Sit down, shut up, breathe

Can meditation make you a calmer, more compassionate person? Does the goddess sing in the shower?

By Mark Morford

I'm not exactly clear on how they did it. Something about taking Group No. 1 over here and hooking them up to a nifty array of happyfun electrodes and letting them begin their deep and experienced meditation practice, and then at some point suddenly blasting the sound of a woman screaming in distress right into their prefrontal lobes like a swell little icepick of terror.

And then the researchers simply observed which the parts of the meditators' brains lit up, and noted that it was the hunks related to empathy and compassion and also the parts that say, hey gosh, that screaming can't be good and I think I shall get up right now and go help that poor woman because I am training myself to feel more compassionate and empathetic and helpful all thanks to my deep and calming meditation practice.

Then they did a similar thing with Group No. 2, only minus most of the experienced meditation part, and when this group heard the same woman screaming in distress, their brains also lit up, only this time it was those parts that said huh, chick screaming in distress, how very curious, let us now reach for the remote control and turn up the volume on this delightful episode of "How I Met Your Mother" to drown out that obnoxious sound because, you know, how annoying.

I might be oversimplifying a bit. Or exaggerating. No matter, because the fact remains it is was one of those nice and delightfully foregone studies that deigns to reveal a helpful factoid which millions of people and thousands of teachers and gurus and healers have known for roughly ten thousand years.

It is this: deep meditation, the regular, habitual act of stilling yourself and intentionally calming the mind and working with the breath and maybe reciting a mantra or clearing your chakras or running a nice bolt of golden energy up and down your spine like a swell erotic tongue bath from Shiva, can actually have a positive effect on your worldview, can inject some divine love-juice into your core and make you more sympathetic, kinder, more apt to feel a natural inclination toward generosity and compassion and helping people who might be, you know, screaming.

I know. Totally shocking.

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