henpantarh

likes/retweets ≠ endorsement

[Matthew D. Sacchet @MatthewSacchet]

For thousands of years, Theravāda Buddhism has described a state known as nirodha samāpatti, which is reported as complete cessation of feeling and perception. In this tradition, it is considered the highest meditative attainment and closely connected to nirvana/enlightenment.

Now, modern brain imaging is opening a window into this extraordinary phenomenon, bringing the deepest aspects of ancient contemplative practices into conversation with science.

I'm delighted to share our new study, now published in Imaging Neuroscience: "Endogenous suspension of phenomenal consciousness during extended cessation: Regional homogeneity analysis of multi-participant 7T fMRI of an advanced meditative endpoint"

This publication presents the first-ever brain imaging study of this unique phenomenon, which we have operationalized and termed “extended cessation” (EC). Practitioners enter and exit EC voluntarily, providing science with a rare, self-generated way to study what happens when awareness disappears.

Using 7T fMRI, we intensively scanned advanced meditators across EC sessions, and also during non-meditative control tasks. Retrospectively describing how they experienced EC, the meditators reported a complete absence of thought, bodily sensation, feeling, and experience during the state. On emerging, participants reported feelings of exquisite clarity, sensory vividness, radical openness, and lasting inner peace and joy.

Our neuroscience findings included:

-- In visual and posterior brain regions, neighboring signals became more synchronized, rising and falling together.

-- Synchrony decreased in areas involved in memory, emotion, and self-related processing, including the hippocampus, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex, and in brainstem nuclei.

-- Against a database of prior brain imaging studies, the EC pattern resembled brain maps associated with attention and perception, and most strongly diverged from maps associated with fear, stress, and pain.

-- EC-related neural changes tracked the distribution of histamine receptors, which are involved in the regulation of arousal and attention.

These findings shed light on an important question: how does brain organization relate to inner peace and consciousness?

In our study, consciousness ceased without a global shutdown of brain activity. Sleep, anesthesia, and disorders of consciousness are typically associated with broad suppression. EC instead showed selective disengagement of systems that bind perception to feeling, memory, and self-relevance.

These findings, although preliminary, converge with practitioners’ reports and offer a starting point for testing theories of inner peace and consciousness against a rare, emotionally and perceptually powerful, voluntary absence of experience.

Sharing congratulations and gratitude with our first author Winson Yang (@winsonfzyang), and co-authors Akila Kadambi, Ruby Potash, and Terje Sparby (@terjesparby). I also thank the meditators and our funders who made this work possible.

Please like and share if you find this work meaningful, our work depends on the support of our incredible global community.

Full article in the comments ⤵️

May this work benefit many 🙏

[Christoph Ströck @cstroeckw]

One fine day, people with symptoms of #MECFS will walk into a doctor's office and can expect to be diagnosed & subgrouped according to biomarkers. They will receive treatment, & they will be met with respect. Patients who have been harmed will largely become a story of the past.

[Cinephilia, anti-authoritarianism, & fuck AI @CCinephilia]

GOLD!

Mosfilm has now made Solaris available in 4K on YouTube for free. Specialists from Mosfilm's Telecinema and Computer Graphics branch finished the restoration of the film.

https://t.co/e2LjSlwycl

[Justin Snyder || TheMaineWonk @TheMaineWonk]

Miller plagiarized from two Goebbles speeches: 1930 funeral of Horst Wessel and 1932’s A Storm is Coming.

Not new for Miller. He’s cribbed lines from propagandist Goebbles numerous times.

[Rolo Tony @PoorOldRoloTony]

I’m not even kidding, this is both an exciting and terrifying new development in found footage as a genre.

[Scott Barber @thescottbarber]

Putting wheels on this cross to bear is the best possible metaphor for American Evangelicalism

[Ross Rheingans-Yoo🔸 @rossry]

Hey, I have a kind of goofy idea: Why don't we try to squash a few "no big deal" viral infections and see what terrible chronic diseases just mysteriously go away?

[Irlandarra @aldamu_jo]

Gaza woman leaves home for flour, returns to find family buried under rubble

A Palestinian woman wails in anguish upon returning to the home she had left in search of flour, only to find their home destroyed by an Israeli attack and her entire family her husband and 3 daughters buried under the rubble.

[Matthew Dexter @matthewbdexter]

“I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job to write fiction. I just didn't want to work anymore.” ―Don DeLillo

[Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D @RVAwonk]

Today, I published what is probably my most important article in quite a long time. In this piece, I revealed how the Trump administration is covertly manipulating social media platforms & algorithms to boost the administration’s narrative and suppress opposing lines of thought.

[Louisa Loveluck @leloveluck]

An aerial view of what the Gaza City area looked like this week. Taken from a Jordanian military aircraft, by our colleague @Heidiphotos.

[Tony Robertson @tony_robbo]

One of the great reading experiences of my life - and there’s no better time to read it than right now

[Nuanced Film Takes @BadFilmTakes1]

I got bored, so I read an old Cronenberg interview where he talked about the one time he took LSD and how it influenced his thinking about reality.

[RomeoStevens @RomeoStevens76]

Bad translation PSA: if you encounter anything similar to 'all experience is suffering' it is very likely a poor rendition of sabbe saṅkhārā dukkhā, which is better translated 'all conditioned phenomena are subject to the delusion of ownership and lasting satisfaction.'

[RomeoStevens @RomeoStevens76]

@TVachaW dukkha is one of the three characteristics. The three characteristics are really one thing casting several shadows that you can name different ways. They are the inversion of the thing we do to escape emptiness.

Try also 'without the possibility of satisfaction'

[Hutch @hutchinson]

Oh my god

[Climate Dad @ClimateDad77]

“If we pass one boundary, we should be shitting our pants. We’ve passed seven!”
https://t.co/NVnxl8y1ZF

[Brian Allen @allenanalysis]

🚨 JUST IN: The man who built the ICE-tracking app just dared Trump’s entire administration to come for him.

“Go ahead. Demonize me. Demonize the app. It’s called the First Amendment, look it up.”

That’s the energy. You don’t need a badge or a bench to defend the Constitution, sometimes all it takes is a server and a spine.

[Robert Young Pelton @RYP__]

There is a certain point at which those who hunger for total control go after their opponents. The rise of Putin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini etc have all been analyzed and charted. The science of destroying democracy exists. A fake crisis awaits. https://t.co/96f7PnOUnz