Research scientist Zoran Josipovic, an adjunct professor at New York University, claimed to have been observing monks’ brains while they meditated in an effort to comprehend how their brains reorganise during the practice. Famous Buddhist luminaries’ bodies and minds had been put inside a five-ton (5,000 kg) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner by the researcher since 2008.
When the monks meditated within the machine’s boundaries, the scanner monitored blood flow within their brains, which, when the device was in use, echoed a rhythmic beat.
Dr. Josipovic, who doubles as a Buddhist monk, claimed he was trying to figure out how certain people who practised meditation could reach a level of “nonduality” or “oneness” with the world, an awareness that unites a person with their surroundings.
“One thing that meditation does for those who practise it a lot is that it cultivates attentional skills,” Dr Josipovic says, adding that those harnessed skills can help lead to a more tranquil and happier way of being.
“Meditation research, particularly in the last 10 years or so, has shown to be very promising because it points to an ability of the brain to change and optimise in a way we didn’t know previously was possible.”
When one relaxes into a state of oneness, the neural networks in experienced practitioners change as they lower the psychological wall between themselves and their environments, Dr Josipovic says.And this reorganisation in the brain may lead to what some meditators claim to be a deep harmony between themselves and their surroundings.
The study conducted by Dr. Josipovic is a component of a bigger initiative to comprehend the brain’s “default network,” as it has been termed by experts. He claims that the intrinsic, or default, network and the extrinsic network are the two networks that the brain appears to be organised into.
When people are focused on activities that require their attention outside of themselves, such as playing a sport or making coffee, the extrinsic part of their brain is activated.
When people think about things that affect themselves and their emotions, the default network churns. But rarely are all of the networks active at once. In a similar fashion to a seesaw, when one rises, the other one falls.
Some Buddhist monks and other seasoned meditators, according to Dr. Josipovic, have figured out how to simultaneously elevate both sides of the seesaw by maintaining both brain networks active during meditation.
And according to Dr. Josipovic, the monks’ capacity to simultaneously churn both the internal and external networks in the brain may help them feel harmoniously at one with their surroundings.
