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Numerous studies confirm that meditation improves the ability to concentrate and reduces stress levels. According to many traditional (including religious) ideas, this practice also teaches us empathy and compassion.
A group of psychologists led by Erika Rosenberg at the University of California, Davis decided to test the validity of such claims. The researchers compared how 30 people who took a 3-month training in Buddhist meditation in a retreat reacted to the suffering of others, and participants of the same gender, age and with the same meditation experience, but who did not go through a retreat.
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The retreat, which some of the participants went through, was mainly devoted to teaching Buddhist shamatha meditation. Participants also engaged in practices related to achieving the so-called “four immeasurable states of mind”: immeasurable love, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable joy, and immeasurable equanimity. For example, they could be given the task of saying “I wish you to find happiness and understand the paths leading to happiness,” referring to imaginary interlocutors.
Before and after the retreat, all study participants underwent various psychological tests. To study their capacity for compassion, the researchers showed them films and videos that depicted human pain and suffering in various forms. At the same time, the reactions of the participants themselves were also recorded on video. The researchers then analyzed the facial expressions of the participants as they watched others suffer, looking for specific reactions associated with the experience of sadness and compassion (in particular, raised eyebrows). Prior to the retreat, there were no differences in such reactions between the two groups of participants. However, on retesting, retreat participants were more likely to demonstrate compassion.
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In addition to the emotional reactions associated with compassion, the researchers were also interested in the emotions associated with rejection – anger, contempt, disgust, because these feelings can suppress the desire to help others. Retreat participants showed fewer manifestations of these emotions, such as showing less anger or disgust when watching a movie in which soldiers discussed their war crimes.
After viewing the film, the participants were re-showed selected frames from the film and were asked to verbally describe what emotions the images evoked in them. Retreat participants had descriptions that more closely matched the facial expressions they displayed when they watched the same moments in the film—that is, they were able to more accurately recognize their true feelings and speak honestly about them.
Подробнее см. E. Rosenberg et al. «Intensive meditation training influences emotional responses to suffering», Emotion, Vol. 15(6), December 2015.