This study examined the effects of meditation on mental imagery, evaluating Buddhist monks' reports concerning their extraordinary imagery skills. Practitioners of Buddhist meditation were divided into two groups according to their preferred meditation style: Deity Yoga (focused attention on an internal visual image) or Open Presence (evenly distributed attention, not directed to any particular...

Objectives: B.L. is a Tibetan Buddhist with many years of compassion meditation practice. During meditation B.L. uses a technique to generate a feeling of love and compassion while reciting a mantra. The aim of the present study was to investigate the neural correlates of compassion meditation in 1 experienced meditator. Methods: B.L. was examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging during...

Theory suggests that heightening state mindfulness in meditation practice over time increases trait mindfulness, which benefits psychological health. We prospectively examined individual trajectories of state mindfulness in meditation during a mindfulness-based intervention in relation to changes in trait mindfulness and psychological distress. Each week during the eight-week intervention, part...

Electroencephalogram based brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) enable stroke and motor neuron disease patients to communicate and control devices. Mindfulness meditation has been claimed to enhance metacognitive regulation. The current study explores whether mindfulness meditation training can thus improve the performance of BCI users. To eliminate the possibility of expectation of improvement inf...

Objectives: The objective of this study was to study the effects of meditation on stress-induced changes in cognitive functions. Methods: The study was conducted on 32 healthy adult male student volunteers who had never practiced meditation before the study. The study consisted of practicing 20 minutes of guided meditation and administration of psychologic stress to the subjects. The psychologi...

Recent brain imaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have implicated insula and anterior cingulate cortices in the empathic response to another's pain. However, virtually nothing is known about the impact of the voluntary generation of compassion on this network. To investigate these questions we assessed brain activity using fMRI while novice and expert meditation pr...

Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and clinicians have been investigating the utility of meditative practices as attention and emotion regulation strategies. Many studies have provided evidence that mindfulness meditation can have positive effects on psychotherapists’ capacity to offer presence, acceptance and empathy to their clients. More recently, loving-kindness med...

Conditional goal setting (CGS, the tendency to regard high order goals such as happiness, as conditional upon the achievement of lower order goals) is observed in individuals with depression and recent research has suggested a link between levels of dispositional mindfulness and conditional goal setting in depressed patients. Since interventions which aim to increase mindfulness through trainin...

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to study the effects of meditation on stress-induced changes in cognitive functions. METHODS The study was conducted on 32 healthy adult male student volunteers who had never practiced meditation before the study. The study consisted of practicing 20 minutes of guided meditation and administration of psychologic stress to the subjects. The psychologi...

Buddhist-derived meditation practices are currently being employed as a popular form of health promotion. While meditation programs draw inspiration from Buddhist textual sources for the benefits of meditation, these sources also acknowledge a wide range of other effects beyond health-related outcomes. The Varieties of Contemplative Experience study investigates meditation-related experiences t...