Over the past few years there has been a lot of research on clinical benefits of meditation. This research focused primarily on mindfulness based meditation and its effectiveness in the treatment of different mental problems such as stress or depression. However, scientists raised many methodological objections with respect to these studies. As a result many researchers developed skeptical attitude toward meditation research.

Dharmakirti College Research Institute strives to break this stereotype by conducting rigorous and systematic research on cognitive changes in meditation training. We emphasize the use of cognitive scientific and neuro-scientific methods combined with refined introspection in our research. These studies should be conducted in collaboration with well-established research institutes to meet the highest standards of the scientific community.

Current research projects

"Attention Changes in Long-Term Meditation Training"

The first research project supported by Dharmakirti College Research Institute is aimed at investigating changes in attention following long-term meditation training in Tibetan Buddhist meditation. The project will explore gradual monthly changes in different aspects for attention in subjects engaged in an intense meditation retreat for up to 10 months. There are three major reasons why we decided to start with this research project:

• The notion of developing solid and refined attention abilities is a crucial element in any kind of Buddhist meditation training;
• There has been very few research studies investigating the effects of Tibetan Buddhist meditation;
• There are no longitudinal studies on gradual changes in attention as a result of meditation training.