Menu
Donate
SIGN IN
Email
Save
Tweet
Share

Aeon Video has a monthly newsletter!

Get curated editors’ picks, peeks behind the scenes, film recommendations and more.

How a scientific attempt to demystify Buddhist meditation yielded astounding results

In 1981, Herbert Benson, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School, set out to study the ancient meditation practices of Buddhist monks on the Tibetan Plateau. With the Dalai Lama’s blessing, Benson spent roughly a decade in remote regions of the Himalayas in northern India researching an especially intense technique known as tummo, as well as the physiological effects of other advanced forms of meditation. Rather than debunking the seemingly tall tales of advanced practitioners capable of raising their body temperatures to dry cold, wet sheets around their bodies, Benson’s work actually confirmed and expanded upon these anecdotes. In particular, by tracking vital signs and body-heat output during meditation sessions, Benson found that these monks possessed remarkable capacities for controlling their oxygen intake, body temperatures and even brainwaves. In 2013, a second study conducted on advanced Tibetan tummo meditators by Maria Kozhevnikov, a cognitive neuroscientist the National University of Singapore, corroborated much of what Benson had observed, including practitioners’ ability to raise their body temperatures to feverish levels by combining visualisation and specialised breathing.

This extended trailer for the UK filmmaker Russ Pariseau’s feature documentary Advanced Tibetan Meditation: The Investigations of Herbert Benson MD relays portions of Benson’s landmark research, which ultimately signalled a seismic shift in how Western science views Buddhist meditation. Simultaneously, the material makes evident the disparate ways that Western scientists and Tibetan Buddhists understand the self.

Director: Russ Pariseau

16 September 2019
Email
Save
Tweet
Share

Aeon is not-for-profit and free for everyone

Make a donation

Get Aeon straight to your inbox

Join our newsletter
Eliminative materialism | Aeon
Save

video

Philosophy of mind

Do we have good reasons to believe in beliefs? A radical philosophy of mind says no

5 minutes

Drawings of my BF | Aeon
Save

video

Love and friendship

When drawing your muse hundreds of times becomes an exercise in love

7 minutes

Ndagukunda déjà (I love you, already) | Aeon
Save

video

Family life

In Rwanda, Sébastien finds traces of personal history in the wake of national tragedy

21 minutes

The diver | Aeon
Save

video

Love and friendship

A decade after his wife was swept away in a tsunami, Yasuo still searches the sea

9 minutes

Three ways to think about free will | Aeon
Save

video

Philosophy of mind

We may never settle the ‘free will’ debate, but tapping into it is still worthwhile

32 minutes

Ain’t no time for women | Aeon
Save

video

Politics and government

Join the spirited debate at a women’s hair salon before a pivotal election in Tunisia

19 minutes

The art of two-way art | Aeon
Save

video

Language and linguistics

A master palindromist spells out his 40-year ‘love affair with reversibility’

6 minutes

TV on Shetland | Aeon
Save

video

History of technology

The long-awaited arrival of TV to Shetland sparks debate in this vintage clip

9 minutes

Jelena’s song | Aeon
Save

video

Wellbeing

Through a poetic account of childhood trauma, one woman reclaims her past

28 minutes