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Mindfulness and Meditation

Table of Contents

• Mindful Dancing
• Benefits of Mindfulness
• Introduction to Mindfulness
• Meditation
• Mindful Practice
  • Posture
  • Breathing Meditation
  • Overcoming Obstacles
• Zen and the Art of Mindfulness
• Mindfulness and Positive Thoughts
• Scientific Evidence
  • When and How Often to Meditate
  • Limitations of Mindfulness Training
    • Risks
    • Mindful People Like to Party
    • Mindfulness and Performance
    • Alleviating Depression
• Effortless Attention
• Bibliography
  • Recommended Books
  • Scientific peer-reviewed journal articles
  • Supporting Works
• References

Mindful Dancing

Enjoying a good dance often involves paying attention moment-by-moment to the movement of your body while maintaining an awareness of other dancers and the rhythm of the music. In this way, dancing involves mindfulness.

Modern Positive Psychology includes the study of Mindfulness (see Dance With Positive Psychology.) Mindfulness meditation is the most direct way to practice mindfulness. Mindfulness relates to dancing, although the following article discusses mindfulness as a general skill.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Evidence shows the following

Benefits of Mindfulness: ¹

• greater attention ²

• better awareness ³

• increased memory ⁴

• more positive emotions ⁵

• improved self control ⁶

• better relationships ⁷

• better diet ⁸

• increased well-being ⁹

• increased satisfaction ¹⁰

• more relaxed ¹¹

Introduction to Mindfulness

Definition:

Paying attention cultivates unbiased awareness moment-to-moment.

Mindfulness practice (or insight meditation) brings an awareness of the present moment, reduces distraction and helps us enjoy the here and now. Make friends with your mind. Become aware of how your mind works, acknowledging thought process without judgement. Awareness precedes all experience, even judgements about good quality.¹²

Wikipedia summarise mindfulness in psychology.

For a more complete introduction to meditation, try Matthieu Ricard's superb book, "The Art of Meditation" published by Atlantic Books, ISBN-13: 978-1848870758.

Meditation

Concepts of mindful skills originate in Buddhist meditations but now also include entirely rational evidence-based scientific studies within positive psychology.

Mindful skills can include mindful movement to music but, traditionally, mindful training starts with sitting meditations and walking meditations. The popular image of meditation involves sitting cross-legged on the floor, but mindful training can can just as easily take place while sitting in a chair and resting your hands on your lap.

Meditation styles fall into two groups: concentration and mindfulness. Concentration meditations, such as transcendental meditation, often focus on the breath or a sound to induce the relaxation response. All other thoughts are seen as distractions to be disregarded. However, mindfulness practice often begins with a calming focus on the breath, then open out to increase awareness of thoughts and feelings. This calm spirit of enquiry allows us to notice without judgement how thoughts and feelings come and go. Paradoxically, noting our moment to moment thoughts and feelings can free us from becoming caught up in our everyday automatic reactions. In this way we reduce stress and increase happiness.¹³

Mindful Practice

Commit to playing with mindfulness daily. Initially try meditating for ten minutes and then, as you become more practised, consider increasing the length of time you meditate.

Noticing that you've become distracted while meditating is good because that awareness is itself a moment of mindfulness.

Posture

Assume a comfortable but upright posture. You might like to keep your mouth moist by placing your tongue behind your teeth. If sitting in a chair, don't slouch back into the chair. Just allow the lower part of your back to rest against the chair and keep your shoulders slightly away from chair. Or you might find it beneficial to sit forward on the edge of your seat so your back is free standing. In general, keep your skeleton upright but your muscles relaxed. Many people start practising meditation with their eyes closed, but you can also meditate with your eyes open and unfocused while gazing slightly downward.

Some evidence suggests that positive feelings correlate with resting your hands on your lap with palms up.¹⁴

“Laboratory experiments demonstrate that [on average] having your hands palm-side up can spark positivity”.¹⁵

Breathing Meditation

Simply bring your attention to your breathing. Try counting each cycle of your breathing by silently counting “one” when you breath out, then “two” when you next breath out and so on. When you reach sixteen, reset your counting and begin again at one. Every living human breathes. Breathing is not a word or a picture, it's simply the sensations that come about when we breathe. If your attention wanders from breathing gently bring your attention back to breathing without judgement, gracefully and joyfully. If you become distracted from your breathing, learn about your mind by trying to trace your train of thoughts back to the original distracting thought. Don't worry if you can't trace this particular distracting thought as another distraction is sure to come along.

Summary of Breathing Meditation

(a) Check-in: How do you feel? What's your beginning state of mind?

(b) Posture: sit upright.

(c) Listen: note how little effort you need to hear any noises around you.

(d) Body Scan: Notice your sensations in successive parts of your body from head to toe.

(e) Breathing Stage One: repeatedly count to sixteen after each breath.

(f) Breathing Stage Two: repeatedly count to sixteen before each breath.

(g) Breathing Stage Three: notice your breathing continually flowing in and out.

(h) Breathing Stage Four: awareness of sensations at the point your breath enters and leaves your body.

(i) Conclusion: become aware of your environment.

(j) Ongoing: stay mindful.

Overcoming Obstacles

Anyone with a mind can meditate. It is impossible to get meditation wrong as mindfulness concerns whatever comes into your awareness.

Life-times are uncertain. Mundane distractions never end. Don't delay, seize the moment and take a step towards positive change by meditating for a few minutes.

Everyone becomes distracted when meditating. Noticing distractions is the goal of mindfulness. Be happy if you notice your distractions and gently return your awareness to your meditation.

One way to help accept distracting thoughts is to think, “Hello thought. Thank you thought. Bye bye thought.”

If feeling sleepy, consider napping before trying later.

If feeling sluggish, consider removing thick clothing so your body feels a little cooler. Adopting a slightly more upright position. If your eyes are open then raising your gaze a little upwards can also stimulate.

If you feel agitated, find a place where you are unlikely to be disturbed, and try taking a little exercise, like a quick dance, before meditation.

Perseverance is vital. Measurable change occurs with daily meditation over many weeks. But pace yourself, don't exhaust yourself. Aim for balance.

Zen and the Art of Mindfulness

The most famous example of mindfulness is the eastern practice of Zen Buddhism. As in Zen, direct personal experience gives the best understanding of mindfulness. Learning from books can help, but the benefits of meditation come from regular practice.

Zen practitioners seek authentic spontaneity. An awareness of our moment to moment lives comes from mindfulness practice.

Mindfulness and Positive Thoughts

Negative thoughts are a natural consequence of life; they come, they go. Mindfulness practice both minimises negative thoughts and helps us to let negative thoughts go by without judgement. Mindfulness practice reduces negative thoughts while maximising positive thoughts.

“Thoughts lead to actions. Actions lead to consequences. Mindfulness helps us choose which thoughts to simply note and on which thoughts to act.”¹⁶

Scientific Evidence

Science seeks objective awareness.

“The evidence for a positive effect of meditation on subjective well-being is becoming quite impressive. Regular meditators have reduced levels of negative emotion, and a course of mindfulness meditation in volunteers has been shown to reduce stress, increase well-being and improve immune response. Mindfulness meditation teaches people to become aware of the contents of their consciousness but able to detach themselves from it. Thus negative emotions can be seen in context for what they are: bothersome, but transitory, and not an integral part of the person experiencing them.”¹⁷

“Mindfulness is a reliably and validly measured characteristic that has a significant role to play in a variety of aspects of mental health.”¹⁸

“[Scientific experiments] demonstrate that certain human qualities can be deliberately cultivated through mental training. Such studies led to the publication of several articles in prestigious scientific journals, establishing the credibility of research on meditation... In the words of Richard Davidson, a leading neuroscientist, 'These studies seem to demonstrate that the brain can be trained and physically modified in a way that few people would have imagined.' Other scientific investigations have also shown that you don't have to be a highly trained meditator to benefit from the effect of meditation, and that twenty minutes of daily practice can contribute significantly to the reduction of stress... It also reduces anxiety, the tendency towards anger (which diminishes the chances of survival following heart surgery), and the risk relapse for people who have previously undergone at least two episodes of serious depression. Eight weeks of meditation (of the type known as MBSR) for thirty minutes a day significantly strengthens the immune system reinforces positive emotions and the faculty of attention and reduces arterial pressure in those suffering from high blood pressure as well as accelerating the healing psoriasis.”¹⁹

The following quote from Paul Grossman's article in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research from 2004 provides a scientific description of mindfulness.

“Mindfulness is characterized by dispassionate, nonevaluative and sustained moment-to-moment awareness of perceptible mental states and processes. This includes continuous, immediate awareness of physical sensations, perceptions, affective states, thoughts, and imagery. Mindfulness is nondeliberative: It merely implies sustained paying attention to ongoing mental content without thinking about, comparing or in other ways evaluating the ongoing mental phenomena that arise during periods of practice. Thus, mindfulness may be seen as a form of naturalistic observation, or participant-observation, in which the objects of observation are the perceptible mental phenomena that normally arise during waking consciousness. Underlying this concept and approach are the following assumptions: (1) Humans are ordinarily largely unaware of their moment-to-moment experience, often operating in an ‘‘automatic pilot’’ mode; (2) we are capable of developing the ability to sustain attention to mental content; (3) development of this ability is gradual, progressive and requires regular practice; (4) moment-to-moment awareness of experience will provide a richer and more vital sense of life, inasmuch as experience becomes more vivid and active mindful participation replaces unconscious reactiveness; (5) such persistent, nonevaluative observation of mental content will gradually give rise to greater veridicality of perceptions; and (6) because more accurate perception of one’s own mental responses to external and internal stimuli is achieved, additional information is gathered that will enhance effective action in the world, and lead to a greater sense of control.”²⁰

When and How Often to Meditate

"5 days of meditation practice with the integrative body-mind training shows significantly better attention and control of stress...the amount of time participants spent meditating each day, rather than total number of hours of meditative practice over their lifetime, affects performance on attentional tasks." Referring to Chan D. and Woollacott M. 2007 "Effects of Level of Meditation Experience on Attentional Focus: Is the Efficiency of Executive or Orientation Networks Improved?" The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, volume 13, number 6, pages 651-658.²¹

“Just 11 hours of learning a meditation technique induces positive structural changes in brain connectivity by boosting efficiency in a part of the brain that helps a person regulate behavior in accordance with their goals” Referring to Tang, Y. Y. and Posner, M. I. et al 2010 “Short-term meditation induces white matter changes in the anterior cingulate.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stars of America (PNAS) volume 107, number 35, pages 15649-15652.²²

Limitations of Mindfulness Training

Risks

Although very rare, mindfulness practice might reveal upsetting or suppressed thoughts. Please be aware of this risk and, if necessary, consult a qualified medical practitioner.²³

Mindful People Like to Party

"Leigh, Bowen, and Marlatt (2005) found, unexpectedly, that [Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory] FMI assessed mindfulness was related to more frequent smoking and binge drinking among college students." Referring to Leigh, J., Bowen, S. and Marlatt, G. A. 2005 "Spirituality, mindfulness and substance abuse" Addictive Behaviors, volume 30, pages 1335-1341.²⁴

Mindfulness and Performance

“Our findings show that mindfulness was not associated with performance either as a bivariate correlation or when controlling for other predictors. We found, however, that mindfulness and gender interacted to predict performance. Specifically, mindfulness was positively related to performance for women but not men.”²⁵ Note that only 45 women participated in this study.

Alleviating Depression

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is the preferred route for alleviating depression through mindfulness.²⁶ Whereas, Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, “MBSR does not have a reliable effect on depression and anxiety.”²⁷

This highlights the importance of seeking qualified medical advice when dealing with medical symptoms of depression or anxiety. Qualified practitioners with knowledge of an individual case should administer these therapies to maximise their benefit.

Effortless Attention

Mindfulness research in psychology also includes the phenomena of effortless attention in human flourishing. Effortless Attention (or Flow) refers to moments when we feel engaged in the moment, such as when an activity absorbs our attention and we conduct actions with only a small expenditure of mental effort.

“Can Effortless Attention Be Enhanced? If effortless attention improves the quality of everyday experience as much as our studies suggest, it would seem that increasing its frequency should become one of the main paths to a better life. There are two kinds of approaches to enhancing effortless attention. Neither one is easy, but both have promise for those who are determined to follow them. The first approach is what we might call the direct path to effortless attention. It consists in any of a variety of mental disciplines, ranging from Zen Buddhist practices to mindfulness meditation... The second, or indirect path, focuses on doing something as well as possible and producing the serenity of effortless attention as an indirect consequence”²⁸ [such as learning to dance.]

Bibliography

Recommended Books

Matthieu Ricard 2010 "The Art of Meditation" Atlantic Books. ISBN-13: 978-1848870758

Barry Long 1995 "Meditation: A Foundation Course - A Book of Ten Lessons" Barry Long Books; 3rd revised edition. ISBN-13: 978-1899324003

Scientific peer-reviewed journal articles

Kabat-Zinn, Jon, and Lipworth, Leslie and Burney, Robert 1985 "The clinical use of mindfulness meditation for the self-regulation of chronic pain" Journal of Behavioral Medicine" volume 8, number 2, pages 163-190. [Journal article not freely available]

Teasdale, John D. et al 2000 "Prevention of Relapse/Recurrence in Major Depression by Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy" Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, volume 68, number 4, page 615-623.

Speca, Michael et al 2000 "A Randomized, Wait-List Controlled Clinical Trial: The Effect of a Mindfulness Meditation-Based Stress Reduction Program on Mood and Symptoms of Stress in Cancer Outpatients" Psychosomatic Medicine, volume 62, number 5, pages 613-622.

Lazar, Sara et al 2000 "Functional brain mapping of the relaxation response and meditation" Neuroreport, volume 11, number 7 pages 1581-1585.

Teasdale, John et al 2002 "Metacognitive Awareness and Prevention of Relapse in Depression: Empirical Evidence" Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, volume 70, number 2, pages 275-287.

Davidson, Richard and Kabat-Zinn, Jon et al 2003 "Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation" Psychosomatic Medicine 65:564–570.

Baer, Ruth A. 2003 "Mindfulness Training as a Clinical Intervention: A Conceptual and Empirical Review" Clinical Psychology Science and Practice, volume 10, number 2, pages 125-43.

Rosenzweig, Steven et al 2003 "Mindfulness-based stress reduction lowers psychological distress in medical students" Teaching and Learning in Medicine, volume 15, issue 2, pages 88-92.

Brown, Kirk Warren and Ryan, Richard M. 2003 "The Benefits of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its Role in Psychological Well-Being" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 84, number 4, pages 822-848.

Baer, R. A. and Smith,G. T. and Allen, K. B. 2004 "Assessment of mindfulness by self-report: The Kentucky Inventory of Mindfulness Skills" Assessment, volume 11, pages 191-206.

Grossman, Paul et al 2004 "Mindfulness-based stress reduction and health benefits: A meta-analysis" Journal of Psychosomatic Research, volume 57, pages 35-43.

Lutz, Antoine and Ricard, Matthieu and Davidson, Richard et al 2004 "Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stars of America (PNAS), volume 101, number 46, pages 16369–16373. (see www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0407401101)

Leung, Yvonne and Singhal, Anthony 2004 “An examination of the relationship between Qigong relationship and personality” Social Behaviour and Personality, volume 32, pages 313-31. [Journal article not freely available]

Carlson, Linda et al 2004 "Mindfulness-based stress reduction in relation to quality of life, mood, symptoms of stress and levels of cortisol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) and melatonin in breast and prostate cancer outpatients" Psychoneuroendocrinology, volume: 29, issue 4, pages 448-474. [Journal article not freely available]

Ekman, Paul and Davidson, Richard J. and Ricard, Matthieu and Wallace, B. Alan 2005 "Buddhist and Psychological Perspectives on Emotions and Well-Being" Science Current Directions in Psychological, volume 14, number 2, pages 59-63.

Leigh, J., Bowen, S., and Marlatt, G. A. 2005 "Spirituality, mindfulness and substance abuse" Addictive Behaviors, volume 30, pages 1335-1341. [Journal article not freely available]

Brown, K. W., and Kasser, T. 2005 "Are psychological and ecological well-being compatible? The role of values, mindfulness, and lifestyle" Social Indicators Research, volume 74, pages 349-368.

Broderick, P. C. 2005 "Mindfulness and coping with dysphoric mood: Contrasts with rumination and distraction" Cognitive Therapy and Research, volume 29, pages 501-510. [Journal article not freely available]

Cahn, B. R. and Polich, J. 2006 "Meditation states and traits: EEG, ERP, and neuroimaging studies" Psychological Bulletin, volume 132, pages 180-211.

Walach, Harald et al 2006 "Measuring mindfulness—the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory (FMI)" Personality and Individual Differences, volume 40, pages 1543–1555

Arch, JJ and Craske, MG, 2006 "Mechanisms of mindfulness: Emotion regulation following a focused breathing induction" Behaviour Research and Therapy, volume 44, number 12, pages 1849-1858. [Journal article not freely available]

Lau, M. A., Bishop, S. R., Segal, Z. V., Buis, T., Anderson, N. D., Carlson, L., et al. 2006 "The Toronto Mindfulness Scale: Development and validation" Journal of Clinical Psychology, volume 62, pages 1445-1467.

Arch, J. J., and Craske, M. G. 2006 "Mechanisms of mindfulness: Emotion regulation following a focused breathing induction" Behavior Research and Therapy, volume 44, pages 1849-1858. [Journal article not freely available]

Barnes, Sean et al 2007 "The role of Mindfulness in Romantic Relationship Satisfaction and Responses to Relationship Stress" Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, volume 33, number 4, pages 482-500.

Brefczynski-Lewis, J. A. 2007 "Neural correlates of attentional expertise in long-term meditation practitioners" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stars of America (PNAS), volume 104, number 27, pages 11483–11488. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0606552104

Davidson, Richard et al 2007 "Mental Training Affects Distribution of Limited Brain Resources" Public Library of Science: Biology, volume 5, issue 6, pages 1228-1235.

Sephton, Sandra et al 2007 "Mindfulness Meditation Alleviates Depressive Symptoms in Women With Fibromyalgia: Results of a Randomized Clinical Trial" Arthritis and Rheumatism - Arthritis Care and Research, volume 57, number 1, pages 77–85.

Kenny, Maura et al 2007 "Treatment-resistant depressed patients show a good response to Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy" Behaviour Research Therapy, volume 45, number 3, pages 617-625.

Carlson, Linda E and Speca, Michael and Faris, Peter and Patel, Kamala D 2007 "One year pre-post intervention follow-up of psychological, immune, endocrine and blood pressure outcomes of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in breast and prostate cancer outpatients" Brain behavior and immunity, volume 21, issue 8, pages 1038-1049. [Journal article not freely available]

Jha, Amishi P. and Krompinger, Jason and Baime, Michael J. 2007 "Mindfulness training modifies subsystems of attention" Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, volume 7, number 2, pages 109-119.

Tang, Y. Y. et al 2007 "Short-term meditation training improves attention and self-regulation" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stars of America (PNAS), volume 104, number 43, pages 17152-17156. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0707678104

Chan, D. and Woollacott, M. 2007 "Effects of Level of Meditation Experience on Attentional Focus: Is the Efficiency of Executive or Orientation Networks Improved?" The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, volume 13, number 6, pages 651-658. [Journal article not freely available]

Jain, S et al. 2007 "A randomized controlled trial of mindfulness meditation versus relaxation training: Effects on distress, positive states of mind, rumination, and distraction" Annals of Behavioral Medicine, volume 33, number 1, pages 11-21. [Journal article not freely available]

Brown, K. W., Ryan, R. M., and Creswell, J. D. 2007 "Mindfulness: Theoretical foundations and evidence for its salutary effects" Psychological Inquiry, volume 18, number 4, pages 211-237.

Toneatto, T. and Nguyen, L. 2007 "Does mindfulness meditation improve anxiety and mood symptoms? A review of the controlled research." Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, volume 52, number 4, pages 260-266. [Journal article not freely available]

Lutz, Antoine and Davidson, Richard et al 2008 "Regulation of the Neural Circuitry of Emotion by Compassion Meditation: Effects of Meditative Expertise" PLoS ONE volume 3, issue 3, pages 1-10.

Lutz, Antoine and Slagter, Heleen A. and Dunne, John D. and Davidson, Richard J. 2008 "Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation" Trends in Cognitive Science, volume 12, number 4, pages 163-169.

Fredrickson, Barbara et al 2008 "Open Hearts Build Lives: Positive Emotions, Induced Through Loving-Kindness Meditation, Build Consequential Personal Resources" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 95, number 5, pages 1045-1062.

Vartanian, Lenny R. and Herman, C. Peter and Wansink, Brian 2008 "Are We Aware of the External Factors that Influence Our Food Intake?" Health Psychology, volume 27, number 5, pages 533-538.

Chan, Agnes S. and Han, Yvonne M. Y. and Cheung, Mei-chun 2008 "Electroencephalographic (EEG) Measurements of Mindfulness-based Triarchic Body-pathway Relaxation Technique: A Pilot Study" Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, volume 33, number 1, pages 39-47.

Epel, Elissa and Daubenmier, Jennifer and Moskowitz, Judith T. and Folkman, Susan and Blackburn, Elizabeth 2009 "Can Meditation Slow Rate of Cellular Aging? Cognitive Stress, Mindfulness, and Telomeres" Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, volume 1172, pages 34–53. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04414.x

Garland, E et al 2009 "The role of mindfulness in positive reappraisal" Explore-The Journal of Science and Healing, volume 5, number 1, pages 37-44.

Lutz, Antoine and Davidson, Richard et al 2009 "Mental Training Enhances Attentional Stability: Neural and Behavioral Evidence" The Journal of Neuroscience, volume 29, number 42, pages 13418-13427.

Brown, K. W. et al 2009 "When what one has is enough: Mindfulness, financial desire discrepancy, and subjective well being" Journal of Research in Personality, volume 43, number 5, pages 727-736.

Shao, R.P. and Skarlicki, D.P. 2009 "The role of mindfulness in predicting individual performance" Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, volume 41, number 4, pages 195-201. [Journal article not freely available]

Jha, A. P. et al 2010 "Examining the protective effects of mindfulness training on working memory capacity and affective experience" Emotion, volume 10, Number1, pages 54-64.

Hussain, Dilwar and Bhushan, Braj 2010 "Psychology of Meditation and Health: Present Status and Future Directions" International Journal of Psychology and Psychological Therapy, volume 10 number 3, pages 439-451.

Supporting Works

Cacioppo, John T. and Priester, Joseph R. and Berntson, Gary G. 1993 “Rudimentary determinants of attitudes. II: Arm flexion and extension have differential effects on attitudes” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, volume 65, pages 5-17.

Proudfoot, Judeth et al 2004 "Clinical efficacy of computerised cognitive-behavioural therapy for anxiety and depression in primary care: randomised controlled trial" British Journal of Psychiatry, volume 185, pages 46-54.

[Book] Segal, Zindel V. and Williams, J. Mark G. and Teasdale, John D. and Kabat-Zinn, Jon 2002 “Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression: A new approach to preventing relapse” The Guildford Press, New York. ISBN 978-1-57230-706-3

[Book] Orsillo, Susan and Roemer, Lizabeth (eds) 2005 "Acceptance- and Mindfulness-Based Approaches to Anxiety: Conceptualization and Treatment" Springer. ISBN: 978-0-387-25988-8

[Book] Lutz, Antoine and Dunne, John D. and Davidson, Richard J. 2008 "Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness: an introduction" Chapter 19 in "The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness" eds Philip David Zelazo, Morris Moscovitch, Evan Thompson; Cambridge University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0521674126

[Book] Wallace, B. A. 2007 "Contemplative science: Where Buddhism and neuroscience converge" Columbia University Press. ISBN-13: 978-0231138345

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/buddhism/customs/meditation_1.shtml

References