ABSTRACT
Theory and practice, knowledge and experience must come together; the first and third person perspectives need to be aligned. Learning to pay attention to formerly non-conscious breathing, as any meditator knows, takes practice. In the Buddhist traditions there are two main kinds of meditation practice: concentration leading to focus, and insight or discursive, reflective meditation. Meditation does not refer, as often thought, to some mystical experience. In the words of a contemporary Tibetan teacher, "Meditation in terms of practice is connected to attentiveness. Paying attention is meditation". The scientist Paul Ekman, in an afterword to his comprehensive study of emotions, recommends mindful meditation in order to increase awareness of emotional behaviour and impulse. Indeed, recent research has shown enormous difference in neurological activity in the part of the brain concerned with feelings of happiness in the brains of long-term meditators.
