7 minutes of this Buddhist
meditation can reduce racism!
Nov 23, 2015, Times of
India
All you
need is just 7 minutes of meditation to fight racism a new study
has revealed.
This technique, that's intended to create feelings of kindness can
also reduce prejudice. The study found that just seven minutes of
Loving-kindness meditation (LKM), a Buddhist practise that promotes
unconditional kindness towards oneself and others, is effective at
reducing racial bias. Lead researcher Alexander Stell said that
this indicates that some meditation techniques are about much more
than feeling good, and might be an important tool for enhancing
inter-group harmony .LKM is known to engender happiness and
kindness to oneself and others through repeating phrases such as
`may you be happy and healthy' while visualising a particular
person.
The researchers found that just seven minutes of LKM directed to a
member of a specific racial group (in this case, a black person)
was sufficient to reduce racial bias towards that group. However,
there was no marked reduction in racial bias towards other groups.
Additionally the researchers measured levels of positive emotions
that were either `other-regarding' (e.g. love, gratitude, awe,
elevation) and those that were more self directed (e.g.
contentment, joy, pride) and found that people doing LKM showed
large increases specifically in other-regarding emotions. These
other-regarding emotions were found to be what drives the reduction
of bias.