We all know meditation is beneficial to your mental and physical health. Science has proved this and you all know from anecdotal evidence and your own personal stories that, yes, meditation does work.
But just exactly how is it valuable. Meditation is so varied and it's benefits are just as diverse.
Well I found an interesting article that explains how Buddhist deity meditation can actually increase your visual-spatial abilities. Now some of you may be asking just what the heck does this mean.
According to the article, "...[Buddhist deity meditation] allows practitioners to access a heightened state of visual-spatial awareness that lasts for a limited period of time." Basically, your mental imagery is heightened and you will be able to access higher levels of visual-spatial memory resources.
What's special about this is that the implications of deity meditation are more than just self-discovery and increased awareness. This type of meditation and visualization can also be used for therapy, memory loss prevention and treatment, and mental training.
For more details of the study and its findings, check out the article below.
As always, we'd love to hear some feedback from you. What do you think of this type of meditation. Do you think the results are specific only to Buddhist deity meditation or all other visual meditation techniques?
Study suggests Buddhist deity meditation temporarily augments visual-spatial abilities
Meditation has been practiced for centuries, as a way to calm the soul and bring about inner peace. According to a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, there is now evidence that a specific method of meditation may temporarily boost our visuospatial abilities (for example, the ability to retain an image in visual memory for a long time). That is, the meditation allows practitioners to access a heightened state of visual-spatial awareness that lasts for a limited period of time.
Normally when we see something, it is kept in our visual short-term memory for only a brief amount of time (images will begin to fade in a matter of seconds). However, there have been reports of Buddhist monks who have exceptional imagery skills and are able to maintain complex images in their visual short-term memory for minutes, and sometimes even hours. Led by psychologist Maria Kozhevnikov of George Mason University, a team of researchers investigated the effects of different styles of Buddhist meditation on visuospatial skills.
The researchers focused on two styles of meditation: Deity Yoga (DY) and Open Presence (OP). During DY meditation, the practitioner focuses intently on an image of deity and his or her entourage. This requires coming up with an immensely detailed, three-dimensional image of the deity, and also focusing on the deity's emotions and environment. In contrast, practitioners of OP meditation believe that pure awareness cannot be achieved by focusing on a specific image and therefore, they attempt to evenly distribute their attention while meditating, without dwelling on or analyzing any experiences, images, or thoughts that may arise.
The first time I viewed this article I was able to watch the mantra meditation but now it has vanished? I would like to see it again. Thanks.
This actually makes sense for athletes, more control, quicker reflexes, and the ability to open up the awareness for the mind to comprehend and handle situations optimally.