Musings on Meditation

This piece:"How does meditation actually work? Neuroscientists are researching centuries-old Buddhist mindfulness techniques and their effects on the brain", by Christof Koch at Salon yesterday triggered a search through my old posts.

Snips from Mr Koch's article:

....weeklong visit to Drepung Monastery in southern India. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had invited the U.S.-based Mind and Life Institute to familiarize the Tibetan Buddhist monastic community living in exile in India with modern science. About a dozen of us—physicists, psychologists, brain scientists and clinicians, leavened by a French philosopher—introduced quantum mechanics, neuroscience, consciousness and various clinical aspects of meditative practices to a few thousand Buddhist monks and nuns.................What passed between these representatives of two distinct intellectual modes of thinking about the world were facts, data—knowledge. That is, knowledge about the more than two-millennia-old Eastern tradition of investigating the mind from the inside, from an interior, subjective point of view, and the much more recent insights provided by empirical Western ways to probe the brain and its behavior using a third-person, reductionist framework................... More important, even when the monks were not meditating, but simply quietly resting, their baseline brain activity was distinct from that of the students. That is, these techniques, practiced by Buddhists for millennia to quiet, focus and expand the mind—the interior aspect of the brain—had changed the brain that is the exterior aspect of the mind. And the more training they had, the bigger the effect.

The old post my memory was searching for turned out to be this, from 2011: An Astrological Challenge: Candy Barr and H.H. Dalai Lama.  In a nutshell: I'd noticed that the stripper/exotic dancer and the spiritual leader of Tibet shared a birthdate; I set out to see how astrology could explain such a wide discrepancy in outcomes.

Having re-read the post, I'm happy with the conclusion I reached. I particularly enjoyed re-reading the exchange of comment there with my old blog buddy Gian Paul in Brazil. Here's the exchange that caught my eye. It arose as a result of the final paragraph of my post: "Candy Barr found her way from a childhood of abuse by trading on sensuality. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with his position abused, though in a different way, continues to walk the path of spirituality. Are these two qualities, sensuality and spirituality so very different? Are they not two notes of the same chord?"

Gian Paul:
Agreed that sensuality and spirituality may be very akin to each other. There are stories (suppressed of course) about many saints (including J(esus)C(hrist)) having had some intense if not pleasure at least struggle "with the flesh".

One of the stories I found of interest is that of two Hindus, who after seeing a pretty girl, continued on their way. Some considerable time later, the younger Hindu asked if it would have been right to have had an affair with that woman. The elder's response was that this type of question can go on for ages. For his part he had "so totally enjoyed the girl's appearance and looks, that thinking about it again could never match the quality of the original moment of encounter."

Me:
Sensuality and spirituality - yes I pondered a while on that and couldn't come up with exactly what I wanted to write about it, even though I "sensed" a connection.

Sensuality relates to all our senses, not only those of a sexual or lusty nature which are usually brought to mind by the term. To be spiritual I suppose one would need to have all senses firing at full blast, so sensuality is a requirement of spirituality. But spirituality need not be a requirement of sensuality......does that make sense?

Gian Paul:
You are asking difficult questions, Twilight. Here my humble thought: Sensuality (including the more noble, evolved aspects of it) belongs to the "incarnate, material" part of humans.
Spirituality, for who wants to believe in that existing, probably will not mix easily with the "lower nature". Hence the religious kind of aspiration which wishes to overcome, exit the lower nature.

But is that not possibly a construction of the mind? The story of the two Hindus offers a better approach, I find.

Me:
Difficult Questions Are Us! - I should change the name of this blog! :-) Yes, it's a question that everybody would answer, and perceive, in a different way. I've never really understood "spirituality", but had best not get into that discussion.

The Hindu story you quoted does indicate that the ability to appreciate sensually is present in us all - but how we choose to proceed after that appreciation is important.

I'm sure the Dalai Lama appreciates beauty - in female form as well as other forms - it's part of life, part of what we are. But that would be his boundary - the appreciation.Sensuality and spirituality are both emotionally driven, though, and therefore link to that Grand Trine in their charts. Two ways of manifesting.

Sensuality and spirituality - that comparison came to mind again as I read the article linked at the top of this post, and these lines in particular:

More important, even when the monks were not meditating, but simply quietly resting, their baseline brain activity was distinct from that of the students. That is, these techniques, practiced by Buddhists for millennia to quiet, focus and expand the mind—the interior aspect of the brain—had changed the brain that is the exterior aspect of the mind. And the more training they had, the bigger the effect.

In effect, then, does regular meditation kind of shift the wavelength of sensuality for the meditator, possibly permanently away from fleshly lust? In which case, it's a good thing we all don't practice meditation or the species would have died out aeons ago. Sorry if I'm sounding flippant, as I stated in a comment above, "I've never really understood spirituality". Suffice to say that the term spirituality can cover a lot of ground and a lot of mushy New Age fuzziness. But, ignoring that side of it, there is an aspect of this that's troubling. Meditation, and the serenity it can bring about for an individual has to be a good thing as a temporary occasional aid. If it were to be practiced as a permanent way of life it would have to be practiced universally. If not practiced universally - the rest of 'em would trample roughshod over those experiencing their serenity. There's a living example in Tibet, now.