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When Critical Thinking is its Own Reward

Before I’d even finished yesterday’s blog entry, I did some googling on “happiest man Buddhist monk.” I’ll admit it: I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going too far out on a limb. I wanted to temper my language in case it turned out that there was compelling scientific evidence that scientists had identified the most joyful person alive. In other words, I wanted to cover my skeptical ass.

I wasn’t surprised to find out that the idea of “the happiest man in the world” hadn’t originated with Patty Gras. As near as I’ve been able to determine so far, that phrase originated in an article by Anthony Barnes in the January 21, 2007, issue of The Independent. The article talks about Matthieu Ricard, a French academic who left his job to become a Buddhist monk. Ricard was one of the subjects of some research done by Dr. Richard Davidson, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Dr. Davidson’s team of researchers found that MRI scans of monks who’ve done a lot of meditation show indications of a higher level of “positive emotions” in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain—associated with happiness—than college students in the control group.

I took a look at the paper that the researchers published in 2004 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, entitled “Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice.” It doesn’t contain the words happy, happiness, or happiest. I don’t have the expertise to understand all of the researchers’ conclusions, but I can say for sure that they don’t include the assertion that Matthieu Ricard is the happiest man in the world or, indeed, that Buddhist monks are habitually happy. It does seem to conclude that long-term meditators can induce mental states in themselves that are related in some way to positive emotions. This is interesting and thought-provoking scientific data that doesn’t need to be sensationalized by labeling anyone with the absurd title of “the most joyful person on the planet.”

But I’m glad that Patty Gras sent me that silly promo, because otherwise, I might not have looked into the UWM research or learned that Matthieu Ricard presented a talk at the TED Conference entitled “Habits of Happiness.” I’m looking forward to watching the video podcast. (I’m disappointed with the folks at TED for propagating the “happiest man in the world” label, though.)

I’m interested in the possible connection between meditation and positive emotions. I’d heard of this research, and I’ve been curious about where it might lead, but I’d never seen any presentation of the actual data until now. As I’ve mentioned before, I’d like to find a place where I can study or practice meditation with guidance from someone who teaches it from a scientific perspective, not a mystical one. If it hadn’t been for Patty’s careless e-mail—and my critical reaction to it—I might not have found these interesting new data points for my own research into so-called “enlightenment.”

Thanks, Patty! Keep the woowoo coming!

© 2008 Edward F. Gumnick

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