Professors from UW-Madison and around the country hosted a public panel on the connection between religion and neuroscience Thursday, focusing around the idea that meditation has the power to make dramatic changes to physical and psychological health.
The panel discussed whether UW-Madison's Dr. Richard Davidson's pioneer work with Tibetan Buddhist meditation, which found that meditation is good for health, could be applicable to include Abrahamic Faiths such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to Davidson, it will take time to gather the right evidence to prove this, but he remains hopeful.
""I would not invest time and energy if I didn't believe there is a lot of progress to be made,"" Davidson said.
According to Davidson, with practice one may be able to change systems in the brain, including systems of behavior.
""Well-being, happiness and compassion are the product of skills nurtured through training,"" Davidson said.
He said they have shown that the brain has much plasticity and flexibility, and with education those skills can be trained. The brain was previously thought to be fixed at adolescence.
Each panel member spoke about their studies and acknowledged areas where different religions do or do not intersect. They concluded that compassion, the relief of suffering and ethics of restraint are common within all religions.
""Not all religions are the same, [but] compassion is a common ground,"" said John Dunne, Associate Professor of Religion at Emory University
According to Davidson, the studying of Abrahamic religions in connection to neuroscience was brought on after the Dalai Lama hosted a ""terribly successful"" meeting in which he brought together all Indian religions.
The event Thursday was hosted by the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, a center funded partially by the Dalai Lama, in partnership with the Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions and the Isthmus Society.
