Advanced Meditation is a deeper form that explores the progression of mental states as one meditates. It requires consistent efforts and gradual mastery and is usually carried out with clinical assistance
Advanced Concentrative Absorption Meditation (ACAM) → Focuses on the brainstem
- Cessation events are altered states that are experienced as full loss of ordinary consciousness. They are the result of deep mastery of advanced meditation. It’s part of the vipasana tradition in Theravada Buddhism ← Harvard/Massachusetts General study
- Cessation events end in profound mental clarity and wellbeing → nirodha in Theravada Buddhism, a meditative endpoint
- Alpha power and connectivity was low just before and after cessation. This reduces hierarchical predictive processing - the ability of the mind to rank narratives and update its mental model of the external world. The mind now gives equal attention to everything
Alpha spectral power
Alpha brain waves are thalamic brain waves in the 8-12 Hz range. They are associated with wakeful relaxation, drowziness, and decreased problem solving. The strength of the alpha spectrum is called alpha spectral power
Alpha functional connectivity
Temporal connections and interactions between the parts of the brain that operate in the alpha frequency
- University of Massachusetts’ Center for Meditation study on Tibetan Buddhism practices → Advanced meditation states defined by self-transcendence, compassion, and emptiness
- Lowering of EEG currents in parts of the brain that are responsible for self-focus and executive control
- High brain activity in anterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, and superior parietal lobule with elevation of beta-band wave in insula
- Nondual states activated (non self-focus states)