The Neuroscience of Meditation?
Nov. 13th, 2005 06:40 amThe Dalai Lama spoke yesterday at my conference on The Neuroscience of Meditation. He spoke in a packed room that was limited to 7000 that required audience members to pass through metal detectors to enter. While I was supposed to meet up with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
grendelgongon there, I got sidetracked by my students and then it was too late to get in. So I watched the talk in one of the many overflow rooms. Unfortunately, I didn't get much out of it. He was clearly delighted to be here speaking to us, but he rambled a lot and didn't seem to have much to actually say. His message seemed to be that buddhism uses meditation to explore the fabric of internal reality and that neuroscience does the same through different methods and that that is a good thing. The most interesting part for me was when he was asked how he reconciled the buddhist idea of respect for all life with animal research. He came out in favor of the research. That made me feel much more positive about the event. There had been a vocal minority of neuroscientists opposed to his invitation to speak because they felt that a religious figure had no place at this venue. I didn't agree, and after hearing him speak, I still think it was appropriate to invite him even though he didn't have all that much to say about science.
grendelgongon there, I got sidetracked by my students and then it was too late to get in. So I watched the talk in one of the many overflow rooms. Unfortunately, I didn't get much out of it. He was clearly delighted to be here speaking to us, but he rambled a lot and didn't seem to have much to actually say. His message seemed to be that buddhism uses meditation to explore the fabric of internal reality and that neuroscience does the same through different methods and that that is a good thing. The most interesting part for me was when he was asked how he reconciled the buddhist idea of respect for all life with animal research. He came out in favor of the research. That made me feel much more positive about the event. There had been a vocal minority of neuroscientists opposed to his invitation to speak because they felt that a religious figure had no place at this venue. I didn't agree, and after hearing him speak, I still think it was appropriate to invite him even though he didn't have all that much to say about science.
