I've been away for awhile, and haven't posted.  Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Outside of my own practice, I've been one of the watchers of the Integral Wiki. 

What this means is occasionally adding something, and then also occasionally reverting pages. when the wiki version of spam hits the site.

Because of my involvement with Integral Wiki, I have now registered with the main Wikipedia. 

After doing this, I've now come across a couple of cool WikiProjects. 

One I will point to now, is the Wikiproject for Spirituality and also the Wikiportal for Spirituality.

Both of these come with "To Do" lists, places where people can contribute. 

It's interesting to look through, and I will most likely start double posting anything that I do to the IntegralWiki, back to the main Wiki portal.

Here's an example of the previous post, and the point I was getting at:

The Wikipedia has a decent introduction to meditation - basic, but decent - with information about various studies and applications from medical research.  (Click the link "Health applications and clinical studies of meditation").

As a foray into the theory of meditation and the brain, here's a quote from the Wikipedia:

"One theory, presented by Daniel Goleman & Tara Bennett-Goleman (2001), suggests that meditation works because of the relationship between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. In very simple terms, the amygdala is the part of the brain that decides if we should get angry or anxious (among other things), and the pre-frontal cortex is the part that makes us stop and think about things (it is also known as the inhibitory centre)."

Basic stuff - but easily able to be built upon.  In addition, the reference links and cites from the Wikipedia article are fairly rich.

Since I've posted some about meditation, it's effects, and a few days ago pointed to some research showing changes in the brain for meditation, I thought it would be worthwhile for those who have both a spiritual and research bent, to mention a good place to start regarding these investigations.

The Physical and Psychological Effects of Meditation, published by the Institute of Noetic Sciences, is as good a place as any to start.  You'll find a lot more references from here, to other sources and places that are continuing research now.

Michael Murphy is co-writer of this article, which makes sense to me, since as a book, The Future of The Body is as good a place as any to start as a reference book for studies on meditation, or studies of human potential in general.

The two main tomes in my library during the 90's, were SES, and The Future of the Body.

For myself, I thought for awhile that I would have loved to get paid to do the type of research that is investigated by the Institute of Noetic Sciences.  I entertained getting a PhD there, but I couldn't imagine being on the hook for 80K to 100K at the end of it.

For the spiritual research crowd, is there another comprehensive reference work that is just as important? 

Let me know! 

Also, this TYPE of research, or at least the analysis and recommendation of this type of research, can be forwarded by the blogosphere.  We are starting to do some of this with IntegralWiki, and the framework of Michael Bauwens. 

But, it goes slowly, since the demands of life interfere.

Saw this article on the New York Times, about LIME, "Healthy Living With a Twist".

Called a "New Age" channel - and it does have Deepak Chopra - what I notice is the full multi-media platform.  Like Integral Naked, or like Noetic Institute's Shift In Action, the platform includes video, audio - and in the case of LIME, blogging.   Probably some other stuff I haven't run across...

Also, from a simple marketing perspective - I notice that there will be a radio channel on Sirius, for LIME. 

Given the amount of material at Integral Naked now, I wonder if anyone over there has thought of arranging alternative distributions of some of the multimedia content on Integral Naked?

Lastly - given the explosion of content - video, audio, text, blogging, that now inundates anyone who is "connected", the last remaining puzzle which isn't present is community programs and participation.

Here are the five basic modules that are the foundation of an integral life -

Module 1 - Spiritual Practice

Module 2 - Health and Exercise

Module 3 - Interpersonal Relationships

Module 4 - Career and Money

Module 5 - Psychological Health, Stability, Motivation, Meaning

These 5 modules form the basis and foundation for an Integral Practitioner.

It's important to note that most authentic spiritual paths and communities, in some way, address all five. 

I'll be posting (or re-posting, in some cases) evaluations that exist online - and next steps offered from those evaluations - for each of these modules.

So make sure to stop by!

Now that Google Base has been release, it's time to talk about how Google Base can contribute to the open source accumulation of spiritual realization.  This builds on yesterday's post, about data collection to evaluate and build models of behavior and practice which can be confirmed or disconfirmed.

Take a look at Google Base, for the moment.  I'll have much more to say later. 

Vince has begun the reflection on his 6 week retreat, with his first installment. 

Definitely go check it out!

Everyone else has been blogging about this, so I figured I would too.

There is another study showing that, yes, meditation DOES alter the structure of your brain.

Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception -- the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example.

The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.

"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk.

Well, that's a good thing, since I'm not a monk! 

This has been a question of debate here in the integral blogosphere - whether the earlier studies actually showed some brain changes.  From what I recall (I've been looking for the study, but I've run out of time, and wanted to get this posted), the brain changes claimed by the other study weren't the same.

Still, it makes sense that changes from meditation happen.  Alterations in brain chemistry come about because of exercise, for an example (in terms of a better mood), so why should meditation be any different?

It will be interesting, in the coming years, to find what parts of the brain are "fixed", and what parts have some malleability.  Especially with more experience in chemistry, and over a decade of targeted smart drugs, who knows what is on the horizon?

I am of course speaking about the incomparable Alan Moore.   This came from Al Billings over at Watching Rats Abandon Ship (one of the top ten Magickal/tech blogs out there), and it is an interview with Alan Moore, that's pretty wide-ranging.

I hope to post the "ending of the world" from one of his more recent creations, Promethea.  It's an amazing piece of writing.

I've continued to experiment with Google Reader, and the functionality keeps getting better.  I am now receiving podcasts from Integral Naked at Google Reader - and it's great, because I can access them from anywhere.

Here's the link by the way -

http://www.integralnaked.org/podcast/atom.xml


Here, for example, is Ken Wilber on Tonglen