The Dalai Lama is scheduled to speak on the research in intense mediation this month in Washington, at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The intense meditation practiced by Buddhist monks can train the brain to generate compassion and positive thoughts.
But 544 brain researchers have signed a petition urging the society to cancel the lecture as unscientific. Defenders of the Dalai Lama's appearance say that the motivation of many protesters is political because many of them are Chinese or of Chinese descent.
But many scientists who signed the petition say they did so because they believe that the field of neuroscience risks losing credibility if it ventures too recklessly into spiritual matters.
n a 2004 experiment, supported by the Mind and Life Institute, a nonprofit organization that the Dalai Lama helped establish, investigators tracked brain waves in eight Tibetan monks as they meditated. They found that the monks were producing a very strong pattern of gamma waves, a synchronized oscillation of brain cells that is associated with concentration and emotional control. But, a group of 10 college students who were learning to meditate produced a much weaker gamma signal. et the neuroscientists who have signed the petition point out that there are flaws in the 2004 experiment that the researchers have acknowledged. (Source: Benedict Carey, New York Times, November 6, 2005).