size was accompanied by a smaller T1-elicited P3b, a brain-potential thought to index attentional resource allocation.

A more recent study comparing meditators (trained in mindfulness-based stress-reduction) to non-meditators found that meditators show evidence of more accurate and efficient visual attention (Hodgins and Adair, 2010). Meditators monitored events more accurately in a concentration task and showed less interference from invalid cues in a visual selective attention task. Furthermore, meditators showed improved flexible visual attention by identifying a greater number of alternative perspectives in multiple perspectives images. Another study compared OMM and FAM meditators on a sustained attention task (Valentine and Sweet, 1999): OMM meditators outperformed FAM meditators when the target stimulus was unexpected. This might indicate that the OMM meditators had a wider attentional scope, even though the two meditator groups did not differ in performance when the stimulus was expected.

Electrophysiological evidence for meditation-induced improvements in attention comes from a recent study in which Vipassana meditators performed an auditory oddball task before and after meditation (in one session) and random thinking (in another session; Delgado-Pastor et al., 2013). The meditation session was composed by three parts. First, an initial part of self-regulation of attention focused on sensations from air entering and leaving the body at the nostrils. Second, a central part of focusing attention on sensations from all parts of the body while maintaining the non-reactivity and acceptance attitude. Last, a final brief part aimed on generating feelings of compassion and unconditional love to all living beings. Meditators showed greater P3b amplitudes to target tones after meditation than either before meditation or after the no-meditation session, an effect that is thought to reflect enhanced attentional engagement during the task.

Support for the assumption that FAM induces a narrow attentional focus comes from several studies that show that FAM increases sustained attention (Carter et al., 2005; Brefczynski-Lewis et al., 2007). Neuroimaging evidence by Hasenkamp et al. (2012) suggests that FAM is associated with increased activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), which has been associated with “the repetitive selection of relevant representations or recurrent direction of attention to those items” (D’Esposito, 2007, p. 765 ). Thus, in the context of meditation experience, dlPFC might be involved in repeatedly redirecting or sustaining attention to the object of focus. It would be interesting to investigate whether this pattern of activation is unique to FAM or whether other kinds of meditation lead to similar increases in activity in the dlPFC. If the dlPFC is indeed involved in the repetitive redirection of attention to the same object of focus, then it should not be as active during OMM during which attention is more flexible and continuously shifted to different objects. Alternatively, however, if during OMM the meditator achieves a state of awareness where (only) awareness itself is the object of focus, the dlPFC might again play a role in maintaining this focus. Similarly, it would be interesting to examine how LKM modulates attentional processes and the activation of the dlPFC.

In a follow-up study, Hasenkamp and Barsalou (2012) found that, during rest, the right dlPFC connectivity to the right insula was improved in experienced meditators compared to novices. The authors suggest that improved connectivity with the right insula might reflect enhanced interoceptive attention to internal bodily states. In a support of this idea, a recent study reports that mindfulness training predicted greater activity in posterior insula regions during interoceptive attention to respiratory sensation (Farb et al., 2013). Various studies have shown theta activity to be increased during meditation, primarily OMM-like meditations (e.g., Baijal and Srinivasan, 2010; Cahn et al., 2010; Tsai et al., 2013; for review see Travis and Shear, 2010). This increase in theta activity, usually mid-frontal, has been suggested to be involved in sustaining internalized attention. As such, similar increases in theta activity would be expected for LKM during which attention is also internalized, but not during FAM where attention is explicitly focused on an external object, even though typically the object of meditation in FAM, at least for beginners, is the breath, which is internal.

Additionally, active mindfulness meditation (versus rest) was associated with increased functional connectivity between the dorsal attention network, the Default Mode Network and the right prefrontal cortex (Froeliger et al., 2012). Thus, meditation practice seems to enhance connectivity within and between attentional networks and a number of broadly distributed other brain regions subserving attention, self-referential, and emotional processes.

Meditation Types and Conflict Monitoring

A fundamental skill acquired through meditation is the ability to monitor the attentional focus in order to “redirect it” in the case of conflicting thoughts or external events. Not surprisingly, several studies have already shown improvements in conflict monitoring after meditation. Tang et al. (2007) investigated whether a training technique based on meditational practices called integrative body-mind training (IBMT; most similar to OMM) could improve performance on an attentional network task (ANT; Fan et al., 2002). The ANT was developed to keep track of three different measures, namely orientation, alerting, and conflict resolution. While IBMT had no effect on orienting and alerting scores, it did improve conflict resolution. In a similar study FAM and OMM were compared on an emotional variant of the ANT. Both types of meditation improved conflict resolution compared to a relaxation control group (Ainsworth et al., 2013). Surprisingly, there was no difference between the two meditation types, even though, mindfulness disposition at baseline (i.e., trait mindfulness) was also associated with improved conflict resolution.

Further evidence for improvements in conflict monitoring come from a study investigating the effect of 6-week long FAM trainig (versus relaxation training and a waiting-list group) on a discrimination task intended to investigate the relationship between attentional load and emotional processing (Menezes et al., 2013). Participants had to respond to whether or not the orientation of two lines presented to either side of an emotionally distracting picture was the same. Importantly, those who underwent a meditation or relaxation training commited fewer errors than the waiting list control group. Furthermore, error rates were lowest in the meditation group, higest in the waiting list group, while the relaxation group scored in between. With regard to emotional regulation meditators showed less emotional interference than the other two groups when attentional load was low, and only meditators showed a relationship between the amount of weekly practice and reductions in emotional interference.

In a study of Xue et al. (2011), meditation-naïve participants were randomly assigned to either an 11 h IBMT course or a relaxation training. Compared to the relaxation training, the IBMT group showed higher network efficiency and degree of connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). As the ACC is involved in processes such as self-regulation, detecting interference and errors, and overcoming impasses (e.g., Botvinick et al., 2004), improvements in ACC functioning might well be the neural mechanism by which IBMT improves conflict resolution. In an interesting study of Hasenkamp et al. (2012), experienced meditators engaged in FAM inside an fMRI scanner and pushed a button whenever they started to mind-wander. The moment of awareness of mind-wandering was associated with increased activity in the dorsal ACC. Thus, as the mind starts to wander during meditation, the ACC might detect this “error” and feed it back to executive control networks (Botvinick et al., 1999; Carter and van Veen, 2007), so that attention can be refocused. Various other studies have also shown improvements in ACC functioning after meditation (Lazar et al., 2000; Baerentsen et al., 2001; Tang et al., 2009, 2010). Hölzel et al. (2007) compared experienced and novice meditators during a concentrative meditation (akin to FAM) and found that the experienced meditators showed greater activity in the rostral ACC during meditation than the novices, even though the two groups did not differ on an arithmetic control task. Similar results were obtained in another study comparing novices and experienced meditators (Baron Short et al., 2007) by showing more activity in the ACC during FAM compared to a control task. The activity in the ACC was more consistent and sustained for experienced meditators. Related to that, Buddhist monks exhibited more activity in the ACC during FAM than during OMM (Manna et al., 2010). This suggests that the effects of meditation on the ACC and conflict monitoring do not seem to be limited to temporary state effects but carry over into daily life as a more stable “trait.” Future large scale longitudinal studies should to be conducted to address this issue and to disentangle short-term and long-term effects on conflict monitoring.

Improved conflict monitoring does not necessarily entail increased brain activity. Kozasa et al. (2012) compared meditators and non-meditators on a Stroop task in which semantic associations of words have to be suppressed to retrieve the color of the word. While behavioral performance was not significantly different for the two groups, compared to meditators, the non-meditators showed more activity in brain regions related to attention and motor control during incongruent trials. Given that the aim of many meditation techniques is to monitor the automatic arise of distractible sensations, such skill may become effortless by repeated meditation, therefore leading to less brain activity during the Stroop task. LKM has been shown to improve conflict resolution, as well, when LKM and a control group were compared on a Stroop task. The LKM group was faster in responding to both congruent and incongruent trials, and the difference between congruent and incongruent trials (the congruency effect) was smaller as well (Hunsinger et al., 2013). As LKM incorporates elements of both FAM and OMM, it would be interesting to investigate how the effect size associated with LKM may be positioned in between FAM and OMM.

Recently, meditators and non-meditators were compared with regard to measures of cortical silent period and short intra cortical inhibition over the motor cortex before and after a 60 min long meditation (for the meditators) or cartoon (for the non-meditators), respectively, measuring GABA_B receptor-mediated inhibitory neurotransmission and GABA_A receptor-mediated inhibitory neurotransmission (Guglietti et al., 2013). Given that deficits related to cortical silent periods in the motor cortex had been previously associated with psychiatric illness and emotional deregulation, the activity over the motor cortex was measured. No differences were found between meditators and non-meditators before the meditation/cartoon. However, after meditation there was a significant increase in GABA_B activity in the meditator group. The authors suggest that “improved cortical inhibition of the motor cortex, through meditation, helps reduce perceptions of environmental threat and negative affect through top down modulation of excitatory neural activity” (Guglietti et al., 2013, p. 400). Future research might investigate whether similar GABA related mechanisms underlie the suppression of distracting stimuli during meditation and how different types of meditation might have distinguishable effects on these processes.

Meditation Types and Creativity

The scientific evidence regarding the connection between meditation and creativity is inconsistent. While some studies support a strong positive impact of meditation practice on creativity (Orme-Johnson and Granieri, 1977; Orme-Johnson et al., 1977), others found only a weak association or no effect at all (Cowger, 1974; Domino, 1977). Recently, Zabelina et al. (2011) found that a short-term effect of mindfulness manipulation (basically OMM) facilitated creative elaboration at high levels of neuroticism. As pointed out by Colzato et al. (2012), these inconsistencies might reflect a failure to distinguish between different and dissociable processes underlying creativity, such as convergent and divergent thinking (Guilford, 1950). Accordingly, Colzato et al. (2012) compared the impact of FAM and OMM on convergent thinking (a process of identifying one “correct” answer to a well-defined problem) and divergent thinking (a process aiming at generating many new ideas) in meditation practitioners. Indeed, the two types of meditation affected the two types of thinking in opposite ways: while convergent thinking tended to improve after FAM, divergent thinking was significantly enhanced after OMM. Colzato et al. (2012) suggest that FAM and OMM induce two different, to some degree opposite cognitive-control states that support state-compatible thinking styles, such as convergent and divergent thinking, respectively. In contrast to convergent thinking, divergent thinking benefits from a control state that promotes quick “jumps” from one thought to another by reducing the top-down control of cognitive processing—as achieved by OMM.

Conclusion

Research on meditation is still in its infancy but our understanding of the underlying functional and neural mechanisms is steadily increasing. However, a serious shortcoming in the current literature is the lack of studies that systematically distinguish between and compare different kinds of meditation on various cognitive, affective or executive control tasks—a criticism that applies to neuroscientific studies in particular. Further progress will require a better understanding of the functional aims of particular meditation techniques and their strategies to achieve them. It will also be important to more systematically assess short- and long-term effects of meditation, as well as the (not yet understood) impact of meditation experience (as present in practitioners but not novices). For instance, several approaches (like Buddhism) favor a particular sequence of acquiring meditation skills (from FAM to OMM) but evidence that this sequence actually matters is lacking. Moreover, the neural mechanisms underlying meditation effects are not well understood. It might be interesting that the three main research topics we have covered in the present review (attentional control, performance monitoring, and creativity or thinking style) imply the operation of extended neural networks, which might suggest that meditation operates on neural communication, perhaps by impacting neurotransmitter systems. Finally, it may be interesting to consider individual differences more systematically. If meditation really affects interactions between functional and neural networks, it makes sense to assume that the net effect of meditation of performance depends on the pre-experimental performance level of the individual—be it in terms of compensation (so that worse performers benefit more) or predisposition (so that some are more sensitive to meditation interventions).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Footnotes

1. ^ It is important to note that even though this mini review is based on the theoretical framework of distinguishing FAM and OMM, another one includes the distinction between concentrative meditations, practices that regulate or control attention/awareness, and meditation practices which instead do not explicitly target attentional/effortful control (Chiesa and Malinowski, 2011; see also Chiesa, 2012 for a recent review on the difficulty of defining Mindfulness). Moreover, Travis and Shear (2010) have pointed out a third meditation category besides FAM and OMM: the automatic self-transcending which trascends FAM and OMM through the absence of both (a) focus and (b) individual control or effort.

References at the Frontiers site

The Power of Forgiveness - Gina Sharpe (Tricycle)

As much as I like this article and I think it is good to practice forgiveness when we can, I am not convinced that it is always the best choice. Gina Sharpe quotes Jack Kornfield: “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” I like this perspective, but I might exchange the word "forgiveness" with "acceptance." For many of us, acceptance is giving up all hope of a better past. And that is a good place to begin.

This comes from Tricycle's Wisdom Collection.

The Power of Forgiveness

Our ability to forgive allows us to meet suffering—our suffering as well as the suffering of others—with a kind heart.

by Gina Sharpe

Forgiveness is not simple. When we have been harmed, hurt, betrayed, abandoned, or abused, forgiveness can often seem to be out of the question. And yet, unless we find some way to forgive, we will hold that hatred and fear in our hearts forever. Imagine what the world would be like without forgiveness. Imagine what it would be like if every one of us carried every single hurt, every single resentment, all the anger that came up, when we felt betrayed. If we just kept that in our hearts and never let it go, it would be unbearable. Without forgiveness, we’re forced to carry the sufferings of the past. As Jack Kornfield says, “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” In that sense, forgiveness is really not about someone’s harmful behavior; it’s about our own relationship with our past. When we begin the work of forgiveness, it is primarily a practice for ourselves.

Maha Ghosananda, a Theravada monk who was known as “the Gandhi of Cambodia,” used to lead dhammayietra (“pilgrimage of truth”) walks in the early 1990s, after peace accords ending the civil war between the Khmer Rouge and the new Cambodian government had been signed. When Maha Ghosananda died in 2007 at the age of 78, an obituary in The Economist detailed his experiences walking through Cambodia after the war: He often found war still raging. Shells screamed over the walkers, and firefights broke out round them. Some were killed. The more timid ran home, but Ghosananda had chosen his routes deliberately to pass through areas of conflict. Sometimes the walkers found themselves caught up in long lines of refugees, footsore like them, trudging alongside oxcarts and bicycles piled high with mattresses and pans and live chickens. “We must find the courage to leave our temples,” Ghosananda insisted, “and enter the suffering-filled temples of human experience.”

Now, though the Khmer Rouge had outlawed nostalgia, had razed the monasteries and thrown the mutilated Buddha statues into the rivers, old habits stirred. As they caught Ghosanada’s chant, “Hate can never be appeased by hate; hate can only be appeased by love,” soldiers laid down their arms and knelt by the side of the road. Villagers brought water to be blessed and plunged glowing incense sticks into it to signal the end of war. . . . He could not stay out of the world. Rather than devoting himself to monastic scholarship, he built hut-temples in the refugee camps.

Maha Ghosananda built those temples even though he was told by the remnants of the Khmer Rouge that if he dared to open these temples he would be killed. As thousands of refugees arrived at the temples, Maha Ghosanada handed out dog-eared photocopies of the Buddha’s Metta Sutta:

With a boundless heart

Should one cherish all living beings:

Radiating kindness over the entire world,

Spreading upwards to the skies,

And downwards to the depth.

This story is a powerful reminder of what forgiveness can do. Maha Ghosananda’s family was wiped out by the Khmer Rouge, and during their reign Buddhist monks were labeled as social parasites. They were defrocked, forced into labor fields, or murdered: out of 60,000 monks, only 3,000 remained in Cambodia after the war. But despite all that he had suffered during the Khmer Rouge regime, Maha Ghosananda was able to find forgiveness in his heart.

Forgiveness releases us from the power of fear and allows us to see kindly with a wise heart. First, we need to understand forgiveness: then we learn how it is practiced, and then how we may forgive ourselves and others. The Buddha said, “If it were not possible to free the heart from entanglement and greed, hate, fear, and delusion, I would not teach you or ask you to do so.” The power of forgiveness releases us from the power of fear. Our practice of lovingkindness can be enhanced by our practice of forgiveness, because it allows us to see with kind eyes and to rest in a wise and peaceful heart. In any moment, we can learn to let go of hatred and fear and rest in peace and forgiveness—it’s never, ever too late. But in order to cultivate a truly loving and kind heart, we need to develop the practices that cultivate and strengthen forgiveness and the natural compassion within us. Our ability to forgive allows us to make space for our ability to meet suffering—our suffering as well as the suffering of others—with a kind heart.

Forgiveness does not gloss over what has happened in a superficial way. The practice is not about planting a smile on our face and saying, “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” It’s not a misguided effort to suppress our pain or to ignore it. If you’ve suffered a great injustice, coming to forgiveness may include a long process of grief and outrage and sadness and loss and pain. Forgiveness is a deep process, which is repeated over and over and over again in our hearts. It honors the grief and it honors the betrayal. And in its own time, it ripens into the freedom to truly forgive. And if we look honestly at our own lives, we can see the sorrows and pain that have led to our own wrongdoing. We’re not just victims; sometimes we also need to be forgiven. And in this way we can finally extend forgiveness to ourselves and hold the pain that we have caused in the heart of compassion. Without such mercy we would live in isolation or in exile.

As you do the following forgiveness practices, let yourself feel whatever small or large release there is in your heart. Or if there is no release, notice that too. And if you are not ready to forgive, that’s all right. Sometimes the process of forgiveness takes a lifetime, and that’s perfectly fine. You can unfold in your own time and in your own way. We’re not trying to manufacture some kind of feeling, so if all you can muster is the understanding that harm was done, that’s perfectly okay. Emotions will come not because we force them to but because they’re there, because they’re an expression of some deep feeling inside. So if as a result of the harm, there were ways in which your heart closed or your feelings closed, you can acknowledge that too as part of the harm. Whatever you feel, you feel. And whatever you don’t feel, you don’t feel. Forgiveness is an attitude of welcoming and inviting and spaciousness rather than some emotion that we pump up in our bodies and minds and hearts.

We practice with the faith that as we do the repetitions, the body, mind, and heart learn. That’s the beauty of these practices, we learn that we’re not in control of the fruits of our practice, but we are in control of how we do the practice—whether we do it with patience and diligence and determination and wisdom and effort and energy. We’re not in control of how it then manifests in our life. We’re not trying to make anything happen, because in the trying to make something happen, we will miss the beauty and the delight of what does happen.

~ Gina Sharpe is a cofounder of New York Insight Meditation Center, where she currently serves as the guiding teacher, and a core teacher at Insight Meditation Society in, Barre, MA.

Image: After Attar's 'The Conference of the Birds' V, 45 inches by 45 inches, watercolor/paper, 2006. © Francesco Clemente. Courtesy: Mary Boone Gallery, New York. 

* * *

Forgiveness Practice

This practice of forgiveness comes in three parts: forgiveness from others, forgiveness for ourselves, and forgiveness for those who have hurt or harmed us. This is not a coercive practice, so if we feel that we don’t want to ask for forgiveness, then we don’t have to. If we think we can’t forgive ourselves, we can sit quietly and see if there’s any small, even tiny little opening in our hearts that can allow just the smallest amount of light to come in. And if we feel that we can’t extend forgiveness to others because we think that something is completely unforgivable, then we can know that too. During this practice we reflect on whatever resentment or bitterness we’re holding onto and how that is working in our own hearts. And if you think that there is just a tiny little amount that you can forgive, then that’s fine too. This is a deep, unfolding process that can take a lifetime to work through.

You may not want to take on the largest thing that you’ve not been willing to forgive up to now, but maybe you can address some small offenses. Let your heart get some exercise in forgiveness. You want to start with something that isn’t quite so overwhelming and allow the heart to begin to exercise. It’s like exercising a muscle in our bodies. We don’t start with the 500-pound weight. We start maybe with a couple of small barbells, and we work with those to get the muscle going. And then eventually it may be strong enough to take up heavier and heavier weights. In the same way, with forgiveness practice, you may want to start small.

Sit comfortably and allow the eyes to close and the breath to be natural and easy. Let the body and the mind relax. Feel your connection to the earth. Breathe gently into your whole body, especially into your heart.

As you’re breathing, feel all the barriers that you’ve erected and the emotions you’ve carried because you haven’t forgiven yourself or others. Let yourself feel the pain of keeping your heart closed.

Forgiveness from Others

As you are breathing into your heart and feeling any hardness there, repeat silently to yourself, “There are many ways that I have hurt or harmed others. And I remember them now. Ways that I have betrayed, abandoned, or caused suffering, knowingly or unknowingly, out of my pain, fear, anger, or confusion.” Let yourself remember and visualize the ways you have hurt others. See pain that you may have caused with your own fear and confusion. Sense that you can finally release this burden and ask for forgiveness. Take as much time as you need to picture the memory that burdens your heart. And as each person comes to mind, just gently say, “I ask for your forgiveness. I ask for your forgiveness.”

Forgiveness for Ourselves

To ask forgiveness for yourself, repeat silently, “Just as I have caused suffering to others, there are many ways that I have hurt and harmed myself. I have betrayed or abandoned myself many times in thought, word, or deed, knowingly or unknowingly.” Let yourself remember the ways that you have harmed yourself. And extend forgiveness for each act of harm, one by one. “For the ways that I have hurt myself through action or inaction, out of fear, pain, and confusion, I now extend a full and heartfelt forgiveness. I forgive myself. I forgive myself. I forgive myself.”

Forgiveness for Those Who Have Hurt or Harmed Us

To extend forgiveness to those who have hurt or harmed you, repeat, “There are many ways I have been harmed by others, abused or abandoned, knowingly or unknowingly, by thought, word, or deed.” Picture the ways you have felt harmed. Remember them. We’ve each been betrayed. Let yourself remember the ways that this may have been true for you, and feel the sorrow you have carried from the past. And now, sense that it’s possible to release this burden by extending forgiveness gradually as your heart is ready. Don’t force it; every harm does not have to be forgiven in one sitting. The point is to exercise in a very small way something that you think you are ready to forgive right now. Gently repeat to yourself, “I remember the many ways that I have been hurt, wounded, or harmed. And I know that it was out of another’s pain, confusion, fear, anger. I have carried this pain in my heart long enough. To the extent that I am ready, I offer you forgiveness. You who have caused me harm, I offer my heartfelt forgiveness. I forgive you.”

These three practices for forgiveness may be gently repeated until you feel a release in your heart. For some great pain you may not feel a release. Instead, you may experience again the burden or the anger that you’re holding onto. If that is the case, then you can just touch this softly. Be forgiving of yourself for not being ready to let it go, and move on.

It's interesting to see the emerging research on differences between various approached to meditation. We may soon reach a point when we can "prescribe" meditation form A for increasing cognitive function or meditation form B for increasing compassion and empathy.

This study makes progress in that general direction.

The researchers demonstrate that focused-attention meditation (FAM) can increase performance on tasks associated with attention, while loving-kindness meditation (LKM) does not confer the same increase in performance.

On the other hand, both the FAM and LKM meditation practices seem to alter the way the brain responds to emotional (affective) pictures. When viewing sad face, FAM practitioners activated the same brain regions that were active in the attention tasks. However, the LKM practitioners responded to sad face with brain regions associated with "differentiating emotional contagion from compassion/emotional regulation processes."

The results in this study support the premise of neuroplasticity that specific practices are associated with specific changes in brain function.

Meditation does influence emotion processing, regardless of whether the practice focuses on cognition (ānāpānasati) or emotion (mettā). Finally, the neural pathways underlying emotion processing associated with LKM are likely to be different from those associated with FAM.

The article was published in PLOS ONE and is freely available online at the link below.

Distinct Neural Activity Associated with Focused-Attention Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation

Tatia M. C. Lee^1,2,3,4*, Mei-Kei Leung^1,2, Wai-Kai Hou^1,2,4, Joey C. Y. Tang^1,5, Jing Yin^4,6, Kwok-Fai So^3,4,7, Chack-Fan Lee^4,6, Chetwyn C. H. Chan^4,8*

1 Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 2 Laboratory of Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 3 The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 4 Social Neuroscience Research Network, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 5 Number Laboratory, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 6 Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 7 Department of Anatomy, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China, 8 Applied Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

Abstract

This study examined the dissociable neural effects of ānāpānasati (focused-attention meditation, FAM) and mettā (loving-kindness meditation, LKM) on BOLD signals during cognitive (continuous performance test, CPT) and affective (emotion-processing task, EPT, in which participants viewed affective pictures) processing. Twenty-two male Chinese expert meditators (11 FAM experts, 11 LKM experts) and 22 male Chinese novice meditators (11 FAM novices, 11 LKM novices) had their brain activity monitored by a 3T MRI scanner while performing the cognitive and affective tasks in both meditation and baseline states. We examined the interaction between state (meditation vs. baseline) and expertise (expert vs. novice) separately during LKM and FAM, using a conjunction approach to reveal common regions sensitive to the expert meditative state. Additionally, exclusive masking techniques revealed distinct interactions between state and group during LKM and FAM. Specifically, we demonstrated that the practice of FAM was associated with expertise-related behavioral improvements and neural activation differences in attention task performance. However, the effect of state LKM meditation did not carry over to attention task performance. On the other hand, both FAM and LKM practice appeared to affect the neural responses to affective pictures. For viewing sad faces, the regions activated for FAM practitioners were consistent with attention-related processing; whereas responses of LKM experts to sad pictures were more in line with differentiating emotional contagion from compassion/emotional regulation processes. Our findings provide the first report of distinct neural activity associated with forms of meditation during sustained attention and emotion processing.

Full Citation:  

Lee TMC, Leung M-K, Hou W-K, Tang JCY, Yin J, et al. (2012) Distinct Neural Activity Associated with Focused-Attention Meditation and Loving-Kindness Meditation. PLoS ONE 7(8): e40054. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040054

Upaya Dharma Podcasts - Ray Olson: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lovingkindness

A nice talk from a new teacher at Upaya Zen Center - Ray Olson brings his prison outreach experience to a talk on questioning what love and kindness really are and how can we act lovingly to those who may be hurtful or disrespectful towards us or others.

Ray Olson: 05-16-2012: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Lovingkindness

Speaker: Ray Olson
Recorded: Wednesday May 16, 2012

PRESENTER BIO: Ray Olson, an internist by training, was a longtime Professor of Medicine at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. He has been a Zen student for over 30 years and received Jukai in 1989. He was ordained Novice Priest by Roshi Joan Halifax in 2009 and was made Dharma Holder at Upaya Zen Center in 2010. Ray serves as coordinator of Upaya’s Prison Outreach Project and teaches classes in both the local county jail and the local state penitentiary. He trains volunteers for work with prison inmates. Ray is long-married to Nancy; they have three grown children and four growing grandchildren.

TALK DESCRIPTION: In his debut talk here at Upaya, long-time teacher and novice priest Ray Olson encourages listeners to question what love and kindness really are and how can we act lovingly to those that may be hurtful or disrespectful towards us or others. Ray uses not only his own prison outreach experiences, but also the wisdom of ancient traditions and religions outside of Buddhism as well.

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Being Blog - Lovingkindness (Metta) Meditation with Sylvia Boorstein

Nice video from the Being Blog.

Lovingkindness (Metta) Meditation with Sylvia Boorstein

In mid-February, we partnered with WDET to hold a live event in a quaint suburban village outside of Detroit. The topic: raising children in complex times.

Krista’s conversation with Sylvia Boorstein was rolling along quite nicely — stories were being told, approaches to child-rearing were being shared — when somewhat unexpectedly, Boorstein (a Jewish Buddhist teacher at Split Rock in northern California) offered to lead a lovingkindness, or metta, meditation for a crowd of more than 300 folks.

With that size of a crowd who hadn’t necessarily attended for a mindfulness retreat, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What resulted was a magical experience in which the audience fully participated in this impromptu moment of reflection.

If you’re game, we’d like you to use this as a guided meditation. As a producer, one’s never certain if an impromptu experience like this works because it was part of a particular time or if it translates into a fruitful experience for others online. What do you think?

Photo by Trent Gilliss

Lovingkindness (Metta) Meditation with Sylvia Boorstein from On Being on Vimeo.

Tags: Buddhism, meditation, loving kindness, Psychology, Being, Lovingkindness Meditation, Metta, Sylvia Boorstein, Krista Tippett, Split Rock Meditation Center, mindfulness

30 Acts of Loving-Kindness

This is cool - found it at The Emotion Machine.

Tags: loving kindness, kindness, compassion, The Emotion Machine, 30 Acts of Loving-Kindness

B Alan Wallace - Look for the Part of Each Person You can Love

THE FOUR IMMEASURABLES
Practices to Open the Heart
by B. Alan Wallace,
edited by Zara Houshmand
more...

Dharma Quote of the Week

In his closing discussion on loving-kindness, Buddhaghosa asks: "What is the proximate cause of loving-kindness?" The answer is the observation of lovableness in the person to whom you are attending.

Bring to mind right now someone whom you find lovable. It could be a person you have a romance with, or a child, or a dear friend, or a great teacher--someone to whom your heart would leap like a deer in the forest if this person were to walk through the door, someone whose presence is so lovable that a gladness arises on seeing him or her. If you can sense that in a dear friend, then try to seek out the lovableness of a neutral person. Then, finally, when you break down all the barriers, see it in a person who has done you injury.

It's a great key if you can seek out something to love, even in the enemy. Bear clearly in mind that this does not endorse or embrace evil. The crucial point here is to be able to slice through like a very skilled surgeon, recognizing vicious behavior that we would love to see annihilated as separate from the person who is participating in it. The doctor can be optimistic. A cure is possible: the person is not equivalent to the action or the disposition. Moreover there is something there that we can hold in affection, with warmth. That really seems to be a master key that can break down the final barrier and complete the practice.

One way of approaching this is to look at the person you hold in contempt, and try to find any quality he might share with someone you deeply admire and respect. Is there anything at all noble to be seen, anything that would be akin to what a truly great spiritual being would display? Focus on that: There is something there that you can love. The rest is chaff, that hopefully will be blown away quickly, to everyone's benefit. It is as if you could see a little ray of light from within, knowing that its source is much deeper than the despicable qualities on the outside. That light is what you attend to. (p. 112)

--from The Four Immeasurables: Practices to Open the Heart by B. Alan Wallace, edited by Zara Houshmand, published by Snow Lion Publications

The Four Immeasurables • Now at 5O% off
(Good through January 28th).

Tags: Buddhism, books, compassion, loving kindness, The Four Immeasurables, Practices to Open the Heart, B. Alan Wallace, Zara Houshmand, Snow Lion Publications