Meditation - an Ancient Science of Mind

     "The way I see it, Buddhism itself is not the point. You might think of the Buddha as a genius of his age, a great scientist, at least as towering a figure as Darwin or Einstein, who, as the Buddhist scholar Alan Wallace likes to put it, had no instruments other than his own mind at his disposal and who sought to look deeply into the nature of birth and death and the seeming inevitability of suffering. In order to pursue his investigations, he first had to understand, develop, refine, and learn to calibrate and stabilize the instrument he was using for this purpose, namely his own mind, in the same way that laboratory scientists today have to continually develop, refine, calibrate and stabilize the instrument that they employ to extend their senses – whether we are talking about giant optical or radio telescopes, electron microscopes, or positron-emission tomography (PET) scanners – in the service of looking deeply into and exploring the nature of the universe and the vast array of interconnected phenomena that unfold within it, whether it be in the domain of physics and physical phenomena, chemistry, biology, psychology, or any other field of inquiry.
     In taking on this challenge, the Buddha and those who followed in his footsteps took on exploring deep questions about the nature of the mind itself and about the nature of life. Their efforts at self-observation led to remarkable discoveries. They succeeded in accurately mapping a territory that is quintessentially human, having to do with aspects of the mind that we all have in common, independent of our particular thoughts, beliefs, and cultures. Both the methods they used and the fruits of those investigations are universal, and have nothing to do with any isms, ideologies, religiosities, or belief systems. These discoveries are more akin to medical and scientific understandings, frameworks that can be examined by anybody, anywhere, and put to the test independently, for oneself, which is what the Buddha suggested to his followers from the very beginning.”
 
       Kabat-Zinn J. “Coming to our senses. Healing ourselves and the world through mindfulness.” Hyperion, NY, 2005.

The First Snow by Kristiina Lehtonen   http://www.kristiinalehtonen.fi/index_en.php