Post by Admin on May 26, 2017 13:18:23 GMT -5
Don't remember which mindfulness teacher said this, but it is said that there are at least one thousand types of meditation in the world. The mindful meditation of the MBSR (Jon Kabat-Zinn) tradition is what this site usually means when it discusses meditation. However, being 'curioser and curioser' we continue to examine any and all approaches to this thing called 'meditation'. In that spirit, one of our Wilmington VA vets, an MBSR graduate who has been meditating for well over 6 years asked me if I'd be interested in a pamphlet he found at his local synagogue. It is titled Jewish Meditation: How to Begin Your Practice, by Nan Fink Gefen, PhD. This is copyrighted 2016, Jewish Lights Publishing, www.jewishlights.com, so any copying or distribution of the pamphlet needs the consent of the publisher.
What strikes me the most in looking at this pamphlet -- and many other texts introducing meditations different than the one I'm following -- is just how much they all share in common. A Philadelphia neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg and colleagues have been studying the brain scans of all sorts of meditators, from card-carrying atheists to Tibetan life-long meditators and "Holy Rollers" who speak in tongues -- and many more. We introduced Newberg's research into how the brain changes in meditation and even in Enlightenment (contemplative neuroscience) in an earlier post found here on mindfulvets.net. We plan a review or article summarizing our studies of this fascinating research once we've completed all the reading.
To see and download for your own use this pamphlet on Jewish Meditation, please go to our on-line repository and look for a pdf file titled, jewishmeditation.pdf.
Link to our Mindful Vets files repository is HERE (Note, many of the video files are in WEBM format so not viewable by most players. At some point we will make these available in mp4. If you want a particular one converted contact Dana ('Admin') here on the board.)
The paragraph which jumped out at me was:
Jewish meditation is a profound spiritual practice. It can help you reach a state of deep equanimity that you then bring back into your everyday life. The practice is open to everyone religious or secular, Hebrew-speaking or not.
Jewish meditation is a profound spiritual practice. It can help you reach a state of deep equanimity that you then bring back into your everyday life. The practice is open to everyone religious or secular, Hebrew-speaking or not.
What strikes me the most in looking at this pamphlet -- and many other texts introducing meditations different than the one I'm following -- is just how much they all share in common. A Philadelphia neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg and colleagues have been studying the brain scans of all sorts of meditators, from card-carrying atheists to Tibetan life-long meditators and "Holy Rollers" who speak in tongues -- and many more. We introduced Newberg's research into how the brain changes in meditation and even in Enlightenment (contemplative neuroscience) in an earlier post found here on mindfulvets.net. We plan a review or article summarizing our studies of this fascinating research once we've completed all the reading.
To see and download for your own use this pamphlet on Jewish Meditation, please go to our on-line repository and look for a pdf file titled, jewishmeditation.pdf.
Link to our Mindful Vets files repository is HERE (Note, many of the video files are in WEBM format so not viewable by most players. At some point we will make these available in mp4. If you want a particular one converted contact Dana ('Admin') here on the board.)