Summary: Experts found that Buddhist jhāna prayer and Christian speaking in tongues, despite their differences, discuss a common mental feedback loop. This method, called the Attention, Arousal, and Release Spiral, creates a pattern where focused attention leads to happiness, making focus smooth and deepening the practice.
The study examined the micro-moments of attention and emotional shifts by analyzing firsthand accounts from meditation retreats and worship services. Both practices involve a cognitive shift that enhances immersion, according to preliminary brain activity findings.
More people might experience profound states of concentration and tranquility if they understood this shared mechanism. Brain imaging will be used in the next research stage to understand the physiological changes that underlie this phenomenon.
Key Facts:
- Shared Mechanism: Both jhāna meditation and speaking in tongues follow a self-reinforcing cycle of attention, joy, and surrender.
- Cognitive Shift: Early findings point to the possibility that both methods cause a mental shift that improves deep concentration.
- Future Research: Brain imaging will help map the physiological changes behind this experience.
Source: McGill University
According to a new study, two seemingly contradictory spiritual practices, Buddhist jhna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues, have more in common than previously thought.
Both appear to use the same cognitive feedback loop to create profound states of joy and surrender, whereas the other is emotionally charged and expressive and the other is quiet and deeply focused.
The study, which was led by Michael Lifshitz, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at McGill University and Investigator at the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, collaborated with researchers from Monash University and the University of Toronto, to discover a mental cycle known as the Attention, Arousal and Release Spiral, which deepens both meditative and energized states.
Their findings, published in , American Journal of Human Biology,  , offers new insights into how humans can cultivate deep states of focus.
” If we can understand this process better, we may be able to help more people access deep states of tranquility and bliss for themselves”, said Lifshitz.
Our findings may also contribute to the promotion of a sense of commonality and reciprocal respect between spiritual traditions. Despite differences in beliefs, we are all sharing a human experience”.
A common pathway to bliss
The researchers discovered that both jhna meditators and those who speak in tongues engage in a strengthening cycle, where they concentrate their attention on an object, such as the breath in meditation or the presence of God in prayer, which causes a sense of joy.
This joy makes attention feel effortless, leading to a feeling of surrender, which deepens the experience.
This spiraling dynamic, which leads to increasingly deep and effortless bliss, is a novel idea according to Lifshitz, according to the psychological sciences. It’s fascinating that these radically different spiritual traditions appear to have discovered and used it differently.
Researchers sought the firsthand accounts of Buddhist meditation retreats and evangelical Christian worship services in the United States to discover this connection. They also recorded the practitioners ‘ brain activity.
Although detailed neurobiological data are still being analyzed, early findings suggest that both practices involve a cognitive shift that allows for a uniquely immersive experience.
The next step involves employing brain imaging techniques to track the physiological changes that take place as attention, arousal, and release take shape in real time.
About the study
” The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Speaking in Tongues” by Josh Brahinsky, Jonas Mago, Mark Miller, Shaila Catherine and Michael Lifshitz , was published in , American Journal of Human Biology.  ,
Funding: The study was supported by the US National Science Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.
About this news from neurotheology research
Author: Keila DePape
Source: McGill University
Contact: Keila DePape – McGill University
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
” The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Speaking in Tongues” by Michael Lifshitz et al. American Journal of Human Biology
Abstract
The Spiral of Attention, Arousal, and Release: A Comparative Phenomenology of Jhāna Meditation and Speaking in Tongues
Buddhist chanting and the Christian art of tongue-speaking appear to be wildly distinct.
These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness—one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal.
However, our phenomenological interviews with seasoned US practitioners revealed significant areas of convergence.
Practitioners in both traditions point to a dynamic relationship between focused attention, aroused joy, and a sense of release, which they believe is essential to their practice.
This paper highlights these common phenomenological characteristics and explores possible underlying mechanisms.
We think that these practices engage an autonomic field created by a spiral between attention, arousal, and release ( AAR ) by looking at our phenomenological data from various theories of brain function, including sensory gating and predictive processing.
