Brain scans show Buddhism works

Practitioners' brains studied
Calm, happiness sites active

May 23, 2003. 07:46 AM

AP FILE

LONDON—Buddhists really are happy, calm and serene people — at least according to their brain scans.

Using new scanning techniques, neuroscientists have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists, which indicates positive emotions and good moods. This can happen even when they are not meditating.

"We can now hypothesize with some confidence that those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes across in places such as Dharamsala, India, really are happy," Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at Duke University in North Carolina, said this week.

Dharamsala is the home base of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama.

The scanning studies by scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison showed activity in the left prefrontal lobes of experienced Buddhist practitioners.

The area is linked to positive emotions, self-control and temperament.

Other research by Paul Ekman, of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, suggests that meditation and mindfulness can tame the amygdala, an almond-sized brain structure that has long been linked with a person's mental and emotional state.

Ekman discovered that experienced Buddhists were less likely to be as shocked, flustered, surprised or angry as other people.

Flanagan believes that if the findings of the studies can be confirmed, they could be of major importance.

"The most reasonable hypothesis is that there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek," Flanagan said in a report in the latest edition of New Scientist magazine.

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