I mention here two books that you might find very useful for your well-being. They are recent but not new, and written by accomplished thinkers.
In chronological order.
Book 1, Altered Traits (2017): You may have seen the pictures first published in the 90’s—monks with electro encephalograph wires all over their heads measuring their brains during meditation. That was Dr. Richard Davidson at work, in the labs at the University of Wisconsin. A few decades earlier than the pictures, Davidson was in the Psych program at Harvard, and being discouraged from studying or pursuing the study of higher states such as those reached by monks and serious meditators. These states were not “real” according to his Skinnerian-steeped professors.
Davidson and his long-time friend and fellow explorer Daniel Goleman, of Emotional Intelligence fame, published a rigorous and very clear book on what science has and has not yet discovered about our brains as we meditate. Here is one of the important findings, there are many, and there is some rich narrative as well:
“Taken as a whole, the data o meditation tracks a rough vector of progressive transformations, from beginners through the long-term meditators…practicing meditation can pay off quickly in some ways even if you have just started.”
Book 2, The Awakened Mind: As science based as Altered Traits, this book looks at how one serious researcher into human well-being and mental health came to the conclusion that we have both an innate and a culturally influenced capacity for spirituality and higher consciousness. Dr. Lisa Miller, now the director of the Spirit, Body and Mind Institute at Columbia University, tells her story from early exposure to the primitive methods in psych wards several decades ago to the current possibilities of “transcendent practices”, as she calls them, from the worlds of mindfulness, meditation, and indigenous wisdom, for our mental health and well-being.
Here is just one of her salient passages:
“Our brain has a natural inclination and docking station for spiritual awareness…innate perceptual capacities for experiencing love and unity and a sense of dialogue and guidance from life…a lens of interconnectedness and shared responsibility.”
Get to know these books and tell your friends. This thinking is important for scientifically-raised people like us to know.
Who does not need to know how to quiet their mind so they can think, decide and act in ways that are life-building and happiness-producing. “We want to replace run-on thoughts of incessant problem-solving, or distraction and pseudo-entertainment, with a more comprehensive inner power field that can hold our thoughts without getting lost in them.” (I quote myself to alert any new readers to my 2023/2024 blog series here for practices to access an expanded mindset we can use alongside our normal and useful, get-things-done ways of thinking.)
Having a mindfulness practice is no longer an option. It is a requirement.