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November 11 - December 13, 2020
“If the heart wanders or is distracted,” advised Francis de Sales (1567–1622), a Catholic saint, “bring it back to the point quite gently . . . and even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back . . . though it went away every time, your hour would be very well-employed.”
Virtually all meditators execute a common series of steps, no matter the specifics of practice.
These begin with an intended focus—but then after a while your mind wanders off. When you notice it has wandered you can make the final step: bring your mind back to the original focus.
Research at Emory University by Wendy Hasenkamp (an SRI alum and now director of science at Mind and Life Institute) found the connections between brain regions involved in these steps to be stronger among more seasoned meditators.4 Importantly, the differences between meditator and controls were found not just in medit...
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Two longitudinal studies—Tania Singer’s work on empathy and compassion, and Cliff Saron’s on shamatha—have yielded some of the most convincing data yet on the power of meditation to create altered traits. And then there are some surprises.
