Juan Santoyo - Meditation's Role in Improving Lives

Researcher and contemplative practitioner Juan Santoyo explores meditation's role in improving lives. This insightful talk delves into how meditation extends beyond brain changes to enhance psychological well-being. Juan discusses the clinical relevance of meditation, its benefits, and the importance of personalised approaches. Learn about the intersection of meditation, equity, ecological justice, and the convergence of Buddhist and indigenous knowledge.

Discover how contemplative practices can address social, political, and ecological challenges in our interconnected world. This discussion highlights the evolving research themes in meditation, emphasising accessibility and diverse perspectives. Join Juan in understanding how meditation can significantly improve our lives, foster community, and support ecological well-being.

Learn more about Juan Santoyo

Science & Wisdom LIVE brings meditation practitioners in conversation with scientists to address the problems of contemporary society and come to new possible solutions.

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Transcript

0:05

Often what we're asking is not how meditation can change the brain, but how can meditation improve our lives. And so often, this is actually like the reframing of the question is about it's more more than a brain question. It is a psychological question. The tools of clinical psychology, I think, are actually a little bit more important here. Learning how it changes the brain can help us. It can help reinforce, you know, that that we, you know, justifying that we integrate this into the medical system. But these questions are first and foremost clinical questions. Does it help? Who does it help? Under what conditions does it help them, and perhaps under which, under what conditions of which people, is meditation going to be the wrong tool? Do they need a different type of support in that moment? And so I think this is, this is the way we need to start to reframe this question. I think the idea it has been that perhaps if we understood meditation of the brain fully we could optimise and personalise meditation. And I think to optimise and personalise meditation, a good meditation teacher is actually the best tool there, more than knowing that what the brain what the meditation does to the brain. And so I think these are kind of some of some of the critical reflections that have been happening. The other point, I think that has been exciting, and kind of what I think could be a second wave of research is now. Research is opening up to questions of equity, of ecological justice, and again, grounded in this knowledge that science and contemplative practice is embodied. And just, you know, just because it is embodied, practice is personal. And just just as kind of, the feminist movement has reminded us that the personal is political, we need to see that the contemplative two is political. It's fundamentally political because practice starts with the body, and our bodies depend on one another. The planet is an extension of our bodies, and the movements in the social, political sphere will impact this whole personal and ecological body. And so what do we do with this? I think, I think the type of gatherings we do like this are important. We take this time we share these ideas and we try to integrate this work. We need to build together scholarly and scientific analyses of the systems and structures that drive ecological and personal, social, political harm, and we need a commitment to to work on this contemplative practice is essential here in helping us feel deeply into the parts of this that are difficult, the parts of this that bring up fear, shame, confusion, and it becomes an excellent grounding in actually helping science ask the questions of ecological and of social justice and so and so. Excitingly, I think it's been cool to see in the last 10 years that that a lot of the themes in the field have started to ask these questions. We started to work on making sure practice is accessible to different people. I think across economic barriers, across racial and ethnic barriers, there's work to be done, but there's been kind of some the last 10 years have seen very cool initial progress there, making sure that meditation is also engaging with more diverse perspectives and bringing in different ways of knowing. And yeah, I think, I think just coming back to the Mind and Life Institute meetings, it's been cool to see. I think I just kind of looked up the meeting topics of the last 10 years, and it was cool to see how, you know, it went from the 1000s being meditation of the brain, meditation plasticity to types of questions of trauma, resilience and flesh and flourishing, othering, belonging and becoming and the mind human earth connection and the climate crisis, I think it highlights this, this thematic shift that has been happening in the field, and it's fundamental. And so I'm kind of a I'm excited. I think it's important to for us to recognise that this is happening, so that we can make sure it happens well, and that we can hold it as well as a community. And so I wanted, I wanted to begin to shift, kind of moving along into my last five minutes. And I think I'll just give I want to close out by just kind of holding this final question of ageing. I thought it could be an interesting example to think about how where the field has been and where it is now can come together with Buddhist and indigenous knowledge in different world traditions. It's a question very. Present for me right now, my research work has changed, has transitioned into work on Alzheimer's and work on how early life stress and chronic stress over the lifetime end up exacerbating the progression and incidence rate of Alzheimer's pathology. And so just, you know, it's it's interesting to we can see, when we look at the field of research here, it's purely operating on this third person, detached basis. And to a degree, that's okay, a lot of progress is made with that type of framework. And right now, the field is making a lot of progress identifying that there, you know, there are fatty proteins that start to accumulate in the brain that seem to underlie some of these, these neurodegenerative diseases, there are proteins that start to break down, and start to break down the integrity of of brain cells, and that this also contributes and so starting to identify these kind of biological processes gives the field the hope that we can find medicines, you know, medicines you take, that can help with this. Importantly, at the same time, though, the lifestyle factors that that change, Alzheimer's incidents and progression are also clear and it's, and there's been, there's also concrete evidence that it's it's also stress, it's very much also diet. It's very much also how we exercise. And actually one of the most important lifestyle factors that contribute to brain ageing is our social connectedness. Isolation in adulthood is actually one of the biggest predictors of unhealthy brain ageing. And I kind of just want to pause to hold that. You know, this is this is something personal. And I think ageing is fundamental in contemplative traditions. Contemplative traditions, I think start off with the truth that the truth of Anita, all is impermanent. And you know, practice diligently, but all is impermanent. And so we we know that even our mental faculties change over time, sometimes even just from one day to another. We know where we can be more dull or more alert. But we also know over time our ways of thinking, our memory, our ability to regulate, can also change. And I think this is where there's an exciting convergence that can happen. I think the contemplative traditions can ground us in the again, this embodied, embedded, extended side of ageing. It's not just the proteins changing in our brain, but it's a whole thing we are experiencing. It's a whole thing that changes within our social environments. And so how can we how can we ground in that? I think the Buddh tradition is an excellent asset here. I think just knowing that's just starting off with the data that stress impacts these processes. We know that the calming practices and the piece that could come with practice, I think it could. This research hasn't actually been done, but it, but it, but I'm excited to see it be done, and to see if it could actually be the stress reduction of practice could help buffer some of those processes of ageing, but beyond that, again, the holistic changes that come with practice being embedded in a being conscious and aware of of all of the mental seeds that that suicide mentioned that end up influencing our how We live, how we eat, how we exercise, how we spend our days. Because I think this whole lifestyle transformation that comes with practice, the community, the presence of sangha all together, could be a really interesting, excellent buffer to the things that drive ageing. And so I frame this more as a question. This research hasn't been done. It's where I want to see my work moving towards, and I'm excited to see how that comes together. And finally, this is, this is an excellent bridge for the work with indigenous traditions. There's a lot of excitement about how Buddhism and science might converge with indigenous contemplative traditions throughout the world. And I think the foundations that I mentioned from this first wave of research actually give us a fertile ground for now meeting with other traditions. It was important that ethical dialogue was centred from the beginning, and now we can continue to make sure ethical dialogue is centred as we engage with other traditions, we don't prioritise one way of knowing over the other. We hold them on equal footing and wheel ourselves to sit, sit patiently and with acceptance where there might be disagreement. This is an excellent foundation for for this engagement, and we and we know that the indigenous contemplative traditions throughout in the Global South, in the Americas, specifically, community is centred, connection is centred. And so out of here, we have frameworks that centre a view of ourselves as I think there's a concept precedence of we are all ancestors in training. We are all training to be each other's ancestors. We are all working on, you know, we are our own ancestors as well, and we are all working on this process of ageing together. But not only that, by our who we are, what we are is inter interconnected and embedded with the natural world. We age and the earth age. You know, the dead die, and we go with them. And so our, our ageing is not separate from the Earth's ageing our, our pains of ageing are not separate from the pains we feel in this kind of ecological moment and so and so here, finding these bridges and finding how we can hold love for community, love for Earth as a central axis of our practice, feels like it could be really potent and exciting medicine, For for this time and for, for holding together, what it means to age, what it means to change, what it means to feel our planet changing with us. You.