Summary: Researchers have found that Buddhist Jana meditation and Christians in tongues speak share a common cognitive feedback loop despite the differences. This process is called The Atterness, Aurousal, and Release Spiral, and creates a cycle in which focused attention leads to joy, safe concentration and deepen the experience.
This study explained directly from meditation retreats and worship services and analyzed micromoments of attention and emotional change. Findings of preliminary brain activity suggest that both practices involve cognitive changes that promote immersion.
Understanding this sharing mechanism could help more people access critical states of focus and tranquility. The next phase of the study will use brain imaging to investigate the physiological changes behind this phenomenon.
Important facts:
Shared Mechanism: Both Jhāna meditation and speaking in tongues follow a cycle of self-reinforcement of attention, joy, and surrender. Cognitive shifts: Early findings suggest that both practices induce mental changes that increase deep focus. The physiological changes behind this experience.
Source: McGill University
Two seemingly opposed spiritual practices – Buddhist Jana meditation and Christian practices in tongues – have more in common than previously thought, new research suggests.
One is quiet and deeply concentrated, the other is emotionally recharged and expressive, but both seem to use the same cognitive feedback loop to create a deep state of joy and surrender. It looks like it.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University, associate professor of psychiatry at Michael Lifschitz along with collaborators at Monash University and University of Toronto, research co-led by researchers at the Institute of Medical Research, has led the study to ensure that they are aware, awakening, and A phenomenon that calls release has been identified. Spiral – A mental cycle that deepens both a meditative and an energetic state.
Their findings published in the American Journal of Human Biology provide new insights into how humans can cultivate a deep focal state.
“If we can better understand this process, we may be able to allow more people to access a deep state of tranquility and bliss for themselves,” says Lifshitz.
“In another sense, our findings may help promote a sense of commonality and mutual respect between spiritual traditions. Despite differences in belief, we all have We share human experiences.”
A general route to bliss
Researchers found that both Jana meditators and those who speak in tongues enter the reinforcement cycle. They focus their attention on objects that induce a sense of joy, such as meditation breathing and prayer gods.
This joy distracts attention and leads to a sense of surrender, which deepens the experience.
“As far as we know, this spiral dynamic is what leads to deeper and easier bliss. It’s a novel idea of psychological science,” says Lifshitz. “It’s fascinating to see these fundamentally different spiritual traditions discover it and use it in many different ways.”
To uncover this link, researchers have gathered explanations directly from Buddhist meditation retreats and evangelical Christian worship services in the United States. They also documented the brain activity of practitioners.
Although the complete neurobiological outcomes are still analysed, early findings suggest that both practices involve cognitive changes that allow for uniquely immersive experiences.
The next step is to use brain imaging techniques to map physiological changes where attention, arousal and release unfold in real time.
About the research
“The Spiral of Attention, Awakening, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Spainking in Tongues,” Josh Brahinsky, Jonas Mago, Mark Miller, Shaila Catherine and Michael Lifshitz were featured in the American Journal of Human Biology.
Funding: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.
About this neurology research news
Author: Keila Depape
Source: McGill University
Contact: Kayla Depp – McGill University
Image: Image credited to Neuroscience News
Original research: Open access.
“The Spirals of Attention, Awakening, and Release: Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Speaking in Tongues,” Michael Lifshitz et al. American Journal of Human Biology
Abstract
Spirals of Attention, Awakening, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Speaking in Tongues
Buddhist Jana meditation and Christian practices in tongues seem very clear.
These spiritual techniques appear to produce significantly different states of consciousness from the outside, with different ethical, theological and historical frames.
However, our phenomenological interviews with experienced US practitioners found an important point of convergence.
Practitioners of both traditions describe the dynamic relationship between intensive attention, excited joy, and the sense of letting go or liberation that they describe as essential to their practice.
This paper highlights these shared phenomenological features and theorizes the underlying mechanisms.
When analysing phenomenological data through lenses of various theories of brain function, such as sensory gating and predictive processing, these practices are autonomous fields constructed through spirals during attention, awakening, and release (AAR). I suggest being involved in.
