Neuroscience and Psychology of Meditation in Everyday Life

by Dusana Dorjee

  What is visualization-based meditation?

  The defining feature of visualization-based meditation practices is their employment of mental imagery. From the Western psychological perspective mental imagery can be described as sensory experience arising without external information. Interestingly, both psychological and neuroscientific research on mental imagery has shown that mental imagery relies on the same processes and mechanisms as actual perception stimulated by external objects (Pearson et al., 2015). Mental imagery can also impact our mental functioning in a way similar to actual perceptions; it is particularly comparable to the effects of weak (blurry) perceptions. Furthermore, mental imagery can impact on our physiology just like perception as exemplified in a study which examined changes in pupil dilation in response to mental images of different brightness (Laeng and Sulutvedt, 2013). Participants in the study were asked to imagine bright and dark objects such as a ‘sunny sky’ or ‘dark room’ and the researchers found that their pupil dilation responded accordingly – with pupil constriction to bright imagery and pupil dilation to dark imagery. Similar effects were obtained when participants imagined shapes of different brightness they were previously shown.

  Given the powerful perception-like effects of imagery including physiological changes, it is perhaps not surprising that recent research highlighted the pivotal role of mental imagery in clinical conditions (Hackmann and Holmes, 2004). For example, it has been shown that a strong element of fearful mental imagery is present in anxiety disorders (such as images of snakes or anxiety-associated events). Similarly, depression seems to be associated with a reduced ability to imagine positive events or feelings and intrusive imagery is one of the prominent symptoms in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mental images can also drive addictive behaviour and hallucinations in schizophrenia can be considered a case of mental imagery with mistaken external information attribution.

  Just like imagery can be considered one of the main aspects of symptomatology in varied clinical conditions, it can also be used in treatment of these conditions countering the misattributions or deficits in mental imagery. Indeed, imagery exposure has been used in therapeutic contexts for several decades; it involves controlled imagery of fearful situations (e.g., boarding a plane for someone with a fear of flying) while applying new ways of coping with the fearful response to the imagined event. Another mental imagery technique which has been applied as part of cognitive behavioural therapy is imagery rescripting, which involves replacing a negative intrusive imagery with either less threatening imagery or positive imagery (Holmes, Arntz and Smucker, 2007). Recent research suggested that imagery-based techniques can be particularly effective when dealing with emotional content in therapy, more so than talking therapy. For example, when study participants were asked to complete neutral scenarios in a positive way by either imaging a positive event or verbally thinking of a positive event, the imagery condition showed stronger increases in positive mood than the verbal condition (Holmes, Lang and Shah, 2009).

  Overall, the cumulative scientific evidence on the mechanisms and clinical relevance of mental imagery points to its powerful perception-like effects on our cognition and well-being. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that visualization-based practices have been applied for many centuries in the context of meditation training as a means of refining attention, modifying cognitive schemas, fostering positive emotions and enabling existential insight. Because of their multifaceted effects, visualization-based practices are not easily classified into a specific meditation type category. A recent study suggested that meditation practices can be divided into attention family, constructive family and deconstructive family (Dahl, Lutz and Davidson, 2015). While practices in the attention family aim to support the development of self-regulation of attention through training in mindfulness and meta-awareness, meditations in the constructive family foster wholesome thinking schemas and emotional qualities such as compassion and loving kindness. In contrast, the deconstructive family of practices supports the cultivation of experiential understanding of thinking and emotional patterns as well as insight into the nature of self and reality. Visualization-based practices can belong to any of these categories or cut across them depending on their emphasis and specifics.

  For example, mental imagery is an important aspect of training in the four immeasurables which involve imagining a person close to us, a neutral person, a harmful person and all sentient beings. Similarly, practices of Tonglen (giving and taking) have a strong element of imagery when sharing wholesome experiences and experiences of suffering with others. These meditation techniques would perhaps primarily belong to the constructive family of practices, but they also entail elements of attention training and elements of insight as discussed in Chapter 4. Imagery is also an important element of many foundational Buddhist contemplations such as practices of the Four Thoughts that turn the mind to Dharma. As part of these practices, the meditator would, for example, imagine consequences of long-term engaging in anger or afflictive attachment. These practices would perhaps again primarily belong to the constructive family, but also entail elements of attention training when a practitioner tries to stay focused on a particular contemplative topic and monitor for distractions in thinking. There is also an aspect of insight about the nature of our existence, albeit limited and mostly intellectual, arising as a result of contemplating on topics such as impermanence and causes of suffering.

  However, imagery is the primary focus of two particular groups of meditation practices in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition with the main group involving visualization of deities and the other group working with energies in the body. The deity visualization meditations are at the heart of Tibetan Buddhist meditation training because they develop several aspects of meditators training at the same time. They are considered particularly effective because they can simultaneously develop attention stability and control together with meta-awareness, emotional qualities of loving kindness and compassion as well as insight. Specifically, the deity practices involve visualizations of complex images representing various qualities of existential balance (enlightenment) such as unconditional compassion or advanced modes of existential awareness. The visualization is accompanied by recitation of a mantra specific to the deity and also represents the core qualities embodied by the image of the deity.

  The second group of visualization-based practices is based on a theory of energy (Tibetan: lung) which flows through the body. By engaging in meditation practices which work with these energies the practitioner can enhance her existential insight and progress towards more advanced states of existential awareness. The meditations working with energies are usually practiced in retreat under careful guidance of an experienced meditation master who can assess whether a practitioner is ready to engage in this type of meditation training. Given the traditionally secret and highly individual nature of this type of visualization-based meditation training, we will not consider this group of practices in detail here. However, a recently published study suggested that these types of practices can have measurable impact on body physiology – specifically, the Tibetan Buddhist practice of tummo, which aside from its core spiritual purpose aims to increase bodily temperature, was indeed associated with significant increases up to 38.3 degrees Celsius (Kozhevnikov et al., 2013). Importantly, these large effects were only observed when the practice was accompanied by specific targeted visualizations, but not without this element of the practice.

  Importantly, all deity visualizations and energy practices are firmly grounded in the contemplations on the Four Thoughts that turn the mind and the practices of the four immeasurables which together shape the motivation/intention for engaging in the deity practice. Meditators are typically required to practice these foundational contemplations together with the four immeasurables before they are ready to start practicing deity visualization or engage in energy practices. In addition, the practitioners should have at least basic intellectual and partial experiential understanding
of the illusory construed nature of reality before they start with deity visualization, so that they understand the construed nature of the visualizations and do not reify them.

  With regard to the attention aspect of the deity practices, the practitioner aims to visualize the image continuously, thus training stability of attention while at the same time monitoring for distraction, which develops meta-awareness. The meditator brings attention back to the visualization when distraction is noticed, thus cultivating attention control. At the same time, the mantra recitation engages verbalization, hence limits distractions due to overt or silent speech and that further amplifies the effect of the visualization. Just like with any other type of Shamatha practice, long-term training in deity visualization follows the progression of nine stages with increasing levels of stability and clarity of visualization. At the advanced stages of training the practitioner is able to hold the visualization for an hour or longer with vividness and clarity of detail and without major distraction.

  Deity visualization has a clear wholesome quality; it does not focus on a neutral meditation object such as breath-focus, neutral sound or a pebble. Visualizing deity has the quality of connecting with wholesome qualities of existential balance represented in the image of an enlightened being, a Buddha in various forms depending on qualities they predominantly embody. In this way, deity meditation aims to support the practitioner in development of emotional qualities such as compassion and loving kindness applied with equanimity to all beings as enlightened beings would. Various aspects of these qualities are represented by different aspects of the images. For example, images of White Tara, a female Buddha, depict her with six eyes representing her ability to continuously perceive the suffering of all beings in their various forms with all their afflictions. Mantra recitation which accompanies the visualizations further enhances and expresses the quality of the deity.

  The insight aspects of deity visualization involve the nature of the deity and ways in which the visualization of the deity is created and dissolved. Just like the ordinary reality as most of us perceive it, the deity which we visualize is considered to be illusory in its existence. This is based on the understanding that we construe our reality and develop afflictive attachment to it from which suffering arises. Abiding in the pristine awareness of the mind which is unconstrued and without afflictions is the only state which is free from afflictive construal of reality. Our ordinary reality is considered an illusory afflictive construal of our mind. In contrast, the deity we visualize is considered also illusory, but the purest construal our mind can produce. This is because it arises from pristine awareness, a state of existential balance, with the intention to alleviate suffering of sentient beings. As explained in Tibetan Buddhist teachings, for most practitioners the notion of pure awareness is hard to comprehend or experientially realize, whereas they can more easily relate to personalized representations of qualities of the Buddha mind. Therefore deity practice can for many meditators present a path of progression in their contemplative training which would otherwise stagnate.

  In many of the deity visualization practices, the meditator not only visualizes a deity as separate from them, but also tries to visualize themselves as a deity, and then visualize other beings as deities and the surroundings as pure Buddha lands. This step in the visualization practice enables to the practitioner to realize the core assumption in Tibetan Buddhist practice that all sentient beings naturally have pristine awareness but do not recognize this. So in terms of pristine awareness presence, all beings are no different from beings who abide in pristine awareness (Buddhas; in Tibetan Buddhism this term is applied for various deity forms and for all practitioners who achieved enlightenment), which is the state of existential balance. The difference is that unenlightened beings lost connection with pristine awareness and are not able to access it or stabilise glimpses of pristine awareness; thus their mind is full of afflictive views and emotions. When we visualize ourselves and others as deities we remind ourselves of the pristine awareness which is present in our mind and minds of all sentient beings and in this way we try to connect with it.

  When visualising oneself or others as a deity, it is essential that the practitioner grounds this practice in the illusory nature of the visualization. This is why many teachers recommend that only practitioners with certain levels of understanding and experiential knowledge of the illusory nature of reality engage in deity meditation. Otherwise, the deity practice may result in over-identification with the deity and solidify states marked by lack of recognition of the construed nature of the deity. For this reason, practitioners were traditionally introduced to deity practices only by an experienced and accomplished master who assessed their readiness for engaging in this type of meditation practice. The initiations would be combined with teachings explaining how to engage in the deity meditations. In the current era in Western countries, initiations to deity practices are often offered without such assessment and those attending these initiations often have very limited understanding of the practices combined with a lack of foundational understanding of the motivational/intentional grounding of the practices. This is one of the drawbacks associated with presenting meditation practices which were traditionally only practiced as part of a complex meditation system in separation from it. To counter this approach, increasing numbers of Buddhist organizations are starting to offer comprehensive programmes of meditation study, rather than separate retreats or teachings. Hopefully this trend will grow and will be adapted by meditation teaching organizations and teachers more broadly.

  Developing visualization-based meditation practice in the Buddhist context

  Just like any other meditation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, each visualization-based meditation focusing on a deity starts with developing motivation/intention for the meditation. The contemplation on motivation/intention at the beginning of the practice would focus on impermanence, the nature of suffering, the principle of cause and effect and the current opportunity to engage in meditation practices which can reduce our suffering. We would then remember the shared nature of suffering across all sentient beings and develop compassion, which further drives our motivation/intention to engage in the meditation practice. Those more advanced in their practice bring to their awareness the authentic motivation/intention of bodhicitta as a genuine wish for achieving the highest levels of existential balance and helping others on their path to existential balance.

  The practitioner would then proceed onto the next step in the meditation practice which for advanced practitioners involves resting in the most advanced state of existential awareness they are capable of generating. In this part of the practice the practitioner reminds herself of the construed and therefore illusory nature of reality. This may involve at the basic level an intellectual reminder and contemplation about the inherently empty nature of self and then resting in the awareness of awareness which is a practice of being simply aware of being aware without focus on a particular object. This practice is a precursor of insight meditations in which the practitioner experientially explores the nature of self and the nature of reality from the space of awareness of awareness. More advanced practitioners can during this part of the visualization-based practice abide in a non-conceptual state of realizing the construed (empty) nature of self or in the state of pristine awareness. Importantly, this step in the visualization-based practices is an indispensable part of the meditation which grounds the practice in the understanding of the illusory nature of the self and prevents the possibility of clinging on to the visualizations as ordinary reality.

  From this non-conceptual state the practitioner creates the visualization of the deity, often starting with a syllable symbolizing the deity which then transforms into the deity and surroundings. Tibetan Buddhist teachings outline that through this process of generating the deity the practitioner purifies the experience of birth in this lifetime (Kongtrul, 2002), so it is an essential step. Every aspect of the deity visualization, including clothing,
facial expressions, adornments and surroundings, has many layers of symbolic meaning beyond the actual depictions. For example, the adornments of the deity or the objects they hold in their hands may represent unity of wisdom and compassion, or qualities of the six Paramitas (generosity, ethical discipline, patience, perseverance, meditative concentration and wisdom) etc. At the deepest level of meaning the visualization can represent the non-duality of pristine awareness (Mipham, 2007).

  During the main part of the meditation the practitioner sustains attention focus on the visualization while monitoring for distractions and returning the attention back to the visualization. At the same time, the meditator recites the mantra of the deity and the visualization of the mantra letters can also be part of the overall deity visualization. The visualization often involves a cycle in which the deity sends blessings to all beings and in this way, for example, purifies the afflictions in their mind and relieves their suffering. The practice may involve visualization of external deities as well as visualizing oneself as the deity. At the start of the training in visualization-based meditation the practitioner may alternate between looking at a picture of the visualization and trying to remember the details, then looking away and recreating the image in their mind (Tsogyal, 1999). There might be a need to shift between the image viewing and visualization quite often at the initial stages of the practice, but this will lessen with more training. At the beginning of the training in deity meditation the clarity of the visualization can be fairly poor, lacking detail and vividness. However, with repeated practice at the advanced stages of proficiency, the meditator tries to hold all the details of the visualization with clarity and for increasingly longer periods of time without losing focus.