Relating Christian disciplines to research on meditation

A year or so back, I flagged up briefly the possiblitiy that we could relate results of research into meditation with Christian spiritual disciplines (see Research on Meditation: -changes in brain's emotional processing: for my original posting).

my question is whether (as I suspect) practising prayer related to these meditative practices. For example, how about looking into the effects of self-examination and confession? I'm pretty sure that these have made a difference to my neural 'wiring' over the years in ways that might well show up in the amygdala. Or what about intercessory prayer related to matters of compassion? Come to that what about lectio divina /traditional evangelical Quiet Time?

I'm feeling that I'd like to spin that out a bit more. Obviously, the research has tended to accumulate around something that has caught the imagination -meditation. But my intuition -related to my experience- is that Christian disciplines can do the same sort of things albeit sometimes starting in a different place. I would say that since it's all dealing with human psychology and physiology, we would expect to find similarities and the use of common human capacities albeit accessed in different ways or for diferent (to varying degrees) purposes. This also means that there can be cross-overs, borrowings and adaptations between different spiritualities which would in effect be reframings.

So, what of the ways that we might see Christian disciplines producing similar 'goods' to those being investigated through meditation? The synopsis of research can be found here.
In that synopsis we note words like 'continued practice' and 'develop psychological distance'. We also note 'increase empathy' and 'eliminate attachments ... and aversions' and 'skill set for reducing biases'.

The key definitions of the disciplines being studied are these:

mindful attention meditation -- the most commonly studied form that focuses on developing attention and awareness of breathing, thoughts and emotions -- and compassion meditation, a less-studied form that includes methods designed to develop loving kindness and compassion for oneself and for others.

And I see three things there: one is developing (training) attention through sensory focus; another is awareness of thoughts and emotions; the third is strengthening empathic identification.

I'm inclined to take those in reverse order.
First strengthening empathic identification. This is important because in empathy we find motivation to help, to expend effort for others' good. We should notice, in passing, that empathy need not be a good thing: we can develop empathy with those engaged in cruelty or lustful acts, for example, where such empathy draws us into evil. However, we are focussing on the capacity for empathy to enable us to understand the hurts, hopes and fears of others and drive us to make things better. Now it seems to me that this is what we're being invited into where Jesus calls us to love neighbours as ourselves or to do to others as we'd have them do to us. Compassion meditation as I've experienced it gets us to start with ourselves and those emotionally close to us, to feel our bonds of compassion, love and benevolence towards them and to bring others imaginatively into the compass of our feeling -or perhaps to expand the compass of our feeling out to wider bounds.

Loving others as we love ourselves is inviting a similar exercise: to become aware of our desire and drive to work for our own well-being and to extend that to others. For Christians this exercise tends not to be a set-piece meditation so much as an ad hoc reflection. In a situation we become aware that other-love is required and we reflect on how we might recognise love being shown if we were in the other's position. This kind of imagination is bolstered by the disciplines of scriptural reflection where passages encourage us to consider what neighbour-love might be and by petitionary and intercessory prayer where we consider what might be for the good of others and begin to desire it for them. It can happen in reverse, so to speak, when we reflect on what we may ourselves need, we can become aware of others who have similar needs. All of these I have experienced and the disciplines of reading scripture -especially the gospels- and praying have helped cultivate, it seems to me, a growing tendency and ability to empathise as more and more connections are made between the imperatives of scripture and the awareness of human life and my own needs for nurturance and compassion.

Secondly awareness of thoughts and emotions. My thoughts go to confession of sin and the self-reflection that is require if it is taken seriously as part of cultivating a lifestyle of repentance. Whether one confesses sin in the hearing of another person or simply to God, to do it properly one has to unpick what it is that is being recognised as sin, and what it is that is simply circumstances or unblameworthy; what belongs to others or simply the tide of events. It is also necessary to consider it in the frame of what is required to prevent it happening again. All of those considerations mean looking honestly at what took place and discerning our motivations, perceptions and reflexes and with that discernment to ask and accept forgiveness then moving on to consideration of how to use our self-understanding to approach (or even avoid) such occasions in the future. The more we do this (and Christian spiritual traditions all promote various patterns and aids for self-examination) the more we become aware of how our minds are working in the flow of life: the reflection begins to inform our self-awareness 'live'.

Thirdly we consider training attention. I think that this is less emphasised in Christian disciplines as something in itself. However, it does show up a propos of other things. For example, I suspect that the discipline of memorising scripture may actually do this as might also things in the Catholic tradition like adoration of the blessed sacrament. Lectio Divina or a traditional Evangelical 'quiet time' may also fit the bill in that they require giving attention to the passages concerned.

Noting that research indicates that both meditation and participation in religious community seem to confer health benefits, it may be worth considering that some of those benefits may devolve from the spiritual disciplines benig faithfully practised. of course, we should beware of practising them in order to live longer, be happier or healthier. It seems that the benefits come obllquely and not as some kind of gym membership: they have to be pursued sincerely for spiritual growth or it seems that the health benefits don't tend to appear. Nonetheless, it is good to know that in pursuing the things of God, 'all these things' may be added to us as well.
The article at the bottom of this is here.
It actually helps by defining the forms of meditation (emphases mine):

Three main meditative techniques are taught: mindfulness of breathing (i.e., cultivating awareness of one's breathing), mindfulness of mental events (i.e., cultivating awareness of the contents of one's mind, such as thoughts, emotions, etc.), and awareness of awareness (in which awareness itself becomes the focus of meditation). In contrast to mindful-attention practices aimed at improving attentional skills, compassion meditation is a distinct form of contemplative practice aimed at cultivating higher levels of compassion.