Meditation And The Neuroscience Of Consciousness

It feels very strange to comment on two readings as distant as "Peaceful piggy meditation" and  the Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness on almost the same day... but well, that is what I have been reading. 

 

Actually, of the latter I only read "Meditation And The Neuroscience Of Consciousness: An Introduction" by Antoine Lutz, John D. Dunne, And Richard J. Davidson.

This chapter reviews defines meditation by analyzing some of the techniques common to all Buddhist traditions, then it explores where Buddhism and Neuroscience intersect, describing how Buddhism as an exploratory field of study can contribute to the neuroscience of emotions and mind-body interactions. The chapter  concludes with a section discussing the neuroimaging and neuroelectric research that reviews some of the correlates between both. With 120 pages the chapter goes pretty deep.

The authors, from the University of Wisconsin, are working with a number of very experienced meditators, monks from the Tibetan tradition, including Matthieu Ricard.