Yoga, Meditation and Spirituality Flashcards
For one who has conquered the mind,
For one who has conquered the mind, the mind is
the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do
so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy.
—Bhagavad Gita
what the brain does
mind
Our species has long debated the nature of the relationship between the mind and brain, and I think about it like this: The brain is the subject and the mind is the verb, or as cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky put it, “The mind is what the brain does.(no self no problem_Chris Niebauer)
a branch of psychology has successfully mapped certain processes onto specific brain areas.
Neuropsychology
Neuropsychology is the study of the architecture of the brain and how that architecture relates to how we experience the world, specifically our thoughts and the resulting behavior. Neuropsychology has successfully mapped certain processes onto specific brain areas. From facial recognition to empathy, neuropsychology can now place specific processes and brain functions precisely at specific locations on the neural landscape.
a Hindu religious text in which the god Krishna teaches the importance of detachment from personal aims, the fulfillment of religious duties, and devotion to God
Bhagavad Gita
traditional ruler of Tibet
Dalai Lama
in Tibetan Buddhism, the highest priest and, until the Chinese occupation of Tibet in 1959, the traditional spiritual and secular ruler of Tibet.
14th ( and the current) Dalai Lama
Lhamo Thondup (1935-present)
Notable works:
Essential Teachings(1974)
Freedom in Exile(1990)
The Art of Happiness(1994)
The Path to Enlightenment(1994)
Ancient Wisdom, Modern World(1999)
An Open Heart(2001)
How to Practice(2002)
Destructive emotions(2002)
The Universe in a Single Atom(2005)
How to Expand Love(2005)
How to See Yourself as You Really Are(2006)
Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World(2011)
The Wisdom of Compassion(2012)
the area of the brain that specializes in high-level decision-making.
cortex
Harvard neuroscientist Sara Lazar has shown that long-term meditators have a thicker cortex…It has been well established that the cortex in general shrinks with age; however, Lazar found that the effect of regular meditation on the cortex was so profound that fiftyyear-old meditators had a prefrontal cortex that looked like that of a twenty-five-year-old.(no self no problem_chris niebauer)
In Buddhism the doctrine of “non-self”
anatta
Buddhism, Taoism, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hinduism, and other schools of Eastern thought have quite a different take on the self, the ego, or “me.” They say that this idea of “me” is a fiction, although a very convincing one. Buddhism has a word for this concept—anatta, which is often translated as “no self”—which is one of the most fundamental tenets of Buddhism, if not the most important.(no self no problem_chris niebauer)
Brain
an interpreter or story-maker hemisphere
left brain
the left brain is an interpreter or story-maker. Pattern recognition, language, mapmaking, and categorization are all located in the left brain, and the evidence suggests that it is exactly these types of functions that collectively lead to the sensation of a self and the strong belief in its absolute truth.(no self no problem_chris niebauer)
Brain
hemisphere responsible for expressing creativity, experiencing emotions, and spatial processing.
right brain
we will take a closer look at the right brain and how it works, which includes things such as finding meaning, our ability to see and understand big-picture ideas, expressing creativity, experiencing emotions, and spatial processing. These are all functions that rely on the right brain.(no self no problem_chris niebauer)
The focus of her research is to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of yoga and meditation, both in clinical settings and in healthy individuals.
SARA LAZAR
from her page on Harvard uni website: We study the impact of yoga and meditation on various cognitive and behavioral functions. Our results suggest that meditation can produce experience-based structural alterations in the brain. We also found evidence that meditation may slow down the age related atrophy of certain areas of the brain.
a curved ridge of tissue in each cerebral hemisphere of the brain, concerned with basic drives, emotions, and short-term memory and forming part of the limbic system
hippocampus
In conclusion, our study provides further evidence of divergent functional specialization of the right and left hippocampus. Right hippocampus plays a critical role in spatial memory in older adults, while the role of left hippocampus in verbal memory is more prominent.(The National Center for Biotechnology Information)
Greek hippokampos < hippos “horse” + kampos “sea monster”]
s a Buddhist term meaning “unsettled; restless; capricious; whimsical; fanciful; inconstant; confused; indecisive; uncontrollable”
monkey mind
somebody or something that prevents or makes it difficult for somebody to do something
hindrance
Don’t let hindrances to stop you!
the illusion or apearance of the phenomenal world
Maya
Meditation
Hand positions
mudras
Mudras are meant to encourage certain states of mind./
The word Mudra means symbolic gestures.
Sanskrit mudrā “seal, sign”]
a system of physical exercises for the control and perfection of the body that constitutes one of the four chief Hindu disciplines
hatha yoga
a type of yoga in which most of the exercises are done in a standing position, and none are done sitting down. People also breathe in a special way that allows them to relax and meditate while they exercise.
The Sanskrit word हठ haṭha literally means “force” and thus alludes to a system of physical techniques.
