Meditation: Research scientist learns benefits personally

In "What Inspired A Scientist To Open A Meditation Center At UCLA?" (Huffington Post, July 15, 2009), Patricia Fitzgerald interviewed Susan Smalley, a research scientist who ended up creating a centre for mindfulness research.

I was fascinated with the gene mapping studies. I thought that if you found all the genes that influence human behavior, you could solve the world's problems. I thought that once we understood the biology, we would be able to map out what are the environments that interact with those genes and we could cure everything. I thought that was the solution to end suffering.

I did autism research for ten years, and ADHD research for 13 years. As I really started studying ADHD, it became clear that, like every other psychiatric and behavioral condition, there's not a single gene involved. There are many genes that interact. It's not something you're going to treat by altering genes; it will require a variety of approaches. I see ADHD as a way of brain processing that impacts many dimensions, not only attention but also working memory, probably personality, and other domains.

Then she got sick, and, while struggling with her disorder,

... had what I now call a "mystical experience" - I had a huge shift in consciousness. And it wasn't one that was incremental, day after day, increasing and increasing, but one of those, bam! Wow! The world, we're all interconnected, I'm part of the oneness of the universe. I discovered this sense of deep interconnectedness of our dependent nature and posted a blog about it.

It was so profound that I couldn't harm anything, and it was like all of a sudden. It wasn't choosing not to eat meat anymore or choosing not to harm an insect because I thought it was a nice thing to do. It was because I felt to harm another animal, insect, even plants was like hurting a part of myself, as if I was chopping off my own left arm. I saw us all as one interconnected thing.

It was a really profound state, and along with this heightened state of consciousness, this incredible state of compassion, came a flood of rushing joy, bliss, calmness, happiness. I couldn't even muster the old feelings I had that included the negative feelings of jealously, greed, anger ... all of those things I couldn't find in myself.

Of course, that state dissipated, but she saw another way to live, that may be much healthier for her.

Hat tip: Stephanie West Allen at Brains on Purpose