Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

by Daniel Goleman

Yet mindfulness, part of an ancient meditation tradition, was not intended to be such a cure; this method was only recently adapted as a balm for our modern forms of angst. The original aim, embraced in some circles to this day, focuses on a deep exploration of the mind toward a profound alteration of our very being.

There are, then, two paths: the deep and the wide. Those two paths are often confused with each other, though they differ greatly.

Meditation is a catch-all word for myriad varieties of contemplative practice, just as sports refers to a wide range of athletic activities. For both sports and meditation, the end results vary depending on what you actually do.

Once we glimpse our mind as a set of processes, rather than getting swept away by the seductions of our thoughts, we enter the path of insight.

Self-acceptance, being positive about yourself, acknowledging both your best and not-so-good qualities, and feeling fine about being just as you are. This takes a nonjudgmental self-awareness. Personal growth, the sense you continue to change and develop toward your full potential—getting better as time goes on—adopting new ways of seeing or being and making the most of your talents. “Each of you is perfect the way you are,” Zen master Suzuki Roshi told his students, adding, “and you can use a little improvement”—neatly reconciling acceptance with growth. Autonomy, independence in thought and deed, freedom from social pressure, and using your own standards to measure yourself. This, by the way, applies most strongly in individualistic cultures like Australia and the United States, as compared with cultures like Japan, where harmony with one’s group looms larger. Mastery, feeling competent to handle life’s complexities, seizing opportunities as they come your way, and creating situations that suit your needs and values. Satisfying relationships, with warmth, empathy, and trust, along with mutual concern for each other and a healthy give-and-take. Life purpose, goals and beliefs that give you a sense of meaning and direction. Some philosophers argue that

true happiness comes as a by-product of meaning and purpose in life.

Willoughby Britton, a psychologist at Brown University (and a grad of the SRI), heads the “dark night project,” which aids people who suffer from meditation-related psychological difficulties. Her Varieties of the Contemplative Experience project,

mainly mindfulness for beginners, vipassana for long-term (with some studies of Zen, too), and for the yogis, the Tibetan paths known as Dzogchen and Mahamudra. As it happens, our own practice history has followed this rough trajectory, and in our experience there are significant differences among these three methods. Mindfulness, for instance, has the meditator witness whatever thoughts and feelings come and go in the mind. Vipassana starts there, then transitions into a meta-awareness of the processes of mind, not the shifting contents. And Dzogchen and Mahamudra include both in early stages—and a host of other meditation types—but end in a “nondual” stance, resting in a more subtle level of “meta-awareness.”