Measuring a Journey without Goal: Meditation, Spirituality, and Physiology.
BioMed research international January 1, 2015 Heather Buttle 32 citations
Meditation's secular benefits—lower blood pressure, reduced cortisol, cortical thickening, and brain changes linked to attention and emotion regulation—are secondary to its primary spiritual aim of transformation. This review contrasts the relaxation response model with mindfulness research emphasizing attention and alertness, showing how Buddhist texts can guide scientific questions. It proposes triangulating spiritual texts, first-person neurophenomenological accounts, and physiological/cognitive measures to understand meditation in both health and spiritual contexts.